Pardon me if my interpretation of hate does not blend with the cohesiveness of yours. Regardless, endure with me as I shall make this a quick dash past a small topic.
A discussion took place at the Great Congregation of Love, which involved people mentioning about preferring over some Gundam shows over other, and hating some because their merits seem pale in comparison to others.
Hopefully, my esteemed colleagues are not talking about there being people who actually dislike certain constituents of the Gundam franchise because they fail to live up to expectations imbued into them by their favourite ones.
As always, I shall be reiterating the obvious type of opinion (for I am ignorantly guilty of not knowing about what other people have already discussed): a Gundam show should not be criticized on the basis of being an imitation of a predecessor, or if its discourse is not coherent with the ones of highly appraised counterparts.
Surely even within franchise certain works can deviate in the themes expressed, right? For instance, SDF Macross speaks of a very different theme to Macross Frontier. The former celebrates the dawn of human spirit and sentiments, triumphing great odds, while the later is a lament of human dissonance and the rediscovery of love. SDF Macross and Macross Frontier talk about really different ideas.
Oh dear. To summarize it, I do believe all Gundam shows ought to be evaluated with an isolated approach; references to other shows (unless they are sequels) are not required. Wait, am I promoting close criticism of some sort?
Ah yes. I am sorry for stating the obvious.
Relevant post
P.S. Kyoani loyalist, Kaioshin Sama, writes about the problem of being trapped in the quagmire of comparing shows with bad ones in a bid to reduce the merit of the former.
