# 11.20: His Man Raymond

An episode of [Mobile Suit Breakdown: the Gundam Podcast](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1434773197), 15 Aug 2026, 1 h 00 min.

Audio: https://pinecast.com/listen/8dca572b-1b55-4a5f-8ea2-30d6bddd7dcf.mp3?source=rss&ext=asset.mp3

Show Notes This week on MSB, in an episode thick with subtext, Domon is the belle of the ball and everyone wants to be on his dance card, George realizes that it's hard to find good help these days, and Raymond faces the greatest foe of all: time. Isn't male friendship nice? Plus stick around after the talkback for a rapid fire reference research rundown as Thom breaks down the new Neo French mobile suits/fighters. Mobile Suit Breakdown is written, recorded, and produced within Lenapehoking, the ancestral and unceded homeland of the Lenape, or Delaware, people. Before European settlers forced them to move west, the Lenape lived in New York City, New Jersey, and portions of New York State, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Connecticut. Lenapehoking is still the homeland of the Lenape diaspora, which includes communities living in Oklahoma, Wisconsin, and Ontario. You can learn more about Lenapehoking, the Lenape people, and ongoing efforts to honor the relationship between the land and indigenous peoples by visiting the websites of the Delaware Tribe and the Manhattan-based Lenape Center. Listeners in the Americas and Oceania can learn more about the indigenous people of your area at https://native-land.ca/. We would like to thank The Lenape Center for guiding us in creating this living land acknowledgment. You can subscribe to Mobile Suit Breakdown for free! on fine Podcast services everywhere and on YouTube, visit our website GundamPodcast.com, follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, or email your questions, comments, and complaints to gundampodcast@gmail.com. Mobile Suit Breakdown wouldn't exist without the support of our fans and Patrons! You can join our Patreon to support the podcast and enjoy bonus episodes, extra out-takes, behind-the-scenes photos and video, MSB gear, and much more! The intro music is WASP by Misha Dioxin, the recap music Window by 1000 Handz, and the outro is Long Way Home by Spinning Ratio, all licensed under Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 licenses. All music used in the podcast has been edited to fit the text. Mobile Suit Breakdown provides critical commentary and is protected by the Fair Use clause of the United States Copyright law. Gundam content is copyright and/or trademark of Sunrise Inc., Bandai, Sotsu Agency, or its original creator. Mobile Suit Breakdown is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Sunrise, Bandai, Sotsu, or any of their subsidiaries, employees, or associates and makes no claim to own Gundam or any of the copyrights or trademarks related to it. Copyrighted content used in Mobile Suit Breakdown is used in accordance with the Fair Use clause of the United States Copyright law. Any queries should be directed to gundampodcast@gmail.com Read transcript

## Transcript

[0:08] You're listening to season 11 of Mobile Suit Breakdown, a weekly podcast covering the entirety of sci-fi mega-franchise Mobile Suit Gundam from 1979 to today.
[0:19] This is episode 11.20, His Man Raymond, and we're your hosts. I'm Tom, a longtime Gundam fan, and this week my interests in Gundam and classic detective fiction intersect in a very unexpected way.
[0:43] And I'm Nina, new to G Gundam, and seriously, what is the definition of moe? As an ad-free independent podcast, Mobile Suit Breakdown relies on our inimitable and impassioned paying subscribers. Thank you all, and special thanks to our newest patrons: Terribly Sorry, C. Connor H., and Patrick K. Yukibus Genki.
[1:07] This week we're covering G Gundam episode 20, Georgio Akumu wo Uchi Kudake, or George, Beat the Nightmare, originally broadcast on September 2nd, 1994. The episode this week, and actually episode 19 last week as well, saw the arrival of a new eikantei, or storyboard artist, Tsunaga Tsukasa. Tsunaga has been a storyboard artist almost his entire career, but around the turn of the millennium he got his crack at directing, helming a string of moderately well-regarded but now mostly forgotten shows like Shadow Skill, Eden's Bowie, and Magical Meow Meow Taruto, as well as the first season of Dirty Pair Flash. After 2001 though, he went back to doing storyboards exclusively, working on Planets, Samurai Champloo, Noein: To Your Other Self, Tiger and Bunny, and over 100 episodes of Yu-Gi-Oh. But now, the play-by-play.
[2:03] Welcome listeners to What Would Jeeves Do, the number one advice show in the Earth sphere. I am your Jeeves, and this week we have something really special: a request for advice from a real-life gentleman's gentleman. Today's letter comes from someone very concerned about privacy for reasons that will become obvious in the letter, so we have omitted names or used pseudonyms where appropriate. He writes: Dear Jeeves, I have held a position of trust and responsibility in a prominent family for more than 45 years and currently serve as butler and valet to the scion of the family, A young man in his early 20s whom I have known since his infancy. Recently, he has been most unlike himself— short-tempered, plagued by nightmares and strange fugues in which he seems near mad with terror. My typically diligent and conscientious master seems disinterested in his work or his normal course of training and study. This young man's vocation is dangerous and involves a great deal of responsibility and public scrutiny. Recent difficulties may be the cause of his current malaise. He was involved in an accident in which many bystanders were hurt and killed, and suffered a period of severe illness during which he lost control of his actions. Though neither incident was his fault, he feels even these unintentional harms very keenly. I have made every effort to assist him. When my usual methods failed, I contacted a doctor of our acquaintance, hoping my master would agree to an examination, but he refused. My suggestion that he seek assistance from a respected peer in the same field was also refused. In desperation, I must confess that I went behind his back to that same peer seeking advice, but the young master caught me and I have been dismissed. What can I do? How can I help him? At this juncture, I am afraid not only for his work but for his safety, his health, His life, his very soul. This is not the courtly, chivalrous, principled young man I raised. Sincerely, Raimundo Obispo. A…
[5:35] Do you think when the team that made G Gundam sat down to make this episode, they intended for it to be this homoerotic?
[6:05] I don't see how it could have been an accident.
[6:10] I agree with you there. I think somebody looked at the concept, the cast, They looked at G Gundam as had been created so far, because I don't think this was the intention when they started planning the show out. But I think somebody looked at this show and said, well, obviously it's super gay. You've got all the different types of man, all the different types of desirable man.
[6:34] Every type of man.
[6:36] There are practically no women. The ones who are there are essentially in like supportive roles on the sidelines, watching the men go at each other.
[6:46] Go at each other.
[6:50] The thing that cinched it in my mind, the thing that made me go like, oh, okay, they know exactly what they're doing in this episode, is when George is having his like pink cloud flashbacks to all of the good times with Raymond when he was younger. The scene where Raymond is like arranging a little display on a table and there's a fan and And there's a small sculpture of—
[7:15] it's one of those ones of like a human body, but only from the like hips to the neck.
[7:20] Just like, it's a little bit weird, the sculpture. It imposes itself on the scene, rather. But the centerpiece of this vignette, and the thing that Raymond is actually talking about, is a vase of red roses. And roses are the gay male equivalent of Lilies for women. Bara is the gay man version of yuri. It's like the signifier at this point in time of male homoeroticism. If you switched all of the genders and you made that a vase of lilies, there would be no question in anyone's mind what you were doing.
[7:57] It's also long been an archetype of gay relationships— the older, wiser, more experienced man who's sort of Like teaching and inducting the younger into culture.
[8:12] Mm-hmm. Putting those roses there is the early '90s equivalent of when they say that Char and Garma were friends at the academy together. We know what that means in the same way that people of Tomino's generation knew what it meant for 2 young men who were at the Naval Academy together to have an intimate relationship. They were swabbing each other's decks.
[8:35] But leaving that aside, the first time we watched the episode, there were moments where things about the way it had been animated, the poses they had used, so on, struck me some kind of way. And I thought to myself, maybe I'm reading too much into this. And then I watched it again, and no, I'm not reading too much into it. There are numerous points Especially when Raymond is in his mobile suit. Sometimes it's played more goofy, silly, sort of SD style.
[9:10] A little Wile E. Coyote Looney Tunes.
[9:12] But there are multiple poses that feel feminine.
[9:16] Mm.
[9:17] That feel damsel in distress-like.
[9:20] Mm. He's given the way he blushes.
[9:25] He has the, in classic anime style, larger, brighter, more expressive eyes, which often are given to younger characters or to women.
[9:39] Mm-hmm.
[9:39] The clumsiness of Raymond at times can also be like an anime girl trait.
[9:47] Mm-hmm.
[9:48] His expression in some of the flashbacks where he's smiling with his mouth slightly open and like big bright eyes and everything is all glowy.
[9:59] Though, of course, he's also a member of the support crew. And like we were talking about a few weeks ago, most of the support crews are women, or at least the, the, like, lead members of them are women. And when they're not women, they tend to be men in feminized, subservient, or, like, demasculinized roles, like monks, like butlers, like servants.
[10:21] It occurs to me now that There are certain things about the way Raymond is portrayed that sort of feminize him. That self-sacrificial devotion, the way in which he's obviously loving but a bit overbearing, a bit smothering perhaps.
[10:40] Motherly.
[10:41] In his worry for George.
[10:43] Clucking around like a mother hen, you might say.
[10:45] But other things we learn about him in this episode make a stronger case for it being like a gay romance parallel rather than simply a man in a support and feminized role. Specifically that he is the one who taught George to fence, that he clearly was a fighter himself at some point. Sidebar that I love his really old mobile fighter that appears to have truck controls.
[11:17] Well, it's got like a really old-fashioned Like starter that he pulls out to go into super mode.
[11:24] And then it starts like vibrating and chugging like a diesel engine.
[11:28] It probably is a diesel engine. I mean, there's a very poignant, sad story here that Raymond raised George up, changed his diapers, taught him how to fight, taught him how to live, taught him about honor and love, taught him about how to appreciate beauty. But now Raymond, who must have been a very good fighter in his youth to have taught George, he's old and he's weak, and the things about him that George must have admired when he was growing up have been lost to time, and that's really sad. And it, at first, you know, it seems to George as though he doesn't really need Raymond anymore because of the way their roles have changed. And it's only over the course of the episode that they realign their relationships to each other, that George comes to understand the absolute depths of Raymond's devotion to him.
[12:22] Mm, see, I don't think it's that logical.
[12:27] Well, of course it's not logical. It's all, it's all emotion.
[12:30] Sure, but like, I don't think George fires Raymond because George thinks to himself, I don't need a butler anymore.
[12:39] No, no, but at At the beginning when they're dueling, right, and Raymond can't keep up with George, there's a certain sadness and a certain disdain in George's affect towards him. There is a feeling there before he fires him of like, it's nice to have you around for old time's sake, but I'm not really getting any benefit out of this anymore. I don't really need you anymore. And while that may not have been the You know, the reason he fired Raymond. That wasn't the inciting incident. It was there. It was in the mix.
[13:14] But by the end of the episode, that hasn't changed.
[13:17] Yes, it has.
[13:18] How? Why?
[13:19] Because what Raymond displays at the end is not merely devotion, but courage. Even though his body is breaking down, he still throws himself into the fight. He still absorbs all of those blasts. He still has the heart of a warrior butler, some sort of Combat butler, even. Mmm...
[13:40] I suppose. I— it is worth remembering also that as smooth as we see George behave most of the time, he is still fairly young.
[13:51] Mm-hmm.
[13:52] And when they first left Shinjuku, Raymond is the one who went up to thank Reine for all of her help and kissed her hand. And George was surprised. It hadn't even occurred to him that he ought to go thank Rayn.
[14:06] Why might George be surprised to see his gay butler kissing the hand of a woman?
[14:12] Because it's about showing respect and appreciation, not about romance.
[14:17] Exactly. George needed to learn that. He still needs to learn that, maybe.
[14:20] But what's sort of moving about Raymond, looking back over this episode for me, is that While he has this very close and privileged relationship with George, he doesn't expect to be the only person who has that. He's not possessive. He is the one who thinks George needs other training partners, that George needs to have other people of, of similar skill and ability to fight.
[14:50] Well, and maybe their reunion at the end is made possible by the fact that George has realized he can fight with these other young men. He doesn't need Raymond for that, but he still needs Raymond for other things and wants Raymond for other things.
[15:05] You can love someone and keep someone around regardless of how useful they are to you.
[15:10] Even if they're a servant.
[15:12] And maybe we all need someone to look after us. Maybe we all need that in our lives.
[15:18] Yeah.
[15:18] It's interesting. What is your read on why George is so resistant to the suggestion of working with another fighter? Because he is clearly not himself. He's having hallucinations. He's terrified. He's irritable. He's had these overkill moments. He has very obviously gritted teeth during that first dinner with Raine. In a way that seems totally uncharacteristic. Is he ashamed? Is he in denial? Does he think he ought to be able to do it all on his own?
[15:55] Well, I mean, of course he thinks he ought to be able to do it all on his own. He's a young man. They are, all of them in this arc, learning they need to rely on each other. Especially they need to rely on Domon. Reine points this out, like, Domon, you've been so popular lately. All of these other men are coming to you for help. Oh, male friendship must be so nice. This is another point where they're just making it pretty obvious, the raising the subtext to just below the surface of the water.
[16:23] Yeah, I mean, I'm gonna gloss quickly over the gender of it all because what does that statement from Raine imply about female friendships? But anyway, as if this show cares about female friendship. Domon still insisting, none of this has anything to do with me. Still resistant to really actually taking up the mantle of King of Hearts. Like, yeah, there's the Gundam fight, dude, but there is also the Shuffle Alliance and you are the ostensible leader of it and these are members of it and you're going to act like their well-being has nothing to do with you? Like, what?
[17:04] Yeah, he seemed surprised when the Shuffle Alliance crest was able to cleanse the DG cells.
[17:10] Which apparently does not require the holder of the crest to die, so...
[17:15] Maybe because the infection was not as advanced?
[17:18] Perhaps.
[17:19] Or, you know, the older members of the Shuffle Alliance, they were old. And as a certain Gundam boy once said, adults should have children and then die. And while the Shuffle Alliance, we don't know if they had biological children or not, but by passing on their crests to the next generation, in a sense they had children. And then they died. Tomino would be very pleased. With George, we find out now that it's not just the encounter with the Devil Gundam, but also this traumatic incident a year prior: the Tragedy of Marseille. Tragic things always happen in Marseille. The Count of Monte Cristo, the assassination of King Alexander of Yugoslavia— although he was a tyrant, so is that really tragic?
[18:00] Who knows? You'll think of a third one.
[18:02] Well, see, now I'm trying to think of whether, whether that was actually tragic or not, because it did, it did materially contribute to The, like, onset of World War II? I'll think about it. Anyway, I think the thing with George is that because he blames himself for this tragedy, at least in part, he feels like he has to be perfect. This naturally plays into his existing characterization, like, he is the perfectionist type. All of his battles have to be elegant and beautiful. Everything has to be just so. A speck of dust on my sleeve?
[18:39] Ugh!
[18:40] I am ashamed. And to admit that he needs help, to admit that he has trauma, is to admit that he's not perfect.
[18:48] There's also the hallucination or nightmare that recurs a couple of times in the episode, so we know it's meant to be significant, that involves Mary Louise being snatched up by the Devil Gundam. Which, paired with the flashbacks of the Marseille tragedy, gets at what I think the core fear for George is, which is that George cannot protect everyone. George cannot prevent any and all harm from happening to his country, to his people.
[19:28] And that acting to save one person might result in another person being harmed, right? That's what happened at the Tragedy of Marseille. He goes to prevent Mirabeau from killing the head of state, and instead a whole bunch of spectators get killed.
[19:42] Which obviously is not George's fault. George didn't fire the missiles. George wasn't trying to hurt anyone. Yet George recognizes that he wields this incredible power through the mobile fighter, through the Rose Gundam, and feels the weight of that very keenly. Obviously, needs must in the narrative, but for real, why would you have the stands so close to a Gundam fight to begin with? Why would you pack a bunch of stands full of people that close to a couple of horrifying giant death machines?
[20:21] Don't worry about it. They're there so that they can die. They're there to be motivational.
[20:26] The giant torch stood out to me as being rather Olympic torch-like, so I checked and France had just hosted the Winter Olympics in 1992.
[20:37] Ah, okay. I could see it. I could see it. You moved rather quickly past the gender of it all, but I'll have you know that this episode introduces A female Gundam fighter.
[20:48] Is it the one George goes overkill on?
[20:51] Yes! Chelsea Walesa of Neo Poland in the Magnat Gundam.
[20:56] Well, since we never meet her or see her, I don't see how that's relevant.
[21:00] But the lore, Nina!
[21:02] Uh-huh.
[21:03] It's so gender.
[21:05] I mean, it's, it's very gender in this show to go in after the fact and be like, oh yeah, that fighter was a woman. That fighter you never saw.
[21:15] Women should be neither seen nor heard is the attitude here.
[21:20] The flashback to the Marseille tragedy also, you know, hammered on one of the themes of the show yet again, because we have Mirabeau saying, I will do anything to attain victory. It's this pursuit of winning, pursuit of power at any price and for its own sake without any deeper or more meaningful rationale behind it.
[21:45] Well, he wants revenge, and who wouldn't want a little revenge?
[21:48] Well, and he— and he is frustrated by the fact that in the case of Neo-France, the head of state, or whoever it was who was empowered to make this decision, decided, actually, I can call an end to the fight right here, and I can choose based not on who won but on who I think better represents us.
[22:12] Surely a would-be Gundam fighter for Neo France, the colony that is shaped like a bouquet of flowers, ought to have understood that.
[22:20] Not merely shaped like a bouquet of flowers, but also covered with some sort of space castle or château where they make both the mobile fighters and the pilots of those mobile fighters wear old-school uniforms of some kind.
[22:37] With sashes and silly little hats. Love all the silly little hats.
[22:41] So many silly little hats. Oh, I forgot to say about Raymond's mobile fighter, did you notice he enters through the top of the head?
[22:50] Yeah.
[22:51] Rather than through the chest? That was weird.
[22:53] That was fun. Well, I love the bit where he sort of rises up out of it like an elevator on a stage.
[23:01] Powerful motor!
[23:02] In his elegant butler bow. There's a bit in the Gunbuster OVA where the robot emerges similarly out of a spaceship with a similar sort of elevator system, and it's doing its cool, like, arms-crossed tough-guy pose.
[23:18] Well, rising up out of the floor is classic. And then even Mirabeau's mobile fighter, the Mirage Gundam, has the look of a uniform of some kind.
[23:32] And we'll talk about that more in the research section.
[23:34] Ooh. And he has pale blue-green hair and face paint, and his fight suit has a big ol' shark mouth on it for some reason.
[23:47] He looks super evil. He looks like a villain out of Fist of the North Star or some other post-apocalyptic—
[23:55] Or villain of the week. I was gonna say, like, he could be a villain in Sailor Moon or—
[24:00] Or an alternate for Kiss.
[24:02] The Mirage Gundam has a spiked codpiece thing going on.
[24:06] That's how you know he's evil. Put some spiked codpieces on there. And then it gets the, like— I thought this was actually cool— the sort of nest of wires or cables. It looks like a wasp's nest, like a mud dauber's nest, that grows out of the back that he shoots the missiles out of.
[24:24] Right, yeah. It has a very organic look to it. I like that you mentioned mud daubers. I was trying to think, what does that look like? But yeah, like a wasp.
[24:35] Yeah, a wasp's nest. Tentacles coming out of the back, almost like extra arms.
[24:40] Yep.
[24:40] Funny hat. Character dresses like the most obvious villain in fiction. Welcome back, Miocuba's Arachno Gundam. And then in his savage rage after George has more or less disabled the Mirage Gundam, he rips the arm off of it. A lot of arms being ripped off lately.
[24:59] In George's case, If you wanted to be poetic about it, you could see it as coming out of his fear of feeling helpless, of being helpless in the face of potential harm to people he cares about. By ripping the arm off of this other mobile suit, he renders it helpless. Now it can't do anything.
[25:18] It also reminded me of earlier in the episode when he rips the head off of the Magnat Gundam and he's holding it up. He's sort of showing off for an imaginary crowd. This is his trophy. It's certainly not elegant, and it lacks the affectation of disinterest that he has always before this maintained during battle.
[25:41] Yeah, this was an episode that had many moments that looked very strange, and we'll get into that. But they did a lovely job on some of the close-ups of George's face in the cockpit and seeing his face just like stretched with rage feels so alien and kind of wrong. Which is probably why Raymond tells him that his true opponent is himself.
[26:06] Mm-hmm.
[26:07] Like, none of this is actually about any one other fighter. This is about George's own fears or insecurities or worries.
[26:18] This is one of the major theoretical justifications for the practice of the martial arts, that the martial arts are about self-improvement, overcoming yourself, your own doubts, your weaknesses, your other personality issues. And it's telling that it comes from Raymond, because it's tempting to think of the martial arts as a way to overcome an opponent, a way to get stronger, to a way to be able to fight, to be able to fight effectively. But frankly, in the world we live in today, if you want to fight effectively, buy a gun. And if you want to protect yourself, you'll get a lot more benefit out of situational awareness and being able to run.
[27:01] Maybe pepper spray. Right.
[27:05] The martial arts are not really about self-defense.
[27:07] Yeah.
[27:07] But they can be about self-improvement. And Raymond, because he's older, because his body is failing him, he has had to come face to face with the fact that no matter how much he trains, no matter how strong he was in his youth, he's not going to beat George. He's not going to beat Argo or Dolmon or Saisaishi. He's not going to beat any of these younger men. And yet he still feels that there's some value in the martial arts that he's learned and taught. And he looks for that value and he finds it in Self-improvement.
[27:39] Well, and that in his lived experience, in the fact that he's just lived longer than any of the people you mentioned, he has some wisdom and insight to offer. He, after all, understands that what is likely to help George the most is to fight. Mm-hmm.
[28:00] But also, the skills you develop fighting, the power that you have can be used for other things as well. The show, because it's a kids' show, because they want to spell this out, makes this very explicit with what Schwarzbrüder tells Domon towards the end. But they also do it in a really lovely, subtler way when Domon puts his hand on— or rather puts the Shining Gundam's hand onto the shoulder of the Rose Gundam.
[28:29] I loved that scene!
[28:30] And you see the little, like, the red flash on George's shoulder from the mobile trace system haptic This is the same thing that hurts him in battle.
[28:38] And George even reaches over from inside the cockpit to touch his own shoulder, as one might do, like reaching over to touch the hand of someone when they've rested their hand on your shoulder.
[28:51] Exactly.
[28:52] Oh, it was so great.
[28:53] Like, these, these bodies that we possess, and in the show, the machines that they possess, are capable of incredible violence. but also of comfort, also of intimacy. That Domon's super mode activates not when he's fighting, but when he's trying to restrain George.
[29:12] Schwartz's role in this episode is a bit different. He crops up late. We get presented with this dichotomy of when it's okay to interfere in someone else's fight and when it's not, because initially When George is terrified and struggling to even get in the Rose Gundam and fight back against Mirabeau, Domon is gonna go handle it and Schwartz stops him. However, once George is in, like, red mist blackout rage and overkill mode, then it's okay for Domon to get involved. And in some ways, this demonstrates that while we have mostly seen Schwarzbrüder following Domon around, it would seem that he also cares about these other fighters and members of the Shuffle Alliance. He cares about what happens to them and that they get over these, like, blocks that they have. And for all that he makes that nice little speech at the end about how the Super Mode can be fueled by care for another person rather than just by rage. Schwartz is surprised when it deploys. He was not expecting that. What?
[30:31] I mean, it's so easy to read every part of this episode through an explicitly, like, gay lens. Dolan isn't just restraining George, he's, like, hugging George from behind.
[30:46] Right.
[30:46] It's a very close, intimate moment between the two of them when Domon's super mode activates. And the super mode seems to also affect George. Like, they're both sort of caught up in this bright golden light.
[30:59] Well, and it's a very close and intimate friend who can save you from yourself.
[31:04] Very much so. And perhaps that scene with Reine earlier where she's like, oh, all these men keep Coming to find you in the middle of nowhere because they need your help solving their various problems. Male friendship must be so nice. You can sort of see this as Rain being like, "I know. You may not know, but I know." And Bruder's surprise at seeing Dolmon's super mode activate under these circumstances could be him going, "Oh, oh, okay." Yeah.
[31:41] Reine saying friendship in quotes. When she expresses envy, it's not because she doesn't have female friends, it's because Domon is being pursued by so many guys.
[31:52] And how can she compete with all of them if she wants Domon for herself?
[31:57] Domon is the prettiest girl at the Gundam fight.
[32:00] Everyone wants to be on his dance card.
[32:04] One point that the show seems to be making is that each of these characters, and in their own way, they're like a proxy for any person, for the viewer, right? That we need, or I suppose I should say young men need, both of these kinds of relationships in their life, both of these kinds of energy, which is to say someone who can show you devotion and nurturing and care. but also someone who can be harsher with you. Specifically, after George has fired Raymond and before Raymond has come back, before the big fight at the end, George is telling them why he fired Raymond, and Domhnall says, But aren't you the one who brought shame on your family? That's not Raymond's fault. And Rayn makes this expression like she's thinking, oh, but you didn't have— you should have eased into it or phrased it differently. Like, not that he's wrong, but that he has said this in the most blunt and combative way he could have, which is not what she would do and is not what Raymond would have done, but that perhaps George needs to hear that from one of his peers. Unfortunately, this is also a scene where they have drawn Tomon directly facing the camera and— what did they do to his teeth? His teeth look so weird. It's so, so weird and bad.
[33:46] It's not the best looking episode, maybe, but it is super dynamic and very fun.
[33:52] I quite enjoyed the little slapsticky scenes. stuff with Raymond and Raymond's mobile suit.
[33:58] Trying to jump across a chasm, falling in the river and having to swim.
[34:02] Yeah, it was one of those— it was the fight with George at the very beginning and then when he first just barely makes it across the chasm and collapses at the edge before the edge falls into the river. The way he sits, the way he falls down and into a seated position, in both of those scenes is a pose that I tend to think of as feminine. Like both legs to one side, kind of. I don't know.
[34:31] Well, we joked when we were— because it's not just that it's feminine, it's like specifically a feminine-coded anime pose. We joked when we were watching the episode the first time that they've made Raymond very moe. The term had not actually come into use yet at the time that this was made, But like, he, he borrows a lot of his depiction from like Usagi Sailor Moon running to school. When he's like charging through the forest, that's, that's Usagi being late to school.
[35:02] Mm-hmm.
[35:02] They should have had a giant slice of bread hanging out of the mouth of his mobile suit. When he falls in the middle of the battle, that's like the clumsy cute girl with those like swirly glasses who Falls with her big pile of books. These are the tropes that they're drawing from for him.
[35:19] Yeah, moe is one of those terms that it seems people really struggle to define because it's cuteness, but it's not just cuteness.
[35:30] There's like an element of pain in it, a certain sort of pain you feel looking at the cuteness.
[35:35] We'll probably get into that in later series when it's more relevant. As you said, not a term commonly in use, but I did on our first watch-through of this episode, look over at Tom and go, they made Reamon kind of moe.
[35:48] It's largely faded into the background, but Domon is still struggling with that sword. Now he's doing exercises with the mobile suit's sword, cutting through the waterfall that way, which is probably easier. The funniest outcome of this is if he finally cuts through a tree with that jacked-up, chipped, pitted, rusty old sword, And goes to show Schwarz Bruder, and Bruder is just like, "What? How did you do that? This is weird. I gave you that sword to demonstrate the importance of taking care of your equipment.
[36:23] The lesson I was trying to impart was maintain your mobile suit properly." The one sort of cap to all of that, to Domon's training in this episode, is that Domon has come to the realization that. it's not something he's going to be able to fix quickly. That his desire to kind of master the super mode of the Shining Gundam is going to take some time and there's no easy solution. I'm trying to predict what's going to happen next since now we have been visited by each member of the Shuffle Alliance.
[37:02] Do you think they each left after their respective episodes or have they all just like Parked in different parts of the Highlands for more training. Are they still around?
[37:09] I think some of them might have stayed in the region, but not nearby. Nastasha was getting a lot of pressure from her bosses to go fight some Gundam fights.
[37:19] But they have to repair the bolt. I imagine even in this world it takes a little while to repair a fully ripped-off arm. Though we also don't know how much time is passing between episodes.
[37:32] One final nitpick. It feels very silly for the characters to only just now be realizing that the Super Mode can be fueled by emotions other than rage and the desire for vengeance. Because when he's deploying it, Domon even says, my rage, my love, and all of my sorrow.
[37:56] Sure.
[37:56] Sure. He mentions 2 other emotions!
[38:00] Those are just words, Nina. They don't mean anything. I mean, I like— for the audience, the intended audience of, let's be honest, middle school boys, all of this functions as a metaphor for your own wild and uncontrollable emotions. And at the end, when Dolman is like, I guess my wild super mode is just gonna be difficult to control, difficult to get a handle on, at a certain point when you're talking with teenagers, you just have to say like, yeah, it's gonna take some time. Sorry. You're just gonna be like this for a while. Like, no amount of rationalizing it or understanding where it's coming from is gonna make those hormones behave. And in my experience, when you're that age, the main things you feel are anger, sorrow, and something that passes for love.
[38:50] Was the best solution to go fight with your friends about it?
[38:53] I wish I had had friends to fight with. I could have used a Delmont to tell me I was being a jerk. I'm sure I was. It's much less satisfying fighting with your enemies. This week, the appearance of 3 new Neo-French mobile suits, or mobile fighters, including Jean-Pierre Mirabeau's sinister Mirage Gundam, gives me the opportunity for a rapid reference research rundown. I'll be talking about possible— dare I say probable— inspirations for the designs and the names of the new mobile suits and some of the characters.
[39:40] Ready?
[39:41] Ready. Right. Let's dance. First, Jean-Pierre Mirabeau. Knowing Imagawa's predilections, it is tempting to think that the Jean-Pierre part of his name might have been chosen to honor a famous French director, like neo-noir impresario Jean-Pierre Melville, or an actor, like Jean-Pierre Aumont. Perhaps. Frankly, the given name is just too generic to speculate beyond that. Mirabeau, on the other hand, offers no such difficulty. The name means a beautiful view, and there's really only 2 plausible origins. The first is a town in the Provence region of southern France, about 50 kilometres, 30 miles, or 25,700 toisées northeast of Marseille. The settlement is ancient, defensible, and well situated at the crossing point of the Durance River. A medieval-era fortress, the Château de Mirabeau, overlooked the town and controlled the river crossing, but it was destroyed in the 16th century, then sold off, along with the lordship of the town, to a family of prosperous merchants out of Marseille, the Richettis, who rebuilt the château. In 1749, the same Richetti family produced the second and more likely inspiration for Jean-Pierre Mirabeau's surname: Honoré Gabriel Richetti, Count of Mirabeau, one of the most infamous figures in the French Revolution, and usually known simply as Mirabeau. Although nobly born, Mirabeau fell out with his father, a highly esteemed economist, fairly early in life. The two had never been close, but in his youth, the younger Mirabeau turned out to be something of what you might call a complete scumbag. That's the technical terminology. In 1772, for example, he set his sights on a wealthy 18-year-old heiress, Emily, already engaged to another man. When she did not respond to his attempts at seduction, he bribed his way into her home and then contrived to be seen by passersby on the balcony of her room wearing only his underwear. And it worked, because whatever Emily's father believed, the scandal was real, and Emily's family felt that they had no…
[44:34] Did they remove his remains from the Pantheon?
[44:37] Yes. Yes, they did. So is that why this shark-mouthed, KISS cover band backup guitar player looking villain is called Mirabeau? Well, Imagawa himself cautions us not to read too much into any of the names. In the G Files interviews, the director was asked whether Schwarz Bruder got his name from the early 20th century German language young adult novel about chimney sweeps, Die Schwarzen Brüder. Or the Black Brothers. But he explained that he created most of the character names, including that one, simply by asking G Gundam's literature coordinator, Kitajima Hiroaki, to assemble lists of names from all over the world, along with thematically appropriate words in different languages, and then mixed them around to create combinations that sounded like names. According to him, Sayet, the Turkish Gundam fighter from episode 11, was the only side character whose name he really thought about. But even if that's true for the side characters, I don't know that it extends to the mobile suits, because several of the ones appearing in this episode have what seem to me to be very characteristically Imagawa names. But we'll get to them in time. As Nina noted during the talkback, the Mirage Gundam, Gundam Rose, and the guard suits destroyed in the opening sequence have all been built with heads that resemble historical military headgear. The Rose wears a bicorne, famously associated with Napoleon Bonaparte, and worn athwart, as was popular in the 1790s. Brief aside, it's actually really ironic that the bicorne has become so iconic, because it was not worn for a particularly long period of time. It just happened to be a period of time that was very eventful in a military sense, and about which A great many paintings and movies and other, you know, visual depictions have been made since. Anyway. The guard suits are wearing the stiff, tall, visored shako or shako cap. This was the iconic hat of the latter part of the Napoleonic Wars, coming into popular use in most European and…
[52:07] Hang on, sorry, it's called Burke's?
[52:09] Burke's.
[52:10] Like Burke's Peerage?
[52:12] Uh, I don't think that was the intention. I don't actually know where the Burks comes from. It's a play on the, like, Jane's series of magazines about real-world weapons.
[52:22] Ahhh.
[52:22] I think Burke might be the name of the person who put the— put it together in the first place.
[52:27] Funny coincidence.
[52:28] The G Gundam machines were first added to the Burks list in 2002, while the show was on the air in the US. But at the time, the second part of the machine's name was dropped completely, and it was just listed as Butler. This changed between the 13th and 16th of November 2006, when it became Butler Bensouman. Interestingly, the oldest extant use of the more accurate Benson Mum online is also from Mecha Anime HQ, in this case from a G Gundam episode summary from 2001. The Burks page then switched to Benson Mum in 2015, or perhaps early 2016, There are not as many captures from this period. But by then, the Gundam Wiki had adopted Bensouman, ensuring its continued popularity in English-speaking fandom. MAHQ has stuck to their guns since 2016, and they still call it the Benson Mum. And they're right to do so! You see, when I first saw the katakana Benson Mamu, I initially thought that it might be a reference to the somewhat popular American sitcom Benson, about a butler by that name. But I wasn't convinced. I couldn't come up with a satisfying explanation for that extraneous mamu or mum sound at the end. Until I remembered that there is a butler named Benson Mum, played by Alec Guinness of all people, in the 1976 comedy whodunit Murder by Death. With his bow tie, bald pate, and tailcoat, Guinness's James Sir Benson Mum looks rather a lot like the Butler Machine. More so than the silver fox Raymond does, at least. I couldn't find any information about the film's popularity in Japan, but it was dubbed and released there under the name Meitantei Toujou, The Great Detective Appears. And it's hard to imagine Imagawa, of all people, missing out on a film that starred David Niven, Maggie Smith, Peter Sellers, Alec Guinness, Peter Falk, and Truman Capote, playing parodies of the most famous characters from the Golden Age of detective fiction. As for where the Ben Somon version of the name came from, that remains a mystery. Was it official, either a mistake or a knowing…
[55:37] Next week on MSB Episode 11.21, The Death Army Strikes Back, we will research and discuss G Gundam Episode 21 and It's the finals countdown! Finals? But it's only episode 21! George sees something he shouldn't. If your crest remains engaged for longer than 2 weeks, consult a doctor. Argo tests some limits. Someone really is a slow learner. A near-death army experience.
[56:26] Tremors.
[56:31] By gad, that's Master Asia's music!
[56:34] And—
[56:36] Saved by the love of a good woman, your 4 closest bros, and a masked weirdo. Ready? Go! Nice.
[56:59] Mobile Suit Breakdown is written, recorded, and produced by us, Tom and Nina, in scenic New York City, within the ancestral and unceded land of the Lenape people, and made possible by listeners like you. The opening track is Wasp by Mischa Dioksen. The closing music is Long Way Home by Spinning Ratio, and the recap music is Window by 1000 Hands. You can find links to the sources for our research, the music used in the episode, additional information about the Lenape people, and more in the show notes on our website, Gundampodcast.com. You can get in touch with us by email at hosts@gundampodcast.com. Thanks for listening. If you'd like to support the show, please tell your friends about us, leave us a nice review wherever you listen to podcasts, or if you'd like to support us financially, you can do so at Gundampodcast.com/Patreon. Or look for other ways to support the show at Gundampodcast.com/Support. Most of all, thank you for listening. I think we have a book that attempts to define moe. I can dig it out for you.
[58:14] The longer we do this, the more out of touch our references will be. I'm looking forward to it. We can use our influence to introduce the youths to You know, old music and memes and internet Flash videos.
[58:32] Assuming we can continue to capture the youth demographic.
[58:35] I think there are always going to be new young Gundam fans who want to know, is the physics behind that weapon actually feasible? say something and we're probably gonna cut it, but— Bright?
[59:03] Yes?
[59:04] Okay, I just want to be clear, we're gonna have to cut this. It's fine, don't worry about it.
[59:20] Oh no, I might become a cool immortal cyborg? Ooh, I'll grow incredibly strong but also turn evil? Big deal, plenty of people do that anyway, and they don't get sweet robo scales and regeneration powers in the process. Get over yourself. Give me the DG cells. I would use them for good.
[59:38] But the true fear is over loss of control. Not according to the G Gundam, it's not.

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