Disclaimer: To be fair to Zeta, I took several hiatuses during it because work was picking up during the summer. I’m talking 4.5 months to get from start to finish. While I think that doesn’t affect my overall sentiments, I have no doubt in my mind that it made Zeta Gundam feel less tight than it should’ve.

Perhaps case in point, I just couldn't get into it because it felt like things just Happened. While there’s the overarching plot of Titans vs. AEUG, it never felt like any progress was being made to me. In 0079, everything is in service of The Little Ship That Could surviving, even after being officially recognized. Zeta didn’t feel like it had anything like that to latch onto.

I did like the mini-plot of the last handful of episodes though. They were very tight with no flaffing about, but still not paced too quickly. I was wishing the rest of Zeta was like it. To put it into perspective, I wanted to actively make time out of my busy schedule to see what happened next in these last episode, but I never once had that feeling for the episodes before it (which is probably why the hiatuses were so egregious).

Not many of the characters grabbed me, and the ones that did had at least some writing that I really didn’t like. Pretty much all of the character interactions and relationships were awkward, unconvincing, and sometimes outright asinine. So, considering how much of Zeta Gundam is about its relationships…

Maybe this is more of a personal thing that I'm giving too much weight, but I also miss when the Gundam itself was cool. I started Gundam with GWitch, and the Gundam itself is one of the stars of the show in that for obvious reasons. In 0079, they put an emphasis on that Gundam being really bulky and having a computer that learns its foes. I was starting to understand why Gundam figures were so popular — these things are awesome! But in Zeta, I don't even remember what makes the Zeta itself special (even compared to the Gundam Mk.II). The show is so focused on Newtypes that it left the Gundams behind. The Psycho Gundam is more of the main Gundam to me than the Zeta because the mech itself is actually doing something special. To skip ahead a bit, the main mech in GQux often takes the reigns and has its own special psychic-based system. I think it would’ve been nice if Zeta did something like that so the mech could stand alongside the Newtype focus this time around.

The soundtrack definitely deserves a mention because it’s just so weird. Don’t get me wrong, it’s very funny and therefore iconic in its own right. But a lot of the time it never really fit and actively took me out of the moment because I was laughing. To skip ahead again, this kind of music fits more with the much goofier ZZ Gundam. But in Zeta, which is trying to be serious, it’s such an odd choice.

It's not that I think Zeta is done BADLY, just that it didn’t do anything too well either. Its biggest credit is that it’s such a visual upgrade from 0079 that a lot of the first few episodes were me wondering how technology “has come this far”. And of course that extends to the fights and Newtype visuals. Zeta still has iconic and memorable moments, too. It's more that it never kept me interested, so I was just sitting there along for the (very long) ride.