I loved the first season of this series — slickly animated mech action set in my favorite Gundam era, with a jazz soundtrack. They’re doing a second OVA season, with the first episode out, and I loved it. It’s basically more of what we got from the first season, but on a larger scale (the first season felt a bit more intimate in terms of setting). Looking forward to the rest of the season.
Looking at the lineup for the Spring 2017 season of anime, I gotta say there’s nothing much that seems to be for me — even less than the winding down Winter 2017 season (the only series that really grabbed me this season was Onihei).
Of all the regular series debuting, the only ones I’m interested in watching are GranBlue Fantasy The Animation, which I though was starting during the Winter season, but they just released the first 2 episodes, with the series proper starting next month, and Atom: The Beginning, a prequel series to Astroboy. I am very happy to see that on the OVA front we’re getting a sequel to the Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt — the first series was really fantastic, with super slick animation, and a jazz-heavy soundtrack. On the movie front, there’s of course Masaaki Yuasa’s Yoru wa Mijikashi Arukeyo Otome and Yoake Tsugeru Lu no Uta, as well as the Blame movie, and maybe also Biohazard: Vendetta.
Watching this series, which was released online over the past year (and only counts 4 episodes that are each about 20 minutes long) immediately after finishing the original 1979 Mobile Suit Gundam was just amazing. It takes place in the same year as that original series (the year 0079, during the one year war), and so you get to see the world you were introduced to with crap 70s era animation, but here, through the lens of beautiful slick modern animation and designs, and I was just blown away. The space battles that take place between the Gundam and Zaku suits are simply breathtaking, and the fact that the soundtrack uses a lot of jazz throughout (it’s the obsession of one of the characters) adds so much to the mix, bringing back memories of Cowboy Bebop. The story itself, although on the short site, is quite interesting as well, and so we get to see a very different – and darker – take on the 0079 war. I can’t recommend this enough, especially if you’re into “Universal Century” Gundam.