Gundam Tribute (First You Modernize The Mecha And Then You Modernize The Music)

Modernization of Gundam…..I talked a bit about the idea yesterday in the comment section for ghostlightnings article on Gundam 00′s final battle and how I thought the show might be an attempt to update Gundam for the 21st century paradigm we live in now.  Gundam Tribute I think has much the same idea in mind, only now it is about the Gundam sound rather than the core concept itself.

First off I bet some are asking “what is Gundam Tribute exactly”?  Well simply put it’s a collaboration between Sunrise/Bandai and Lantis and some of todays most popular music artists and idols in Japan to cover some of the classic Gundam songs and make an album out of it.  This is of course part of the 30th anniversary celebration for the franchise, but as I mentioned to the ghost yesterday I think it’s also a further example of Bandai’s current strategy of branching out and trying to bring new fans into the fold.  How exactly does this work with the music?  Well when you have the likes of Jam Project, CooRie and Little Non the latter two of whom are popular in the moe and eroge branches lending their status to Gundam songs (and vice versa) it may just help to bring the fans of their music into a greater awareness of Gundam and may even legitimize it for them as well.  Idol status goes a long way in Japan and while Gundam is an established tradition it’s not popular with all.  Gundam Wing branched out to female viewers and Gundam Seed branched out to a younger generation, but I think Bandai is always looking for new opportunities, and that’s an interesting thing.  I guess we’ll see what’s what, but for now I’m kind of eager to do some cross comparisons of the song covers on this album with their originals and to go over what they did with the pieces and what I as long time Gundam fan liked and disliked about these updates.

This article is going to be a little youtube video heavy so just bear in mind when you load the rest that it might take a little bit longer than normal.

Let’s Just Get This Year Over With Already (Cause 2010 Is Going To Rock)

Gundam Unicorn 3rd Trailer (But Wait There’s More)

I’m away only a day and suddenly the last pieces start to fall into place for 2010.  At this point I’m not sure what else I can expect from what looks to be an awesome upcoming year that I think will more than make up for the lack of mecha I’ve had to suffer through in the latter half of 2009.  With the recent announcement of a new Code Geass project (Trooooolllllllllllllllllls!  Come out to plaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!)from Sunrise this now brings the number of new mecha series from Sunrise alone up to 5 with Unicorn, Votoms, Geass and the Gundam 00 and Seed (hrmmm) movies.  What a busy year and it hasn’t even started.  All that needs to happen is for ghosty to get his new Macross year and I will be ready to prematurely (gasp!) declare 2010 the best year of the century so far.  Here’s a list of some other things I’m still looking forward too:

-Final Fantasy XIII

-Eden of The East Movies

-The rest of V Season 1

- Bioshock 2

Looks like I’ll probably be returning to this blogging business full force next year.  I’m wondering if I’m even going to have any time to rest at all.  In any case time to brush up on my writing and blogging techniques because I almost forget how WordPress even works now.