# 11.5: To Russia with Fight

An episode of [Mobile Suit Breakdown: the Gundam Podcast](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1434773197), 14 Mar 2026, 49 min.

Audio: https://pinecast.com/listen/2a043904-83b6-488a-a3cd-70d14812bd8b.mp3?source=rss&ext=asset.mp3

Show Notes This week on MSB we cover G Gundam Episode 5 and a shocking revelation about how Rain got her position on Team Neo Japan, the cunningly-disguised real inspiration for Argo's prison, Foucault's Gundam Fight, a reasonable critique of Domon's problem solving methods, and much more. Ready? Go! 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.
[0:30] This is episode 11.5, to Russia with Fight, and we're your hosts. I'm Thom, a longtime Gundam fan, and if I were a Gundam fighter, I would simply not be lured into the Gundam Graveyard trap in the first place. Skill issue.
[0:44] And I'm Mina, new to G Gundam
[0:46] and RIP to Michel Foucault. You'd have loved the conclusion of this episode. Mobile Suit Breakdown is made possible by
[0:53] our vaunted and valiant pair paying subscribers.
[0:57] Thank you all and special thanks to our newest patrons.
[1:00] Best druggist, Steely Dan Fan, Gunny Draper
[1:04] and Alec L. You keep us Genki,
[1:07] what are you going to do when you run out of letters?
[1:10] Go back around to the beginning. All right, there's a lot of words.
[1:15] This week we're covering g Gundam Episode 5, Dai Daso Toraware no Gandham Fighter or Great A Captive Gundam Fighter. Originally broadcast on May 20, 1994. This is Take Yoshiyuki's first time as episode director for G. He came up as a production assistant on 0083 and then an assistant episode director throughout Victory. Though his list of credits is not particularly extensive, he did direct episodes for some of the most beloved shows of the 1990s and early 2000s, including Cowboy, Bebop, Escaflowne and Wolf's Reign. The storyboards are credited to Oshimi Chikara. As far as I can tell, this is the only anime credit for that name, which probably means it's a pseudonym for a freelancer who is not supposed to be taking freelance work. The animation director, Sakuma Shinichi, is also making his first contribution to G. He's from Studio Dove and has previously done key animation and animation direction for F91 and Char's counterattack. Going forward, he will be a frequent contributor to all of the 90s Gundam shows. New friend Argo Golski is played by Ugaki Hidenari, making his Gundam debut. His anime roles have mostly been minor characters in shows I've never heard of, but many in the audience will recognize him as Majima Goro from the Like a Dragon series. And now, the play by play.
[2:44] It's a brutally cold day here at the Gundam Graveyard as we continue our coverage of this the 13th Gundam fight. This latest match, Neo Japan vs Neo Russia, pits two old rivals with very different strategies against each other.
[2:58] That's right. Neo Japan chose a top fighter driven to win by a Very personal mission. This could fuel that win at all costs. Fighting spirit. Or it could prove a liability. His behavior has been a source of drama and diplomatic difficulty for Neo Japan in this Gundam fight. But the results speak for themselves.
[3:16] On the other hand, Neo Rush's strategy is all about preparation. Capture enemy Gundam fighters and seize their mobile suits. Aiming to win by default. This strategy offers the additional advantage of insights into their opponents Gundam technology.
[3:29] Insights that have made their own Bolt
[3:30] Gundam a Gundam to watch.
[3:32] Some do question the wisdom of using a convict, Argo Golski as a Gundam fighter, but experience has shown Golski to be a formidable and dangerous opponent. Lets take a look at the board to see how things stand.
[3:43] So far, the Neo Russia strategy is paying off, with Domon captured and imprisoned. Despite his physical prowess, he has been unable to escape. And in physical altercations with Golski has sadly looked like a child taking swings at an adult.
[3:58] But don't count him out yet. Neo Russia has failed to capture the shining Gundam. And if Domolon and his team can reunite him with Neo Japan's Mobile Fighter, he has a chance to win this bout.
[4:09] Oh, that looks serious. The Neorusha coaches are huddled together. Something must have gone wrong.
[4:15] And there it is.
[4:16] Oh, how disappointing for Team Neo Russia. Argo appears to have helped Domon escape.
[4:21] See, this is what I was talking about. When the only freedom your Gundam Fighter experiences is in the fight itself, how can you ask them to use a fight avoidance strategy like Neo Russia's? It plays against his strengths and may prove to be a terrible miscalculation.
[4:37] Argo is coming into this fight supremely confident. The Bolt Gundam is in top form, and the Shining Gundam's punches seem to have very little effect.
[4:45] Oh, that's nasty. The Bolt Gundam has torn off one of the Shining Gundam's arms and is in a strong position to do the same to the Shining Gundam's head, which would take Neo Japan out of this Gundam fight. It's hard to see how Domon can recover with Argo in such a dominant position.
[5:01] Is this the end of the line for Domon Kashuk? No folks. It seems he still has a fighting chance. Ooh, that punch was a thing of beauty. With that strike, the Shining Gundam is free of the Bolt Gundam's grip and ready to execute its signature Shining Finger attack.
[5:17] No team has yet to work out an effective counter to the Shining Finger. And it's what has made Neo Japan an early favorite in this year's Gundam fight. There's the wind up the pre Attack hype speech. And I don't think I've ever seen this before. It looks like Domon is too injured to continue. I think we have a draw.
[5:35] An unexpected conclusion to a dramatic contest. Next week, we follow the 13th Gundam fight to Neo Japan. But for now, a word from our sponsor. Galbaldi's suspended animation Pizza. The taste you know and love. The convenience of bake at home now in your local supermarket's frozen food aisle.
[6:05] Shall we open with some stats?
[6:07] You have stats?
[6:08] I have stats.
[6:09] All right, let's open with some stats.
[6:11] I guess Flanders appears.
[6:13] Count two.
[6:15] When does Flanders appear in this episode?
[6:17] When Rain is at that Log Cabin Bar Inn or whatever asking questions of some of the locals about the prison town. There is a Flanders dog curled up
[6:30] next to an old woman who is knitting in a rocking chair by the fire.
[6:33] There can only be one Flanders dog, so it must be the same one from New York or Italy.
[6:38] It was in Rome.
[6:39] It survived the Gundam fight in Rome and escaped to Siberia.
[6:44] Flanders has survived more Gundam fights than we could count.
[6:49] Raine threatens to leave Domon Count too.
[6:53] She's really gonna do it one of these days.
[6:56] Speaking of Raine, we got to meet her dad this episode.
[7:01] The scientist with the generic scientist look in the futuristic science coat. And he's about as helpful as any Gundam dad. Scientist?
[7:09] Yeah. On the one hand, a scientist. On the other hand, she's asking him to intervene in some kind of government affairs. So clearly he's. He is aligned with the government.
[7:19] Works with the government, something.
[7:21] Rain is also a Nepo baby. The whole Neo Japan Gundam team. All the children of high ranking Neo Japanese government officials. What a great system.
[7:31] Hey, they can't help it.
[7:33] If Rain got to grow up around top scientists and became a top scientist, that's not their fault.
[7:41] I mean, maybe the thing about the Neo colonies is that only the most important people got to go there. And so everybody from Neo Japanese Japan is connected to someone important.
[7:52] Rain and her dad yet again giving me DBZ vibes.
[7:56] Because isn't Bulma a scientist? And Bulma's dad is also a scientist.
[8:00] Yep.
[8:01] The owners of Capsule Corp.
[8:03] It's very funny that I keep being reminded of dbz because I've never actually watched it.
[8:09] I watched a bunch of DBZ abridged. That is my experience of Dragon Ball Z.
[8:16] And yet we don't yet know much about Domon's father.
[8:21] Except that he has one.
[8:22] Naturally.
[8:23] Don't know why I felt the need to say that. But we understand that one of the primary criteria for being a Gundam Boy is that your dad has to be a Gundam inventing scientist.
[8:34] Is Rain a Gundam boy? We worked out the criteria for a Gundam boy.
[8:40] They need to be sad.
[8:42] They need to be space.
[8:43] They need to be good. And they need to be boy. The only one Rain is missing is Boy. And we've made exceptions in the past.
[8:50] I don't think Rain is that sad. Because Gundam boys have intrinsic sadness. Gundam boys are depressed.
[8:58] They're not just sad about reasonable things to be sad about happening in their lives. They are deep down sad. Sad is part of their core.
[9:12] Well. And I guess we also established that
[9:13] Gundam boys have to be at least a bit dumb. And Raine gives every indication of being very smart indeed.
[9:19] And of being generally a cheerful person. She's worried about Domon, naturally.
[9:28] And frustrated by his total inability to see her as a woman and prospective romantic connection.
[9:37] But I wouldn't call her sad.
[9:39] Alright. Sorry, Rayn. You're gonna have to work harder if
[9:42] you want to be a Gundam boy. Something that no reasonable person should ever want.
[9:46] Speaking of how Gundam boys are dumb.
[9:50] Yes, we've been speaking about that for seven years.
[9:53] I cracked up. When Domon wonders to himself, why are they looking for Gundams?
[9:59] Why is anyone.
[10:00] Dude, it's not that hard to figure out. Why is Domon surprised by this?
[10:08] I'm imagining the proprietor of a hobby shop when Gundam Wing first went on the air. Why is everyone looking for Gundams?
[10:17] There's also Domon flinging himself at Argo
[10:20] in the mess hall when they're all eating.
[10:22] What purpose did that serve?
[10:24] He's just mad that this guy prevented his escape.
[10:27] No. He senses the fighting spirit coming from this other prisoner and he can't resist the urge for a good punch up.
[10:34] Oh, I guess this is a Domon
[10:36] sucker punches somebody count too.
[10:39] Also, if Domon hadn't done that, Argo
[10:42] would not have sensed Domon's fighting spirit
[10:45] and would not have arranged this fake breakout that then turned into a real breakout.
[10:49] Domon is out there playing 4D chess.
[10:51] Perhaps 5D's for a guy playing 5D chess, he sure seems to get arrested a lot.
[10:57] And tortured and beat up by the cops a lot. And to really find being captured and tortured an inconvenience. You're never going to be able to make Domon sound smart. I'm sorry.
[11:09] I mean, no. But you gotta admit it's pretty impressive that he's a guy for whom being locked up in a Soviet prison and beaten soundly by the guards is in your own Words merely an inconvenience. When you've lived a life like Domon, when you've been arrested and beaten up
[11:27] as many times as he has and
[11:29] just kept coming back stronger, overcome basically every challenge you've ever faced, why wouldn't you throw yourself into the jaws of danger, confident that you're gonna emerge on the other side? What's the best way to find the Gundam Fighter of Neo Russia? I dunno. Walk around like a huge idiot with a big sign on your head that says, hello, I'm the Gundam Fighter. Please attack me.
[11:52] Oh my gosh. Loads of confidence, absolute certainty that everything will work out his way in the end.
[11:58] He really is a Nepo baby.
[12:02] I thought you were going to say he was a Shar.
[12:04] Eh, Same difference.
[12:06] There's a version of Char. There's an interpretation of him where he's very Machiavellian, has everything planned out well in advance, going through the steps of his master plan. But I think Shar is much more full of confidence, barrels into situations he doesn't understand, and just figures out how to achieve his goals in the process. And I think we're seeing a lot of that from Domon.
[12:26] The main difference that I see between the two, other than that they are
[12:30] in completely different kinds of stories.
[12:32] And this actually gets at part of the tonal difference between the two shows. Shar takes huge risks because Shar doesn't
[12:39] care whether he lives or dies.
[12:42] Domon takes huge risks because he doesn't think anything bad is ever going to happen to him.
[12:46] Exactly.
[12:48] He also has a scar on his cheek instead of his forehead, which. I mean, those are completely different parts of the face.
[12:53] Yeah, they have completely different kinds of daddy issues. Does Domon have a sister?
[12:58] He kind of treats Rain like a sister.
[13:02] The opening narration felt uncomfortably timely in that it was talking about, effectively, the Russian government pressing prisoners into service, a thing which has been happening in the war in Ukraine.
[13:16] More on that in the research piece
[13:17] in a few minutes, though. This prison.
[13:21] Oh, gosh.
[13:22] Is not a Russian prison.
[13:24] No, this is Alcatraz. For some reason.
[13:26] This is very much Alcatraz. It's really explicitly Alcatraz.
[13:29] I'm going to read you Imagawa's comments on this episode verbatim, since they're a bit extensive and I think very revealing about the production process going into this show. In episode five, I learned a lot about the significance of location, hunting and settings. People ask me why this prison is in Russia since it is based on Alcatraz. Fortunately, the year before making G Gundam, I went to America. So I asked if I could visit Alcatraz. In fact, I really wanted to see Alcatraz as a location reference for one of the episodes of Giant Robo. When it was time to create Argo's prison, I supposed a small one would be too boring to hold the powerful Argo. I used the idea of the jail as practice before using it in Giant Robo, so I used portions of Alcatraz whenever possible. For example, the place where Argo and Domon meet for the first time is an actual place, so I made scenes of this episode using videos and pamphlets as references. Photographs were definitely useful, but all in all, the experience of actually going out and seeing things out there was more beneficial. Perhaps because I am a man of stage direction, I constantly wondered how to convert my experiences into pictures. Another good reference was a take Home Alcatraz, a paper model of the prison that was sold in the gift shop. I presented this to modeler Makoto Kobayashi, and he was very happy. Then, after he had assembled it, I borrowed the finished product and showed the animation staff exactly which part of the jail Argo and Domon do this and that in. Also, it was quite useful for deciding the perspectives and camera angles. I asked the staff to set their perspectives on the table and told them it would feel like this to be at Alcatraz. Thus, I learned the importance of location hunting through the experience of actually seeing the prison. However, actual location hunting could not be done, so we had no choice but to do location hunting by watching films.
[15:11] After all, it is certainly an iconic prison.
[15:16] Yeah, I'm not sure there is any other prison with that same kind of mythic quality. Because truly, we're watching the episode, they show us a prison compound on an
[15:29] island, and we both go Alcatraz.
[15:31] There's nowhere else it could be.
[15:34] Sure, I suppose there are other famous prisons, the Bastille, for instance. But this is something else. It's cinematic.
[15:42] In the case of an actual Russian prison or gulag in Siberia, what keeps people there is largely the fact that it's Siberia.
[15:50] You are in the middle of nowhere. The weather conditions are absolutely brutal. You would be unable to survive even
[15:58] if you did manage to get out.
[15:59] The island's kind of overkill, at least
[16:02] as I perceive it. It's really important for what they're trying to say at the end of the episode.
[16:06] Oh, well, yeah, as a practical matter, for a prison. No, it's not necessary.
[16:11] But it absolutely harkens to the idea of Earth as a prison for the Gundam fighters. Earth as this island of habitability in
[16:20] the midst of the sea of space.
[16:23] At the risk of tautology, the prison is a prison, but the island which
[16:28] surrounds the prison is also a prison.
[16:30] And the Earth which surrounds the island is also a prison. Its prison's all the way down. For the Gundam fighters, the Gundam is a prison. The fight is a prison, the ring is a prison. At least from the perspective of Birdman,
[16:46] who is yet another movie reference. Arguably the title as well. I'm not positive, but the first part of the title is Great Escape, which
[16:55] is the name of a movie, a rather famous one about a prison break,
[17:01] starring Steve McQueen and Birdman of Alcatraz, A highly fictionalized film about a real life Alcatraz prisoner played by Burt Lancaster, I believe. I think so. There was also an Escape from Alcatraz movie, which, again, a fictionalized account of an actual escape from the prison. And that movie came out in 79. But vis a vis Birdman, the prisoner in question, was famous as an ornithologist, did a bunch of bird research from inside prison, published a bunch of texts, made discoveries, invented bird medicines.
[17:39] The subtitles at least refer to Domon's cellmate as the Birdman rather than merely Birdman, so we can assume it's a nickname and not his actual name.
[17:48] He's a funny character.
[17:50] Did you notice their cell has only one bed?
[17:53] Only one bed and only one set of sheets. Just like in my fanfictions. I actually watched through the Birdman of Alcatraz this morning.
[18:01] That's what the cell looks like that the Birdman is in when he's put in Alcatraz, right?
[18:05] But he's put in solitary for sure.
[18:07] No, I know. No, I'm a. I imagine Argo's handler, the woman whose name I do not remember and is not said in the course of this episode. I'm picturing her as a Fujoshi. Just like now.
[18:22] Kiss.
[18:23] Oh, no. We got a cell with only one bed. It's so cold tonight. Guess we'll have to share our warmth.
[18:31] She reminded me of a cross between Shima and Beryl from Sailor Moon.
[18:37] Mmm.
[18:38] I assume she's supposed to be like, Neo kgb.
[18:41] Oh, yeah. Her references to our intelligence network.
[18:45] She wears a different uniform.
[18:46] She clearly has authority over this prison without really being, like, part of it. She's mostly there to oversee Argo. The bit where Birdman is explaining to Domon, or at least trying to convince him that it's hopeless and he should just give up and tell them where his Gundam is, and he's like, it's all over. You're in checkmate. I assume the joke, because they show us the chessboard. The black king is not in checkmate. The black king is not even in check.
[19:14] What I noticed about that sequence, because it's actually a fairly long sequence where he's explaining to Domon the trap that he's fallen into. The Russian strategy, as it were, very light on animation. Lots of pans, lots of effects that provide some visual interest without needing to animate very much.
[19:36] The fight at the end of the
[19:37] episode is pretty effects heavy too. Not a lot of animation.
[19:41] And most of what is there is being reused.
[19:44] Not that it looks bad.
[19:46] No.
[19:47] But some corners were cut. I'm not seeing a lot of corners,
[19:51] I guess, is what I'm saying.
[19:52] Corner light. But it is well constructed. I think it's a good story, well told. They do some neat things, sort of
[20:00] foreshadowing when Domon breaks the prison guard's army. You know, that's the fate that he
[20:05] then suffers at the end of the episode. Some good stuff, real cinema.
[20:10] They also extend the torture imagery. Like there's the explicit scenes of Domon being questioned. And then when he starts the fight with Argo and takes a guard's gun, he's beaten afterwards. But the Mechagore.
[20:26] Mmm, yes, the Mechagor.
[20:29] All the captured and disassembled Mecha, which they can't possibly need to chain those
[20:37] mobile fighters and hang them off of boards and stuff like that.
[20:42] They did not need to go that hard.
[20:43] That was not necessary.
[20:45] But it.
[20:46] I needed it.
[20:47] It was necessary for me.
[20:49] Nina.
[20:49] But then, especially at the close of that scene, there's a shot of a Gundam head. They have drawn it so. So it's like the eye has been ripped out. There's all these cables hanging out of the eye socket.
[21:03] That's so good.
[21:05] This episode, more than G Gundam and G Gundam, more than most Gundam, draws a really tight line between the Mobile Fighter and the body of the Gundam Fighter.
[21:18] The fact that the Mobile Fighter just echoes every movement made that there's no
[21:22] control interface, that there's no joystick or pedals or buttons to press that has already linked the two very, very closely.
[21:31] And that they apparently feel the pain of hits and damage that the mobile suit subsequently takes exactly this control system also renders them vulnerable.
[21:41] It would be difficult to design a Gundam that was more an avatar of the person than these are. And how grotesque, how gruesome to take a person and imprison them and force them to tear apart their own body. Because that's what they're doing here. They've got all of these Gundam fighters and they're making them rip apart their own captured Gundams.
[22:05] Notably, none of those other Gundam fighters are freed at the end of this episode.
[22:10] I thought it was odd. You mentioned earlier you like how the story for this episode is constructed, and I mostly agree. But at one point, Birdman says of the prisoners, once they are out of here, why would they ever be let go?
[22:25] Well, I think it's a hypothetical. I think that's part of the reason why they give up and accept their imprisonment, is what he's saying. He's saying if they were ever to escape, they would then be hunted as traitors. The prison is as much psychological and as much a place of refuge from the outside world as it is a pen to keep them in. You see that when Rayne is doing her reconnaissance cruise around the island and she's seeing all of these cannons hidden in windows and artillery pieces concealed under camouflage. Most prisons don't have those.
[22:57] Most prisons are not built to be
[22:59] fortresses to defend against attacks from outside.
[23:03] Ooh. I have to backtrack to your comment about the closeness between the Gundam fighters themselves and their mobile fighter units and how it's really one body.
[23:13] Oh, yeah, thank you.
[23:14] Because I hadn't quite finished with that.
[23:16] Because what should happen when Domon first encounters Argo, but that Argo's eyes glow exactly like a mobile fighter unit's eyes glow. Also, he is a giant.
[23:29] Domon is the size of one of his legs. But returning to the design comparisons, the
[23:37] bolt Gundam sort of navy blue, dark plating at the shoulders, chest and skirting looks a lot like an old Russian military coat.
[23:47] Like a big overcoat that you would
[23:49] wear in the winter.
[23:49] And ditto the hat.
[23:51] Yeah, the shape of the head is very reminiscent of the hat. And his weapon marks him as a prisoner. It's a literal ball and chain like
[24:01] they used to put on prisoners.
[24:03] Mm.
[24:05] Though I feel like it's gotta also
[24:06] be a reference back to the Gundam Hammer.
[24:08] The beloved Gundam Hammer of first Gundam.
[24:10] Sure, Domon does refer to it as
[24:12] a hammer, but when I was doing my second watch through for notes, I was like, ball and chain. I see what they did there.
[24:23] It is extremely convenient how many different
[24:26] countries use the same blue, red, white
[24:29] scheme for their national colors.
[24:31] Makes it real easy to apply the Gundam tricolor.
[24:35] You just pointed out that Argo's eyes glow like the Gundam's. But the way Domon and Argo fight at the beginning of the episode with Domon, like punching him in the chest
[24:45] to no effect and then getting clobbered on his shoulders.
[24:48] The almost the exact sequence repeats at the end of the episode. Then no one punches him in the face, and he does that like, tough
[24:55] guy, no sell thing where he just like turns his chin into the punch, cocks his head to one side and then the other, as though he's.
[25:03] He's just warming up. He's just stretching.
[25:05] All right, Domon, when are you going
[25:07] to hit me for real?
[25:08] You would think that the roof of
[25:10] the bolt Gundam's hangar would like, open or something.
[25:14] You wouldn't think they'd make it.
[25:15] So it has to bust out and be rebuilt every time.
[25:19] No, that sequence of the mobile suit or the giant robot breaking through the
[25:23] roof of the hangar, that's a classic. They did that in Zeta.
[25:26] I'm sure they've done it in other shows. Like, you gotta have that sequence.
[25:30] It looks too cool not to.
[25:32] This is a show about cool sequences, not logical technology.
[25:36] In that case, I have nothing at
[25:38] all to say about Argo punching through a wall, tearing a gas pipe apart with his bare hands, and having it burst into flames without hur him or Domon or Birdman.
[25:49] Argo's design also marks him as a little older. The thick, bushy sideburns, the big spiky eyebrows.
[25:59] He makes some great faces in this episode.
[26:02] Like his look of shock and horror when the shining finger is coming towards him.
[26:06] Every frame of painting and the ending narration makes him somewhat sympathetic, right? The. The rumors that he was some sort of space pirate who traded his own life to save his crew.
[26:20] Well, his Gundam survives, so we know
[26:22] he's going to be a major character. So he's got to be sympathetic, right?
[26:26] It's interesting comparing this to Domon's other draw, because it tells you a lot about his opponents. In the first draw, Saisaishi outwits him. In this one, it's that Domon physically cannot continue.
[26:40] He's taken too much damage.
[26:41] He's too hurt very from the hits he's taken to keep on fighting and to finish off his opponent unexpectedly.
[26:48] Honorable behavior from the Neo Russia side though, because they do have an army here.
[26:53] They have a bunch of artillery pieces.
[26:55] They could have tried to destroy the shining Gundam when it was incapacitated.
[27:01] Which in a way points to a somewhat uncomfy and maybe not knowingly made,
[27:06] but interesting distinction between Neo Russia and Neo America.
[27:11] Because Neo Russia is willing to capture
[27:13] people's Gundam fighters to destroy their Gundams
[27:16] to steal Their tech, all of that's fine. But once the fight has begun, they're not supposed to interfere, and they don't feel like they can violate that rule safely for some reason or other, they don't feel like they can do that.
[27:30] Neo America has no such compunctions.
[27:35] The reason I started watching the Birdman of Alcatraz this morning is because there's that scene of the Birdman of Neo
[27:41] Alcatraz sitting on the shore throwing crumbs
[27:45] of bread to the seagulls. And I thought, hey, I wonder if that's in the other movie. I don't think it is. The one thing that did stand out to me that I think might have partially influenced this episode, or at least led to the use of the Birdman reference, is there's a scene where the Birdman has all of his birds there in cages and ventilated boxes and things like that. And at one point he opens up one of these big boxes and lets like two dozen birds out to fly around his cell, and he says, I give you the illusion of freedom. Enjoy it. And that's the vibe of the end of the episode, isn't it?
[28:23] They've escaped prison, but they're not free.
[28:25] Domon is bound by his quest to save him, whoever him is, and also to find him, a different him, whoever that other him might be.
[28:38] I would like to make a prediction about this series.
[28:42] Go on.
[28:43] So Domon has the dream about the Devil Gundam and that finding the Devil Gundam and that man that he keeps asking people about is the only way to save Guy in suspended animation or whatever.
[28:56] I feel like there should be a musical sting every time one of us says the Devil Gundam. The Devil Gundam. Dun dun.
[29:03] We should look up a sound effect.
[29:05] It turns out from the next time on, at the end of the episode, the Devil Gundam is the one that I have wondered about from the intro. It's the one that appears to have another, smaller Gundam on its head. Will the nations of the world need to set aside their rivalry in order
[29:22] to fight the the Devil Gundam? The greater evil?
[29:25] Hmm.
[29:26] Are we going to get into a
[29:28] United nations type situation?
[29:30] Hmm?
[29:32] Hmm?
[29:33] Hmm. That's all you're getting out of me.
[29:37] I know.
[29:38] I just want to make sure that my prediction has been recorded for posterity. Maybe I'm wrong.
[29:44] There's a first time for everything.
[29:47] Oh, you.
[29:59] We know now that the Russian prison complex appearing in this episode was not based on a Russian prison at all, but on the American Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary in San Francisco, California, closed in 1963 after 30 years of operation and converted to a museum, which imagawa toured in 1993 while Scouting locations for giant robots. In fact, at the time Russia had very few facilities that we would recognize as prisons of the closed fortress, like variety common in the United States and depicted in the episode. In 1991, on the eve of its dissolution, the Soviet Union maintained 2,100 labor camps but fewer than 10 and perhaps fewer than five prisons. Likewise, the decision to set the Neo Russian fighter's introduction in a prison, characterizing neo Russia primarily as a repressive penal state, probably owes more to the durable infamy of Stalin's gulag system than the actual condition of the post Soviet Russian penal system in the early mid-1990s. The characterization of Golsky as a convict conscripted to fight and kept in line by the threat of summary chest explosion, too, would have recalled the Soviet penal battalions fighting on the Eastern Front during World War II. More than any contemporary practice at the time, soldiers were much more likely to wind up in detention than prisoners on the battlefield. Ironically, this particular twist would make more sense today, considering the extensive use of prisoners as mercenary shock troops during Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine. And yet the Russian penal system was in the international news in the late 80s and early 90s. In the mid-1980s, the new General secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, had launched a broad platform of economic, social, and political reforms aimed at reinvigorating the faltering Soviet apparatus. Perestroika. You've probably heard the term. Gorbachev saw problems everywhere in the system, but foremost was the impossibility of collecting accurate information…
[45:12] Next time on episode 11.6, the devil that Fell to Earth, we research and
[45:16] discuss G Gundam Episode six. And very demure, very mindful. The littlest Zam
[45:26] cruel and unusual punishment. Domon was a different man before the incident.
[45:35] A bad trip. Computer, activate Sinister Elevator.
[45:41] It's alive.
[45:46] The angriest boy in space. This isn't even its final form.
[45:55] Golden from the hit film K Pop
[45:57] Devil Gundam Hunters and Nina and Tom watch a dub. Ready?
[46:05] Go.
[46:09] 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 Misha Dayakson. 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 youm can get in touch with us by email@hostsondampodcast.com 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@gundumpodcast.com Patreon or look for other ways to support the show@gundumpodcast.com support most of all, thank you for listening. Are you ready to get come down to Neo New York and throw hands over your Gundam opinions? No, that's because you lack conviction. Or maybe you just haven't heard an opinion worth fighting over yet. So how about this one? Inspired by a betrayed vampire wizard, A fighting tournament is fine, but think how much better G Gundam would be if it embraced the true Winter Olympic spirit and had mobile curling matches instead.
[47:33] Complete with their very own cheating scandals.
[47:36] Shining Sweet Sweeper.
[47:39] It would still be Shining Finger if it's the cheating scandal.
[47:44] Topical reference.
[47:53] Are we ready?
[47:54] So ready. This is.
[48:02] And I, Nina, New to og OG Gundam.
[48:05] OG Gundam.
[48:07] You watched that seven years ago. You don't get to call yourself new anymore. Here you ch.
[48:27] Next time on episode 11.6, the Gundam
[48:30] that Fell to Earth. Did I say the Gundam?
[48:34] Starting over.
[48:34] Sorry. Hello, Mr. Policeman. And that's it. It's over.
[48:50] All right,
[48:54] sa.

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