The theory of the expanded Gundam timeline and the non Gundam shows on it: or what happens when Mina Moon puts her head together with two fellow otakus

So a friend and I were talking about a Gundam manga, "Mobile Suit vs Gigantic God of Legend Gigantis' Coutnerattack", published in the magazine MS Saga in 1993, and you can read about MS Saga here in this article I wrote. That ladies and gentlemen is what we in the industry refer to as a callback, and I just made one. Alright with the plug out of the way, back on topic. So this manga is a 4 chapter manga set after the events of Gundam ZZ. In Universal Century 0090 Neo Zeon discovers the remains of an ancient robot, which matches the description of an ancient god like robot from legend that helped create and bring peace to the world. Seeing this as a divine sign, they put the heir to Zeon, Mineva Zabi in the machine as the pilot and plotted their revenge, only for the raveges of war that has plagued the universal century to stir an anger within the machine, and it begins a rampage of destruction. This event is so catastrophic it brings together the likes of Jusau Ashta, Amuro Ray and Char Aznable together to stop it. However inside while trying to save Mineva, Judau encounters the spirit of a woman: Karala Ajiba, and her baby Messiah, who tell Judau that the machine once destroyed everything and gave mankind a chance to start again. She begs him to stop and to let its rampage continue, let mankind have a clean slate, and Judau refuses, insisting that man kind must be free to make its own decisions, and he believes they won't destroy themselves. What happens next I won't spoil, However I want to talk about the significance of Karala and what she tells Judau.

Karala Ajiba is a character from Space Runaway Ideon, a series directed by Gundam creator Yoshiyuki Tomino. In this series we have humans colonizing a planet called Planet Solo. Here they discover a giant robot built by an ancient civilization. However the planet is discovered to be colonized by the humans by the observing human-like aliens called the Buff Clan, who claim ownership of the planet and once they attack the humans in a misunderstanding and they fight back, a chase begins. The giant robot is called the Ideon, and using it and an ancient alien ship built by the Ideon's creators, they discover both harness an endless energy source called the Ide capable of untold power. The Buff Clan at first refuse to let the humans escape because of their honor and to avenge their fallen comrades, then they seek the power of the Ide. Many times the Ideon is offered to them, but the Buff Clan repeatedly tells the humans they can't let them live because of what they have done. The buff clan commit manmade horrors beyond imagination resulting in some of the most incredible feats you could ever possibly a giant robot do, and then it all comes to ahead in the final battle seen in the movie "Ideon: Be Invoked". The symbol of the Buff Clan and humanity getting along is destroyed, both sides reach a point where they have nothing left, and the Ideon's pilot urges the Buff Clan's leader to end this stupid and needless battle, but he just says that he cannot let the humans live and the Ideon be in there hands, he will devote everything he has left to crushing them. Alas the conflict has no end and the result is tragic. The series eventually sees mankind being given a clean slate to start again once the dust settles.

Artwork form an Ideon model kit, I just used it because the artwork looks really nice.

The Robot in the story is very obviously the Ideon just from looking at it, and Karala is one of the main characters of Ideon, she has been shamed and disregarded by the Buff Clan, and misguided by the mistakes in this unending conflict. She says the Ideon wiped the slate clean, and will do so again. What she says implied this happened, once and potentially multiple times before, meaning multiple possible previous clean slates may have happened before the Universal Century and man kind destroyed it self each time. She says newtypes (I've explained this in other Gundam articles go read those or look it up) were the people who could understand each-other and lead humanity to a new age of peace that the Ideon wanted us all to become. Eventually the Ideon is stopped and it is never to be activated again, yet in Gundam we notice that there are multiple timelines, all coming to one point with Turn A Gundam. Turn A's explanation for all the reboot Gundam shows existing on one timeline makes sense and explain why there are so many Gundam shows with seemingly no connection to each-other.

Now Ideon is not an official season zero to Gundam or anything like that, but the manga merely presents a possible scenario and theory connecting the two shows. One day I decided to cross reference staff with Ideon and Gundam and I noticed something interesting. So Gundam creator Yoshiyuki Tomino not only directed all full length Gundam series and movies from the franchise's creation in 1979 up until 1993, but there is more overlap than you might think with him directing Ideon too. Scriptwriter for both Ideon movies and 8 episodes of the TV series, Kenichi Matsuzaki, was a scriptwriter for 12 episodes of Mobile Suit Gundam, the mobile suit Gundam compilation films and he was the lead sci-fi researcher and world builder for Mobile Suit Gundam. Matsuzaki was the mastermind behind things like space colonies and minovsky particles. I thought it was interesting that both of these distinguished gentlemen worked on the series, and then I noticed scriptwriter for 13 episodes, Sukehiro Tomita wrote 5 episodes of Victory Gundam in 1993. After that, I was asked something. Would Metal Armor Dragonar be the first clean slate offered by the Ideon? I asked for elaboration and the more we talked the more it made sense.

Metal Armor Dragonar was a show made by Ban-Dai as a back-up plan incase Gundam as a franchise ever died out after Gundam ZZ or franchise fatigue set in. New Gundam shows serving as sequels and spin offs with an existing lore made it more and more daunting to get into. It was made with the concept of being a new modern (modern by late 80s standards) reimagining of the original Gundam series, but with a new original lore and being easy to get into with no learning required as opposed to a new Gundam series. The general story is that a militant group has captured the moon as the first step in their plan of wiping out all on earth and reviving the human race as a pure mankind, and they have military superiority with their mecha called metal armors. The earth unites as the Earth Federation (sound familiar?) to repel them and three reluctant teenagers pilot the earth's first metal armors in an emergency situation to stop a fight, only for it to lead to them being dragged into the war.

Mechanical designer on this was Kunio Okawara of all people, famous as being the mechanical designer on most Gundam projects for several years up until the late 90s/2000s when he started working on Gundam less and less. Director was Takeyuki Kanda, who directed the Mobile Suit Gundam episode "The Threat of Zeon", which is one of the most famous episodes in all of the series, and written by Kenichi Matsuzaki. On top of this Kanda would later go on to write and direct an SD Gundam short film, and the first half of the Mobile Suit Gundam 08th MS Team OVA series before he would end up dying in a car crash and unable to finish 08th MS Team, character designer was Kenichi Onuki, who also did character design for both Gundam Build Fighters shows, the Gundam Seed Stargazer OVA series and he has worked as an animator on numerous Gundam shows from Zeta Gundam to present day. writing staff included 13 episodes written by Yoshitake Suzuki, who wrote 4 episodes of Gundam 0083 Stardust Memory and he wrote 12 episodes of Mobile Fighter G Gundam and was responsible for series composition for that series. Hidemi Kamata wrote 21 episodes of Dragonar, as well as 5 episodes of Gundam ZZ. 12 episodes written by Hiroyuki Hoshiyama, who wrote 11 episodes of Mobile Suit Gundam and the scripts of the compilation film trilogy alongside Kenichi Matsuzaki. 7 episodes written by Ryosuke Takahashi, who wrote 2 episodes of Mobile Suit Gundam 0083 Stardust Memory, and 5 episodes by Yasushi Harano, who wrote "The Winds of Jaburo" episode of Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam. Lastly Kenichi Matsuzaki wrote 10 episodes. All the writers worked as writers for Gundam at one point. 

So with all the staff overlap and all the intentional callbacks and references to Gundam, I thought, yes, it is possible. Then talking about this to two other friends who are huge otakus I decided we would work together and create a list of non Gundam shows that could fit into this idea of Ideon resets pre Gundam. My criteria are the following:

1. Lots of staff overlap is the main criteria, and I don't mean animators and such since anyone can be a small animator on a show and it means little, I'm talking significant and/or creative roles like writer, director, animation director on a large number of episodes, composer, design, etc only. They had to have worked on a Gundam series too, they can't work on every show mentioned here except Gundam, though working on other non Gundam shows mentioned on this list is a bonus. Bonus points for if they worked on Ideon in any capacity.

2. No significant franchises, Votoms, Macross and Patlabor are all off limits for being significant franchises themselves and I am not dead set on linking major franchises to Gundam in the name of creating a horrible disjointed mega timeline of franchises.

3. manga does not count.

4. shows that I don't think logically could line-up with Gundam and Ideon will not be included regardless of staff overlap, this goes doubly for shows based on an existing source material, so shows like Aura Battler Dunbine, Giant Gorg and Galactic Drifter Vifam are just off limits.

5. No shows pre Mobile Suit Gundam

6. The opinion of me and my two collaborators because this is my article.

With that out of the way lets begin

Fang of the Sun Dougram is first up. The series is about a group of freedom fighters called the Sun Fang Corps, who live on the frontier planet Deployer. Their governor joins with the corrupted earth federation (Hey there it is again), and becomes a complete dictator under the influence of the earth federation. these freedom fighters engage his forces in guerilla warfare using their robot Dougram. However Dougram is just a robot with nothing really special going for it, adding an extra level of tension to the fights. The show was created by Ryosuke Takahashi, and we already established what he did, and he cocreated it with Hiroyuki Hoshiyama, who served as the main writer for the series, and again we already talked about his contributions to Mobile Suit Gundam. Additional writers include Yoshitake Suzuki, whom we already talked about, and Sukehiro Tomita, whom we already talked about as a script writer for Ideon and Victory Gundam, as well as Starzinger which was a series led by Leiji Matsumoto, the absolutely GOATed manga creator who has likely had a hand in inspiring every show I'm mentioning here in this article. Masami Iwasaki produced it too, and he held a producer credit on the Mobile Suit Gundam compilation film trilogy. Takahashi directed alongside Takeyuki Kanda, another man we already talked about. Character design was done by Noeio Shioyama, who served as a key animator on Victory Gundam and Gundam F91, and the other character designer was Soji Yoshikawa, who most notably before this worked as a scriptwriter on Leiji Matsumoto's mecha anime Danguard Ace, though he hasn't actually worked on a Gundam series. Dougram not only shares all these people in common with Gundam, but it also solidified the real robot genre post Gundam as a shining example. To top it all off, the mangaka behind Gundam Thunderbolt: Yasuo Ohtagaki, for the last few years has been doing a manga adaptation of Dougram for Big Comic Superior's online branch. I know I said manga doesn't count, but I respect the hell out of Ohtagaki, so allow me to make an exception here. I think Dougram gets a really solid pass overall. Also unrelated side note, but the soundtrack is by longtime Ultraman OST composer Toru Fuyki in one of his rare anime contributions.

Combat Mecha Xabungle is a series by the legendary Yoshiyuki Tomino, so that's one base covered already. The anime centers around the world being a lawless wasteland with those with enough money and status to afford a standard of living are now known as the innocent, and living in domed cities. We follow the Sand Rats, a group of bandits just trying to survive, and among them Jiron Amos, on a quest for revenge against the outlaw who murdered his parents, using a stolen machine called Xabungle to enact his plan for revenge. Xabungle is lighthearted in tone, but great at fight scenes and the moments of drama it chooses to convey, with the machines being all functionality over form or looks. Tomino cocreated this series with Yoshitake Sazuki, who had previous collaborated with Tomino on Voltes V and Brave Raideen. Sazuki wrote 9 episodes, while 15 episodes were written by Tsunehisa Ito, Ito is most famously known as the man who cowrote Gundam F91 with Tomino. 15 episodes were cowritten by Yoshihisa Araki, who wrote 8 episodes of Mobile Suit Gundam, cowrote the film trilogy script with Hoshiyama and Matsuzaki, and was a script writing assistant on the Mobile Suit Gundam Cucuruz Doan's Island movie from 2022. Lastly 9 episodes were written by Soji Yoshikawa, who you may remember from Dougram.Character designs once again handled by Space Runaway Ideon character designer Tomonori Kogawa, which is as always, awesome. Music was handled by Kayokyoku (mainstream Japanese pop music of the 60s-80s before J-pop) music producer Koji Makaino, who cowrote opening themes for Zeta Gundam and Gundam Wing. Last but most importantly is mechanical design by Kunio Okawara. The collection of staff here, the similarities to Gundam ZZ in terms of tone and presentation, and that good old Tomino story telling complete with elements of slapstick and dark comedy make it a nice addition. Xabungle would go on to remain an influential cult classic and inspire a show readers may by more familiar with by the name of "Gurren Lagann"

Blue Comet SPT Layzner. Layzner is about human exploration into space in an alternate reality where the Cold War has carried on far into the distant future, and the reaction of aliens to human's expansion, much like Ideon, though Layzner's take on it served as an inspiration for a project of my own I've been working on. The aliens see it as justified self defense since the humans are colonizing land already claimed and owned, but the humans are just protecting themselves. It's a classic case of a misunderstanding leading to a war, just like Ideon. The machines the humans use are exploration use machines repurposed for combat, which is about as real robot as you can get in regards to mech designs. Once again a Ryosuke Takahashi created and directed series, as well as serving as writer on one episode. Cocreated this time with another recurring name Tsunehisa Ito. Ito served as head writer mapping out the overall story and served as scriptwriter for 8 episodes, with additional writers including 8 episodes written by Yoshitake Suzuzki, 10 episodes by Hiroyuki Hoshiyama and 9 episodes written Yasushi Hirano all of whom we have already covered. In addition to this we have one episode written by Meigo Endo, who wrote 22 episodes of Gundam ZZ, 18 episodes of Zeta Gundam, two episodes of Gundam 0083 Stardust Memory, and two episodes of Gundam Seed. Masuo Ueda as producer, and he has produced too many Gundam projects to mention here. Character design was handled by Moriyasu Taniguchi, who served as an animation director on 6 episodes of Victory Gundam, a key animator on one episode of Mobile Fighter G Gundam, and a key animator on Gundam Seed. He also served as animation director on 4 episodes of Space Runaway Ideon and Ideon Make Contact, He also served as key animator for 7 episodes of Space Runaway Ideon and on Ideon Be Invoked. Layzner is great and kind of seen as a well aged classic of the mecha genre and one that more than succeeds in showing the character based drama that made the real robot subgenre so good.

Heavy Metal L-Gaim is yet another series directed by Tomino, and this one is kind of contentious because Tomino supposedly undermined what was supposed to be group effort by a lot of the staff, all in order to bring his vision to life, and some people, were not happy about it. The story is about Daba Myroad from the star system of Pentagona. Daba rises up to stop the threat of Posiedal, who want to conquer and enforce their rule across Pentagona. So Daba leads a resistance against them consisting of an interesting cast of characters he recruits throughout his journey, including an actual small fairy. Like Xabungle, the designs here are all functionality over form and looks, and quite nice designs for what they are. Said mechanical designs and the character designs too, were by then unknown designer Mamoru Nagano, who would later work as a mechanical designer on Zeta Gundam, and illustrator of the original prints of the Zeta Gundam novelizations. The man responsible for series composition and serving as head writer is Yuji Watanabe, who, while having never worked on Gundam, did write the scripts for 13 episodes of Ideon, as well as both compilation films. Among other writers We have 14 written by Sukehiro Tomita, whom we already covered, and 5 episodes written by Hiroshi Ohnogi. Ohnogi wrote two of the Gundam MS Igloo OVAs, 6 episodes of Zeta Gundam, 7 episodes of Gundam Seed, and 11 episodes of Gundam Seed Destiny. In addition to this, he is the writer of the Mobile Suit Gundam the Battle Tales of Flannigan Boone manga. Art direction was handled by Shigemi Ikeda, who has done the art direction on way too many Gundam projects to mention, as well as popular modern seasonal anime like My Hero Academia and One Punch Man. A big portion of the animation direction was by Hiroyuki Kitazume, who, in addition to animation direction for most 80s Gundam projects, served as character designer on Gundam ZZ and Char's Counterattack, as well as writer of 2 long running Gundam manga series. Music is by Kei Wakakusa, who cowrote "Silent Voice" and "Issen-Man" from Gundam ZZ, as well as cowriter of the theme music to Blue Comet SPT Layzner. With these connections and this being yet another Tomino series and featuring his signature brand of story telling, I think it is more than acceptable to list here among the other shows. The use of light fantasy elements too also contribute to a very unique addition and make L-Gaim one of Tomino's most well regarded non Gundam works.

I have more I want to bring up, but ultimately I've decided to hold those off for a part 2. Because I'd like to hear suggestions from other people. The first post on my blog has my Discord name on it, you can reach reach me there and leave some suggestions, or comment here if you have a Blogspot account.

Tetsuya Komuro after getting cancelled, or a review of TM Network's comeback

My first proper article on this blog was a big retrospective on Tetsuya Komuro's career and me praising stuff of his I loved, and venting frustrations about what he's been doing since the 21st Century. I said I might make a follow up if anything happened in 2023, and so what better way to start the new year than a sequel to the first proper article I ever posted way back in January 2023. So when I planned to write up this article in June, I learned TM Network would be involved in a new City Hunter movie. I decided to wait until this movie came out and we had the new music for it. Then as we were told another song would release later tying into this new movie, I decided to wait till it came out at the end of the year.

So flash forward awhile and here we are. 2022 was the year TM Network gave us the live show, the "Intelligence Days" tour and the Dave Ford mix of "How Crash?" but 2023 was the true year of their comeback. The tour, the promo stuff, the new album, the new City Hunter Movie featuring TM Network's music, it was all coming together. So how did the band fair this year?

Well it started very quietly, with nothing except for some Intelligence Days live album and boxset. However on the 9th anniversary of their kind of farewell album "Quit 30", they announced a new album called "Devotion", scheduled for release in June. I thought Quit 30 was a perfect farewell album. It modernized the band perfectly without once feeling like trend chasing or doing something ill fitting of the band. It also paid tribute to the past and included a nod to the band's 2000s comeback album by including a long progressive rock jam type song organized into a big multi part suite. I thought that barring the mediocre and unnecessary remix of the opening track to pad out disc 2, it was a perfect late career album to gracefully end on, but I always figured that being the father of J-pop TK had more in him, as his writing contributions for other artists since his return to music have all been great. So I had high hopes for Devotion.

For Devotion they once again signed with Sony, which was the first album done with them in a long time. They released it on June 13th alongside a new single "Whatever Comes (Opening Edit)" to serve as a teaser for the new City Hunter movie. I want to discuss the album first, and then get to the other stuff later, as that is the real meat of this year's output from them.

Devotion is 11 songs and clocks in at 52 minutes. It uses a lot of modern techniques, with even less live instrumentation than the previous couple albums, and even less input from Kine. While credited with backing vocals, he is credited with acoustic guitar on two songs, and those are the ones with his writing credit. Kind of make me feel like TK's treating him like a bitch, but whatever. I just feel the numerous session guitarists playing acoustic and electric guitar is not needed when Kine could do it. TK's even credited with additional electric guitar on tracks 1, 5 and 6. I know "Globe 2 pop/rock" proved he is a good guitarist, but Kine is better, just use him. Ranting aside, how is the music?

We open with the title track. It's a catchy and solid J-pop song with a decent hook. Takashi Utsunomiya's voice has notably changed in the 9 years between albums, as expected of a man his age. It's not bad, but it is notable. All the harmony sections mask this really well though. The song is a fun upbeat number that sounds pretty solid. I like it, but it is not anything amazing or that I'm eager to listen to again. Next we have the thing that makes me the second most upset of anything on this album (yes folks, there is something that upsets me more later on the album.) and that is tracks 2-5. These 4 songs are remakes of classic TM Network hits. The first is "Resistance" form the Humansystem album, which is one of my top 5 favorite TM Network songs, so I am going to hold any remake under the utmost scrutiny. Actually it's really good, I have no complaints. If you wanted to make resistance into an overproduced modern day pop song, this would be it. It has the same spirit and energy of the original, while sounding truly modern. I love this version, even if I will never take this over the original. track 3 is a remake of "We Love the Earth" from the "Expo" album. Now "We Love the Earth" was made as an upbeat yet laid back pop song about TK's environmentally conscious mindset he had during the early 90s. It's long and has many dance elements to its sound. I for one, love that song. This remake is also really damn good. I was so mad to see old hits being remade as part of the track list, but this and "Resistance" both show the value in these songs being updated and modernized. Like the previous remake, this one carries the same spirit and vibe of the original while keeping with the modern overproduced sound of current day pop music. Again, not as good as the original, but this an excellent modernization that I love. I do not like the mix on this track though. Track 4 is a remake of "Kiss You" from the Humansystem album. This remake is based on the more new-wave/techno kayo sounding single version, compared to the more guitar oriented pop rock version from the album. I am not huge on the album version and that goes double for the single version, and this song being in the setlist of the "Intelligence Days" tour was a factor on why I made no effort to go see TM Network on that tour. However this modernization is also great. Same thing I said for the last two applies here. The issue is just that I think the original song is just okay.

Track 5 is our final remake and that is "Time to Countdown" from the "Rhythm Red Beat Black" album. Now inside that album there were two wolves. The first wolf said "we are a techno kayo band, BUT WE ARE GOING ALL IN METAL" despite having no knowledge of heavy metal beyond the few concerts TK saw. the second wolf said "Time for some bangers that will force the listener to dance". So how does this remake of "Time to Countdown" do? The piano opening is replaced with synth orchestra. The once pounding and frantic double kick beat that drove the song into a desperate yet fun frenzy is replaced with a boring and standard beat. Most of the guitar is now reserved for bridge sections and fills. This "la la, la la la la" section replaces most of the chorus sections when it was previously much less of an earsore due to the mile a minute nature of the original. When we get to the chorus things finally pick up, but it is just one section that leads to a long outro. This version is 40 seconds longer and feels 4 minutes longer. What made the original work was the use of live instrumentation and the frantic feeling the fast heavy metal inspired live instrumentation provided in contrast to the pop melodies of the rest song. TK wrote the song to really invigorate crowds at concerts and hype them up, and it is an incredible hype song. Regardless of if you like metal, that music gets people riled up, and so making a pop song with metal guitar and drumming as the backbone really elevates that song to be a great song to open concerts with. Using almost entirely programmed instrumentation and slowing the pace of the song down makes a great song drag on and feel like it takes an eternity because the fast pace, drums and guitar are what made it excellent. This and the remake from "Easy Listening" have fully convinced me that TK no longer understands what made the original work, and have hurt my opinion of him as a songwriter. So in short the remakes were a unnecessary addition that provided some good moments, but the "Time to Countdown Remake" hurt any goodwill these other 3 had. These don't even have any worth as new arrangements and instrumentation, because they play the songs live with something closer to their original arrangement. They have two drummers live for the purpose of recreating the drumming on "Time to Countdown". (Though I'm sure it also makes it easier to capture crazy drum machine beats in a live setting).

Next song is "How Crash?", and it is awesome. It has the full vocals and melodies we were denied in the single version, and it is great. This is exactly what I wanted from TM Network in 2023, a sleek modern pop song that still retains their identity. David Ford mixed it, and he didn't mix any other songs on the album, which I think provides some inconsistencies with later songs on the album, but it is still great. I have nothing bad to say. The next song has a Japanese title that translates to "Looking at Your Sky". It is Naoto Kine's lone new contribution and I love it so much, the vocals, the melodies, the bridge section, the chorus, but there is "but" that I must stress. The song has a trap beat. It is the first and as of now only TM Network song to have one, but it sounds artificial and fake, and distracts from the song. When an actual drum machine joins in during the second half it gets less annoying, but it is a blemish on an otherwise great song. I love it, but that trap beat does a lot of harm to the song.  "Please Heal the World" is the infamous NFT song. Like I suspected in my first article, it was an unfinished version, which explained the poor sounding mix and quality. However unlike what I predicted in that article, the song itself is mostly the same and not really any better. The vocals and harmonies sound better, but it is the same boring and mediocre song from before, just now a whole 4 minutes and with very little of note going on aside from drum stuff where I can't tell if it's natural or artificial. It is dull and uninteresting, I hoped for more but it is monotonous and weak. They played this as a prerecorded song to be played back during their tour at a certain point during the show, and it just feels uninspired. "End Theme of "How Do You Crash It?"" is a studio recording previously played at the end of their comeback soundstage concert video "How Do You Crash It?". The song played over some montage of footage of the band members doing various things shot cinematically at the end of the video. It's solid. It is a bit monotonous and drags on a bit, but it was a credits theme to a DVD, I have no right to really say anything to it and be fair. "Intelligence Days" is a prerecorded song to be played at concerts on the Intelligence days tour to open up for the band or during intermissions, I forget which. It is a boring instrumental that I have nothing to say about. It shouldn't be here. Lastly is "Time Machine", an acoustic balled (plus synths) written by Kine. "Time Machine" was one of their first songs, but it never got a studio version, so it is great to have one. It is a sweet TM Network coming full circle thing, finally doing a studio version of one of their first songs, one that never had a studio version. It is an amazing closer and it is a great ballad. 

Looking at it from my point of view: Devotion has 3 actual new TM Network songs: "Devotion", "How Crash?" and "Looking at Your Sky", all of which are great. Doing a studio version of "Time Machine" is a great decision, and brings the album home beautifully. However 4 remakes of old songs, and 3 consecutive prerecorded concert supplement songs of which only one is good (the good one is "End Theme of "How Do You Crash It?"") doesn't make me feel like we got a new TM Network album. This just makes it feel like I have a CD of three new TM Networks songs with obstacles I need to skip to get to what I paid for. If it wasn't for those three new songs and the studio version of "Time Machine" I would be unforgiving to this album.

So the album failed to deliver more than a handful of good songs, what was this single released at the same time? "Whatever Comes (Opening Edit)" is the opening theme of the new City Hunter movie, in the edited form used in the movie. It was a very strong and well written song with an infectious chorus, a positive and inspiring message, and a great hook. It got me excited. In September we got the full version released as a single, and it was everything I hoped for. The band hyped this up as a modern sequel to their biggest hit single "Get Wild", which was previously the credits theme for the City Hunter TV series from the 80s. However it delivered, and is the best song they have done since they got back together again. My only gripe is that I think the section where they repeat the chorus in a jerky and unnatural manner is cool, but adds nothing to the song and is a bit out of place. There are two versions of this song. The first is a standard single with a cover similar to Devotion's album cover only featuring the band member's photos, and the other one was released in the winter as an EP with the song, an instrumental, a remaster of "Get Wild" and a cover showing the band members as anime characters next to the main characters from City Hunter. The song itself is a banger, enough said.

So what about the rest of the year? It was mostly promoting "Whatever Comes" (that's right the band saw this one song as more important than the new album let that speak for itself), that is until December when we got "Angie", an insert song for the new City Hunter movie. TK was instructed to write a film score-esque song to serve as the theme of the movie's newly introduced character Angie. This is why the song is a slow dower symphonic piece with repetitive piano and the same vocal melody repeated over with weird lyrics in the second half of the song. As a single this is absolutely weak, forgettable and very un-TM Network, but as a film score type of song it makes sense. I don't want to be too harsh on it for that reason, so I'll hold back any harsh criticism until after I eventually see the new City Hunter movie. Though if you ask me, releasing this song as a single and not a B-side to the full "Whatever Comes" film tie in EP that came out in the winter was a mistake.

So how was this year? Not the comeback year I was hoping, in fact "Whatever Comes" kind of saved them this year. Without that song I would have considered this year a bum year for the band, but overall with everything that they did this year, I am surprised it was so good for them. The album seemed to do well enough, and "Whatever Comes" is a great song garnering them a lot of attention. With any luck they'll use this momentum to give us a good album next year or at least something worthwhile to look forward to next year, as "Whatever Comes" is proof this band has still got it. 

The history of Gundam Ace and the Magazines That Came Before: or how Ban-Dai somehow screwed up 3 separate magazines and needed to be coerced into making a Gundam magazine

Happy new year. I hope you enjoyed your year, as much as I did mine. I welcomed a new addition to the family, met my father after years of believing he was dead, got to take my job in music further than ever before, and I've gotten to start this blog, so the year has been special for me. To commemorate the year I started this blog, here is one last article to close out the year, after months of repeated delays and false promises of new articles getting released.

So after writing my "how to watch Gundam" article I've been inspired to reread Origin. When I finished Origin I thought "wow that was great I should read more" and so I chose to read not just Origin but all the Gundam manga in the Universal Century I could. Then during some research I did for some of my articles I wrote previously on Gundam, a friend who helped me with said research found some things on Gundam Ace and its founding. I started this article in late September with the goal of publishing it on the 30th, before a huge work opportunity dragged me away followed by family stuff. I didn't leave the blog devoid of content, as throughout September and October I updated all the previous Gundam articles (except that bad Zeta New Translation slander piece I wrote while sleep deprived and that first article reviewing Unicorn, Narrative and Twilight Axis) to feature more accurate information, some minor spelling corrections and some new points I felt that should have been there in the first place or decided would make the article better with the benefit of hindsight. Seriously I keep starting new articles and then get so caught up with editing/fixing/adding to old articles that my old ones keep getting updates while I keep struggling to get out new ones. With things having calmed down, I finally found the time to finish it and rewrite many parts of it. So, here it is 3+ months later than I wanted.

For those unaware the history of Gundam manga and such starts with small steps, those being manga adaptations of Gundam shows from the late seventies and throughout the eighties. Then later "Record of MS Wars", "Mobile Suit Gundam Revival of Zeon" and other minor manga and one offs. These were published in other magazines. This was until the late 80s when Ban-Dai established their own Cyber Comix magazine. This was a serialized magazine by Ban-Dai that specialized in mecha comics, related articles and so on and so forth. Some of the earliest Gundam manga were featured here. Some of these early Gundam manga were actually really neat stories like "Under the Gundam: Double Fake", some of these are still looked back on fondly and influencing the media made in UC today with things such as "Gudnam F90", some are really cool but dated now by the simple fact that the Universal Century has become more concrete and thought out over the years as more people have decided on lore for it, added to said lore and a lot of the principals of its technology. Such as "The Story of Dr Minovsky" and "Outer Gundam", which are both interesting reads, with "Outer Gundam" being one of the first proper Gundam AUs with multiple entries. However they're are no longer accurate at all due to their explanations on the history of the Universal Century as well how the technology works having been dated and made any possibility of these being canon absolutely thrown out the window. For example some of these say the UC started after the moon landing, or after the challenger incident, when it was later established that colony construction likely began in the around 2040s (or later, I could be wrong). Others were just weird. Some of these weird ones like "Cyber Newtype Story: Another Z Gundam Story" are great stories that can be enjoyed by anyone, others like "Gundam Saigon" (think Cocaine Bear meets Gundam, and I am not joking at all when I say that) are just bizarre in a fascinating way. While including original grassroots series and tie ins to established ones like "Armored Troops Votoms", the magazine became increasingly Gundam dominated and would leave less and less room for the rest of the stuff in the magazine. This and other factors, most notably a new deal offered to them by the newly formed Mediaworks company formed by the former VP of Kadokawa, would culminate in the decision to terminate Cyber Comix and replace it. Following Cyber Comix's dissolution it was replaced by two magazines, the first being Media Comix Dyne. This Magazine did not get the audience of Cyber Comix out of the gate and was cancelled due to middling sales after few volumes. This would lead to it being replaced by Dengeki Daioh, a general manga and anime magazine covering a wide variety of franchises and series, which is still being published today. The second magazine replacing Cyber Comix was MS Saga, a magazine dedicated entirely to Gundam, which was not the best idea since Gundam was seeing a decline in popularity at the time in comparison to the 80s. (one that would soon turn around when "Gundam Wing" came out in the mid 90s) MS Saga didn't last, even after serializing sequels to some of Cyber Comix's stories such as "Cyber Newtype Story: Mad Wang 1160". 

Following the cancellation of MS Saga after only a dozen or so volumes, Gundam would require other comic magazines to publish manga, leading to a decline in Gundam manga. However things would change with the success of two comics in particular. The first major Gundam side story told outside the medium of animation was "Blue Destiny", a video game trilogy released on Sega's hugely popular Sega Saturn console. It had a novelization and a corresponding single volume comic serialized in Comic Bon Bon, which proved very successful. The other of these two manga was "Crossbone Gundam". "Crossbone Gundam" was a sequel to the Gundam F91 film. Originally a draft and outline by Tomino for a sequel, but abandoned. Yuichi Hasegawa, who had worked on Gundam comics before, was brought on to adapt it as a manga, to which he agreed on the condition that he could change the draft as he saw fit, and create his own character to center the story around. The resulting series was serialized in Shonen Ace, a manga magazine by Kadokawa focused on anime tie ins and manga with a less broad appeal, where the manga would be hugely successful. It ran for a long time and got 6 volumes. The huge success of this series would lead to the start of a close relationship between Kadokawa and Gundam. Kadokawa had already named their massively popular entertainment magazine "Newtype" after a term frequently used in Gundam's Universal Century.

I can't be the only one thinking MS Saga's covers have no personality in comparison to Cyber Comix

Back in the early 2000s "Gundam Wing", the show that revived interest in Gundam by giving it a new audience (the series was aimed towards the shoujo demographic) was dubbed in English and aired on Toonami. The series was a success in the west, leading to them next doing "Mobile Fighter G Gundam" and then seeking to do "Turn A Gundam" and "After War Gundam X". However Sunrise refused and insisted that the original "Mobile Suit Gundam", a show of great historical significance in Japan, be brought over. Eventually Toonami relented and dubbed it, airing it on TV. It went well until a certain event happened in 2001 that made programs like Gundam undesirable on TV. It was during this big push in the states during the early 2000s that Sunrise asked "Mobile Suit Gundam" character designer Yoshikazu Yasuhiko to write a manga version of that series specifically for the western market. Yas said no. He always thought Gundam was Tomino's work, and starting with Zeta, his own story ideas were left by the wayside, and he felt dissatisfied with the direction of the franchise and its focus on newtypes, not to mention he was not happy during the production process of "Zeta Gundam". However during a hospitalization he began drawing scenes from "Mobile Suit Gundam" to pass time. Drawing scenes like Garma's last stand made him realize just how attached he was to Gundam. Eventually he decided maybe retelling that show's story as a manga could be interesting. After some support from other people he respected Yas gave in and agreed to do it.

Now there was a couple things. First of all was that a manga retelling of "Mobile Suit Gundam" was already a thing. In 1993 Dengeki Daioh serialized "Mobile Suit Gundam 0079", a manga retelling of "Mobile Suit Gundam" written and illustrated by Kazuhisa Kondo. At the time this manga was still on going, and it was still going up until 2005 when it ended. Second, Yas had a specific way he wanted the comic released. He wanted around 100 pages per release early on, and to highlight important scenes with beautiful full watercolor illustrations. However this presented a problem as the publisher Sunrise had in mind was Kadokawa. Kadokawa couldn't put a comic like that in any of their existing magazines, and the magazine succeeding Cyber Comix and MS Saga, Dengeki Daioh, already had a manga remake of "Mobile Suit Gundam" in serialization. So Kadokawa's solution was to make a magazine focused exclusively on Gundam, thus Kadokawa launched Gundam Ace for the sole purpose of releasing this new manga retelling of "Mobile Suit Gundam" as Yas intended. Unlike MS Saga everything was right for this magazine. It was published by Kadokawa, a huge magazine publisher since the 80s, and Gundam at the time was on the cusp of "Gundam Seed", a show that love it or hate it brought Gundam to a whole new generation of fans and became one of the most popular works in the franchise's history. However this was not enough

Gundam Ace launched with "Gundam the Origin" front and center and as its premier title. Kadokawa Shoten's president was the one who made the push for Gundam the Origin getting its own magazine, but many higher ups in the company feared that a regular magazine dedicated to just one franchise would be unsustainable, and I'm sure MS Saga's failure was something that justified these fears. A heavy hitter like Origin would not be enough to carry a regular magazine alone. So they went about negotiating with mangaka and other people involved in Gundam to contribute columns, articles, interviews, and other manga series, all in hopes of filling out a regular magazine. Because of this, Gundam Ace became more than just a shounen magazine, but something of a general Gundam magazine, with manga at the forefront.

The second heavy hitting manga to help push Gundam Ace was "Char's Deleted Affair". Kadokawa saw the potential in a manga remake of Zeta much like Origin, and wanted Gundam Ace to debut with manga retellings of both. For this they approached Hiroyuki Kitazume. Kitazume was an animation director on Zeta Gundam, and he had a host of other jobs while making Zeta too, and he took on even more duties while working on ZZ and Char's Counterattack. After Gundam, the cancellation of the Space Battleship Yamato sequel he was heavily involved in, and the failure of his own projects, he had been left as an animation director and key animator on shows like "Ah! My Goddess" and "Dragonball". When Kadokawa approached him he said no, not seeing a point to remaking Zeta nor a need to, since he felt Zeta was great as is and unlike "Mobile Suit Gundam", it didn't need any major fixing. In addition to this, he had never taken any time to make big manga series like Yas did, so he didn't feel like it was right. However he would warm up to the idea of making manga when he got to thinking about the transition from Mobile Suit Gundam to Zeta Gundam. We never saw what happened to Char in that time or his past with Haman, and Operation Stardust wasn't even an idea anyone had during the time frame when Zeta was made. So he ended up writing for Gundam Ace a comic bridging the gap between the two, starting during the final episode of Mobile Suit Gundam, and ending right before the first episode of Zeta Gundam. This manga would be the other heavy hitting title in Gundam Ace's debut issue. The third big title in Gundam Ace's debut would be the officially licensed serialization of the Gundam San parody web comic.

The plan was for the magazine to be released quarterly, then after serializing more manga series and adding more to it they would release it bimonthly, then later monthly if the demand was high enough. In the September issue they added the Gundam Seed side story "Seed Astray", and "Crossbone Gundam Skull Heart". They had approached Hasegawa with the idea of a Crossbone sequel rushed out to help sell Gundam Ace, and while biding his time coming up with what he felt would be a worthy sequel he made "Skull Heart", an anthology series showing different characters in the aftermath of the original "Crossbone Gundam" manga's events. In the winter issue they had legendary anime character designer Haruhiko Mikimoto write his own Zeta side story "Ecole du Ciel", detailing a Zeon immigrant's time in a Federation pilot academy and watching the rise of the Titans. They also had "Tony Takezaki presents Gundam Manga", yet another parody manga. Over time the magazine got even more comics in regular serialization and was eventually able to move to the fabled monthly release schedule, where it has remained since. 

Not every Gundam manga is serialized in Gundam Ace. Thunderbolt is published in Big Comic Superior, Rust Horizon is published in Grand Jump Mucha, Battle Tales of Flannagan Boone is published in Hero's Inc, Aggressor is published in Shounen Sunday Super, etc. However Gundam Ace has become the premier place for Gundam manga. They give mangaka great creative control (usually), and celebrate many of their own grassroots kind of series such as "Return of Johnny Ridden", "Crossbone" and "Char's Deleted Affair". The manga really has this isolated feeling compared to other shounen/seinen magazines, but it really helps make it feel special and distinct. Being centered around one franchise allows it to be more diverse than most shounen magazines by featuring several detailed non manga related topics and columns, As well as some seinen manga occaisionally published in it too. Being so laser focused on one franchise with everything inside it allows for a real sense of community with its readers, knowing most of them like the same thing. I know people who are subscribed to shounen jump to just read the 3 or 4 series they like and then just leave it on their bookshelf. With Gundam Ace, if you picked it up you are probably a Gundam fan, and so everything there is from a franchise you like. The stuff in the different timelines and such help add variety, and they've found new ways to keep it fresh with unique takes on adapting the franchise to other genres, such as the currently publishing manga about Haman Karn living in our world as an overworked head of a fashion company. Gundam Ace has something for all Gundam fans, and it really feels special. I believe it is one of the best currently printing manga magazines in Japan right now, and I'm glad to keep getting such great titles from it.

Before I end the article, I want to give my thanks to a YouTuber named Cheems. He's a very nice guy and has been a good friend. I told him of my plans to write this article and shared with him parts of a rough draft of it. It inspired him to make a video on the subject, and he was nice enough to thank me and shoutout this blog in his video. Please check out his video, as it presents this subject more concisely, entertainingly and professionally than I could hope to. Subscribe to him if you want some solid informative and entertaining anime (mostly mecha) videos. With that out of the way, thank you for reading, and have a happy new year.

Why you need to listen to B'z: or a career retrospective on the biggest band in Asia

I mentioned in my articles on getting into Japanese rock music that B'z is the biggest band in all of Asia, and that they have outsold most of your favorite artists by a margin so wide it isn't even close. Though when I bring them up to my fellow western people I find so many woefully uncultured people in disbelief. So I am here to tell you all about B'z and explain why you should listen to them, with this little retrospective article. Also of note I will be including English translated names to all the songs with Japanese names next to the song's original name for clarification

B'z was formed in 1988 by a renown young Japanese session guitarist: Takahiro "Tak" Matsumoto. He held auditions for members of the new band he was forming, He settled on young up and coming vocalist named "Koshi Inaba" and later decided to not go ahead with finding new members, instead deciding to use sequencer and drum machine to emulate those elements. Tak and Koshi would release the self titled debut album of B'z in 1988 and would keep writing and recording new music in between Tak's session work. They were able to use Tak's status as a renown session musician to leverage a deal with a major label. The album was a modest seller bolstered by the single yet to be big "Dakara Sonotewo Hanashite (So Let Go of the Hand)". Their follow up album "Off the Lock" would be their first real success, with the single "Kimino Nakade Odoritai (I Wanna Dance)" getting notoriety for being used as the theme to a drama series. The album went platinum and proved a solid basis for their career going forward. These first couple B'z albums are full on new wave with elements of pop rock. Early into 1990 Tak would put his session work on hold to put all his effort on B'z and release the appropriately titled "Break Through". The album sold even better and sold more than 700000 units in its initial run, bolstered by their first minor hit single "Lady Go Round". The songwriting on breakthrough was more diverse and showed more sides to the band. Some songs experiment with hip hop, others are full on dance pop and many tracks are synth heavy pop rock in the same vein as the first two albums, but with better production. Some choice cuts like the title track "Stardust Train" and "Imadeha... Imanara... Imamo..." are great.

Then they got Lucky with Bad Communication. Around the release of "Break Through" they released their first EP "Bad Communication". The dance rock title track and two songs from their debut rerecorded in English in the same musical style as "Off the Lock". Bad Communication unexpectedly blew up and became a huge success for the band. Due to a mix up an alternate English  recording with a bit more guitar and rock elements made it as the promo single version. This prompted them to release "Wicked Beat", their second EP, which was an English version of Bad Communication, as well as English versions of 3 of their then recent singles, including their first number 1 hit single "Komachi Angel". After "Komachi Angel" they released their fourth album "Risky", only eight months after their third album. "Risky" was the moment they fully became the huge band they were, and the first album to prominently feature Tak's guitar. Bolstered by the number 1 hit singles "Easy Come Easy Go" and "Itoshii Hitoyo Goodnight (Lovely One, Goodnight". These two songs helped establish the streak of number one hit singles that remains unbroken to this day. Some real great stuff like "Vampire Woman", "Hot Fashion" and "Easy Come Easy Go" make this worthwhile and prove why this was the first album to reach the million seller mark. This album sold so well that it retroactively helped push "Off the Lock" and "Break Through" to reach million seller certifications.

The band would move to more of a rock direction and they would fully ditch their songwriting team and production staff, seeking to gain more independence. "In the Life" Songs range from stylish and cool low key pop rock songs, to fun upbeat pop rock that is just infectious. Bolstered heavily by the hit single "Alone", "In the Life" became one of the biggest selling albums in Japan's history at the time of release, and while it has since fallen from that position, the album is still seen as a classic. Some incredible songs worth attention are "Sora Demo Kimi ni wa Modorenai (Still I Can't Get Back to You)", "Wild Life", "Tonight (is the Night)" and "Crazy Rendezvous". Following "Mars", another EP of more rock oriented English rerecordings of hit singles, one of which featuring Japanese disco legend Yuki Koyonagi, the band would later take their rock influences to another level with "Run". The synths were toned down in favor of a horn section and an electric organ. Run was the first full on rock album from B'z, and Koshi and Tak were very proud of it. "Zero" was a big hit for the band and a total earworm, but the title track would become among the most legendary songs they ever made. It was rerecorded later in the band's later style of music as a show of how far they've progressed, and it always saved as the closing song for setlists or used in encores. "Native Dance" is a stunning tribute to Native American folk now reworked in the B'z style to be something new. I don't know how else to say it, but every song on Run is a banger and almost everyone of these songs is of significance to the band. One of their essential albums for sure.

B'z sought to take their influences further and try to shake off all the fans of their pop and new wave music for good in an act of self sabotage they hoped would attract rock fans and scare away pop listeners. Thusly they made a double album called "7th Blues". Disc one is a mix of the kind of music they did on Run, combined with Blues. This includes a blues instrumental by Tak and one of my favorite ballads by the band in the form of "Akai Kawa (Red River)". Disc 2 is full on blues featuring the album's lone hit single "Don't Leave Me" and one of their most iconic songs:" Jap the Ripper", and an acoustic blues rerecording of one of their then biggest hit singles "Lady Navigation". The thought process with this album was that since a double album costs more and blues isn't popular in Japan the band could move to more creatively fulfilling blues rock while shaking off the pop listeners, and appeasing their label with that first disc. However it not only didn't work and was bought up by their old fans, it gained them new fans as well, leading to it being certified million seller in the first week. "Seventh Blues" is my favorite B'z album and absolutely worthy of praise. There is some filler or songs that don't work, but the album is surprisingly good at keeping you engaged.

The new found success doing blues rock on "Seventh Blues" fired them up and they soon after released "Loose", the biggest selling studio album of their entire career. Loose is full on blues rock, but with much more punchy and polished production than they had "Seventh Blues". The album isn't afraid to experiment either, an acoustic blues version of "Bad Communication" is here, they make a song with a house beat and spoken word in the form of "Love Phantom" Some songs have a rough and southern feel like "Drive to My World", the synths are back and used to enhance many songs with little flourishes and fills, and we have multiple acoustic based songs. "Negai (Wish)", one of their biggest hits of the era is here, in an upgraded style, and it is great. The album has so much diversity how could you not love it? I love everything on "Loose", even the three hit singles, another essential B'z album. They then ended the blues era with "Survive". "Survive" aimed to take the band in a heavier direction while keeping a lot of the blues sound. The rhythm section on a lot of songs from these blues era albums are great. "Swimmer!!" and "Liar Liar" are proof enough. The album has many great songs and shows the more energetic heavier rock sound they would go to. Also "Cat" is my favorite song from this album, if nothing else just for Koshi singing the words "Meow Meow" with such a strong conviction.

"Brotherhood" was a turning point because it was When B'z moved to their signature hard rock sound. Tak said the band's then recently released compilation albums did so well it created this incredible tension for him and Koshi, leading to a heavier sound. For this reason "Brotherhood" is considered among their best. The album is synonymous with the band to the point. The songs from this album keep getting revived in setlists and fans love the title track for it's themes of companionship and unity. The album has some serious moments, but it is mostly fun upbeat hard rock. "Gir Giri Chop" was a huge success by being the first of many soundtrack singles the band would do for the long running anime franchise Detective Conan Case Closed. "Gin no Tsubasa de Tobe (Fly on Silver Wings)" is another example of the upbeat hard rock here. I love the use of strings on some of these songs, and the musicianship here is great. One of the all time great bass players Billy Sheehan plays most of the bass on this album and he delivers. The album was made with a more raw production sound and a full band of musicians rather than relying on keyboards, digital recreations and production to help make the album come to life. They also wrote songs in the studio as they recorded the album, figuring it would lead to a more spontaneous and energetic sound. This would influence every B'z album going forward and lead them to even greater success. Brotherhood isn't a favorite of mine by the band, not by a long shot, but it is great.

My favorite B'z album is the follow up: "Eleven". This era of the band saw them absolutely dominating. They had 12 songs in the top 13 on the pop charts at one point in this era, a song at number 1 and songs occupying spots 3 through 13, as well as other songs even lower on the charts. Your favorite band will never be as domestically important to or popular in their home country as B'z unless they are The Beatles or something. The album had one of the longest production periods of any B'z album, with the band working with multiple American engineers who have worked with various western rock and metal groups, hoping to truly nail the harder sound they were looking for. This would also feature some contributions from drummer Brian Tichy as a session musician, which will become significant later. The album is some peak B'z. Not only have they found a mix hard rock and this more mature sound they also sought, but they evolved from Brotherhood and improved upon in almost every way. No where is this exemplified more than on "Raging River". It's the longest song in their discography at seven and a half minutes, but it is great. It starts acoustic, but builds and builds to a powerful chorus. After an epic orchestral bridge it transitions to an incredible guitar solo. Then an acoustic verse building to yet another powerful chorus. The last minute of the song is incredible. In my mind it is their best song. On top of this the singles "Juice" and "Konya Tsuki no Mieru Oka Ni (At The Hilltop Where We Can Watch the Moon Tonight" are two of their most iconic songs. Other songs I feel are worth a mention here are "Ai no Prisoner (Love's Prisoner)", "Shinjiru Kurai li Darou (I Believe In You)", "May" and "Tokyo Devil". In my mind this is peak B'z and their best album, truly essential.

The band rebounded from this heavier sound with "Green", something made for the purpose of filling spare time while Tak and Koshi were busy doing solo projects. You might think this less focused approach would hinder the band, but surprisingly no. They move to a less heavy sound on this album, hoping to be a bit different, but capture a lot of that same energy. Opening track "Stay Green" emphasizes this perfectly. A sound like the hard rock of the last two B'z albums, but it is undeniably more bouncy and melodic. It's also my favorite B'z song. The album is still hard rock, but it's not as heavy, and there is a lot more production stuff going on here to make the album as it is, like some of the sounds on these songs like the effect on Koshi's vocals in "Surfin' 3000 GTR", as well as the beat in some of these songs. While I love a lot of these songs like "Go Fight Win", "Blue Sunshine" and "Forever Mine", the real thing this album is known for is "Ultra Soul". The song was written as a big inspirational anthem for athletes and aspiring people. It is a song about human determination. Not only was it a success, it is the most famous and remembered song of their entire career. While made mostly with a digital instrumental, it is a total earworm and is consistently remembered as their best song in Japan, so much so to the point that the people of Japan voted it the number 1 song to relieve stress to. The version included on the album differs from the single version, for having a different guitar solo, which I would say is better than the original.

"Big Machine" would keep the momentum going, even if the album itself didn't attain the same blockbuster success as the last three. A small amount of session musicians played on "Big Machine", their usual support bassist, as well as Brain Tichy and new support drummer Shane Gaalaas, who would become their longest serving drummer. The album seeks go back to a more band oriented sound, and opening track "Arakure (Panic)" symbolizes this well. I love the single "It's Showtime!!" but the better single is"Yasei no Energy  (Wild Energy)". It starts with an acoustic guitar before going into this awesome heavy metal guitar riff with awesome distortion, and then it stays as a fun pop rock song with some cool guitar playing. I love that.  I love "Nightbird", "Ai to Nikushimi no Hajimaru (The Start of Love and Hate)", "Change the Future" and the title track. All great stuff. The band would maintain this direction, but with a more commercial and rock oriented sound, leading to "The Circle." The album benefits from having a permanent support drummer and bassist, and no need for session musicians. The album's lone single "Ai no Bakudan (Love Bomb)" is a catchy earworm, and so is "Aqua Blue". Though the album doesn't forget to rock, as "X", "Shiroi Habana (White Spark)" and "Black and White" prove. it does nothing special, but the album is really good and shows a band in their prime. However shortly into the lifespan of the album on the charts, the band released the lead single from their next album.

You know what "Monster" is from the moment you hear opening song "All Out Attack". The album once again benefits from Shane Gaalaas and longtime support bassist Akihito Tokunaga playing all the drums and bass respectively. Aside from opening with a banger opening track, "Monster" gives us "Splash", one of the most beloved singles from this era of the band and their attempt at making a hard rock song you could dance too. The other singles "Ocean", "Shoudou (Impulse)" and "Yurugi Mono Hitotsu (One Sure Thing)" are all amazing songs. The album once again moves away from the hard rock sound in some songs, but gives us so many amazingly well written you can't get mad, but that also makes the heavier moments like the outstanding title track stand out that much more as awesome. I also want to draw attention to "Pierrot" as a total banger.

While working on an album for their 25th anniversary, the band went back to the drawing board multiple times. They wanted to do new things and grow for this album, but they were unsure how, until deciding on a kitchen sink approach, leading to "Action". "Action" isn't a double album but it comes close. The album tries so many new things. "Kuroi Seishin (Dark Youth)" is a hard rock song, but it mixes jazz scales and other jazz music elements such as a wooden bass, making a great B'z song with lots of unique flare. "Isshinfuran (Intently)" is a great song that tries to merge the sound of a hard rock song with the aesthetics and feel of a power ballad, and it was worked on heavily until near the end of the recording sessions when they nailed the arrangements and additions. "Boku ni wa Kimi ga Iru (For Me There Was You)" is a song with almost no guitar at all, something very rare for the band. "Nanto Iu Shiawase (Such Happiness)" is a wonderful attempt at combining the now standard B'z sound with the sounds of the swing of the 1950s. "Warui Yume (Bad Dream)" is another heavily Jazz inspired song and was the first song of theirs to utilize finger picking, giving it a unique sound compared to most of their other songs. "Hometown Boys' March" aside from being a banger, is a neat song utilizing shuffle rhythms. "Travelling Men's Theme" is a wonderful homage to the Beatles with a song trying to mimic their style, and it totally works. "Ore to Omae no Atarashii Kisetsu (You and I's New Season)" is neat attempt at making a song with latin instrumentation. Not to mention that the rerecorded Burnout theme "Friction Lap 2", "Super Love Song" "Buddy" and "Koubou (Ray of Light)" are all great. While they still sound just like the B'z you know at this point, the album is anything but stale and repeating past glories It is one of their best.

Following a short break B'z would record "Magic". Magic is just coasting along the success offered by "Action" and carrying on a more normal sound after the minor experimentation of that album. However lead single and opening track "Dive" is just awesome and lets you know that you are in for something good. The album is notable for having a support lineup change. Their longtime support bassist left, leading to bass duties split between Mars Volta's Juan Alderete and new support bassist Barry Sparks. Barry was recommended to the band as a temporary fill in for their 2003 US tour and Big Machine tour by mutual friend Shane Gaalaas. If you ask me Tak, Koshi, Shane and Barry is the quintessential B'z lineup and hearing them here is just wonderful. "Mayday" features a neat shuffle rhythm, and "Yume no Naka de Aimashou (See You In My Drams)" is a great tribute to the music of Japan's Showa era. I also wish to draw attention to "Mayday!", "Magic", "Freedom Train" and "Long Time No See" as awesome songs.

In 2011 B'z began work on their next album and took their time with it. The album was progressing as normal until a tragedy happened. The Great East Japan earthquake was on of the biggest disasters Japan ever faced. The band completely reconsidered even releasing the album. So they went back to the drawing board, reworking what they had and writing new songs to match a new tone. The idea was to take the hard rock of prior albums and make an upbeat album for the purpose of raising people's spirits in the midst of this tragedy and they hurried it out to be there only months after the tragedy. This lead to "C'mon" being among the most personal albums in the band's discography and one really important to everyone in the band. It lead to a staggering 18 songs, only 13 making the album. The album didn't sell as well as "Magic" due to the rise of streaming, but it was very well received and did immensely well anyways. The title track served as an excellent mission statement from the band, being a wonderful uplifting hard rock song embodying the spirit of the album and it's intention perfectly, with it's lyrics of togetherness and finding comfort and strength in others. Lead single and Pepsi tie in "Sayonara Kizu Darake no Anata (Goodbye Painful Days)" is an awesome hard rock song that took the throwaway "Go Next!" slogan by Pepsi Japan and turned into a song about leaving a sorrowful old life behind for a new beginning, with a nice sense of refreshment and momentum omni present. The other single "Don't Wanna Lie" is a catchy earworm that once again was used for Detective Conan alongside "Pilgrim", another great song. "Hito Shizuku no Anata (Just a Little Bit of You)" uses the heaviest guitar tuning in any B'z song, and is awesome. "Boss" is a very fun and different sounding song with a neat political satire underlining it. I also want to draw attention to ""Dareka (Somebody)" and "Dead End" as awesome songs. However the real highlight is "Ultra Soul 2011". Taking the band's mega hit about determination and removing all the electronic elements, having Shane Gaalaas and Barry Sparks supply real drums and bass to the song to make a proper hard rock version of the song. If you didn't like "Ultra Soul", I urge you to listen to this version. Some of the charm of the original may be gone, but Shane and Barry being here really bring it together. The short little bass solo in the song is made so much better by actually having a skilled musician like Barry playing on it. Not a complete replacement for the original, but a perfect new version that makes for the perfect book end to this album. Shane and Barry really help make the musicianship here feel tight and excellent.

The band decided to sit on "C'mon" and would take a break for awhile before making "Epic Day". Aside from being their most Japanese sounding album it was also an album with fruitful writing sessions. Many songs were written but they sought something concise, leading to a shorter ten song album. While a weaker offering than their previous album, "Epic Day" proved a strong release when it came out in 2015. Lead single "Uchouten (Ecstasy)" is proof enough. The album supplies  The album gives us plenty of rockers like "Las Vegas" and the title track, while supplying catchy pop rock in equal measure like "Man of the Match", "No Excuse" and a ballad written during the "C'mon" sessions. The album itself is pretty good overall though.

Next is one of my favorite B'z albums: "Dinosaur" recorded in preparation for their 30th anniversary. "Dinosaur" opens with a title track that showcases Tak's playing in top form before getting to the song itself.  The title track is the song that got me into the band, it is just purely awesome hard rock with a cool message about embracing being called dinosaurs and being around for nearly 30 years. Awesome title tracks aren't all the album has to offer. The excellent pop rock song and double a side single "Seimi (Declaration)" was a big part of this album's success, having gold and gaining notoriety for it's use in Detective Conan. The song is a total earworm and alongside the other double a side single "Still Alive" help make this album great. I don't understand how you couldn't love the epically confident "Champ" or the bouncy hard rocker "Skyrocket" I also want to give attention to "Queen of the Night", "Purple Pink Orange", "King of the Street" and "Haruka". Not essential, but probably my favorite.

Following the 30th anniversary tour in 2018 the band fired their drummer of 15 years Shane Gaalaas, their bassist of 11 years Barry Sparks and their keyboardist of 24 years Takanobu Masuda. The reason given being that they were 30 and wanted to refresh things with a new backing band and achieve a new sound. The fans were sad, but excited too. However this lineup recorded one song "Tsuwamono, Hashiru (Soldier, Run)", the best song on their next album "New Love". The album features new support drummer Brian Tichy who had previously worked with the band as a session musician, and new support bassist Mohini Dey. While initially I didn't take to the album, it has grown on me. The aforementioned song featuring Sparks and Gaalaas is great. I think the albums is really well produced, and while there was no single, the album has plenty of standouts I haven't mentioned. "My New Love", "Mr Armour", "Ore yo Karma wo Ikiro (Living My Karma)" and "Deus". While not as awesome as Dinosaur I appreciate them trying to move to another sound. This new sound would be better realized on next album "Highway X". The horns are utilized much better here, and the songwriting for the most part is stronger, even if they have strayed further from their defining hard rock sound. They sound modern and cool here, with many great songs here showcasing this new kind of sounds. Some of my favorites include "Comeback Itoshiki Hanen", "Live", "Unite", "Hard Rain Love" and the title track. Truly the better of the two by this new line up

The band has released new singles since then, and have released their 50th consecutive number 1 hit single "Stars". (Oricon doesn't count digital singles for some reason) and is still on a warpath of success, doing their 35th anniversary tour and they still have more plans for the future. Whether you knew of B'z or not, I hope this will inspire you to go and check out the most successful artist in all of Asia.

Why I dislike modern anime and why anime has gotten worse.

Having so many friends and a wife who watch seasonal anime as they come out is nuts. I pay no mind to this stuff myself but I hear about it so much. "No they killed off the girl with glasses that I liked in Attack on Titan", "Eminence in Shadow is so good", "Chillin in my 30s because the demon lord booted me out of his army such a neat show" etc, etc. On the rare occasion people ask for my opinion I have to say I can't weigh in because I don't watch that stuff. I've tried though. I know it's going to sound hypocritical, me saying this when so many posts here are dedicated to Gundam, and me praising newer Gundam series, but screw it. I am going to definitively give my opinion on prompted and prove some points and facts that's influence my opinion.

I see so many people online hate on anime for a lot of reasons I hate most anime for too. However when someone says they don't like anime, there is a 70% chance a guy responded to it saying why they should check out JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and why it is different. Trust me, as someone who has to an extent tried watching it, I can tell you JoJo isn't going to win over anyone who already hates or dislikes anime. The show is just off the wall weird and strange and sometimes nonsensical on purpose, and I get that is the point. It is different in many ways, but different doesn't mean it will win over some snob. However you notice JoJo is a way bigger deal among weebs here in the west than it is among Otakus in Japan. 

Japan and America have a completely different paradigm in regards to anime. You can attribute the big success of anime here in the states to Toonami. Previously shows like Robotech, Sailor Moon Voltron, Speed Racer etc brought over anime in a rewritten format (sometimes combing shows together by hacking together scenes from different shows into one episode.) and presented as a new show over in the west, and they all had varied levels of success here. However Toonami was where it reached its apex. Cowboy Bebop and it's English dub (I have not scene a full episode of that show or it's dub) are both credited with popularizing anime here. Funny enough Cowboy Bebop was just a show some people at Sunrise did in-between bigger projects, it's seen as great, but not seen as some major milestone or anything there like it is here. A big part of why it is considered a huge milestone here is because it had a great dub and was one of the shows that popularized the medium here. Hell, Sunrise's Batman The Animated series inspired anime: Big O only got another season because it was doing really well in the west. Dragonball is probably the most recognized anime outside of Japan. Evangellion is big too for some reason. I've always likened Evangellion to Star Wars. Not because it's big (It's more so a nostalgic series with a dedicated cult following in Japan at this point) but because like Star Wars it was a passion project by a man who wanted to make something combining elements from a lot of their favorite media. Evangellion takes elements from stuff like Space Battleship Yamato, Gundam and it's various series, Space Runaway Ideon (yet another series by the creator of Gundam), Ultraman, Devilman and some others I am neglecting to mention because I can't be bothered to go on some community written website and read potentially erroneous parroted information most websites offer. However most the anime series considered huge in the west aren't as huge or influential in Japan as a lot  of people may think. Just a humble reminder Gundam is Japan's biggest anime franchise domestically in Japan, and it's fanbase is a small disagreeable yet dedicated bunch in the west. Point is that what's big in the west doesn't usually equate to the same level of huge among Otakus and general audiences in Japan. 

However the western fanbase played a big part on just what happened to anime. This year I have tried to branch out from Gundam into other anime series, and I signed up for My Anime List. This was immensely helpful in organizing the shows in my watchlist that I had been recommended. However it also helped me notice things and get a glimpse into the mind of a "consoomer" of seasonal anime. As of writing this the only show on my currently being watched is Giant Gorg, which I have been enjoying. However, one such anime series recommended to me by a dear friend of mine was UFO Robo Grendizer. Grendizer being a favorite of theirs, and said friend being a huge Mazinger fan. However I noticed that Grendizer is listed as one entry with 74 episodes where as most anime added in the last decade on MAL are listed as multiple entries and divided by seasons. This made me think it was strange until I talked about Gundam ZZ to a friend of mine who was unfamiliar and mentioned it has 47 episodes. They said "that's a lot. Like 3 or 4 seasons of a modern anime series worth of episodes" and it got me thinking and lead me down a rabbit hole. Anime back in the day was worked on differently than it is now. Back then you had a set amount of episodes brought to order, and whatever team was working on it would typically create episodes as the series was airing, being a set amount episodes ahead of what number episode would be airing. If your series was underperforming there would be a good chance it would get cancelled and you would have to work within the episodes of your series being cut down a significant amount, leaving you to try to wrap it properly with the shortened number of episodes. That was just how it was back then and continued to be for decades. So why the change?

Over in America seasonalized TV is very much the norm, and it's easier to market shows when you have those controlled waves of episode releases to build anticipation and keep ratings up. It's also easier to keep track of multiple shows you want to watch like this, and makes this a preferred method of viewing TV for a lot of people. As anime started growing in popularity in the west, so did the way it's made. Over time here in America so many things just grew to be made at an assembly line pace to keep a constant flow of content out seasonally for everyone to enjoy. You can see this now with Marvel and Star Wars stuff produced by Disney or for other examples shows on networks like TLC. Not to say this is bad, but it can lead to a stagnation in quality, again look at Marvel. As anime grew in popularity in the west and was aired on Toonami it helped encourage a change in how it was presented. For example, Gundam Seed (Gundam is the only anime franchise I am intimately familiar with) was 50 episodes, and its sequel series Gundam Seed Destiny was also 50 episodes. Following this was Gundam 00 in 2007, split into 2 seasons of 25 episodes each, a good example of around the time this paradigm shift started. By the 2010s this sort of thing has become standard. The big reason being because with seasonally produced anime it was made easier to watch these and keep track of them. This encouraged binge watching, and helped make them more easily consumable for average people. Though to be fair this can also increase a show's longevity and keep boosting ratings. For example it can lead to something marketed towards young boys such as Demon Slayer lasting long after the debut episode aired on TV. In addition, if you decide to cancel a show it can now just be the death of that series and not cost you anymore money. If you look at a series like "After War Gundam X", it was cancelled, and that meant they could only finish a set number of episodes past the one currently airing at that time of cancellation. Of 49 episodes, they only managed to make 38, as they had work around the cancellation to conclude the series proper. This meant losing 11 episodes and dedicated the last dozen or so episodes to the essential truncated plot points originally planned for much later in the show. Now with the seasonal form of producing and airing anime they can cancel shows easier. If you cancel one between seasons, it will just be over, no more. With no obligation to finish episodes already a decent way into production due to said show not currently airing on TV and meeting a large episode order, its so much easier to cancel shows. For an example, just look at Goblin Slayer. The other big reason for doing this is that in the last couple decades it has become increasingly more common to adapt anime from manga rather than create an original work for TV. Not saying this wasn't always a thing, just look at something like Mighty Atom or Space Pirate Captain Harlock. I'm just that it is more common now than it ever was before. This seasonal format can give shows a chance to let their respective manga continue so they don't have to worry about overtaking them or running out of material to adapt. This seasonal format of releases can help inflate longevity and lead to increase profitability and ratings spikes, a big reason why this has become the norm. So to be fair this seasonal style of releasing does have its merits, but it doesn't really change what I said.

Another big reason for me is the art style and animation, now I know that's surface level, but this sort of thing work vice versa for so many people, let me explain my point of view. I see so many weebs on My Anime List declare outdated art styles and animation to be a defining factor in not wanting to watch something from the last 15 years. Let me just say that hand drawn animation colored by hand will always look more lively and engaging than anything drawn on computers digitally. I am not sorry, that is a fact. Hand drawn animation will always be more lively,  energetic and expressive. Digital animation has always stuck out to me in a way I don't like that much. I can understand not liking the way some old shows might look, I'll be the first to admit the strained and hellish production the original Mobile Suit Gundam went through made a lot of the animation in that show age like milk. However you cannot tell me really well done traditional hand drawn animation doesn't look better than digital animation any day of the week. Digital animation is almost entirely done for convenience sake, cost effectiveness and for the ease of adding in computer generated effects in post. There's this level of movement energy and flow to the movement you can't get otherwise. However it is cheaper, easier integrate CGI into and it takes less time and effort. So it has become the standard as companies adopted more assembly line style of production and creation and release. The other big problem presented by this is how it has lead to standardization with art styles. Art styles were pretty varied, especially back in the day. However, as digitally drawn animation has become the norm so too has more standardized art styles. As more and more shows are digitally made at an assembly line pace, it has become easier to just use more standard and generic art style. More typical art styles among popular shows was already becoming a thing in the 90s, and it's just the thing now. It's easier for studios to use a more uniform art style or variations of said uniform art style. I'm not saying every show is like this, but it's very clear a more industry standard art style has taken hold. Just look at My Hero Academia. (only widely popular modern anime series I have seen a lot of.) I have seen the anime and read a lot of the manga because a friend wouldn't shut up about it to me back in 2017. You look at the anime and then a likewise illustration from the manga, and it's night and day which one looks more interesting or detailed. The villain Tomura Shigeraki looks way worse and less creepy in the anime, I'm sorry but that's just a fact. So much visual personality is lost nowadays in the move from manga to anime because of this standardization. Sure I can still very clearly tell who's art they're adapting but so much of what I like about his illustrations just isn't there. Compare this to any classics shows adapting a Go Nagai manga such as Mazinger Z and his art style was carried over very faithfully in the transition to animation, even a lot of the quirks of his designs and illustrations were too.

Now I think a big part of this style is the inspiration from shoujo works. Stuff like Sailor Moon and some of the works adapted from manga by Clamp were a big factor into what got women into anime in general. This a big factor into why so many shows in the 2000s had these super bishi art styles, to try and make things that appealed more to women. Then you look at the production of something like Code Geass where hiring Clamp to do character designs was a move deliberately done to help the show appeal to as wide an audience as possible. The fact that many of these shows would be released in the west too also played a factor in the process behind making these shows. The western market is undeniably a big part of Dragonball's success, and it is undeniably a big part of what has been keeping the franchise going the way it has. It's undeniable that mass marketability in and out of Japan, and a seasonal release system made for easier mass consumption has influenced the way these shows are made and how they are presented. It's big part of why art style in a lot of these look the same. This cheaper more cost effective digital animation just makes it easier for these shows to be made and this more uniform art style a lot of shows have adopted makes it easier watch all these shows one after the other, especially considering that in the west it is very common to binge watch television shows. I just can't really get behind the digital animation the same way I can hand drawn animation. It's not bad, but a lot of these shows have an uphill battle in winning me over because I am not huge on modern digital animation quite like I am hand drawn stuff. I also miss the variety in art style. It's just a shame. Most people who can't stand most older animation are just so used to these kind of shows made in an assembly line type efficiency and pumped out for mass consumption they just something that looks different and feels too different is just too big of a shift than what they are used to, the kind of anime they like to watch. It's incredibly shortsighted and biased on their end, but it's understandable given what they are used to. The industry has conditioned them to one uniform style with minor variations built on it.

Last reason is fandoms and culture. You want to know why I don't talk about My Hero Academia or keep up with it like I used to? Most of that fandom is toxic. There is a reason why My Hero Academia cringe compilations are a thing on YouTube and why My Hero Academia fans appear on TikTok cringe compilations. A buddy of mine put on a My Hero Academia cringe compilation and I saw things ranging from one girl LARPing as an OC that is the biological daughter of two boy characters who had no romantic interest or huge comradery. Not so bad I know, but then in that same compilation another one where two people dressed as two male characters from the show pretended to have impregnated each-other and then proceed to give one another abortions with a wire clothes hanger. Yes that's a very extreme leap, but that's what I saw. I knew some people who were hardcore JoJo fans, and one of them told me that the fandom is extremely toxic and told me many a horror story about her time dealing with that fandom. I can tell you a lot of Gundam fans here in the west aren't nice people and a significant number of them are elitist snobs. This isn't even mentioning weeb culture in general the general fetishization of Japanese culture that comes with this. Do you know how many people just say a Japanese phrase like "yare yare daze" because they heard it in an anime. A buddy of mine actually got in trouble over a misunderstanding using choice Japanese phrases he learned watching anime. I know it's unavoidable I want as little association with those kind of toxic people as possible. This is why I am never active in online fandoms or big communities. I'm sorry, but a lot of modern anime just bring these toxic communities. Yeah a lot of old anime do the same thing, but at least those communities aren't as vocal or common, and they aren't just consuming product. I can just act like they don't exist and continue to enjoy things how I want to, which at the end of the day isn't too much to ask for.

In the end though I really just like enjoying stuff that interests me at my own pace. It's just a simple fact that the way these shows are made now doesn't give shows a lot of the same appeal anime that got me into the art form has. The cheaper animation, style of production, and how how art styles have of become all so stock and standardized. It just makes many of these shows seem uninteresting to me at first. I've tried watching some of these seasonal anime, but they just don't appeal to me. I'm sorry that's just it. As I branch out into other shows recommended by friends maybe I'll write articles on those, I'm not sure. If you disagree with or take issue with anything I said feel free to contact me and debate me, just know that this is all my opinion and it's not worth raising a big fuss over.