Mintyrobo

I found out from a friend that according to a post on /m/, Jilpoong17 has passed away due to a stroke.

For anyone asking, "Who is Jilpoong17?" he was a korean fanartist, who did a significant amount of fanart of Muv-luv, Sayaka from Mazinger, and various mecha shows.

jilpoong17.egloos.com/
Please check his site out if you've never seen it before.

Jilpoong17's SD mechas heavily inspired me when I was younger. Seriously, just take a look at them. jilpoong17.egloos.com/category…

Fucking look at this Daizenguar! jilpoong17.egloos.com/247348

Back in the early 2000's, I was addicted to the Super Robot Wars series at the time. Everything Jilpoong drew was just amazing to me. His sense of proportions, his ability to dynamically pose everything just right. It's what inspired me to illustrate SD mechas at the few anime conventions I visited. It allowed me to help stand out at the conventions because who the hell was drawing SD mecha then.

Forgive me while I go back down memory lane. Back in 2003, Tanqexe graciously invited me to sell art along side him at Otakon. I'm not sure if I ever told Tanqexe, but I felt absolutely intimidated. I mean I was producing art like this: i.imgur.com/ou8f1uK.jpg while Tanqexe was producing art like this: Hyper Zeta Gundam. I could already see how this was going to play out in my head. People would glance at my stuff, move over to Tanqexe's side of the table, and buy his shit (as they should) because holy shit that's fucking awesome, I want to hang that up on my wall! Not many artists at Otakon back then could say they could do mecha, and Tanqexe did mecha well. I swear, Tanqexe couldn't order enough prints of this pic Ritus Ara - Rite of Sanctuary for the Gundam die-hards.

So what's a mediocre slob to do? I did SD mecha. No one at Otakon had SD Mecha. And not only that, but I sold them as $1 stickers. At the time, people were still mostly hellbent on selling prints at $10-$20 price points. I felt this was silly because what anime fan has money left over to casually spend on art? Only the most die-hard of fans, or fans of fanartists would spend that much cash on a print. I mean $20 is easily lunch, or that 1/144 model kit or action figure you know you really shouldn't buy, but fuck it! So I sold them as stickers, and man did they fucking sell like hotcakes. Not only were people buying the shit out of Tanqexe's art, but they'd see my stuff and be like "HOW MUCH? A DOLLAR!? GIVE ME THAT FUCKING DEATHSCYTHE!" Well, I also had a huge helping of help from Kaji01 and his brother, who actually whored out my stickers by yelling at people and getting their attention to buy stuff (ok digressing).

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is. I'm a fucking nobody. If it wasn't for Jilpoong17, I wouldn't be drawing. All of my sd mecha works, are like pale imitations of his. Even though Jilpoong17 inspired me, I still was never able to grasp his sense of proportions. His ability to pose them just right and just capture what makes those designs exciting. His solid choice of colors. His subtle line work which adds weight to just the right areas on his lines, but isn't so exaggerated that it sticks out.

Jilpoong17, thank you for being a fan of the same shit I liked. And thank you for legitimizing those shows and mechs by having created amazing fanart for it. o7

tl;dr: Okay, I like this show.

So I gave this show another shot, and there is a reason the 3 episode rule is a rule. Before I had let Yuki's slacker character almost ruin the show for me.  But thankfully her littler brother, Inaho, has saved the show for me.  His analytical abilities and battle strategy redeem this show, and in a weird way, this really reminds me of Gundam Zeonic Front (with a dash of Code Geass).

When you face the goddamned Gundam, it will murder your face, if you even look at it.  This is what the battle in the 3rd episode of Aldnoah Zero is reminiscent of.  Being confronted with an unstoppable monster, and then finding a strategy to survive against it.  It's almost like... an Attack on Titan approach.  So yeah, I rescind my earlier rant about Aldnoah Zero.

Dear Japanese Mecha show writers.  Please do some goddamned research into how military units are organized and how soldiers talk to each other and how orders are conveyed and followed.  In other words... just do some fucking research!  I'm not asking that your characters all be efficient soulless killing machines, but at least give them some sense of competence and self-control.  I'm sick and tired of seeing soldier characters lose their shit and go out of control and stop following orders.

At first I was excited to see 2 new mecha series just start up.  And then promptly disappointed because both shows seem to feature the most lackadaisical military organizations with the most undisciplined of soldiers.  Maybe I'm just spoiled by Gundam Unicorn, but the soldiers in these shows aren't written like soldiers, but instead more like mere high school students.  

In Aldnoah Zero, admittedly, they focus on these military academy students (okay fine, I can accept them being childish, since they are young) but there's no excuse for their drill sergeant, waking up and then having NO CLUE IT'S A FIELD TRAINING DAY WITH LIVE AMMO, AND OH MAN SHE'S RUNNING LATE AND SHE'S RUSHING TO EAT A PIECE OF TOAST, SUCH ANIME TROPES. And then you have this Lieutenant, who took it upon himself to get the training started that day, oh but he's an alcoholic and has all the Kaji-tropes from Evangelion.  Seriously I wanted to stop watching Aldnoah Zero at that exact moment.

In Argevollen, you have a mech pilot, who is the most childish and undisciplined soldier I've ever seen.  Worse than Kou Uraki.  I can't stand it when soldiers are written to be so goddamned immature.  These are fucking grown assed adults.  Not 15 year olds.  Hell.  The fucking 15 year olds in Gundam are more mature than the fucking man-child that stars in Argevollen.

Oh yeah, another thing in Argevollen that pissed me off.  They're taking this hill which is defended by a wall, with mechs and artillery.  And there is talk about how this wall will never get taken down.  Until these cougar mechs are released and then easily breach the wall...  At no point in all of this did they explain why they couldn't just send in air support to bomb the stupid position.  Just one fucking line of dialogue about how the anti-air defense is too strong would've gone miles to keep this scene from being fucking stupid.  Unless magically, there's no such thing as airplanes in Argevollen's universe.  Which is bullshit, because if they could figure out how to make the goddamned fanciest of giant robots, then HOW THE FUCK COULD THEY NOT OBSERVE LIFT?

Rant over.

Man... I have a lot of notes and messages I've neglected.  Sorry to anyone still reading this.

Hmm... Almost 2 years since my last post...

Well, I guess it's time to start making stuff again.