A little something different for Mecha Monday: Who wants to watch the original Gundam?

Because, as it turns out, the entire series is on YouTube for free! I feel a tad dumb for not knowing this sooner, especially since it's been on there for two years. I'd suggest muting the sound for the first minute or so on each episode. All of them have a commercial for the Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn DVD at the beginning. Then there's the music. I mean, if you're into listening to a guy singing the theme music overly-dramatically in Japanese, then you're day is made.

If you've never watch Mobile Suit Gundam, you are in a treat. The whole premise is that it's the year 079 UC - Universal Century) and a good chunk of the human race is living in giant space colonies orbiting the Earth, called Sides. Well, at the beginning of the year, a group of colonies, Side 3, join together as the Principality of Zeon, declare independence from the Earth and proceeds to commit acts of genocide that, if real, would made the Holocaust look minor by comparison. Both Zeon and the Earth Federation employed nukes, but the former went further. Zeon forces would actually wipe out the entire population of Federation-allied colonies or ones they suspected supported their enemies by pumping nerve gas into their air supply. Oh, it gets worse, believe it or not. I guess the writers really wanted to make Zeon totally despicable, because these guys would use colonies themselves as weapons against Earth. Believe it or not, Zeon would drop a colony into the Earth's atmosphere and completely wiped out Sydney, Australia.

Space colonies as kinetic weapons. Damn.

In any event, before the year was over, half the populations of the two sides were killed and common sense finally came to them. Horrified by what they'd done, Earth and Zeon signed a treaty in Antarctica agreeing not to go extreme like that again. The show opens in the eighth month of the One Year War. Anyway, check out the first episode below.



That awkward moment when a teenager with no prior experience at piloting a mecha manages to destroy several experienced veteran pilots.

Here's the first episode of On The Table

On The Table is that show on YouTube that I posted about two weeks ago that covers wargaming, RPGs, and other tabletop gaming. The premiere episode went up on Geek & Sundry's channel the other day and I finally got around to watching it.



It's okay, but I wasn't particularly blown away by it. I was hoping for some actual discussion or coverage of the subject matter, not just a guy reporting gaming news. Then again, it's the first episode (of the fifth season, since the show just changed hosts to G&S), so it'll probably get better. They should add a co-host to split the reporting so that it isn't just fourteen minutes of one guy.

So, thoughts? Is On The Table worth watching?

Mecha Monday: Mazinger Z

Mazinger Z by Jose Manuel Liebana.

Originally, I was going to go with Gigantor, since he was the first super robot of anime/manga. The thing is, Gigantor isn't a mecha, since he's controlled externally. So, I did some checking and discovered that the first mecha was Mazinger Z. Whereas the former was controlled by a 12 year old with a remote control system, Mazinger was piloted by Kouji Kabuto from Mazinger's head. The cartoon's intro isn't bad either.



I like the bit where the snake monster grabs Mazinger's arm and he just rocket punches the fuck out of it.

Oh, you need a hand? How about a fist? A ROCKET FIST, I MEAN! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

But in all seriousness, the placement of the cockpit just seems bad. I mean, when I watched the intro for the first time and they showed the whatever it is drop down inside Mazinger's head, I figured top would close up, but it doesn't and you have to wonder about it. One lucky shot and the mecha is just a big statue. I do regret not watching this show, though. To be fair, I was like two years old when the show was imported to the U.S. as Tranzor Z in 1985, so I wasn't up for it. Always a good time to catch up, I suppose.

Mecha Monday: MS-05A Zaku I Early Type from Mobile Suit Gundam

Seemed appropriate, since it was the first mobile suit the Principality of Zeon mass produced prior to the One Year War.

Gundam Wiki.

While the MS-05A Zaku I Early Type was the first mobile suit to be mass produced, it was not the first to be deployed. By the time the OYW erupted, the Zeon military had already moved on to the Zaku IIs and the Is were relegated to construction and support jobs in the rear. They were ultimately deployed near the end of that war as Zeon had lost a considerable amount of its mobile suit force.

Awesome new thing: Mecha Monday!

Because like a incontinent person, this blog needs some regularity, I'm creating a new weekly feature that (should) run every Monday: Mecha Monday! The mechs will come from various franchises such as Gundam, BattleTech, Macross/Robotech, and more.

And if I actually manage to keep this up for more than four weeks, I'll be amazed.

I totally forgot that Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome was still a thing

Hopefully the title card won't be the coolest part of the series.
Battlestar Wiki.

I blame Syfy, who unceremoniously dumped the prequel series to Ron Moore's excellent remake to the internet after the failure of the other BSG prequel (to both series), Caprica. Blood & Chrome is set during the tenth year of the First Cylon War and the main character is a young Viper pilot named William Adama (that name rings a bell) who is assigned to the Galactica. Here's to hoping that this series has a copious amount of battles and a lot less pseudo-religious mysticism.

Griping aside, the first two episodes of the ten episode series just premiered on Machinima Prime's YouTube channel and Syfy plans on airing the series as a movie next year, which means that the episodes must be super short. Awesome. Check out the first two episodes after the jump and share your thoughts in the comments.

A new internet show about wargaming, you say? Jolly good!

This should be quite a treat for any wargamers who read Rayguns, Geek and Sundry announced the other day that they'll be debuting a new series on their YouTube channel all about miniature wargaming. The series is called On The Table and interestingly, is replacing Wil Wheaton's TableTop series, which itself is about tabletop gaming and is going on hiatus until January. That last bit scared me a little when I first read it, since TableTop is so damn good. Anyway, On The Table will be hosted by Warren Johnston from Beast of War, a wargaming website.

The first episode is set to premiere on November 15 on the Geek and Sundry YouTube Channel. I think it's interesting and really shows how popular wargaming is growing. If you look at the rest of G&S's lineup, OTT seems like an odd bird. You have Sword & Laser (based on the podcast of the same name), The Flog (creator Felicia Day's vlog/show), the aforementioned TableTop, The Guild (which is worth watching), and a couple of other shows are all fairly lighthearted. Having a show about Warhammer, Flames of War, Warmachine, historical wargaming, and more is a very nice change of pace and hopefully, it'll be a success.

If you do watch it, remember to click the like button, because that's apparently how they gauge how well the shows are doing.

So, what do you think? Is your interest peaked enough to check it out?

You know what the best part of election day is?

No more frakking campaign ads on TV!

Gif Garage.

Things that exist: Family Circus does Warhammer 40k

This actually happened.

ArcaMax.

What's next? A Dagwood strip about Infinity: The Game?

h/t Topless Robot.