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 thinks 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 told 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 including 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 did the 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 served 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 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.