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Just like with my Eva 1.0 rewatch log I also took forever to write this. This time I’m not exactly sure why. With the previous one I hadn’t committed to writing a log for every movie, but with this the only thing I can think of is that I’ve been stressed out lately. Because of that I’ll do a much more boring log and not get too deep.

With this movie they still follow the general arc of the show but they deviate enough from it making it more interesting than what 1.0 did. Shinji is as a character is much more active and actually gets stuff done (which will work well for him I’m sure). This felt much more overt with its theming, almost reaching Hollywood levels—but it didn’t get insulting (like with Hollywood). The ending felt a little forced at times much like the ending to this movie l

Again like Trava, cool sci-fi concepts and great characters, I feel like all of them could have their own movies. If you like anime you just will like this movie. 7 years of production made some of the most beautiful hand-drawn animation I’ve ever seen.

When I look at people’s reviews of this I see them complaining about the writing saying the characters are shallow. Huh? Did I watch the same movie? I really should stop reading reviews, especially for anime.

ANIME EXTRAVAGANZA: https://lateen.org/txt/movie/2026-05-23

I’ve committed a grave sin by watching this. My big plan is to watch Gundam (and anime as a whole) in (mostly) release order. So far I’ve only seen the original 1979 Gundam, so by jumping ahead 43 years I’ve already broken that rule. There was a couple things that referenced stuff in the franchise’s 4 decades of history, but I wanted to give a good show for my friends and introduce Gundam so I can subject them to more movies if I want to.

Compared to the episode the plot was much more ‘epic’ which is to be expected, its a movie. The new content not found in the show felt very non-obtrusive. The warships (water, not space) and new mobile suits felt pretty in character for the original show, so it was nice they didn’t inject any crazy new stuff.

Amuro’s voice actor sounds exactly the same as from the show, despite it being >40 years. I liked the contrast between Amuro living on the island to the Zeons doing their murder shenanigans. There was lots of fan service when the Gundam finally got into action, it was bordering on too much but I thought it was fine since Amuro had been going so long without the Gundam.

I really don’t get why they added Sleggar to the movie. I don’t think he was introduced at that point in the series, but I can get over that. Plot-wise he doesn’t really add anything that can’t be fulfilled by other characters, so it just felt like they added him in because he was a character people wanted to see again. Kai was much more silly than I remember him being in the show, but I fucking hate Kai and I want him to rot in hell so I don’t care.

Something I didn’t really like about the film was how at the end for the big battle they just add a couple antics with the children and people no longer fighting, that felt too disruptive and dare I say makes for… bad pacing? (audible gasp). I said it. I said the thing. I’ve never really liked when people mention pacing in talking about movies. I feel like they don’t understand what it means. When I watch a movie that I thought had fine pacing, and I hear someone say it had bad pacing I get very skeptical. A lot of times I feel like when people mention bad pacing they just mean they got bored when watching the movie, and at that point I don’t care about their opinion. Either stop looking at your phone so much or reevaluate your relationship with art, you’ll probably enjoy things more.

After the children’s shenanigans they just… walk over to see the Gundam fight the Zeon, which I don’t think makes much sense.

ANIME EXTRAVAGANZA: https://lateen.org/txt/movie/2026-05-23

A kinda average story that’s elevated by some amazing characters. I feel like every character in this could have their own movie, that’s how great they are. However, the only character that felt pretty flat was the main guy, he just feels like a normal yakuza character. Which sucks… cause he’s the main character. Has that WOAH WE’RE IN THE 90s/00s feel, but its kinda toned down which is nice.

There are some random abstract stuff thrown around that felt very… raw? Its Katsuhito Ishii’s 2nd movie so I’ll give him a break. Maybe it’ll make more sense as I watch more of his stuff and get a better feel for his style.