Hi,

Anyone has seen the Japanese anime series Gundam Seed?

It seem those guys really believe in space habitats, railguns and all
the things we discuss here.

I just found out about that series yesterday and I am really amazed.

More info is welcomed.

Omar

There are several Gundam series. The first was _Mobile Suit Gundam_
and the O'Neill Cylinders and a lot of space battles with giant
robots. Later, there was _Gundam Wing_, which featured disk-shaped
habitats and a lot of battles with giant robots. And of course, there
is _Gundam Seed_, about which I know little, but I'm willing to bet it
has a lot of battles with giant robots.

But yeah, because of these series, everybody in Japan over the age of
five or so is familiar with the basic concepts around the whole
O'Neillian scenario. I'm glad that more and more Americans are
watching Gundam, as this may be what is needed for my countrymen to
absorb these ideas.

Now, if we can just avoid all that warfare with the giant robots and
all...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gundam
http://www.gundamofficial.com/
http://www.dyarstraights.com/msgundam/frontier.html

Gundam is a long running franchise since the late seventies, who, to
their credit, used a lot of O'Neill designs. There's even a series of
six Computer Generated OVAs called MS Igloo, which is very comparable to
the movie Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.

For technical merit, Final Fantasy does a slightly better job of showing
what life in microgravity is like. Gundam/Igloo often show characters
carting along the hallways from a belted handle, which is nice, but then
they land on their feet as if by conventional gravity.

The dyarstraights website you mention is more excellent than the limits
of the Gundam show... especially in discussing the Coriolis Forces of a
rotating station. But possibly the best show to date about living in
space would likely be PLANETES, featuring blue collar workers clearing
out debris in orbit. It has won many fans at NASA, consulted JAXA, and
even provides tips on EVA work. The tour to different environments and
gravities is worth the watch. And no silly robots.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetes

- 7#!$+/
Twisty

Xenophile wrote:

> But possibly the best show to date about living in
> space would likely be PLANETES, featuring blue collar workers
>clearing
> out debris in orbit. It has won many fans at NASA, consulted
>JAXA, and
> even provides tips on EVA work. The tour to different
>environments and
> gravities is worth the watch. And no silly robots.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetes
>
> - 7#!$+/
> Twisty
>

That's great!!!

I'm going to look for those sources.

I am glad the Japanese animators finally forgot those funny looking
robots and godzila-like monsters.

Omar

On 1/5/07, Omar E. Vega wrote:
(...)
> I am glad the Japanese animators finally forgot those funny looking
> robots and godzila-like monsters.
(...)

There have always been extremely good animes, and conversely there is
still a lot of "funny looking robots and godzila-like monsters". One
thing that has to be understood is that anime (Japanese animation -
and one could also include Korean animation...) is a vastly diverse
field of art. You can find ANYTHING in terms of either technical
quality or theme or script quality. There are crappy-looking
mass-produced mindless stuff (DragonBall Z and Pokmon comes to mind,
sorry if there are fans here :), there is artful, extremely elaborated
top-of-the-notch animation (the Ghost in the Shell animes come to
mind), and there are exquisitely bizarre, cerebral and elaborated
plots (like those of Gantz and Serial Experiments Lain).

Unfortunately, TVs in Western and Latino worlds will expose most
people just to the crappy-looking mindless stuff, and that generates
this generalized misconception that animes are all about "funny
looking robots and godzila-like monsters".

--- In spacesettlers, "Lucio de Souza Coelho" wrote:

> Unfortunately, TVs in Western and Latino worlds will expose most
> people just to the crappy-looking mindless stuff, and that generates
> this generalized misconception that animes are all about "funny
> looking robots and godzila-like monsters".

And breathtaking beautiful but poorly-dubbed magical girls. /*OO*\