You're listening to season 11 of Mobile Suit Breakdown, a weekly podcast covering the entirety of sci fi mega franchise Mobile suit Gundam from 1979 to today.

This is episode 11.2, Battles over Broadway and we're your hosts.

I'm Thom, longtime Gundam fan, and if they were going to set the Neo America Gundam fight in New York, they should have made a more appropriate Gundam fighter.

Like a giant rat Gundam with a pizza shaped shield and a whip made of subway cars.

And I'm Nina, new to G Gundam and in awe of someone chibidi's age.

Having 100 professional boxing matches under his belt.

Dude needs a vacation.

Mobile Suit Breakdown is made possible by our sage and scholarly paying subscribers.

This is part two of me catching up on the long list of new patrons who've signed up recently and I'm hoping to be totally caught up next week.

So if you expected to hear your name and still haven't, listen for it on episode three.

Thank you all and special thanks to our newest patrons.

Jaybird Caroline R.

Captain Knight Broa God can we say?

I don't know.

You could bleep me, I guess.

John L.

Guillaume S.

Redbubble, Sean Evan G, Admiral Honeybuns, Bullworm, Ivan Joshua L, Matthew H.

Comma Man Respectable name, Loose Leaf Paper Thane Brennan, Nino Kaylee F Numi Jonty Lostar, Bren B.

This is my favorite Patreon on the Citadel Ramsey Lady, Amber Will H Aaa, Jordan W, Elliot R, Mitch J, Emma W.

Venus Berries Vs Alex T.

Humble Bozo, Glenivere, Charles G, RJ L Shinanoki, Cordell S.

Funkashoot and Zakupol.

You keep us Genki.

We're covering g Gundam Episode 2 Unare Yumeo, Tsukanda, Hisatsu, Panchi or Roar Take hold of your dream with a knockout punch.

Originally broadcast on April 29, 1994 and now the play by play.

There he is entering the ring now, the powerhouse puncher with his feet on the ground.

They call him Gravity's Painbow.

The way he drops his opponents at 9.8 meters per second squared.

He's the International Cruiserweight Champion of the planet Earth, Carmela Connor Konomi.

In an unusual twist, Konomi has chosen to enter the ring completely alone.

The rest of his team, including his longtime trainer and cornerman, are nowhere to be seen.

Could this confirm the rumors of tensions within the Konomi camp leading up to this all important title unification bout?

He has also chosen to enter the ring wearing a hooded robe that completely obscures his face and body.

Except for his Wrists and calves which are looking uncharacteristically pale.

And now entering the arena, fresh from a ticker tape parade up the canyon of heroes.

Here in the big but somewhat moldy apple, the hometown kid, the prodigal son, the man, the myth, the Gundam Maxter.

He's dangerous at range.

He's deadly in the pocket.

Our star of hope, Chibidae Crockett.

Chibide is coming into this fight riding a truly incredible hundred win streak as a boxer and has already secured his first victory as a Gundam fighter with with a first round one punch knockout triumph over Neo Iraq's Scud Gundam.

It's weird they called it that.

Both boxers have now entered the ring.

Jibide is showing off for the crowd, while the hooded Konomi appears to be gathering energy in his corner.

In just a few moments, we'll see the beginning of what might be the greatest boxing match in New York City history.

Some people in the audience have been waiting their entire lives for this moment.

I cannot express to you the hope, the joy, the excitement in the air here tonight at Madison Square Garden.

What in the name of Lady Liberty?

Konomi just laid the Colony Champion out with a sucker punch.

Where is the ref?

Where are the judges?

Where is his honor?

The crowd is utterly dumbstruck.

Konomi is now removing his robe.

And it's not the champion.

It's somebody else, it looks like.

Yes, it is.

It's Domon.

Not the nut.

Kashu Gundam Fighter for Neo Japan.

It looks like he's.

Yes, he's issuing a Gundam fight challenge to Crockett.

But Crockett is back on his feet and he's going on the attack.

Oh, the punches are flying fast and furious.

The Neo Japanese fighter is floating like a Kubilae.

But his Neo American opponent stings like a Shaco.

And now a glancing body blow from the champ leaves his smaller opponent looking winded.

Domon has taken to his heels and he is exiting the arena.

It looks like we're going to get that Gundam fight after all, folks.

There's no way Chibure can refuse Domon now.

Not after being humiliated like this in front of his own hometown.

Soon these two Titans will clash in a hand to hand and head to head battle.

All that remains is to agree on the time and the place.

It's almost 8am here at Brooklyn Stadium, and the Gundam fight between Neo Japan's Shining Gundam and Neo America's Gundam Maxer is about to begin.

Chibide and three of his four girlfriends have already arrived and the Stands are packed with fans willing to risk their lives to see the cheatin challenger get his just desserts.

The clock is ticking with no signs of Kashuu.

And.

But if he loves fighting as much as the rumors say, then that nut is sure to show soon.

The crowd is beginning to grow antsy.

What could have happened?

It's time for the match to begin.

But the Neo Japan fighter is not at Brooklyn Stadium.

There's just been an explosion.

And it looks like it came from the uninhabited sector of Midtown.

Chibodei has activated his mobile fighter and he is sky surfing over the East River.

I haven't seen moves that slick since Renton Thurston won the Neo Bali All Colony Zero Gravity surfing finals in FC 48.

We're now seeing.

Yes.

There's Domon being attacked by a pair of government mobile suits again.

These are 29 HA Murphy riot control.

Mobile suits, not mobile fighters.

It seems the challenger isn't the only one willing to stoop to cheating.

What a despicable day for the noble sport of Gundam fighting.

Will Crockett use this opportunity to crush his opponent like a bug?

Will he betray the hopes and dreams entrusted to him by the people of New York just for the sake of victory?

No.

He's joined the fray on the side of justice, the side of valor, the side of sportsmanship.

There are still heroes in the world.

Now Dolman is activating his own shining Gundam, destroying the remains of the Statue of Liberty, a protected UNESCO World Heritage Site, in the process.

This is what sports is all about.

The two Gundam fighters have swiftly destroyed the interlopers and are turning their attention to each other.

It looks like they're about to.

Yes, they are punching each other directly in the fist.

But oh, they're really putting the mano in mano a mano.

That's a linguistics joke, you animals.

They're grunting.

They're striving.

They're putting everything they've got into it.

But cracks are beginning to show.

Literal cracks.

The Gundam Maxter's arm is breaking apart under the strain.

It seems Neo American steel is no match for those shining fingers.

And it's all over.

Gibbo's star has crashed back to Earth.

But listen to that crowd.

They've never been prouder of their boy.

And if this announcer knows anything about him, he will rise from the ashes to challenge the Champions League once again.

And he'll do it with the incomparable taste of Alfredo Galbaldi's authentic Neo New York style pizza lingering on his tongue.

Galbaldi's Pizza to dream about.

I would like, if I may, to take you on a Gundam podcast.

Oh, Shitsue Shimasu.

This is the first episode where we get to meet Stalker, whose name is not actually said in the course of the show.

But the guy in the red suit with the eyepatch that he doesn't need.

That's Stalker.

What's the deal with the Eyepatch?

Eh, don't worry about it.

He's probably a reference to something.

Don't worry about it.

Okay.

Extremely strong.

I'm not actually left handed vibes.

And I love that they immediately break the.

It's not even the fourth wall because it's not between the audience and the characters, but it's some sort of like fifth wall between the narrator and Domon.

Domon and the narrator interact in this opening section.

Did that literally happen?

Is Stalker an actual person?

Who cares?

Don't worry about it.

I felt very vindicated in our use of that catchphrase, don't worry about it last week because as I was looking back over the Imagawa interviews, I found a quote from him when somebody had asked, so, like, how do the different countries transport their mobile fighters around to all their different, like, battle locations?

What's the infrastructure involved in doing that?

Because in a Tomino Gundam, in a traditional Gundam show, there would be a specialized big Gundam carrier.

It might be a spaceship, it might be a big truck, it might be a kind of complicated helicopter, but there would be something that would be explained, designed, depicted.

Imagawa's response was, I developed an I don't care attitude.

We weren't thinking about it too much.

And so we wouldn't let the audience think about it too much either.

It's okay if it's fun to watch.

He could just as easily have said, shut up, nerds.

Don't worry about it.

If you needed any indication of how different this is from previous Gundam.

We are here for emotions.

We are here for characters.

We are here for hot blooded action and fun and dreams.

It was fun, wasn't it?

So far, this show is batting 2 for 2 on fun using the binary.

Heuristic of fun, not fun.

We find these episodes to be fun.

Like last week, we watched a couple of things.

Well, actually watched a thing and listened to a thing in preparation.

We listened to the double album rock opera the Lamb Lies down on Broadway by Genesis, which Imagawa cited as a.

Reference specifically for this episode.

I had never heard it before.

Really enjoyed it.

It was a trip in like multiple senses of that word.

It was really good.

And longtime friend of the podcast and frequent podcast contributor Sarah McCostumes, who has a personal interest in the style of music and in this album in particular, did us a favor and recorded a brief explainer about why this album is.

So hello Mobile Sweet Breakdown listeners.

It is I, Sarah McCostumes, once again here to tell you about a very special interest of mine, which is of course British progressive rock of the 1970s.

Fun fact about me is that the entire reason I started watching anime is because of progressive rock band yes, who are frequently referenced in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.

So I was very, very, very, very excited whenever Tom told me, hey Sarah, I have to listen to this really, really long Genesis album for Mobile Soap Bricks.

And I said, really long Genesis album?

Do you?

Referencing, of course, 1974's the Lamb Lies down on Broadway, are you not?

Tom said, yes.

So I am here to tell you why it's good.

From the perspective of a prog rock fan, as someone who has like basked deeply in kind of all of the different albums and things that were going on in the prog rock scene of the early 70s, I can tell you that this album stands out.

First of all, like visually, its cover is these black and white photos.

If you've seen the COVID art for Fragile or for Tarkus, like the COVID art for Tarkus by Emerson Licken Palmer is this like crazy armadillo tag with all like different colors and weird creatures.

Now Lamb Lies down on Broadway has creatures, but it presents them to you in a much more kind of minimalist way.

Its story is one continuous narrative arc across both of the LPs.

I would compare it format wise as a concept album to like Pink Floyd's the Wall, which would come out five years later in 1979.

It's also quite notable, I think, that this album separates itself into individual songs.

Other albums of this time tend to just do the thing where one side of the LP was a whole song.

It had different movements and different sections, but the full side was one song that you were supposed to listen to as a whole, probably while smoking weed.

But Lamb Lies, Donna Broadway sort of respects you enough to give you the individual songs and the individual bops in smaller bites.

It's much poppier than the other prog albums of this time.

I'm thinking specifically about Yes's Relayer Tales of Topographic Oceans that had just come out the year before.

It's a double sided record the way this one is, but it only has four songs on it because there are four sides to the Album Lam also stands out within Genesis's own oeuvre.

Before this, they had done nursery crime, they had done like Selling England by the Pond.

And both of these fit in very much with like 1970s medievalism.

You know, Ren Faires exist because of 1970s medievalism.

And Genesis's previous works vary in keeping with that Ren Faire vibe.

You know, those fairy tales, there is nursery rhymes, there is Arthurian myth.

And to then go from that and think now the next foreign, strange, faraway place that we're going to explore is a New York City is something very different to what they have done before.

And I'm not going to go into too much detail about what the story of the album is about because I don't think that would actually help.

I think you should listen to it.

I think you should let this strange Alice in Wonderland style journey kind of wash over you.

I listened to the album this morning, of course, I put it on, on vinyl, on my record player and I opened the gatefold and I actually decided to read the sort of narrative, the written down blurb that is inside.

And like, I learned all sorts of things about Ryle's journey through the New York City dreamscape and how he has a snake orgy and gets turned into a blob and has to get his cut off.

And you know what, don't worry about that.

Just listen to the album.

Because the thing that is good about the album is the music.

I've been a fan of this album for the last like 15 years.

Never read the blurb, never really cared about the blurb.

What I like to do is put it on and let it evoke its strange sights and situations.

It is a very visual, I would say, cinematic piece of music.

Sort of feels like you're listening to the film Brazil or feels like you're listening to the way that you would play Elden Ring.

Because there's something going on and I don't quite have all the information, but it sure intrigues me.

I would definitely recommend it as a first time prog rock album.

It's very accessible in the way that it's broken into tracks and it simply contains bops.

Although, don't worry, as well as the bops and bangers, it also contains extended parts of like Almost Silence where you can just hear point.

Sarah mentioned at the end of that.

That the Land Lies down on Broadway is a really cinematic album.

It is an album that when you listen to it, you see images in your head.

You are transported to a place.

It's narrative.

It's lyric, as we might say, of the type of music that goes with ballets that tell stories.

It's not always a story that makes a lot of sense.

It is, as Tom said, trippy.

But there's clearly a narrative to it.

And it gives you an idea of a version of New York.

And that is exactly why Imagawa referred to it for the creation of this episode.

For him, listening to the Lamb Lies down on Broadway transported him to Broadway.

It gave him a sense for the place that he calls New York City.

And he chose to set the final battle between Domon and Chibote on Broadway because of the Lamb Lies down on Broadway.

When Bunny appears in Times Square beneath the big billboards, standing in the morning mist, Imagawa says, that's the Lamb.

It's a Bunny instead of a Lamb.

But there it is on Broadway.

Between the two of us, we have actually many times referred to New York as a thousand cities sitting on top of each other.

The world of glitz and glamour and Broadway and.

And the world of seedy, grungy Times Square in the, you know, 70s and 80s, those worlds touch each other, but they are separate.

The world of members only nightclubs and the world of homeless shelters and the world of ethnic enclaves in distant neighborhoods.

Those all coexist, and a person can live years, decades in New York and only experience a tiny fraction of the identities that the city has not to.

Fall into New York exceptionalism.

We're gonna wax poetic.

We love it here.

We can't help it.

This is our city.

And Gundam has finally come here and not dropped a rock or colony on it.

So we are going to talk about New York and you are going to listen to us.

I know every city has some degree of this, but I've lived in a few cities.

New York is special in this way.

New York, more so than any city I can think of, does not have strictly defined, like, rich neighborhoods and poor neighborhoods.

You think about a stereotypically rich enclave, the Upper west side.

There are lots of poor people living in the Upper west side.

There are housing projects on the Upper west side.

The Village is both an extremely expensive, fancy place to go out for a drink and also a place full of.

Dive bars and drunk college students.

All of these different versions of the city are layered on top of each other.

As we were listening to the album, you pointed out that in media, in movies and books and music, in the sort of broad international cultural imagination, New York is not a real place.

It's a journey that certain people take.

New York is An adventure that outsiders go on.

You come to New York to have an experience and be changed forever.

Exactly.

In this episode.

That's true of Chibote, who, even though he is from New York, his experience of New York now is as an outsider, Someone who as a child went from the gutters to the stars and now comes back in order to crash down to Earth again.

To be brought low, to be humbled, and then to be built back up by the city that made him in the first place.

There are a lot of tonal things in the episode that I believe it gets right about New York, and one of them is the attitude of the public toward Chibote, that even though technically he is the champion of the Colonies now and his opponent in the boxing match is the champion of Earth, because Chibote is the New York hometown hero, everybody's rooting for him.

The New Yorkness matters more to them than whether it's the colonies or Earth.

We are an insular, clannish people, us New Yorkers.

And that stays true when he loses to Domon, even though he feels he's let everyone down, even though he feels a sense of humiliation for not winning.

They are so invested in his life story.

They are so invested in his journey and so proud of him as a hometown boy who made good.

They aren't upset with him for losing as long as he keeps fighting, as long as he doesn't let the loss keep him down.

Whomst among us has not been sobbing on a subway at 2am being carefully and respectfully ignored by our fellow New Yorkers.

Except perhaps a quick.

Are you okay?

Do you need help?

Or the offer of some tissues?

We've all been in the gutter.

We all dream of reaching the stars.

Although not perhaps the kind of gutter they show in this episode.

They show Chibote as a kid hanging out in a culvert off of what appears to be a canal.

Manhattan had canals long, long time ago.

And some of them might still be there, but they're subterranean.

They're completely buried.

It's possible that way up north in Manhattan, there are still culverts like that.

I don't know that part of Manhattan as well, but I don't think so.

The implication is that Chippide is from the Lower east side, because he.

Or the Bowery.

Yeah, the bar that Domon is drinking, where they're like, oh, Chipide was from around this neighborhood.

The sign outside says East 7th, which puts it really near McSwirley's.

Actually, I think McSwirley's is on East 7th.

It's a famous bar.

There are a lot of.

When we talk about the dive bars, it's because we used to hang out there quite a bit.

He's just like me, for real.

Domon.

If you go like a block north, there's a really great Izakaya.

It's called Kenka.

Look for the giant tanuki statue outside.

There are actually a lot of really great Japanese bars and restaurants around there now.

Maybe he's avoiding St.

Mark's because he doesn't want to be recognized.

You know, what they didn't manage to convey about New York is the frequency of running into celebrities.

Also, no subways.

Very inaccurate.

Yeah.

How could they not even a little bit incorporate the subway?

The sound mix is at no time interrupted by the rumble of the subway or a helicopter going overhead or somebody honking outside.

No angry cabbies.

I don't think we saw a single yellow cab.

No.

Also, when they were on East 7th street, there was no sidewalk.

Imagawa san.

New York has sidewalks.

They're actually a really important part of our culture.

But before we get into the episode too much, one other thing that we watched in preparation for this episode was because according to Imagawa's Wikipedia page, this film was hugely influential on him.

And it was the Rocky Horror Picture.

Show, if his Japanese Wikipedia page is to be believed.

When he was in middle school, Imagawa was really into anime.

But then he watched the Rocky Horror Picture show, and he decided anime is boring.

Cinema is where it's at.

I think middle school is the perfect age to watch the Rocky Horror Picture show for the first time.

I was in middle school, the first time I saw Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Tom was several days younger the first time he saw the Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Don't tell them that.

They'll bully me.

But as we were watching it, we didn't know this going in.

We realized it actually was a specific inspiration for this episode because that little bit that stalker does where he says in English, I would like, if I may, to take you.

That's lifted not just the words, but that specific intonation is lifted directly from.

From the opening narration of Rocky Horror Picture Show.

We also discovered that Domon's tattoo is almost certainly partially inspired by Rocky Horror Picture Show.

This is the one on the back of his hand with the playing card heart and king and sword through it, but also some numbers.

Yeah.

The tattoo incorporates the number sequence 4711, which we realized watching Rocky Horror is also a number sequence tattooed on Frank.

And Furter's thigh Bandai has.

Presumably because they either don't know this or would prefer to avoid the association, Bandai has crafted their own alternative explanation for where this number comes from, which I found on the ad copy for like a silk jacket they were selling with the King of Hearts logo on the back.

And their explanation is that this is because Domon is the 4711th generation inheritor of his martial arts style, which seems implausible.

That's too many generations.

We had to do a little digging on this.

But 4711 is actually the name of a cologne that is manufactured in Cologne, Germany.

Is that where the name comes from?

I believe so, yes.

It's like an Appalachian name thing.

They get to actually use the the special name or whatever.

No darling, Appalachia is in the United States.

And this is a very, very old, hundreds of years old cologne brand.

I think if I'm remembering the Wikipedia right, it dates to the 1700s.

Wow.

And has gone in and out of popularity.

It is still being manufactured now and in the 70s when Rocky Horror Picture show came out, was associated at least in London where the show first went up with gay men.

One of those little tells, I suppose, like Ginger and Fred.

Rocky Horror is that combination of the spectacle, the glitz, the sequins and the.

Transgressive element, the course, the lewd, but.

Also just the pure joy of putting on a show.

The pure joy of the spectacle of it all.

Well, and like you said, that's embodied in Lamb Lies down on Broadway.

The main character of the rock opera is like a young down on his luck punk.

He's violent, he does graffiti.

There are drug fueled serpent orgies and.

Autocastration and that New York in its multiple identities embodies that too.

There are points when they reference Broadway and then the final fight happens in Times Square.

Broadway.

Even in the darkest times of New York's history, for as long as it's been, Broadway has been full of beautiful theaters putting on great shows.

There are posters throughout this episode referencing real shows.

All that Jazz, man of La Mancha, cats, the Wiz, one I had never heard of from the 70s called I Love My Wife.

And then right next to it you have Times Square, which now is very touristy, but in the 70s and 80s was mostly like porn theaters and had a lot of criminal activity and a lot of sex work and was generally an area people avoided.

And none of this is accidental because unlike previous Gundam shows which were about war, this is about sports.

Sports is a performance, Sports is spectacle.

There's very little difference really between sports, Broadway and pornography.

It's all about display.

It's all about showing off the capabilities of the human body.

It's about movement and light and color.

And making an audience feel something.

Making everyone gasp.

That gets reinforced by the ticker tape parade, which is a thing we still do and is frequently an honor given to winning sports teams.

There's a particular section, I think, of Broadway, but way downtown, where they throw these parades.

The Canyon of Heroes, the big stadium event.

Although the level of organization of those fans is much more reminiscent of Japanese sports fans than Americans.

Our fans occasionally put on big organized displays, but it's a rarity.

Whereas my understanding of Japanese sports sports is that like every game, the.

The fans put up big organized displays and songs and chants.

And then the boxing match, which is.

Well, it appears to be at.

I'm almost certain it is Madison Square Garden, a location that has a lot.

Of prestige for boxers.

Fighting at the Garden is a big deal.

There has been boxing at Madison Square garden since the 1800s.

The fight of the century was there.

And in the early 90s, this would have been the era of George Foreman, Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield.

So fighting at the Garden, it's again, it's the spectacle.

It was also the era of Buster Douglas, who I think, based on the overall face shape, is probably the specific inspiration for Carmel.

Carmel Komoni Kanomi.

You know, to get a little meta with it.

We're watching a choreographed pantomime of a sports match.

It eradicates the dividing line that would normally separate sports from sports entertainment, which is to say pro wrestling.

And of course, this is true of Rocky.

It's true of any movie which depicts a sporting event.

Very postmodern.

It is.

It has become a work through the process of making it into a narrative.

And this has it all.

This has the drama, this has the betrayal, the cheating.

Where is the ref?

Though I would also point out a.

Lot of athletes support their athletic career.

Reinforce their athletic career by having very dramatic personalities that keep people interested in them, even if they are not the best at what they do.

So even in sports, you do see some degree of that showmanship.

I mean, Chibode entering the ring on, we hope, a fake Maxterhead, but maybe the real Maxterhead, who knows?

Flanked by four ring girls who are also his.

He described them as his team, I believe.

And so they're probably mechanics or doctors or therapists.

His masseuse call them the new Shrike team.

Bunny, Cass, Janet, and I think Cass.

It sounds Like Cass when he says it.

But it's written Cath in the subtitles.

And.

Do you remember the last one?

I would have to check my notes.

I wrote them down.

Sorry.

The last one.

They do get great outfits, though.

I like their suits.

Did you notice each of them has like a colored stripe across her chest?

And the four different colors are all color picked from different aspects of Chibide's outfit?

No, I didn't notice.

But we should talk about both his design and the Maxter design.

Thibaulay.

The main thing that I noticed about his design is that he wears this jacket that's fringed.

That kind of fringe you see a lot in leather jackets that are associated with what's called Western wear.

His last name, Crockett, is a reference to Davy Crockett, a real historical figure, but who was heavily mythologized and associated with the Bush West.

One of those who died at the Alamo, right?

I don't remember.

You forgot the Alamo.

You're from Texas.

I'm not from Texas.

I lived in Texas.

I lived there less than I lived in almost any other place I've lived.

The Gundam Maxter, with a head that looks an awful lot like an American football helmet.

As do the shoulder pauldron pieces.

And then transforms later, sheds part of the helmet, sheds the shoulder pieces, sheds part of a chest plate and looks like a boxer.

Why does it have pecs and abs?

What's that for?

Why did the ancient Greeks make their chest plates look like they had muscles on them?

Intimidate the enemy.

Exactly.

I do have a bone to pick with you, though.

In the recap, you describe the shield that the Maxter can ride on as a surfboard.

However, with the way the feet sort of snap into place on top of it, it's much more like a snowboard.

I've never done either.

But what is snowboarding if not surfing?

The powder.

He's sky surfing.

And I stand by that.

Even if he has to clip in for it.

I have no response to that.

I don't personally think much of either Chibote's design or that of the Maxter.

Which is a shame because I like him as a character a lot.

He's got pizazz.

I like his hot blooded attitude.

He's a very likable version of a particular set of masculine stereotypes and ideals.

But they managed to keep him likable.

Right?

But he's cocky.

He's so arrogant and cocky, which I understand is a thing that a lot of foreign countries associate with Americans.

He's like Sligger Law, but likable.

Yeah, likable Slagger Law.

He's pugnacious, but his arrogance and his confidence are based in his abilities.

And he also has pride and a code.

He feels humiliated by being sucker punched, even though everybody acknowledges it was a sucker punch.

And you know, the guy cheated in.

The combat sports, in boxing, in martial arts, there is the fantasy that being good at the sport means you are a good fighter in a kind of abstract way.

You are a modern day warrior.

Chibide is a sportsman.

He's a boxer.

He has his entire career been protected by the rules of boxing.

He hasn't had to worry about being sucker punched before the bell.

He hasn't had to worry about his opponent pulling out a gun and shooting him because he's protected by the rules of boxing, which don't allow those things.

And while he may have been a street fighter as a young child, that was some time ago.

He's lost his edge.

As is often the case when you have the great star who crashes back down to Earth and then needs to be built back up again by the people who always believed in him.

He's gotten cocky.

He's lost his edge.

And when Domon lands that blow on him, it punctures the fantasy.

It reminds him that he's just a sportsman, not a great warrior.

And that is humiliating.

That's a beautiful shot in the episode though, as he is falling to the mat.

Look of shock and pain on his face, and there is that huge banner depicting him looking triumphant behind.

That's so good.

It's really good.

I think Imagawa might be like pretty good director on a visual level.

Yeah.

And then later he describes the actions of the various government soldiers and officials as an embarrassment to Neo America because he does believe in a fair contest of strength versus strength.

To them, he is only a means to an end.

He is a way to garner like political power through the Gundam fight.

Or I mean, for them, he is their ticket to the colonies.

Because all of these goons, despite being agents of the United States government, and we're going to talk about that in a second.

I think they are not part of the elite who get to live in the colonies.

They're down here in the mud with all the rest of us.

And it's those principles.

Not just the principles.

I think it's also Chibote's strength and the fact that the glancing blow he lands on Domon really messes Domon up.

But strength with principles earns Domon's respects.

And that's why Domon doesn't take him out of the Gundam fight entirely.

That's why he doesn't wreck the Maxter's head at the end of their fight.

Also, I think, because the people love him.

This is part of what makes Chibote likable for us, is that we can see all of the other characters in the show who do like him, who see the good in him, whatever his arrogance.

We know it comes from a place of having overcome tremendous difficulties, that he is an inspiration for everybody.

Even for his ring girls who work with him pretty closely.

So if he was nasty behind the scenes, they would know.

Yeah, yeah.

They all seem to genuinely like him.

I'm assuming they're all dating.

I assume it's a polycule situation when they're all sort of hanging off of him and he's just in the armchair leaning back, going ha ha ha.

Happy.

Who wouldn't be?

And we cannot ignore the symbolism of the shining Gundam arriving on Liberty island wrapped in part of the old Statue of Liberty right next to Ellis island, which famously processed many, many, many immigrants arriving in New York from Europe in a very short period of time.

And obviously immigration to the Americas has happened through lots of different ports of entry, but that's why the Statue of Liberty is there.

It's there to receive those seeking refuge or opportunity.

Well, the.

The episode is about the American Dream.

So why is the reason they keep using the word dream over and over again?

It's the reason Chibotei talks about his dream, seizing his dream.

And the Statue of Liberty represents one version of what the American Dream could be.

The contrast between the people and Chibotei on one hand and the U.S.

ministry of Defense and the actions of the Neo American government is really the contrast between the high minded ideals of America, the dream of what America could and should be, and the lived reality of what it is for many people.

Because of course, if.

If the Gundam Fight is the way that governments get to be in charge of everything for four years, every government that can would have scouts out looking for the best fighters and would have really intense development programs to try to find the best Gundam Fighter.

And of course they would try to assassinate other Gundam fighters.

Any advantage you can get.

Our government has a reputation for interfering in the governance of other countries.

Why not via Gundam Fight?

And they don't really care about Chibure except as a means to an end.

They will turn on him in a second if they feel that he is in their way.

And that hit us hard right now.

Yeah, we are recording this episode on Wednesday, January 28, 2026, within just a few days of US government goons executing multiple people in broad daylight on the streets of American cities.

And we don't even know how many people in detention or in other circumstances.

So this episode hit a little bit differently than it would have done in 1994.

I think there's something very prescient about it though.

America has lost its hegemony in the world and is desperate to reclaim it.

And its agents will do any amount of evil to make that happen.

We're only two episodes in, but so far the fights themselves and the episodes around them already give lie to the stated purpose of the Gundam fight.

That it's supposed to be like determining who rules the world, but by sportsmanly principles.

But everybody cheats.

That sounds like sports to me.

But the people are not their governments.

And there will always be people who try to hold the government to account for its misdeeds.

And through the principles of sportsmanship, through.

Through the commonality of martial artists around the world, Domon and Chibote are able to defeat those US government thugs, give them what's coming to them, and then have a good honest bout between the two of them.

Chibote manages to punch with such Ki energy that it blocks a bunch of missiles.

I keep telling you, martial arts Ki particles.

And then when they're fist to fist, seeing whose power is the strongest.

The animation of the maxter's arm shattering was just beautiful.

It is a good looking show.

And maybe people who aren't Gundam fighters also sometimes have magical powers.

Because it really seems like that one government guy, maybe mind controlled Bunny.

Is that what was going on there?

It kind of seemed like it.

He was like speaking through her.

Yeah.

And then she collapsed and she gets hypnotized or something.

Yeah.

It's called MK Ultra.

We also get a bit more insight into Domon that beyond his mission, a lot of the rules of society don't matter to him.

Like sucker punching some guys.

Like, why not?

That is within the realms of acceptable behavior.

In order to get this challenge and try to track down the guy from the photograph has to be tricked into taking his medicine.

That's just how medicine is gonna work in the future.

Whenever you're sick, a beautiful woman will just lob mystery pills into your mouth.

She's gonna get him hooked on opiates.

I did crack up seeing him sit up in bed and go where am I?

When the very bright neon sign directly out the window says Manhattan.

If this were a different kind of show, there would have been like a red arrow that appeared on screen after he asked, where am I?

That just pointed, pointed at the sign.

But what was the deal with those odd almost teleportation cuts of rain when she comes into the room?

It was so arty.

It must be from some movie.

That must be an homage to something.

I just don't know what it is.

Yeah, me neither.

I do know the room that Domon is in was inspired by Rear Window, the Hitchcock film which Imagawa referenced to give a sense of a room that felt American.

Which specifically was that it wasn't just a simple square box, that it had that two tiered construction with a short flight of steps leading down from the door to the main part of the room.

He thought that exuded American ness.

I really liked the little bit of comedy at first.

Rayn seems very flirtatious.

She goes in almost like she's leaning in for the kiss.

And then pries his eye open to look at his pupil.

Well, she knows he won't hold still for medical care.

She's also a vehicle's sidekick.

It turns out she's the one who turns up with the boat, which.

Where did she get a boat?

Don't worry about it.

And a bright pink motorcycle, which is pretty cool.

You were saying that scene on East 50th where he's in the fog by the river is based on something from a movie also.

So this is when Domon is like.

He's been staggered by that body blow from Chibote and he like collapses next to a bench in the fog in a park underneath a bridge.

There's a sign that says East 50th Street.

There's no bridge at East 50th.

The nearest bridge is like 10 blocks away.

But.

But that scene, Imagawa was asking his team, like, what.

What makes you think of New York?

What can we draw that will make the audience think that's New York?

And they all said the Brooklyn Bridge.

So he said, great, I know a film that depicts the Brooklyn Bridge.

And he went home and he got his VHS copy, or at least the box of the VHS copy of Woody Allen's Manhattan brought it in.

And the COVID of the film depicts a bench in the fog in a park underneath the bridge exactly like that one.

So that's where they got that image.

The bridge in question is not the Brooklyn Bridge.

It's the Queensborough Bridge, which is up at 59th Street.

It's a very distinctive bridge.

It doesn't look anything like the Brooklyn Bridge, but you know we'll allow it.

The one they actually drew in the show doesn't quite look like the Queensborough either.

It kind of looks like a hybrid of the two.

Interestingly, when it comes to landmarks, I only recall seeing the Empire State Building in the one shot.

At the very end, you can see the Empire State Building in the background of Times Square.

The Twin Towers are in the opening shot, though they're obscured by clouds until the last possible second of the shot.

So it's not as in your face as it is in some other movies from this era.

This will come up more when I talk about the prologue episodes.

But between the prologue episodes and this episode, I think the early 90s must have been peak.

Using English is cool in Japan.

Kibote Crockett.

Nice guy.

Yeah, very liberal use of English words and phrases in the prologue episodes and in this episode, sort of peppered throughout.

It's also New York.

Maybe Domon has been reading his little.

Tourist guidebook, learning helpful English phrases like nice guy.

Excuse me, I am from foreign lands.

I have come here for combat.

Where is your strongest young man?

I did enjoy the contrast between the Gundam fight in Rome, where they're telling everybody, get at least three miles away.

Like, and people die in the Gundam fights.

And everyone's freaking out.

And then New York, where they're like, come out to the stadium to watch the Gundam fight.

Get the good seats right up close, and everybody is like, running to the Gundam fight when it's happening in Times Square.

Now that's accurate.

Yeah, we would do that.

Those are our people.

I feel bad for the fans though.

Like, imagine the hometown boy has come home for a title unification match.

Earth versus the Colonies.

The biggest boxing event of your lifetime.

You've got tickets at the Garden.

The match doesn't even happen because some dude shows up, shows up in disguise, replacing one of the two fighters.

And by the way, how did that.

How did he get away with that?

How could that possibly have happened?

Boxers do not enter the ring alone.

They have a team with them, an entourage, people who would recognize them, who would notice other each even if you were wearing a hood that that, like.

Lanky Japanese guy is not.

Is not.

The big, muscular black dude who he.

Was supposed to be is not a heavyweight boxer.

I looked up the, like, official stats.

Domon is at least 10 kg lighter than Chibide, and therefore at least 10 kg lighter than ChibiDe's opponent.

Wow.

How did anyone let this happen?

Don't worry about it.

Good answer.

Not only does the match at the Garden not happen, but a makeup match.

A Gundam fight is then planned for the next morning.

You schlep out to Brooklyn to watch the Gundam fight, and it doesn't even happen there either.

It happens back in Times Square, where no one lives.

Heartbreaking, Heartbreaking.

Neo Ticketmaster had better give refunds.

I don't know.

I assume Neo Ticketmaster is even more evil than current Ticketmaster.

Is that even possible?

And now Nina's report on the three prologue episodes of G Gundam.

As Tom mentioned, there were three prologue episodes filling the time slot for the three weeks between when Victory ended and G Gundam was actually ready to air.

Their format is that of a TV special with two hosts and a variety of segments about Gundam generally, and about G Gundam in particular.

From Tom's research last week, we know why Bandai needed something to put in this timeslot.

Use it or lose it, right?

We also know that whatever they put there needed to be relatively cheap and easy to make.

For one thing, they weren't going to make much money on the ad slots.

Bandai itself seems to have been the main sponsor and advertiser for the special.

The other sponsors were Morinaga Candy Company, a long time Gundam sponsor, and Seika Note, the character Goods branch of the Sun Star Stationery Company, which is, as of right now, when we're recording this.

Part of Bandai Namco Holdings.

Interestingly, when they list sponsors in the third installment, they use Bandai's corporate slogan Yume Creation or Dream Creation rather than the company name.

As for advertisements, they were mostly for Bandai products.

Gundam transforming toys and model kits, video games based on Bandai properties, and Bandai shows being released on videocassette and laserdisc.

Then a couple of ads from the other sponsors for snacks, chocolates, and Mickey and Minnie Mouse themed stationery.

And the other ads were kind of a weird hodgepodge.

One for a ranch themed family resort makes sense.

The second for toothpaste is less well fitted, but doesn't feel totally off base.

But the last one was for a men's hair regrowth product, which seems like a mismatch not only for the timeslot most salarymen would not have been home, but also for both longtime Gundam fans.

And the kids Bandai was hoping to attract to this new series, which tells.

Us that the ad agency may have had a hard time selling those ad slots.

On top of that, the G Gundam team were scrambling to get actual episodes done.

They didn't have bandwidth to produce a.

Bunch of work for a filler TV.

Special, so you won't be surprised to hear that a significant portion of each prologue episode is just stills and clips.

From previous Gundam series.

Clips introducing previous protagonists, opening songs, mobile suits, iconic fights, and other memorable scenes.

While there are a handful of stills from War in the pocket, F91 and 0083, the focus is very clearly on the series that aired on TV first Gundam Zeta, Double Zeta and Victory.

I'm fairly certain Char's Counterattack never came up at all.

I remember seeing at least one clip the Sazabi shows up briefly in one of these, like, guess that Mobile suit segments.

Okay, yes, they did mention some of the mobile suits, that's true, but it.

Definitely seems like there's a focus on kids Gundam and not adult Gundam.

There were some very lightly animated fact sheets about mobile suits from previous series, all the protagonist Gundams, and then many.

Many, many enemy mobile suits, probably based on which suits were the most popular with fans.

These fact sheets included information like the name and serial number, height and weight of the suit, what it's made of, its generator and thruster power, and its typical complement of weapons.

This is what people did before Wikis.

At one point in the first prologue episode, they talk about the space colony cylinders, including providing some stats on the population, approximately 5 million, diameter 4 km and 30 to 40 km.

I did crack up on hearing the kid host refer to the centerline structure of the colony cylinder as the dango skewer for G Gundam.

A few clips were shown mostly of the opening or brief snippets from the first episode, but the majority of the G Gundam visuals were production stills.

For example, lots of setae, which are drawings that establish the design of characters, important vehicles, settings, and so on.

There were also pencil sketches and full color character art for some of the earliest to appear characters in Mobile Fighters.

Some test animation, storyboards, completed backgrounds, and even some digital renderings which I struggle.

To evaluate through the eyes of 1994.

I don't know if they look bad because it's 2026 or if they looked bad in 1994.

Also, in one of my favorite segments.

They display the mock ups for the Shining Gundam, Gundam Maxter, and several more soon to be revealed Mobile Fighters.

Mock ups being the physical models made during the design process for the Gunpla plastic model kits.

They also featured brief interviews with members of the production team, including Planning Manager Nakayama Kotaro, Art director Higashi Junichi, character designer Osaka Hiroshi, Script manager Kitajima Hiroaki, and Gobu Fuyunori who worked on series composition.

One segment in the Third prologue was a how does anime get made?

Sort of thing with stills and short video clips from behind the scenes showing production meetings, animators at their desks and so on.

As well as a member of the color team showing the kid host her workstation and what a completed cell looks like, and a member of the photography team showing the kid how the backgrounds and cells are layered on the machine and letting the kid press the I don't know if it's called a shutter.

On this piece of equipment, but anyway the kid gets to press the button that takes the picture.

It felt familiar.

There's a particular style of documentary for children that they were definitely replicating, but at the same time it felt a.

Bit like Bandai making excuses for why G Gundam wasn't airing already.

Especially when the kid is repeatedly making.

Comments like I wanna watch it now.

And the adult host who provides most.

Of the voice over narration throughout these episodes responds by talking about how difficult.

And time consuming anime is to make and how many thousands of drawings go into a single episode.

I don't know whether this was conscious or not, but beyond filling time, it seems that whoever planned this three episode TV special was trying to fulfill two firstly, to ground G Gundam in the Gundam lineage, to connect it to the long running franchise that pre existing fans know and love, and secondly, to talk about G Gundam in a way that would manage those fans expectations and excite a new generation of viewers.

These two or I guess three goals are often at cross purposes.

All the time spent harkening back to previous series, sharing fan favorite scenes and mobile suits, establishing G Gundam as the next entry.

New but still Gundam feels undercut by all the segments that point out the differences from the totally changed colony designs to the new mobile trace control system for the Gundam fighters.

The art director Higashi talks about how until then Gundam has had a more serious image, but that G Gundam is more fun.

On the one hand we have the kinds of background design documents and mobile suit fact sheets that appeal to a certain kind of fan.

And on the other hand we, the people making and listening to msb, know that those kinds of hard sci fi elements were not something Imagawa cared much.

About for G Gundam.

I want to talk about the hosts in a bit more detail because they are part of this high wire act.

That Bandai is attempting and also quite interesting in their own right.

The younger host is Uchiyama Shinji, a child talent who had his big break on a show called Apare San Ma Dai Sensei.

He would have been about 12 or 13 years old in this TV special and yet was already past the peak of his career.

He had a reputation for being really unpleasant to work with and had been effectively blackballed by the time he was in middle school.

Bandai continuing to work with a blackballed actor?

Shocking.

Haha.

Topical reference One article I found described the most egregious behavior this at the time, Uchiyama looked down on all the adults around him except for Sanma, the program producers and some of the ads.

When his parents scolded him, he would retort, I make more money than you guys.

He would also play pranks on staff such as putting super glue in their shoes, and would make his manager line up to buy video games and take English classes for for him.

Even in his private life when he had a girlfriend, he would go on dates to high end restaurants and buy Chanel bags as gifts, behaving in ways.

That were unbecoming of a child.

I'm imagining a 12 year old rolling up to Per Se with his little.

Girlfriend.

When Aparesanma Dai sensei ended in 1996, Uchiyama was not offered other work.

He lost friends, dropped out of school, got into some trouble until an old mentor reached out to him and encouraged him to give acting another shot.

This mentor and a couple of others helped him work on his comedic fat guy Persona and called in some favors to get him work.

Uchiyama famously appeared on a talk show to discuss the pitfalls of childhood stardom, his fall from grace and his career revival.

Now he works fairly regularly.

If you watched the live action Fullmetal Alchemist movies he played Gluttony.

The adult host is Michael Anthony Sheridan, stage name Michael Morioka, an actor, talent and vj.

That's Video DJ for the youths among.

You from Queens, New York, baby.

His mom was Japanese American and his dad an American working for the U.S.

air Force.

They moved to Japan when Morioka was young and he grew up in Tokyo.

He started modeling at age 9, got his first commercial acting gig when he was 16 and started working as a VJ for MTV Japan in 1985 when he was about 24 years old.

He's worked extensively in TV, film and radio.

You might have seen him in ultraman Dinah Episode 44 or the 2016 Ultraman X the movie Here Comes Our ultraman.

And in 1993 he had just appeared in a very popular TV commercial totally unrelated to Gundam.

But I have to share one last tidbit about him.

In 2017, Morioka visited his father's grave and posted a Photo of it on his Instagram.

Thanks to this post, he found out that he had two half sisters in.

The United States that he had not known about.

Okay, back to Gundam.

The general patter between these two is that Uchiyama the kid is there to ask questions and to react to the various segments by talking about how cool it all is and how he can't wait to watch G Gundam while Morioka the adult is there to answer questions and explain things about Gundam as well.

As for the cool factor of being an MTV VJ and peppering the episodes with English words and phrases, it works fairly well.

And while I wouldn't say they have exceptional chemistry for two people who hadn't worked together before, they still managed to have a friendly and playful rapport.

There's one bit in, I think the second of the episodes where Morioka, the full grown adult man, they're discussing martial arts in some context, but he just like grabs the kid around the around the head and starts like miming elbows and knee strikes at him.

This is before they go into a segment explaining how the control system and the fighting of the Gundam fighters works.

So the kid asks, well, how does the fighting work?

And Morioka says, I'll show you.

And they start play fighting.

That PA whose shoes you filled with superglue told me to do this.

Bam.

What's really awful actually about the pranks.

And the being rude to production staff is apparently Uchiyama.

The kid had a really good sense.

For who was on their way up career wise, who was likely to get promoted and be important and who wasn't, and he only picked on people he didn't think were going to be important later.

Oh, that's the worst.

Yeah.

There is one final element of these TV special prologue episodes that I want to address, which is that in generating excitement for G Gundam, they show basically no concern about things that we would now call spoilers.

Characters and mobile fighters from at least the first five episodes are shown multiple times.

They play a clip of the Shining Finger Attack, and at one point I actually had Tom watch part of it for me because they were starting to.

Show even more of the mobile fighters.

From later in the series, and I knew he wanted some of them to.

Be a surprise for me.

Apparently in that section they also just.

Tell the audience who the man in.

Domon's photo is, so don't say we didn't warn you.

The prologue episodes spoil quite a few.

Things that would otherwise be surprises.

In the end, the TV special fulfilled its primary objective, holding the time slot and giving the G Gundam team time to finish the episode.

Whether it succeeded at selling the series to existing fans and prepping them for the vibe shift, or getting a new generation excited for the latest Gundam installment, only time will tell.

No, no, I'll tell right now.

It didn't.

G Gundam did not land well.

The existing Gundam audience was not mollified, and it sounds like the new audience may have been more receptive, but they were not buying enough model kits to keep the toy makers happy.

At least not yet.

But they've got a year to turn things around.

We'll see if they do.

Next time on episode 11.3 Kung Fu Hassle, we research and discuss G Gundam Episode three and the Greater Wall.

How will the audience know we're in China?

You know, Shaolin Mahjong, lion dance, China stuff.

Mischievous little scamp Dragon hands sleeping in the road like.

Like some sort of snorlax.

A suspiciously knowledgeable wandering chef.

Burninating the.

Peasants and their tile roofed cottages.

Domon can't catch a break and he's just a little guy.

And it's the Gundam fight.

He's just a little Gundam fight boy.

You wouldn't hit a little Gundam fight boy, would you?

Ready?

Go.

Mobile Suit Breakdown is written, recorded and produced by us, Tom and Nina in scenic New York City within the ancestral and unceded land of the Lenape people and made possible by listeners like you.

The opening track is Wasp by Misha Dayakhsen, the closing music is A Long Way Home by Spinning Ratio, and the recap music is window by 1000 hands.

You can find links to the sources for our research, the music used in the episode, additional information about the Lenape people, and more in the show notes on our website gundampodcast.com if you'd like to get in touch with us, you can email hostsundompodcast.com or look for links to our social media accounts on our website.

And if you would like to support the show, please share us with your friends.

Leave a nice review wherever you listen to podcasts or support us financially@gundampodcast.com Patreon you can find links and more ways to help out@gundumpodcast.com support thank you for listening.

Are you ready to come down to Neo New York and throw hands over your Gundam opinions?

No, you lack conviction.

Or maybe you just haven't heard an opinion worth fighting over yet.

How about this one inspired by Snow Whistle?

Domwin may be off to a strong start, but he's got his work cut out for him if he hopes to beat the Gundam Fighter from Neo Bison.

Well, they're always raging for a fight.

And I'm hearing impressive things about their new Burn Burning Gundam.

Let's begin.

Before we start.

Before.

Before we start.

Let's begin.

We could just keep talking about all the things that got wrong about New York.

Sometimes kids just have.

Have bad vibes.

Rain is in pudding mode.

No, we're giving them the authentic New York experience.

Well, that's.

You know what?

You're right with it.

Oh, I'm Nina.

I know the difference between snowboards and surfboards.

The Broadway posters didn't surprise me, but the poster for Pantera sure did.

Maybe somebody on staff really liked Pantera.

They're a metal band.

By the way.

Try to hit like a lower register with your voice.

It gets very raspy, but when you do the vocal warm ups, it's very.

You get like a very rich sound and hit like very deep pitch.

Oh, no.

Practice helps.

This is episode 11.2, bullets over Broadway.

Battles Over Broadway.

Battle Bullets Over Broadway is the name of the movie and we wanted to change it.

I thought.

Okay, yes, sure.

Yes.

Battles Over Broadway.

This is episode of 11.2.