Gundam Reconguista in G III: Legacy from Space

MakkusuUnfilwin★ 8

G-Reco is Tomino's ultimate Gundam, rife with intricate lore and a ridiculous cast of lunatics, blessed with glorious designs of Yoshida Kenichi. Fully grasping the scale of G-Reco is like memorizing the rules of a board game, only to watch it be played out by amateurs who can't tell a pawn from a bishop. In this vein, G-Reco leans heavily into the concept of Chaos theory—just like a cue ball hitting billiards, Bellri and Co's battlefield antics see characters unpredictably and hilariously smashing into each other, as enemies and allies alike struggle to understand just what the fuck is actually going on. An integral component ofG-Reco to keep in mind is that all sides of the conflict are inept at war. G-Reco exists in a post U.C era in which the monopolization of resources gave way to a society of platitude and irenicism. It's where the heart of all conflicts within G-Reco stem from—every faction wants to have its own say in how resources and land should be handled, whether that be Ameria's desire to put an end to Gondowans monopolization, or the Dollete family's Reconquista plan. Everyone has opposing ideas for how the world should be run, so watching them all—ill-informed and pig-headed as they are—crash into each other like tectonic plates is nothing short of enjoyable. It's a catfight, if you will, a certified, bonafide shit show. And it's precisely this rampant, unceremonious, unadulterated chaos which feeds into G-Reco's two most nuanced themes: ideology and apprehension. Most of the characters in G-Reco have absolutely no idea what they're doing, and that's not limited to those following orders but to those giving them as well. Everyone's following a narrative, an ideology they've chosen to back, despite not fully understanding what they're committing to. With this in mind, the key struggle between the cast is in apprehending and understanding one another, as opposed to fighting their enemies. Rather intelligently, these themes can be extended to real-life, as in the case of political and social narratives, but also, it's even applicable—whether it be with intent or just coincidence—to the people who watched G-Reco and didn't understand it despite Tomino beating its themes over their heads above twelve billion times per episode. There's a lot of little details in G-Reco that go unappreciated. One of my favourites is how zero-G is actually treated like zero-G: characters are constantly ramming into things, hitting their heads on ceilings or having objects ricochet into their faces, as opposed to other Gundam entries where zero-G enables the characters seemingly perfect XYZ movement, without the humorous and annoying hindrances G-Reco revels in. Details like that are exacerbated ten-fold in these films, for instance, Bellri's breakdown at the Rayhunton reveal is opened with a subtle yet highly interesting character detail that recontextualizes the whole scene. It's something I suspect will fly over a lot of the audience's heads, as it's really something only Tomino would do. Other aspects of G-Reco, like its seemingly random, non-sequitur dialogue, is something that, in any other show, would come off as downright awful writing, though, somehow, feels right at home spoken amongst the absolute blockheads that make up G-Reco's cast. I'll be one to admit that a second viewing of G-Reco made everything much clearer in terms of the allegiances and MOs of the secondary cast, and I'm probably not wrong in saying that the film's overhaul of the original script has a part to play in that. They haven't changed too much, but what they have changed has proven to be an overall net benefit for the narrative G-Reco was originally trying to tell. The addition of new scenes—especially those pertaining to Bellri—strengthens the emotional throughline of the series by making the cast feel a bit more real and their plights a bit more personal. A good deal of these changes were made due to the negative backlash G-Reco received when it had initially released. And while some diehards say those changes ruin the point of G-Reco, I'd argue the complete opposite, as all the new changes feel like the missing pieces G-Reco always needed. A great example would be how every Nut on Capital Tower has been made more distinct from each other to provide some passive worldbuilding—giving each Nut the feeling of a unique culture imbued into it by its inhabitants. Specific to this film, a few new scenes were added to provide some connective sinew between story beats, like the opening scene, which catches the audience up on the Megafauna's current situation. Scenes like that are welcome as they ease most of G-Reco's original pacing issues. A lot of the 'dead space' got cut out of the films, which, unfortunately, makes some of the better-paced segments feel rushed in comparison to their TV counterparts. For example, the moments where Raraiya slowly gains her normal cognition back were cut from the film, leaving the scene where she regains all her memories feeling like a pay-off bereft of build-up. There are a few more examples of this, but it all seems like necessary changes to make room for new plotlines in the upcoming films. Apart from that and the aforementioned pacing issues, I would still strongly recommend this version of G-Reco over the previous series, even just for the touched-up sequences alone. These films greatly benefit from adapting clusters of episodes into chunks, it leaves everything feeling far more comprehensible, even if a little truncated. Additionally, the inclusion of the song "G" by Dreams Come True acts as this great emotional motif for the trilogy as a whole, helping it stand out from the original whilst promoting a sentimental continuity completely unique to this version. In particular, the reuse of the dance eyecatchers here for the credits was the icing on the cake. There's one more thing I want to touch on: it's generally well-known that Tomino is on the way out, so to speak. He has future endeavours planned for after this pentalogy, but with him recently turning 80 and his worsening spinal issues, it's safe to assume that these films will probably be the last of his career. Of course, I could be completely wrong—in fact, I want to be proven wrong. But in the unfortunate eventuality that this is Tomino's last rodeo, I find it a bit disheartening that this titan of the industry, "Kill 'em all" Tomino, will have his swan song echo out to the applause of so few. The fact that the second G-Reco film still doesn't have a staff listing on Mal is telling of this. Tomino's core message with G-Reco was that he wanted the current and next generation of young people to adapt to the incoming future and solve the global problems caused by their progenitors. I think it would be nice for his legacy and that message to continue to be felt even after this last project comes to its close. I have no doubt Tomino himself will be cherished as a national treasure, but the positivity of G-Reco is something dearly needed and something I think the world would ultimately benefit from—a return to Genki.