Gen:Lock Was A Nightmare - A Series Dissection
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- Опубліковано 6 сер 2024
- Gen:Lock was Rooster Teeth's bizarre attempt at creating a mecha series that only got worse when it was moved to HBO Max for its abysmal second season, a season that is quite possibly a contender for the worst mecha series i've ever watched. In this video, I take a look at the shows horrible production process as well as its horrendous season 2.
Ariana Filippini's experience at Rooster Teeth: www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1ss...
Georden Whitman's experience at Rooster Teeth: www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1ss...
Follow me on twitter for updates and tomfoolery: x.com/CheeseGX_
Patreon if you want to support me: / cheesegx_yt
Timestamps-
Intro: 00:00
Season 1's Production: 01:26
Season 1 recap/pros and cons: 10:00
Season 2 is the worst: 18:55
#genlock #roosterteeth #anime - Фільми й анімація
"Unlike other mecha shows we want this to be about the characters and not the robots"?? I can't believe the official development creed for season 2 was literally the "wow cool robot" gundam meme -R
Odd seeing you here, but neat
and then they completely clusterfuck the character development of the characters. robots were neet tho
OSP!
Don't mean to tempt your hybris, but damn if you guys talk smack on it.
Nice seeing you guys
So let me get this straight. This show ends with quite literally all the surviving cast members committing suicide. What the hell.
and then it bled over into RWBY where the same thing is happening with ruby
@@Hugsloth I came to watch this review right after that awful RWBY episode. I knew this wasn't the first time RT went full 13 reasons why.
@@Hugsloth she didn't commit suicide though? Talk about surface level understanding lmfao
@@bluesolace9459 99% of the fanbase sure seems to think that's what happened?
@@cesarvertigokikiri8342 The first time RT had done something like this was at the end of RVB season 10. Except, that was a culmination of everything they had built up since the start of season 6.
So at the end, Gen:Lock's lesson was "Suicide is badass!"
Fun fact... the same thing was the case 2 times now in RWBY (and belive me, if you didn't like gen lock, you won't like RWBY)
I am warning you, don't try to watch it or getting involved with the fandom.
Kind of a disturbing trend with Rooster Teeth. They doing ok?
@@derumasforlos4285 That right there is biggest "Please Help" message from the production group i have ever seen
@@iamablacksabbathsong9765 have you seen evagelion? if not that completely understandable
persona 3 moment
Kazu's backstory with his father being pushed around by the Yakuza sounds so interesting, I wish it was a stronger origin for his motivation. His dad was pushed around by guys that valued brute force, and showed Kazu that physical strength was the ultimate source of respect, because his father lacked both. If he started out by acting as an overprotective teammate to Camie and the other girls, it could've opened up an opportunity for him to eventually put his faith in other forms of strength, before realizing his father was incredibly resilient when he thinks about how much he sacrificed for the safety of his family, despite being physically weak. This would let him grow to trust other people, especially his team
That already sounds a million times better than what we got.
It could have been a interesting concept about learning when to pick your battles. Or if they really wanted to go the kazu feeling insecure about themselves off the top of my head they could have kazu suddenly appear incredibly small like the toy robot he was holding on to when he was a kid.
And then his death would actually work to end his character arc, where he shows true strength by literally sacrificing himself for those he cares about.
Yamadera "fuhrer Dessler" Koichi, his divorce is very possibly caused by Gen Lock
the fact that you managed to put together a character arc better than someone paid by RT while just idly watching a youtube video about the shortcomings of the series is both damning of the RT writers, and something you should feel some pride in. Consider developing that talent if it interests you honestly
How genlock survived the hbomax animation purge is astonishing
I honestly think they just forgot it's existence so hard they forgot it was a animation or even considered it animation.
The fact that Infinity Train and OK KO got purged from the internet while gen lock is still out and about is absolutely cursed. Can't stand this shit
@@ooffordays566 damn they canned infinity train over all the trash animated shows nowadays? Feelsbadman
I don’t think it survived. Season 2 was already made and released before the purge. It most likely won’t get a season 3.
Its because it checked the diversity box
Anytime a creator says "Unlike other series, this is about X/we really focus in on X/no-one does X like us" you just know that's gonna be the worst part of the series
Similar energy to "don't call the titanfall mechs, mechs"
@@Sundorwave At least with Titanfall it was just some bonehead community spokesperson dude putting his foot in his mouth (this tends to happen), but the actual game was made with love.
It shows especially how out of touch they are with the entire genre, which has ALWAYS been about the characters.
@@thechugg4372 yep the mechs just add a bit of flair to the battles, but honestly could often be replaced with just normal soldiers shooting each other.
the meat was always the character drama and the overall struggle they face in war.
the mechs are just something cool to look at and push toys.
*cough*High Guardian Spice*cough*
“Unlike other mecha series, we focus on the characters!”
My best friend literally FORGOT that Code Geass is a mecha series because the characters are THAT important.
Code geas has a bad story but good characters
@@alchemistofsteel8099 nah, the story was great, the only real bad part was the world of c shit, but they conveniently made sure to wrap that up separately from the main plot threads.
@@nattteo getta robo is a mecha with good characters
Code geass was great the ending sucks though .
You don't need to single out series, the vast majority of mecha focuses on the characters.
The fact that the words Pacific and Rim didn't come out of your mouth when listing western mecha is sheer lunacy.
Such a shame that they never made a sequel to that
@@charlieterry8506I have to ask. Now I'm not about to claim Uprising was better than the original, because the original was amazing. But why does everyone else seem to loathe Uprising so deeply like it murdered their children? I thought it was just alright
I just personally thought that it didn't have the spirit of the original and I enjoy the meme of acting like it never existed.
best to ask someone else this question besides me honestly @@TheRoboKitty
🤷♂
@@TheRoboKittyI think the best way of describing (Or the best way I've heard describing Uprising) is from a Spanish speaking UA-camr: The first one felt like it paid real Homage to the mecha genre, Del Toro liked, respected and understood it; while in uprising it felt like it was pissing on top of what was planted on the first one. I'm paraphrasing of course but it did feel like they didn't understood the genre and acted a bit over themselves.
@@jesusagelvis4917They turned Mako into a pencil pusher. No.
Treating a character in your show as a bad joke, throwing him away like a dirty rag, and then passing it off as "the tragedy and unforgiving nature of war" has to be the most disgusting thing I've seen in writing an animated show.
Between that and the way the season handled Cammie's "arc". Its the most offended i've been watching something in god knows how long.
Does this end up being extra tasteless as a "bury your gays/trans/other lgbt-esque" since he dies after having sex with a non-traditionally het relationship or am I mis-reading how it looks that "over coming your innate toxic masculinity = accept vulnerability via pan-sex = the fucking die for extra melodrama points"?
@@Anonlyso No its somehow both
Even Victory gundam's Shrike team was treated with more respect and they existed just to die.
@@CheeseGX_ yiiikes that lack of self awareness really ain't helping their current allegations
I honestly feel really bad for Koichi Yamadera, he seemed so excited to voice Kazu only for his character to get the short end of the stick in terms of his arc and unceremoniously get killed off.
he's probably never gonna want to work for any western production after this. I don't blame him.
Upon reading this comment I realised that this is the same VA that has also voiced: Akiyama Shun from Yakuza/Like a Dragon, and Donald Duck when it came to Disney related projects. I did not expect that.
@@DeterminedTorres well Disney may be an exception especially for the likes of Kingdom Hearts, but aside from that... yeah. when it comes to him voicing in western IPs.
at the very least, it won't be in a setup like Gen:LOCK where most of the cast speaks English again.
i genuinely liked kazu's voice the most, it made him likeable as the yankee type of character who actually has a warm heart. then i heard about the "character arc" he had and it made me get second hand embarrassment. dude's talent was wasted here, jeez
@@DeterminedTorres He voiced Gyunei from Char's Counterattack, his first role into Mecha anime
I feel like that’s the standard for post 2010 animated anime inspired western projects where any example that doesn’t disrespect Japanese creators and anime are the exception.
"Any publicity is good publicity." Remember these words. They're a sign that someone doesn't understand cause and effect.
The Weeknd & the freshly-cancelled The Idol
Gen:Lock Season 2: Character kills herself. Ends with text referring to suicide prevention hotline for the viewers.
Also Gen:Lock Season 2: "Hey, killing myself actually benefited me and it can benefit all of us!" Rest of the cast proceeds to do just that.
I feel like Gen:Lock just crossed over with 13 Reasons Why in that moment.
This aged well
What happened?
@@jamescook5783 volume 9 of rwby had basically the same message of "suicide solves the problem"
@@dovahthuum5529 Huh. If it was only Gen:Lock, I would chalk it up to the show trying to cluelessly ape NGE with out understanding it at all.. But with RWBY also doing the same thing I have to wonder if this is a reflection of the view points of some of the writers. It seems troubling...
@@dovahthuum5529 now that you mentioned...yikes...why isn't RT getting a huuuuuge backlash over this? Or even cancelled? Like why they ain't facing REAL consequences over this?
"What stood out about [gen:lock] was how it wasn't just a mech show, it was a show driven by character." Oh man that is an EMBARASSING statement for a producer to make.
okay I paused for a minute to make this comment but I think the omnifaith plotline and the suicide prevention hotline is actually worse than this I'm going insane
@@pyropoyo just finished the video… that is 100% correct Jesus this sounds so incredibly nihilistic on some level, in the end it would still be humanity dying and stagnating without any form of reproduction and progress I think I’d rather have Gundam’s Rau Le Crusset
That's so terribly hilarious, especially when THE FIRST Real Robot show EVER, the big ol' Granpappy Gundam, has the single most copied character pair in mecha, mayhaps even anime, history.
EVERY TIME you ever see an enemy ace with a mask and ulterior motives, that's Char Aznable.
EVERY TIME you see a main character teen put into heavily traumatic battles due to their talents, that's Amuro Ray.
And that's just the big two, Im not even going to start on any of the other characters.
See my comment under Squirrel King's thread. What makes such a claim so idiotic is that Japanese writing is generally character driven by nature of its structure.
Someone needs to lock that producer in a room with all of UC Gundam on repeat for that take alone.
The entirety of Season 2 is just Gray Haddock's personalized hell. The destruction of his passion project. The Warner Bros CEO has him tied up in a bunker somewhere with season 2 on repeat as punishment.
It's David Zaslav. I'm fairly sure he has everyone tied up in his bunker.
Perhaps this was karma but even then it seems cruel
Yeah he deserved it though
@@NunoTavares23 I dunno everyone else, fictional and working on season 2 suffered for it. Not quite perfect karma...
You may think as punishment for overworking his team to the point half the show was made essentially for free (And it still somehow went massively over budget), but no. His only crime in the other managements eyes was getting caught, because crunch is apparently just how things are in RT.
So ignoring how gross the Kazu thing was, I can't wrap my mind around killing a character *after* their arc is finished. The whole point of sudden, unexpected character deaths is to cut an arc *short.* It's about lost potential, not going "Whelp, I guess we're done with this guy."
I know what you mean. What happened with Penny in Volume 3 of RWBY still brings me to tears in spite of everything. She had her whole life ahead of her!
@@bowenorcutt78 but she came back...she was a robot i predicted they would bring her back eventually while i started volume 4. i thought they do something like not make her recognize rwby or be devoid of emotions because her ai got fried by pyrahs magnetism or something and rwby through the power of ingenuity, friendship or whatever would help her...they were better leaving her off as dead to be a martyr she would have potentially had a more powerful effect on the main cast. but rwby is for infamous for wasted potential and poor character writing so what should i expect
Reminds me of how DC wrapped up Barbra Gordon's arc as Batgirl in a single comic so that they could paralyze her in The Killing Joke.
I mean that makes sense it's why the mentor character dies mostly after the hero has reached a certain point of development.
@@crona1794 Better than the movie at least, which brought in the weird "technically not incest," and then had her get shot. lol.
That "unlike other mecha shows, this one is about the characters" schtick made my Gundam-loving blood boil. Amuro Ray, Kamille Bidan, Char Aznable and many more would like a well-earned apology.
or beat them in the head
Personally I like Gundam metafranchise because it's able to AVAOID the trap about being focused on either one. You look at Neon Genesis or Darling Franxx and the giant robots are just metaphors for teen angst. They're just physical manifestations of all the emotional problems these teenagers need to overcome. Not Gundam. The humans and the giant robots play off each other, neither side feeling like a third wheel. I want to watch the human characters because their emotional trauma and backstabbing machinations create political and logistical problems for the giant robot battles, and the giant robot battles tie back into each character so they can effect their emotional and character arcs.
To tie this back on topic, gen:lock is a regression, sliding back away from balance
@@TARINunit9Ehhh Turn A was creared precisely because there was a time when Gundam degenerated into robot fights over themes and story
@@ChangedMyNameFinally69Not entirely true. He also made Turn A as a form of therapy for himself almost as well as a reaffirmation of what it was that drove him to create the original Gundam in the first place. Victory Gundam put him in a dark, dark place. And of course, Wing, X and 8th MS team were all made without any input from him, which left him feeling pretty neglected. Its very telling that G Gundam is the only non UC series that Turn A explicitly references.
@@ChangedMyNameFinally69 No, Turn-A was created to address a contradiction within the series' broader theme of "War is bad", yet glorifying it through the fights and narrative.
"Controversy is good" definitely seems to be RT's motto because man are they good at causing it
I think this is the plague of the XXI century: controversy for the sake of attention. It's hurting LGTB and inclusion VERY HARD, since it has polarized people instead of bringing it together.
This wasn't even them this time lol, the second season was all Warner
@@ChangedMyNameFinally69 It applies to them, too.
@@Hawkatana Their issue was not even caring what the new writers did but I think it was out of their control by that point anyway
@@ChangedMyNameFinally69 I was talking about how they basically fired their animators, purged already finished shows for a tax write-off and actively seem to despise their own audience.
Wait, they pulled the character-suicide and then prevention hotline TWICE?! In two different shows? That's...
God, why do they keep hiring people who hate the genre in works inside the genre? It wasn’t the worst thing about Voltron: Legendary Defender, but you could tell they took every opportunity to avoid mech fights, especially later on.
Because people think meda-irony is funny (its not)
because a lot of writers are hired on nepotism and most of the rest see ips and genres as just ways to draw in audience to tell the story they really want
@@Yohan99999 meda-irony? Forgive my ignorance but what is it?
@@XD-sc4ix I think he meant "meta-irony":
@@alalvarez7301 fair
as someone who works with crisis victims and someone who has had suicide attempts in the past
that entire arc with the nanobot suicide ascension made me literally yell "WHAT!?" aloud
man fuck this show LOL
"Unlike other mechas, this is about the characters."
Now, I may have only seen one single mecha as a reference point, but Gurren Lagann is LITERALLY about the characters and the willingness of them as humans to push through adversity, no matter how dire it may be.
Right?!!!! Even Kamina's death is handled with such care that it bursts through the heavens with the message of its story. I can't comprehend how they could misunderstand the genre so badly that it's core principles are "the obvious thing that other shows don't do."
Does Code Geass count as a Mecha Anime?
@@superluigi6968 This is literally a mecha show from the same studio that created Gundam. There are lot more mecha shows with less mecha action than Geass, but people still treat it as the special one.
@@superluigi6968 it's practically a re-incarnatation of the original UC Gundam, by the same studio.
With Space Colony vs Earth paralleled to Japan vs Britain. It even has Char's enigmatic charisma being manifested as Lelouch's Geass and him being as gay toward's Suzaku as Char is with Amuro. Also just as many women die tragically, off the battlefield as well as on it.
Every single mecha in existence has character focus, even the most basic toy commercial animated shows. It's writing 101, without characters you don't have a story. It's like your accountant would come up to you and say "Yeah unlike the other accountants out there, I actually crunch the numbers" - you would immediately grow suspicious of someone like that stating the obvious. The fact some hack actually put that quote to print, and especially on the back of the art book, says everything about the level of their professionalism even without looking at the end product.
You know Season 2's bad when Mrcheese has to whip out Cbat
I was looking for this comment
I did a fuckin double take the second I heard it
Bruh I thought I was having a stroke
I knew it, I though I was imagining it
Too many "creatives" (writers for comic books, movies and TV shows) only have a teenager's understanding of "maturity." Sex and violence don't make a story "mature"; acknowledging and then dealing with the consequences of sex and violence, such as pregnancy and parental responsibilities, disabling injuries and the need for convalescence, death and grief, make a story mature.
Don't forget the needless R-rated swearing!
It's like they never grow up
The kids screaming by the pool but they're adults feeling
*remembers how well Yang's injury was played out in RWBY, despite the advanced technology of prosthetics in this world, the very fact of losing a limb shattered her sense of invulnerability and desire to treat battles as a fun game*
@@AtticusKarpenter Exactly! Not to mention how they also handled other characters’ traumas, like Jaune’s survivor guilt and Blake’s abusive relationship with Adam. God, seeing this video makes me so glad I skipped out on Gen:Lock and stuck with RWBY…
The Boys and Invincible have much more graphic violence and sex scenes than most comic media, but what makes them 'mature' is how superheroes are written differently in respond. Bringing up parallels to real life injustices such as how media, governments and corporations cover up or legally silence the scandals or damage caused, and focusing on the mental and physical toll characters feel whether they are metaphorically powerless superheroes or traumatised ordinary people. That is mature comic book writing.
It's really hard to overstate how difficult it is to work with people like Gray. They seem charming on the outside, but on the inside all they really care about is their own ideas and projects. I remember working on a project with a similar personality type, where I was the one who had to secure funding. I did my job and actually managed to secure a third again as much as our initial budget goal. But that money quickly disappeared because the guy just had to have everything his way so his "vision" could be perfect. Ideas to budget and cut down to make our budge were always ignored because that would sacrifice his "vision." The dude was literally more willing to do sketchy things and break the law and abuse the cast and crew rather than compromise on his perfect pet project. I very quickly had my name removed from that project and distanced myself from that man because I knew sooner or later he was going to get everyone into hot water, if he didn't literally grind them into the ground first.
It's a living nightmare dealing with people like that and frankly my heart goes out to all the people who had to suffer through Gray's obsession with his pet project and unwillingness to compromise for the good of the people under him
I just wanna see or read his reaction to season 2 as total satisfaction on the distract and tears on his project crashing and burning for ironically making the perfect series when really it’s just mediocre
And knowing that Gray was the former voice actor for Roman Torchwick in RWBY, he was replaced by the late Billy Kametz as Roman in Volume 9 was one of his last roles before dying of Colon Cancer in 2022.
Having LTG as the primary antagonist is kinda genius ngl
i mean he is real life's antagonist right?
@@nisnast I say he’s more like a minor antagonist that keeps coming back to just troll the protagonist
Yeah but if he ever uses his mecha he'll just whine about laggy controls, and how his losses were just a fluke
@@revolvingworld2676 "Of course this mech's got V-Trigger, _and_ the pilot is a grimy-ass Mexican!"
@@ghostfaceinyourbathroom2190 now question is who's the protagonist-
The ascension to cyber god thing feels like someone on the writing team watched The End of Evangelion once when they were a kid and thought that the Human Instrumentality Project was a really cool idea without retaining any other knowledge of what made it a good show/movie.
whilst also misunderstanding what the instrumentality project was exactly
@@juannaym8488 yeah i have to looked that up to know what it is because i didn't watch evangelion, Tdlr it's basically turning humanity into some hive mind of super being
Now I want someone to make a compilation of anime critics saying “unlike other mecha anime, this one is about the characters”
No one should even say that without at least looking at Neon Genesis Evangelion, then watch End of Evangelion, just to know what "ABOUT CHARACTERS" truly is.
@@rinnychor most of the time it’s in Evangelion reviews
Let’s start with Monty “Anime Homework” Oum
Probably set to Mr. Blue Sky.
*stares in gundam fan*
*unholsters beam saber*
You know, after the latest season of RWBY and this show, I’m kind of seeing a pattern on how Rooster Teeth treats the topic of suicide. They even use the same term!
You're not the only one
...The suicide topic in RWBY was written by someone who had a similar arc with his own suicidal thoughts and rejected the suicidal ideation. That Was The Point TM.
@@AnakhaSilver Well, they could've used an editor to better convey things
@@AnakhaSilverwell he did a shit job convening that.
@@AnakhaSilverSo... instead of having his characters _also_ reject the ideations... they have them go through with it & turn out better in the end?
This show was a real "fucked if you do fucked if you don't" situation, isn't it? With the original showrunner, its production is full of nightmarish crunch. Without the original showrunner, the show hates itself.
Talk about a rock and a hard place.
I remember the “small company” argument was still floating around near gen:locks initial release. There were so many big names attached to that project that it drove me insane people could still say that, it was also around that time I completely dropped any rooster teeth property from my attention because I just couldn’t deal with its rubbish anymore
It really is sad rooster chief was kind of an inspiration and really think about it they were a small company and just making hait's making parities of Halo hello then got big to make their own original stuf. But now look at them I honestly the only shows I still like from rooster teeth areIs champion and no matter nowhere but I'm pretty sure those silver canceled now
I think "small company" seriously became invalid as an argument when they got Frodo himself to voice a character in RVB.
I feel that the problem with RTS is that at it's core, it's always been a millennial/GenZ frat house. Yes, working with people that you enjoy being with is great. But at some point you have to separate the job and the previous nights rowdy pub craw. I remember watching some of their "unscripted" content and invariably the conversation always reverted to alcohol and bar food.
The more Hollywood names you have attach to a non-Hollywood project (web series, video games, etc.), the more likely the project is to suffer, as it's all too often a smokescreen for poor narrative quality or other elements unrelated to the products' necessary qualities, as well as how much such big names chew through the budget.
If there any Rooster Teeth property other than RWBY that anyone cares about?
It's worth pointing out that the Nemesis is the only mech in the series designed by a Japanese artist who RT contracted. Hence it's the only one that seems designed with familiarity/understanding/experience with the genre (since nobody at RT seemed to have any) and ends up being the only genuinely memorable and cool design.
That isn't a truly bad thing. Most of the overall Western Mech designs wouldn't be labeled as iconic even in Mechwarrior. Western wise its more so a reflection of the world opposed to overall individual.
@@chris9206 It is a cultural thing. Western mechs to this day still tend to be blocky or round. Japanese mech designers have fine tuned their craft in designing sleeker and smoother models because it's one of the largest; if not THE largest, in the modeling and hobby industry. Unless, of course, you start to cross the line in disparaging Japanese creators, then be my guest.
@@donutbevil9669 In general I get the sense that in western pop-culture there's still a fetishism for "realism" and military science-fiction. Be it gamedev circles or ttrpg ones, whenever I hear someone propose the idea for a mecha game it's always, always something more along the lines of "real robots" if not just walking tanks. Wish super robots and the more fanciful, colorful stuff got more love here, 'cause that's the part of the genre I personally really love.
Yeah, that makes way too much sense. Every other mecha feels way too toy-like, for lack of a better term? They don't look practical or even distinct, they look like you took a bunch of literal brightly colored generic action figures and made them your main team. Like they don't feel functional, if that makes sense? Which is wild, because with the way this series goes, it's VERY much trying to be more of a Real Mecha show than a Super Robot show, it seems. I really wouldn't be surprised if the creators didn't get the difference between those two fairly distinct styles in the genre.
I'm going to say something harsh and pretty hyperbolic... but this is a story all about war and clones with a focus on disability and what it means to even be a human, and they're coming at this with designs that feel way more Fisher Price than Getter Robo. And that's a HUGE problem because the main draw for any Mecha show IS the robots. You come for the robots and stay for the characters and story, so if the robots feel really lame and childish then you're already starting with a handicap.
@@dracocrusher To be honest Getter Robo like Gen:lock both have toy looking designs, which Gundam even has a ton of toy looking designs. Most of G Gundam is an ad for model kits and thats on record as it saved the Gundam series similar to the original show.
I do have to point out that Getter Robo like Evangelion and Gurren Laggan are Super Robot anime. Gen:lock isn't close to Super Robot unless if Gen:lock has somehow become G Gundam. At the all of those shows varying in quality and are far from what would be the top of mecha. However out of those Gurren Laggan would be the top dog.
My friend got a job right out of college at RoosterTeeth. He was on the Gen:lock animation team and it sounded like a nightmare.
He talked about how he was working 80+ hours a week with no overtime. That if he asked not to work 80 hours they would gaslight him, threaten his job, say they were going to make his coworkers pick it up, and said he was a drain and mot a team player.
After the release they fired him and a bunch of other animators.
Like it legit strained our friendship, damaged his relationship with his girlfriend, his relationship with his folks, and made him exhausted beyond belief.
On the plus side though he got a bunch of free streaming accounts, which RoosterTeeth didn't cancel until 3 years after he was fired.
Not saying it was easy work but by experience there are a large amount of people that avoid working hard when they immediately graduate from college. Outside of that its safe to say its better working with RT compared to Disney.
@@chris9206 It's a literal safety hazard to be working at Disney.
@@donutbevil9669 Somewhat while Disney is still making billions. Did more so mean as animator treatment, which I'm sure Disney's animator crunch is worse than Anime crunch.
It's truly amazing how a show can go from being relatively average at best to being so bad it makes even the worst parts of RWBY look amazing. This show didn't just jump the shark: it jumped over a whole shiver of sharks, then backflipped over the sharks back to where it jumped from, then it jumps over the same sharks before it attempts to backflip over the sharks one more time only to have a seizure midair and fall into the shark-infested waters to get mauled apart by them. And then oil gets poured into the water and it gets lit on fire.
I'm sorry if my reference may be outdated, but "this is not jumping the shark. I'll repeat that again. This is not jumping the shark. Oh, no, no, no, no. This is jumping the shark, coming back, shooting it in the balls, raping it, EATING ITS FLESH, CONSUMING ITS SOUL, MOUNTING ITS HEAD ON THE WALL, AND THEN DOING THE SAME THING TO TWELVE MORE FUCKING SHARKS JUST TO BE SAFE!"
And then sharks get poured on the oil
Noobnoob: god damn
Hey atleast that sounds cool and would be entertaining to watch (except probably the last 2 parts)
Could not say the same about this disaster of a series though
That was the best overly descriptive description I've read in a long time.
This was an experience. How I never even heard of this show, I'll never know. Holy moly.
I remember hearing about it once but I thought it'd be a one and done thing. I didn't know it was like this
@@0uttaS1TE I wish they would have gotten better writers if they were going to make this 2nd season
It's pretty remarkable what a non-entity it is despite the star power attached to it
oh yeah like the first season is pretty good but the second season just drop the ball, so hard I am amazed they even thought it was a good idea to make a season 2.
You were spared consider it a blessing you never heard of it
Someone in the writing staff of second season watched the episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadephia where Danny DeVito said "Suicide is badass" and took that line to heart and made it the whole focus of the show
"The show uses it as an opportunity to shit all over retro anime."
*I just want to talk to them.*
The way you describe season 2 as a whole reminds me of the various anime parodies that cartoons would do, like you could defiantly tell which ones had a genuine love for it and the ones that were just "Anime is weird, am I, right guys!?"
Which is hilarious because this is the same company that makes fucking RWBY, a show that wears its anime inspirations on its sleeve for better AND for worse
It reminds me of an old video where they were 'parodying' anime stuff. It came across as more a shallow parody of the medium.
Except for Mecha, where the parody felt more applicable: "We must stop this fighting...with more fighting!"
@@LordLucario12 To be fair given the HBO/WB take over combined with the sheer outsourcing, it's debatable this was even a RoosterTeeth baby at that point. It's like cynical writers that didn't like what they had to write for were told to handle it and they burned everything down in really dumb ways because it was "too anime".
SWProductions100 another bad opinion of mecha
@@marinalemos9160
Fair. I've only seen a few mecha shows, so I can't speak on the genre as a whole.
My thoughts were more on Gundam, which from a more casual perspective, seems like it's almost always in danger of undermining its general anti-war themes.
Gen Lock single handedly hamstringed american mecha for a generation
Voltron Legendary Discourse did it first. gen:Lock just ensured Americans will never be taken seriously with the genre ever.
Good.
Just stick with Battletech.
@@Dynaman21 I was confused since it said Legendary Defenders, but now I get you. Yea, even seeing thr first videos on how utter terrible it is.
@@Dynaman21 They shouldn't.
I will say, tho, it is ironic as hell. The Ship of Theseus was a major theme in season 1, as we learned that Chase the Original's mind was meddled with and corrupted. It's even on Weller's research boards. For those who don't know, the Ship Of Theseus refers to a philosophical theoretical scenario where a ship has each and every nail, board and part replaced over time, and leaves one to question whether or not it's the same boat when the final part is replaced.
And season 2 was a live glimpse of that phenomenon. Removing everything the series once was until it's not the same series.
27:24 This moment in particular, where "Robo-Shogun" mercy-kills the old man, strikes me as almost disturbingly out-of-touch with how old mecha anime actually was. Like, imagine if you were watching Mazinger Z episode 1 and, instead of mourning for the dying Professor Kabuto, Koji just fucking murdered him. Not only would that be extremely out of character for Koji, it would be extremely off-brand for what's even typically allowed on Japanese television of the time.
Crunch is terrible, but it still happens. If it does happen, you better make sure your animators are fully compensated for all the blood, sweat, and tears they poured into the work.
If you don't... well... you get Gen:Lock S2
Crunch sadly can't be avoided. Ironically most of the anime industry is run on crunch still and the king of crunch in animation is probably Disney. More so the 2nd season is an outcome of a studio switch, some of the Internet backlash off on the feedback from season 1, and how "anyone can die at anytime" is a more popular aspect across the medium these days.
@@chris9206 Crunch is natural but it's all about degree. Think about how when you have an essay to turn in or and exam and you end up going overdrive the night before. That's crunch. It happens in any huge undertaking. But when it goes into unhealthy territory and starts actually damaging peoples bodies from lack of sleep or break, or becomes a crutch for incompetent project management (or managers just not giving a shit about their employees), that's when it becomes unforgivable bullshit.
When you said LTG's famous rant was literally the message of the series I thought you were just making a joke up until he said, "Give somebody a piece of that oxygen and Ozone layer that's covered up so we can breathe in this blue trapped bubble," That synched up too well in a season with climate as its main threat.
You can tell Rooster Teeths writing is at its best when the most beloved character is the character that cant talk.
My roommate described season 2's failure as HBO trying to turn gen:LOCK into Game of Thrones. Which is a crying shame. I really liked season one and wanted to see where it could have gone.
The “mature” themes of Gen Lock season 2 is a lot like the “mature” themes of Young Justice seasons 3 and 4.
You want game of thrones with a giant robot, goLion is right there
@@samflood5631explain I’m not familiar
@@leviticusprime4904To answer your question, ever since Young Justice went to streaming like saw HBO Max or Max, the show went from a pg rated show to possible an M rated show with lots of blood and gore, sex, swearing, drugs and even some heavy subject matters like depression and suicide. All of that became completely unnecessary due to how badly it was handled and a lot of messages were shoehorned to push some new agenda.
>Starts the season 2 section
>Cbat starts playing
Absolute banger video, 10/10
Ok.
So.
Here's the thing.
Me? I'm an optimist. I do my best to see the light in bad situations, and to press on despite any hardships. Not only that, when I watched Genlock season 1, Cammy was my favourite character. Yeah, she wasn't particularly deep, but her over all bright attitude despite the literal war ravaging her world resonated with me.
I wasn't able to watch season 2 because HBOMax isn't available in my country, but I was fully willing to if I had been able to.
THANK FUCK I WASN'T ABLE TO
Hearing that my favourite character, who was specifically my favourite *because* of her optimistic outlook, had her story arc for the season ended with "she kills herself because things got too hard for her, but it's ok because sci-fi bullshit"? That pisses me right the hell off. Thank god I'd found out about this long after I had lost investment in Genlock's story.
Actually just fuck Genlock and the writing team behind season 2.
Maybe I give the writing and story a lot more credit than I should, but the story goes a little deeper than just “She got sad and died then came back”. Bear in mind I haven’t watched the above video, but I did watch all of Gen:Lock season 2 with all of its objectionable and questionable bits. I won’t say it’s great, I’m just stopping short of saying it’s the worst thing ever. I don’t suggest reading on if you’re not one for spoilers or a lot of reading.
Spoilers ahead:
After season 1, the team became stretched as more Nemesis bots are output by the Union. Like, basically armies of them which they’re finding harder and harder to beat due to increases in number. Everyone is sharing minds except Chase who, having lost his body, fears that he will lose his mind if he joins with others too much. The fact he can no longer sleep or recover in any way weighs on him, and his experience with Nemesis slowly eats away at his sanity until he eventually starts snapping at people (including Cammie). Cammie, is trying to keep the team together, but as the stress increases, they all begin to turn inwards and her (albeit a little childish) attempts at helping only seem to further frustrate the team until, one by one, they all eventually tell her to get lost. She’s essentially isolated and lost her new family that we saw her pull together at the end of season 1. Earlier in season 2, Cammie mindshared with Yaz and saw how there was so much love and togetherness and family-ness in the Union areas, which was in stark contrast to how she felt after being rejected by the team, and after slowly losing her biological family (which is shown in a series of flashbacks as she travels into Union territory). She stumbles into a Union family which immediately treats her as one of their own and talk about how everyone will be together in The Flow (the nano machines that the Union uses, but white because it’s the civilian variety and have been described as the doorway to the afterlife where everyone is together). The togetherness that she longs for in sight, she allows herself to enter the flow.
I think entering the flow is a stretch, but I can see why if you’re super depressed you might not think too much about how you could analyse the nano machines as a techie and see what’s up with them.
She rematerialises later in the story (as the leader of the Union claims to have done) and talks to what’s left of Doctor Weller’s research inside Calaban who suggests that she was able to come back because of how she was Gen:Lock compatible and trained with it, and due to this, she was able to retain herself in this alternative form.
Is it one of the best storylines? No. Is it one of the storylines that makes the most sense in season two? Sadly, yes.
Cammie is my favourite character too, to the point where it honestly felt like she was the real protagonist and the show was just lending screen time to others to feel fair.
Step 1 : Write an overly optimistic character
Step 2 : Mental breakdown because too optimist
Step 3 : Decides to end it all because Low Tier God's rant is really inspiring
Step 4 : Give the mental health hotline to the viewer
Step 5 : SIKE she was right for doing it
Step 6 : You know what? everyone should do the same
Thank you Genlock, I am now a follower of LTG's church. He truly is the messiah of the modern era.
I hear you, it felt like I was watching two completely different shows!
Cammie here is like if Everything Everywhere All At Once had Jobu Tupaki d1e at the end.
Cammie is my favorite character as well and the sudden change to suicide did upset me. At the same time I've seen plenty of anime that either had a good build up to that or just out of the blue bad. I can't really say its truthfully bad writing but its out of character to a degree, which it could have been handled better.
To clarify, many TV networks will require a suicide hotline message if the show depicts suicide or suicidal thoughts. I **think** a few countries just outright require it as well.
You know, this should encourage people to make their own westernized mecha series just to spite the people at RoosterTeeth by using this series as a blueprint on how NOT to make a mecha show.
I wish, but as someone said, Western Mecha works will never be taken seriously again after this.
@@BanTskTvaoan Perhaps, but that's no reason to not try.
Inspired me to start writing my own. Admittedly it is a fanfic for this show but I feel it should refute the show runners plot points sufficiently
@@BanTskTvaoanRT is not as mainstream as you think, plenty of people haven't even heard of their slop. A westerner making a love letter to mecha (or even better, something like a spiritual successor to Iron Giant) could have some success. All it would really take is tact, and a decent enough story.
They hated those characters that much, they deiced it was a good idea to do that to them in the 2nd season? How sadistic...
It must be such a feather in his cap to know that Gen:Lock was never better than when it was under his tutelage.
That after crunching his team so hard that multiple members of your team need therapy to address what you did to them, you could bring your mind child, your pet project, your baby to the dizzying heights of
Middling at best.
Gray's comic book villain character on RWBY getting unceremoniously devoured by the minions of a much more threatening bad guy has got to be some kind of foreshadowing for what HBO Time Warner did to the bastard's show.
Sorry wat?
@@makairidah8354 RoosterTeeth would often have production staff voice characters just due to the nature of how they got started in animation. In RWBY, Gray voiced a recurring gangster-type bad guy named Roman Torchwick who shows up for major fights in the first three seasons. At the climax of the third, he's fighting the main character and giving a grand villain speech about working for the real big bad because he's smart, and determined, and a survivor when he is abruptly eaten by a monster. Funniest death in the show tbh.
@@nerdorama009 ... Aw man, I did not know that was Gray. A pity, I actually liked Roman and his performance AND his death... but now I wonder if there's an alternate universe were Roman is kept on and he is too busy voice acting to climb the ranks and do all that shit he did.
You mean AT&T? Only saying that since they're almost as bad as MS aka Microsoft on bad decisions.
@@nerdorama009 WAIT THAT WAS ROMAN?!!
HOLY SHIT THAT EXPLAINS A LOT
You only touch on it with the overwork part, but Rooster Teeth in the past 4 years has absolutely imploded with reports coming out of rampant overwork, wage theft, outright racism and sexism, favoritism, megalomania, really just everything.
Its honestly a shame that a company that was so highly regarded in its community has just fallen apart so thoroughly and I cant even get mad after hearing all the heinous stuff that occurred.
Isn't that what happened to Channel Awesome too?
It seems like all these collaborative channels get to a point where they're too big and they forget the reason they're doing it.
What do you mean by racism and sexism?
@@samflood5631 don't know about racism, but the sexism could have been the accusation against vic.
@@lweaver2988 How the whole KickVic vs StandwithVic situation considered sexist?
@@samflood5631 As I understand it: He gave platonic hugs to female fans that didn't explicitly ask for them out loud. Some of them felt sexually harassed. They made a big deal about it. Allegations were made, and then some of Vic's coworkers supported those allegations. Vic was utterly distraught that he hurt anyone, apologized, and stated he was going to try to be better (even despite the fact that no one had ever bothered to communicate what he'd done wrong to him). Despite that, his employers cut ties, and he's basically been unemployed since. He attempted to get restitution through the legal system, but it didn't find in his favor because his lawyers were terrible. His life is ruined.
Depending on how you view this situation, there are one of two ways to look at it:
1. Vic is sexist because he treated women as objects to sexually harass.
2. The women are sexist because they believe all the accusations (and dogpiled fake accusations in order to insure he got cancelled) because he's a man with the relative power of fame.
Believe what you want, because the facts beyond what I've listed are in dispute.
"It looks like a Bionicle." Ah, so the design is good, then.
Yeah, one part of the video I really strongly disagreed with. In what world is looking like Bionicle a bad thing?
@@genyakozlov1316 maybe more like Bionicle and Mecha doesn't combine
@@BLACKONSLAUGH2 that just stupid thinking abeing bionicle are robots why would it not work for mecha
Bayforrmers would be a better description for how mechanically janky they are, more specifically hotrod cuz I refused to believe the head sculpt isn't the same
@@frankspick7544 i mean technically speaking half of makuta's schemes involve piloting mecha in one way or another
I was dying when I heard about the suicide scene. It sounds like a parody lol
But it's almost AMAZING how much they fumbled the bag with this show. I always hated the comment "This mecha show is good because it actually focuses on the characters!" I admit, I might be biased because I grew up on Transformers, where every robot has a fully fleshed out personality, but it seemed like they just really didn't want to have fun with the mechs.
Wait hold on. What era of Transformers did you grow up with? It can't be g1 because that show was so bat shit in its writing that characters are schizophrenic some times 😂 God I love g1.
@@Eymbr Mostly Cybertron and Animated. I also watched a bit of Beast Wars.
Funny enough, I watched Mercuryfalcon's video on old school mecha series where he brings up the disingenuous statement of 'Unlike other mecha, this focuses on the characters!'. I thikn that statement comes from folks who really don't like mecha and as such have either not sit through them or only watch Eva and just Gundam Wing but don't and often refuse to watch anything that is older or outside of certain franchises.
This video is right that Gray was terrible but he was the only one who knew anything about the genre he was making a show out of. The whole thing with Kazu's enjoyment of the old anime series really came off as the staff just not liking anime in general or thinking every anime is borderline ecchi JUST because 'it's anime'. That whole scene, even in cuts, looked like a parody of someone who doesn't watch anime, panty shot included.
@@SuperCosmicMutantSquid From my standpoint, people will remember the robots more than the humans unless it's specified (like Evangelion)
But it's so weird how halfway through they just stopped caring about mechs. You know, the very thing the show's about?
@@ryanleatigaga7596 Given this is Rooster Teeth we're talking about, I wouldn't be at all surprised that after Gray was booted, the show was handed to people who, as mentioned, are not mecha fans or fans of anime at all but within that saw the show as their 'chance' to instill a lot of what they thought were deeper messages.
All we got was a 'message' that made it seem like yeeting yourself IS the answer and a poorly constructed snipe at a villain he was just Elon Musk.
Gray at least made a mecha show. Season 2 was a lecture.
I'm so mad that Nomad of Nowhere got cancelled for this mess
I know, right?
Man I remember really enjoying Nomad Of Nowhere. Finding out that resources were pulled from it to make Gen:Lock was really sad to hear
I think that show got cancelled over 'creative differences' which probably means the creator hated working for RT, they wanted to force weird changes on the show so he basically said "Fuck this, I'm out."
You know what's fucked up about the vulnerability thing? It's a trope in mecha anime for men to cry dramatically when fucked up shit happened to them. Not to be cowards but that showing PASSION is a good thing. Passionate tears. passionate love. passionately protecting your friends. All of those were seen as virtuous traits. They never told you to suppress your emotions, instead it's okay to express them in explosions of passion. As long as you don't hurt anybody. Fuck most anime usually have true men in control of their emotions and admit when they find something happy or sad. Mecha is about passion, not apathy. when a friend dies the MC usually explodes in emotion and sheds tears and it's seen as the manliest fucking thing.
That's why 'manly tears' are a thing. Name an iconic hyper masculine male character and there's usually a scene where him shedding tears is show as the coolest shit.
To add An example to your point show from aura battler dunbine literally cries when he kills Todd someone who tried to kill him and was his enemy it showed he had compassion and valued life
@@ryancraig110 Yeah exactly. Heroes from old anime in general were paragons of compassion, especially in mecha. Usually them being too one dimensionally good is the complain most modern audiences have (not that I have that criticism, but i've heard it from other people.)
Another point is Jonathan killing DIO from Jojo, or at least when he beat him in the castle and thought he killed him. He was deeply saddened by it despite DIO trying to ruin his life.
I also remember Gai from Gao Gai Gar weeping a few times.
Not to mention Kenshiro from first of the north star expressing emotion and weeping every once in a while.
It's always the villains who are compassionless.
@@shikitohno1756 yeah they are to Japan what Superman and Captain America are to the west paragons of all that is good and just role models to look up to
Like Berserk, one of the manga series with the most masculine and manly protagonist ever, yet, some of the most iconic scenes of that story are the moments when Guts cries.
@@aldiascholarofthefirstsin1051 Exactly. Guts is a perfect example. His tears let us know he's still human despite being a killing machine. That there's still a deeply traumatized man somewhere in there.
The phrase "unlike most mecha anime, this one's about the characters" was all I needed to hear to know S2 was going to be an absolute train wreck. Now I'm glad I never watched S2 despite at least enjoying S1 a smidge, sure it may have been simple but it had potential. Potential that was *completely* demolished by the team behind S2
The straw for me was the time skip. Never heard about the "character focus", bit the moment they said they were skipping several seasons worth of content to rush towards an ending, I knew it was doomed. Boy, I didn't even know the half of it...
Man there's these quotes that float around talking about the pitfalls that people who don't read sci-fi fall into when they try to write sci-fi, all viewing it as an embarrassment that they need to shuffle past or try and present to you the most basic of ideas as if they were totally new inventions that remind me a lot of how people who don't like mecha talk about mecha.
I had a RWBY obsessed friend who tried to sell me on this show like it would be the best mecha show ever. I lost interest and didn't make it through season 1. After seeing this video, I feel like all the gut feelings I got about the show and how it would turn out were right on the mark.
Well season 1 was just mid
If your friend is obsessed with rwby don’t take any recommendations from them if they claim it’s good.
i felt that pain in the animation rant, going from creating high quality fight scenes to poorly animated sex scenes.
You’d think that the guy who wanted to to unite all religions together would know that suicide viewed extremely negatively across many different faiths.
Also, did that guy paint over the Kaaba? How did any convince any Muslim to join him after that?!
He probably tried to sell it as a Rapture-like deal or "ascending to heaven to become one with God" rather than as suicide.
As for the Kaaba thing, yeah...wtf?
Christ RWBY handled the death of a character who wasn’t even gay better than genLOCK handled killing off Kazu.
RT has this weird relationship with the “original” shows they make. Their whole company trademark is regurgitating and reusing to make their one thing, which isn’t bad, but they’ve never taken ideas and clues from the great things they take from to make something original good. It’s all bad decisions and tons of ego that is just so on brand with RT’s original content.
Man I knew things were bad from the almost zero effort RT put into advertising S2, along with word of the awkward sex scene and the fate of Kazu, but knowing now what they they did to Cammie, I'm at a loss for words. They somehow managed to make a show that features topics on gender, religion and suicide and somehow failed at all of them. I will be in total disbelief if this show gets renewed for 3rd season in a year that we lost some truly great works of animation, many which were killed off by WB.
“Somehow” doesn’t seem like the right word. Those aren’t easy topics to tackle, which is why you oughta know your limits and only incorporate what you feel you can handle and do justice.
Gray didn’t, apparently learning nothing from RWBY dropping the ball hard tackling racism.
Like, these themes aren’t easy to pull off. That’s fine. Just…don’t pretend you can. Because then it just looks like you’re trying to slap on some pedigree of self-importance.
there won't be, roosterteeth is bound to tank anytime now. no shot they can keep staying relevant for another year, they're for sure dying out
@@APinchofBazel You can hire on a team of writers with experience in writing these stories, and hire on writing consultancies to guide them. Just know the themes of the story you want to tell beforehand and pay people who are established at writing it. I'm not sure if there's specific tutors for writing social issues and mental health, but if there is-which somebody of the right position in a company should know-hire them to tutor your in-house writers, as well as having permanent in-house staff handling social issues, mental health, etc. and employee training days on these sorts of things. I think a lot of that you should generally do as a large employer- if you care about efficiency, profit and ethics, frankly, for one thing-but if you're cynical about how much returns you'll get on that front you can put it as "covering your rear".
But the advanced stuff on specifically *writing* to tackle these issues, that seems like a good investment if you plan on seeking large returns for your product-and/or producing issue-focussed works in the future.
@@therighttrousers343 *starts laughing hysterically*
Why the fuck is it that every time the topic of 'deep topics' the goto response is 'Get a team of professionals to handle it'?
That's been their goto for the last few years in entertainment and look how well that turned out. Every major IP has crumbled to the ground, a lifeless shell, a hollow echo. And the 'replacement' stuff by these same 'professionals' isn't much better.
Unlike most of these grifters who tote themselves as 'professionals', let me share with you an actual 'one simple trick' that allows even the most rookie of writers to write out these 'hard issues'.
Divorce yourself from the subject.
Step away from writing yourself into the plot.
The point is to allow the *reader* to insert themselves into a situation. Most importantly, allow them to come to their own conclusions. Your job is to get *them* to ask the questions. NOT to attempt to pound YOUR answer into someone's skull.
That is why you fail. Your fancy corporate buzzword infused word salad means nothing to me.
@@graveyardshift6691 I think you've probably just seen the standard gamut of Hollywood and anime faux inclusivity writing by the sounds of it, in fairness, like me. Good writing on these things exists. It's out there. Probably mostly confined to books and indie film festivals, it just hasn't reached us. The thing you talked about regarding not hammering it into people's skulls, divorcing yourself...sounds like fairly standard writing advice. Of course an actually good professional would know that. Just going with your own in-house guys leads to this, it leads to the kind of hackish stuff you're conflating me with recommending to produce. Even if getting in The Professionals somehow *did* lead to by-the-books unoriginal rote...at least I think it would wind up better than this. In this dystopian example where a good writer has never existed, you get two flavours bucko, tasteless and corporate, or the kind of confused irreverent ramblings here that wind up as "I love the genderfluids, the genderfluids is my best friends, I know so many fluids."
I do strongly prefer whene western Mecha embraces a more unique flavor to Japanese mecha. I.E. Battletech and Robot Jock's. It feels more organic, than a lot of the other stuff that is so clearly trying and failing to really emulate the look and feel of Japanese Mecha.
Honestly, it feels like Robotech and Exo Squad were the only ones to nail the feel of a Japanese mech show. And the former's case was because it was literally a merging of three different Japanese shows due to Syndication laws at the time.
A good case study into good western mecha (in my opinion) would be the Pacific Rim movies. The first Pacific Rim was Del Torro's passion project about his interpretation of mechas. Whereas Japanese mechas are fast and colorful, Del Torro's are slow but powerful. (powerful as in weight and feel, not actual fighting ability. I don't wanna start a debate over which mecha is stronger or not). It didn't have any deep lore or plot lines like mecha anime, but it did have pretty awesome action and fig
But then you got Uprising. Del Toro didnt return for that sequel, so the producers decided to lean heavily into the Japanese influence of mecha, and failed horribly. They changed the mechas to be faster and colorful like in anime, but failed to make their fights work with it. And none of them have any connection to the cardboard cut outs the movie tried to convince me were characters. They even created a retcon that doesn't make any sense JUST to have the final fight take place in Tokyo and show the characters next to a gundam statue.
@@nbewarwe Pacific Rim didn't have deep lore or "plot lines" (everything has a plot line what do you mean) because it was a single movie.
It's unfair to compare long running mecha anime with a single movie.
Also for a single movie, it had a decently established setting I'd say.
@@zedmercury2605 I know. I just brought it up to compare with the original comment about western mecha copying Japanese mecha vs doing their own thing, a dynamic almost perfectly done by Pacific Rim and Uprising. You couldn't ask for a better case study into that.
@@nbewarwe mhm, I agree with you there
The whole suicide to become gods things reminds me of Beyond two souls where a character kill's himself and then immediately gets reunited with his dead family and its treated as a happy moment.
Hearing about Rt's treatment of animators is exactly why i'm going into academics.
I wanted to scream at the "Unlike most mecha shows, this one is about the characters" quote in the artbook so goddamn badly.
Season 2 had the most terrifying sex scene I've ever seen
I'm sorry I audible laugh from this how bad was it I know the video showed pieces of it but how hilariously bad was it.
WAIT WHA LOL
Update: made it to that scene 💀 oml
The sex scene in "Team America World Police" was less stiff and awkward than this...
@@minimalbstolerance8113 pfff
Also it is a rated PG show. How were they allowed to have that scene in a show targeted at younger audiences and above?
“We know, controversy is good though”
The fact that it was (apparently) said by the people of Rooster Teeth makes that statement age worse than milk left out in the middle of the desert.
"We had to kill Kazu because we needed a major character death to demonstrate the horrors of war, and he had already completed his character arc!"
Well, yes, I can agree. Death as a vehicle for plot progression is almost always unavoidable on mature mecha series, and even on more kid-friendly ones too.
However, if I understood right, Val could have been killed as well, considering she (they?) didn't really accomplish much in the rest of the series. In fact, she (them?) dying could have kicked off an extension of Kazu's arc or something, or at least show us the results of that character development. You don't just kill off characters right after they finished their growth, because you actually don't allow the viewer to capitalize on said growth - you literally waste people's time pulling stunts like that.
Goodness gracious, the gall.
My dude the death was Kazu was already rooted in homophobia, you wanted them to kill the genderfluid character too?
@@ChangedMyNameFinally69 I don't know what you're talking about. The point I was trying to make was that with how little she (them) accomplished through the series'entire run, they could've killed her instead for a similar payoff, but without wasting Kazu's entire growth. I said "as well" not in the sense that they have killed them both together, but that she (them) was a better candidate to pick for the inevitable death scene, considering how little impact they made after being left alive.
Their gender or orientation have nothing to do with my argument, just their merits and potential.
@@TWLSpark Okay but killing off their only really queer character (don't even know what to make of Kazu) is a really bad look.
@@ChangedMyNameFinally69 Sorry, but gender or sexual orientation alone doesn't really make for enough of a reason when the character itself doesn't do anything to warrant being left alive in this context - if they wanted to kill someone off, those two are the most fitting candidates, and Val was really the better pick out of the two.
It's really nobody's fault but the writers for making her (them) not that relevant in the grand scheme of things.
@@TWLSpark You're a homophobe, got it
The amount of bile that 70s mecha "send-up" made me want to spit would be enough to fill an industry grade tanker.
Wait, hold up. So in a show where we've already seen digital replicas of people exist at the same time as the people they're based off, Cammie offs herself, and then when a digital version of her appears in the finale...it's treated as though she's actually still alive?
_what_
How did the writers not realize those are not compatible ideas? If someone dies and is instantly replaced by a perfect copy, _that_ _person_ _is_ _still_ _dead._ Having someone who appears indistinguishable from the recently-deceased doesn't change that. It just makes it _appear_ as though they're still alive to everyone else, including the copy that now thinks themselves the original. The only reason why it doesn't cause immediate issue is that the original is too dead to dispute the validity of the clone.
Hell, you only need to watch an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie (The 6th Day) from over two decades ago to understand this! _That's_ how easy an idea it is to put across. If you want something more recent, then the game SOMA, which even deals with the organic-to-digital aspect.
But hey, look! Everyone in the show _and_ the writer's room is apparently too stupid to understand this, so we get the heartwarming conclusion of Season 2: kill yourself, but only when science is good enough that nobody will even notice you're dead.
The whole thing with Chase in the first season led me into a really interesting rabbit hole by thinking about it with SOMA in mind, regarding how digitizing consciousness in a way that preserves a sense of self across the transition might even work. You'd think the writers would have given it the same amount of thought
To the show's credit, though I don't think they intended to do this, that's kind of the point of that entire thought process. "Can a human mind be copied and replicated, and can that copy ever become the original". To a lot of people, the answer is 'obvious'-ly "no". I don't think that way, though. If you have the technology to perfectly replicate a human mind, and all of the brain chemistry that makes us *think* the way we do, then you can, in fact, have multiple copies of the same person in the same place. And if one of those copies, the original included, is to ever perish... Then you still live on, quite literally, as the copy of yourself. There is something to be said for divergence after the copy is made, you won't continue to have the same experiences and then go on to have different lives, but you are *you* until the moment the two copies begin to experience life differently.
If, as is the case with this show, the organic mind is killed as the digital one is created, then you truly do continue to live on, with no divergence whatsoever.
A similar thought process is shared by people who want perfect clones to replace them when they die. But I don't see nearly as much push-back on the idea of an organic clone, rather than an electronic one. It is a bit childish to think that a machine can simply imitate the human mind, and that you can just upload your mind to the cloud and then become immortal. But childish fantasies are what make up the bulk of online media... Wanting to create digital clones is no more or less fantastical than giant mecha blitzing full-tilt down a freeway, shooting bus-sized guns at one another. So, suspension of disbelief notwithstanding, I like to see more of my viewpoint in games, shows, and movies that don't treat you like a psychopath, moron, or incompetent child when you say "But you -can- copy yourself!", even if the show itself is absolutely horrid in almost all other aspects.
@@PWaldo-lw2ds See also Star Trek-style transporters (or any other teleportation).
About Gen: Lock's season 2 ending? I can't help but draw comparisons to its sister series RWBY. Specifically volume 8. Volume 8 ended with Penny Poledina sacrificing herself by havin Jaune slit her wrists so Cinder doesn't get the maiden powers and she transfers them to Winter. It officially ends with a suicide hotline number message after everyone nearly dies, escapes into the uber dangerous Vacuo desert, and Penny officially dies only TWO EPISODES after she had turned into an official human. Gen: Lock basically copied what RWBY did with volume 8 and made it worse.
To be fair rwby is getting pretty great at good at understanding and developping it's characters so it might not be the best comparaison... although even the early seasons or rwby weren't this bad and they had like 1/100th of Gen Lock's budget xD
Also where did you get the idea that Jaune slit Penny's wrists? I always assumed he just stabbed her with his sword or smth...
THAT'S HOW PENNY DIES?! Fuck me I'm glad I never watched season 8 then. I knew she died and I knew she became human first but you'd think the "combat"-goddamn-"ready" character would at least go down swinging. She knows how to fight, she has magic superpowers on par with the only one who could threaten them, and she'd have loads of support at the same time. Sure she's no longer an android and thus doesn't have the same "Get out of death free(ish)" card as in season 3, but she was *built for this*! She was made to be a hero to save the world, that was such a fundamental part of her self-image, what the absolute hell?!
God they did my favourite character even more dirty than I had thought.
@@dominiccasts It's even more insulting when you remember that at the time she got her maiden superpowers and actually fought Cinder (The Fall Maiden), she actually beat her in combat the first time they fought. XD
And then season 9 came out and everything you just said becomes irrelevant
@@pieroguyyou’re straight up lying
Season 2's most unforgivable sin was that it kept threatening to get interesting. The idea of The Flow was so cool and they turn it into a Kaiju and just throw it away.
And it looks like one of the minions from Globs of Doom
Fuck man, that mecha anime parody Kazu watched...speaks VOLUMES about the arrogance/ignorance of the writers. Like wow Hara-Kiri? REALLY!?
Wouldn't killing a charcter before their arc reaches conclusion be better for "showing the impact of war"
So long as it isn’t the cliche “I’m gonna see my family again *and with that his fate was sealed*” approach to arc interruption then you can get a really painful gut punch with a character’s death
@@warlynx5644 "I even bought my girlfriend flowers!"
@@patrickfrost9405 RIP PJ
Kat from halo reach flashbacks intensifies
Depends on how tastefully it's done. Ideally that should be handled in a way that allows the dead character to continue impacting the story by their absence, rather than their presence. A good example is Ned Stark in GoT. He as a man died unfulfilled, but the waves made by his death shifted the course of the entire story.
I like how the original Gundam series, the series one could argue truly birthed the popularity of modern Mecha had multiple female pilots that were often pivotal to the success of the mission and how more often than not they were the emotional core of the team while the male leads were being vulnerable.
People like Sayla who despite having a brother in Zion and multiple opportunities to run away from the war kept refusing to leave her team and would often even willingly offer to submit to punishment for her possible unsteady allegiances.
Or Mirai who volunteered to become the main pilot of the shows primary ship in order to help secure the lives of refugees and who went on to become something of the mother of the entire group.
Or Chris from War in the Pocket, a test pilot that reluctantly rose to the occasion to defend her home.
This also continued on in nearly every other series from the early 80's and late 90's they were so many strong female leads in mecha shows from that era.
Then Genlock acts like that was never the case.
I really liked the relationship between Kazu and Val, it wasn't great but I was left feeling like it could turn into something nice, yeah it was weird that somehow 50 years from now a man in the fuckin digital age wouldn't know anything about gender dynamics but I had hope for the future of the relationships between the main cast.
That hope was mistaken apparently.
The bigger problem is that the core of most mecha war shows is meant to be "War is bad but we can still have hope for the future" whereas Genlocks final moral is apparently, "Life fucking sucks lets completely leave it behind and become something new"
I love being told "Just fucking give up lol" to hopeful music, self-hatred is often layered behind a veil of comedy, I should know I do this a lot, but layering behind a veil of hope is something that some actual suicidal people will do.
I cannot believe the final moral of Gen-Lock is give up your humanity because death will turn you into something better.
I don’ think you need to even argue that. Gundam created the real robot subgenre. It was revolutionary, and frankly I think it has yet to be surpassed in its subversion of mecha tropes whilst still presenting a compelling narrative that doesn’t get bogged down in angst from the director.
What would have been neat is if the “give up” was part of the conflict the characters were dealing with. That way instead of the hopelessness being merely author angst and edginess bait, it’s something the characters have to stave off and actively work against on top of their other problems?
While a lot of anime OVA from the 70s to 90s had graphic and sexist images of women, I don't recall any of them being pure mecha series! Even those series had woman who could kick ass on their own! Not only did these writers not research classic mecha series, but not even classic 'cultured materials!'
I remember when I watched Gundam ZZ many years ago that the show featured female pilots among the main cast, those are Elle Viano and Roux Louka and the main villain from the same show, Haman Karn, is a woman that pilots one of the coolest looking Mobile Suit from the Gundam series
Taking into account everything happening with Rooster Teeth, turns out it shouldn't have been surprising that so much shit happened.
You know, maybe that "All mecha anime are about the robots but we're unique and super special cause those other dumb studios didn't figure out you have to write stories about characters" line was sort of foreshadowing for Kazu's spiral in season 2. The writers definitely seemed to have a lot of contempt for mecha when they decided to make toxic masculinity his abrupt character arc and the cause for it be Getter Robo if it was made by Otto Weininger (look him up).
in adition maybe don't start that story line with forced gender change in a place that feels real it kinda makes it seem hypocritical given yeah that's a major personal violation
Yeah compare how Kazu and his love of Super Robot shows and compare it to Martian Successor Nadesico and how it treats Super Robot fans( mainly Akito Tenkawa voiced in English by Spike Spencer and Gai Digoji voiced by Brett Weaver). Kazu and Gai even have a similar arc.
When you said the second half would be unlike anything before you’ve done, you weren’t lying. I was laughing my ass off as you continued to descend into madness
It’s honestly amazing how Rooster Teeth can constantly screw up their show
I completely forgot Rooster Teeth made this show, and I look forward to forgetting about it again.
I used to feel bad when people failed big like this, but at a certain point I realised it's entirely their own fault.
"Is the best character in the show, because he doesn't say a word"
You know that Rooster Teeth's writing is that bad, when again a character who cannot speak is the most tolerable one, just like Neo in RWBY.
Not exactly true look at Primal for example the main character of the show barely talks and yet he's a good character
@@isaacm7934 I don't think they meant that as a dig against mute characters. Just a dig against RT for writing a lot of cringe-inducing dialogue.
@@ooffordays566 oh my bad then
@@ooffordays566 Yeap. Thanks for correcting the other guy in my stead.
@@ooffordays566 I mean they've even been messing Neo up recently with Volume 8 as well with her actions conflicting with the fact she knows Cinder is a manipulator and backstabber as well as the real reason Roman died... Its just so dumb. Lol but its hard to enjoy anything RT anymore due to the bad rep they have. Muddies everything.
Using the Musashi face as a censor bar is unironically inspired.
“Controversy is good” and “remade for modern audience” are code for “we don’t care about fans”.
Let’s keep a code book folks. Cause show runners who use this language obviously aren’t here to entertain you. They’re here to “educate” you or ridicule/insult you.
By this logic, The Crash Banicoot remakes (or any remake) are only made to “educate or ridicule/insult me"?
Because they use "remade for modern audience" alot in there marketing
It's not inherently wrong to update things lmao
@@TheStarBot it depends what they mean by remade for modern audiences most in gaming are just graphic upgrades and maybe adding back in cut shit but say rings of power being remade means being completely different from how tolkien described that period of the worlds history
@@TheStarBot He didn't say updating things is inherently wrong lmao.
He said these types are statement are code for "we don't care about fans". I think you really have to be disingenuous to not admit "remade for modern audience" has been used as an excuse for writers to do whatever they want because they don't care enough to work with the IP.
@@donb7519LOTR was an environmentalist anti-war story about different races coming together to defeat an evil industrialist.
@@Amadeus_Adoesn't change his point.
I remember saying from Day ONE that Gen:LOCK was not going to be good. I didn't know why back then, but I just had that distinct feeling it was gonna fail despite how hard it was desperately trying to grow in its ambition. And I had friends and people defending it saying "I wasn't being fair. I wasn't giving it a chance." And now that I've seen this, I knew I was right. And with how horrible I heard the second season was, I'm glad I didn't bother with this series. It would've been a waste of my time and precious braincells trying to get through.
I liked season 1 only for the one concept that the Original Chase actually survived and that's what Main Chase had to right. THAT got me hyped because I had never heard that concept before. But I agree, everything else about this show had this subtle shadow that followed it that made it feel like "Damn, something's wrong here. I don't know what, but something bad is going to happen."
They did my boy Nemesis dirty in season 2. They turned him from a terrifying nano-adaptable war machine that could take on a whole team of Holons and a mechanized division of infantry into Zerg-rushing paper soldiers.
As someone that used to be very passionate about gen:lock season 1 and absolutely dreading season 2, it's really eye opening to see all the info come out on how much went wrong behind the scenes not only from recent twitter threads but also from a video like this.
Genlock as you mentioned in this video had potential to be good but with the wrong people behind management and the overall incompetence of many people/factors it ended up imploding itself and landed itself as one of the worst mecha shows in recent times.
Should have gotten some SFM animators for that sex scene.
The creator reminds of when David Cage said, in reference to Detroit: Become Human, That "it will be like Blade Runner, except the robots are the good guys"
That statement alone fills me with so much hate and anger. Hate at the game, hate at David Cage, anger at the fanboys that love his writing for some godawful reason. It makes me want to bash my skull open.
No fucking way he actually said that wtf
...I don't even have a response to that.
Well to be fair in blade runner the replicants are anti heroes at best, in the original they kill innocent people like JF Sebastian and guilt people like Tyrel
They are sociopathic by nature due to them not having emotions until they self actualize and the process of this (which only really completes close to the end of their 4 year life span) leaves them in anguish and agony and with a very revengeful mindset
Again they are ANTI HEROES, victims sure but also killers and victimizers
But the key is
THEY HAVE NO CHOICE
They were made to be slaves and made in such a way that they are flawed, doomed from the start and even more flawed than normal humanity, it's a devolution of us as a species
David Cage just made I robot basically 😂
I heard this show was bad, but I had no idea it was 'strawman and mock the genre it was built upon' bad. And the criminal treatment of it's characters, jeez...
And thank you for saving my eyes, Musashi.
It seems to be the M.O. of a lot of Western entertainment these days: take a popular thing and "deconstruct" it, which I say with *_EXTREMELY_* heavy air quotes because this ultimately just means "bitch and whine about things they don't actually get."
Even Voltron Legendary defender didn’t get this bad. The later seasons still stunk and some characters got butchered. But it never went this far fricken suicide hotline wtf!
This new level awful. Voltron crashed and burned. But, Gen lock crashed and broke through the earths crust all the way to the center of the earth and melted lava and exploded.
Season one wasn't that bad.
It's pretty good even.
Classic good vs evil.
Verry positive even.
And then HBO came , demanded to make it "more adult" ,"more sad", and "more edgy" and ruined it.
It was a show aimed at adults and teenagers but you could easily showed it to kids with its first season.
With season 2 it went into a full "I'M AN ADULT" edgy cringelord phase were everything went super depressing for no reason at all.
I hate that people can’t just let other people enjoy stuff. If you don’t like a genre, that’s fine. Watch something else. But nowadays people have to try to sneak in straw man deconstructions. If this was marketed as a mecha deconstriction for people who dislike mecha tropes, then I’d have no problem with its existence. I wouldn’t like it, but I’d just watch something else. But instead they had to build a big audience expecting one thing and then surprise them with the opposite. Nobody likes getting surprised by an unexpected rant against things they love.
@@Florkl Basically, the show turned into a political message, right?
What separates Gen:Lock from shows like Megas XLR and SRMTHFG is that while those shows seemed to understand and admire mecha as a genre, Gen:Locks seems to not understand why people like it, and by season 2, the crew seems to outright despise it.
Roosterteeth never fails to disappoint.
season 2 of gen:lock sounds like it was made for the animation team of season 1. the character voiced by your sweatshop owner got iced off-screen (deserved), the ghosts that haunt your nightmares all commit suicide, and you get to see the guys who made Planet Sheen make a sex scene. Truly a modern Da Vinci.
So, as someone who is stupidly passionate about Voice Actors. When you listed that fucking VO cast of mostly celebrity actors with David Tennant being the only one with a distinct history of doing Voice Over I winged. A lot. Also that 2nd half had a lot of me just going, "Wait WHAT."
I didn't mention in the video but both Michael B Jordan and David Tennant do a really solid job in their roles, but thats not very surprising knowing Tennant's history and Jordan's initial passion for the project
@@CheeseGX_ wasn’t David Tennant the guy who was a part of the Vox Machina show made by Critical Role?
@@paperluigi6132 Yeah, but more than that, David Tennant played the 10th Doctor of the Doctor Who franchise. That is no small role.
@@paperluigi6132 And he also played Scrooge McDuck!
@@Alicechan3 And he plays the General's News Network reporter in Just Cause 3, which given what's said in game that the Medici's authorities have kidnapped celebrities for this kind of job means he's pretty much just playing himself.
“Unlike other mecha series, this is about the characters.” * has terribly written characters *
But seriously, what is it with writers making stories in genres they hate? I don’t do visual novels much, but from what I’ve seen it’s become a bit of a meme that western developers frequently say the same shit about their visual novels.
Season one of Gen:Lock had good portrayals of its main caste; Kazu was a meathead, but he was also a bro that would stick by those he trust, though had a habit of trying to hard to look cool (even though it just made him look like a dork). Cammy was the youngest and most impressionable of the group, leading to her feeling like she had to prover her worth within the group, this was encapsulated well in the episode after she had her Holon's head ripped off by Nemesis, an action she had all the sensors to make her believe her human head had been ripped off, where she suffered through minor stint of PTSD complete with vivid nightmares, compounded by her mind not quite adapting to the constant switching to and from her Holon, leading to her trying to workshop new blueprints for her Holon to better suit how her mind works when operating the mecha, at the expense of sleep to add to her stress, all of which leads her to modding her own mind to the point of having a near psychological breakdown while operating her Holon. Val is the one that has the least development out of all the members, being quirky as you stated, with plenty of sass to those around them, while being very professional with how they carry themselves when on the field. Yaz is the outsider of the group, being originally a citizen of the people that those she is working for are at war with, leading to her to be alienated by most of those around her (Val in particular chiding about Yaz's origins), even so she still carries a lot of heart, being the lowkey mom of the group with how much she cares about those around her (being especially concerned about Chase and the professor). Chase is sadly the focus of the first season, so all the character development for the caste is chopped up to focus on Chase's sense of lost identity, from how he had been keeping the fact that he is alive from his friends and loved ones, to him finding out that he is not the original Chase. I had immediately skipped to the final episode of season two when I noticed just how much the characters had seemingly been downgraded to one dimensional version of themselves, and not their best qualities either, with the development from the end of season one's final episode seemingly being scrubbed from the characters memories... as well as other factors that just butchered what Gen:Lock had at the time of season one's finally.
Wow if I had a nickle everytime "ascension" was used as a suicide metaphor I'd have two nickles which is not a lot but odd that its happened in two Roosterteeth franchises...
I was literally about to comment this.
The writers have issues and instead of giving hope they prefer to give in to despair.
every two-bit loony cult tries that justification, someone should call in a wellness check on the (former) RT writers
There was one dude on /m/ making a gen lock threads for a couple weeks but even he thought it was shit.