Mobile Suit Victory Gundam found yet another way to escalate many of the themes and motifs that defined Gundam. The young pilot is only 13! The main crew is such a scrappy resistance that their base of operations is a big truck! The battles depict more desperation and destruction from the perspective of people that simply want to live normal lives. This was Yoshiyuki Tomino's first Gundam TV Show since 1987's ZZ Gundam and we could not have been more excited to return to that particular style of pacing, world-building and characterization. This was easily one of our favorite iterations of Mobile Suit Gundam so far and we hope that you enjoy our rambling conversation about it as much we enjoyed having it.

Leslie Blanch's epic biography of Imam Shamyl and the Russo-Caucasian struggle that defined his life for almost 30 years is now mostly remembered for having been a major influence on Frank Herbert's Dune, but it's place as a classic of literary history-writing deserves to be celebrated. Blanch's ambition to cover such a complicated period of time seems incidental to the passion evident in every exquisitely rendered sentence describing the Murid freedom-fighters and the mountains they call home. Blanch travelled the world, interviewing descendants of the characters in this book and combing through Russian military dispatches, not only to provide a thorough accounting of the Murid War fought in the early 19th century, but to convey the depth of passion this region and this conflict seemed to have inspired in all who crossed. There are a ton of digressions through anecdotes, literary criticism, ekphrasis, and personal observations that might seem out of place in a traditional history, but are essential to the feeling this book plunges you into. We had fun discussing Part 1 of this book in our meandering way and we hope you do too.   For more on Sabres of Paradise's influence on Dune: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-secret-history-of-dune/   To email Pleasant Evenings Book Club: eveningspleasant@gmail.com

The second of the Gundam OVAs cements what War in the Pocket had confirmed: that the world of Gundam is rich and exciting enough to sustain and inspire many stories outside of Tomino's original vision. In this case, it is to tell a relatively straightforward wartime melodrama. We discuss the highs and lows of this series. And using the negative provided here, we uncover what exactly the "Tomino Touch®" adds to a project.   Skip the first 6 minutes if you'd like to jump straight into the Gundam talk.

Really proud of how this one came out. Ice is an incredibly slippery novel to try to pin down. The book teeters back and forth between dark anti-romance, bleak rumination on a dying world, and on one occasion, a James Bond parody(?) The story itself is unsteady about its facts and chronology, employing some perspective altering rug-pulls. We had an interesting conversation exploring the emotional landscapes Kavan draws before addressing the shadow that the author's own troubled life casts on her work.   Truly one of the most unique books I've ever read and one we're glad to share on Pleasant Evenings Book Club

Our initial reaction of F91 was as a beautiful but flawed movie. A stylish and emotional evolution of the themes and aesthetics of Gundam that never truly got to bloom. In way that lost potential somehow makes F91 an even more alluring and curious artifact that has only grown in our estimation since our initial reaction. This recording is closer to that initial reaction but even then the budding love we have for this movie is clear in our conversation.

It's hard to find new things to say about The Stranger. Occupying a space of historical importance in literature, philosophy, and youth culture across three continents and ultimately around the world, The Stranger is enduringly popular (especially so among people who lack the self awareness to consider whether their opinions are worth sharing). It's no wonder that this episode came out to a little over two hours. We attempt to be thorough in our discussion of the book and open with our reactions. This was a conversation between someone reading for the first time and someone who had the enviable pleasure of reading it as a teenager. It made for a pleasant evening to discuss the book and hopefully it will be an equally pleasant experience listening to our thoughts (they are very deep because of how Authentic and Existential we are).

I'm starting to think that War is actually bad! This side story in the Gundam universe is the first series not overseen by Yoshiyuki Tomino; and it reflects a difference in style, tone, and scope. Instead of an operatic 50 episode epic, we zoom in on ordinary civilians and disposable grunts for only 6 episodes. The result is one of the most impactful works, not only in Gundam, but in the medium.   Our conversation kind of goes all over the place, but we never stray far from effusive praise of almost every element of this production.

What happens after you die? What about after that? Or after that? And what if you just skipped the dying part entirely? How far can you take things? Isaac Asimov helps wrap our heads around these questions with the power of AI. From a time when that had little to do with crypto-adjacent scams, Asimov's story used AI to plant a seed in our imagination. I had never felt closer to the entropic ends of the universe than until I read this story. It turns out its a place where all things converge: optimism and pessimism, individual and collective, emergence and cessation, man and machine. At least that's where our conversation went, the story itself is a straight shot into the titular question. You can read the story or listen here to find out what that is.

Char's Counterattack is as iconic to the history of animation as it is inaccessible to those not caught up to the decade of Gundam that came before it. Amid all the proper nouns and sci-fi jargon is the touching conclusion to the saga of Amuro and Char. And throughout the runtime of the film is also some of the greatest achievements in animation, art design, choreography and sound to close out the 80s Gundam era with a beautiful spectacle. We break it all down and point out some of our favorite and least favorite creative decisions from the movie as well as a joyful reading of one of Director Tomino's most incredible interview quotes.

For how popular The Fall of the House of Usher is, it is quite a strange story. Poe guides us through a fever-dream where rather than ghosts or things of that nature haunting an old house, the house itself exudes menace that entrances our characters. Without deviating too far from the story, we discuss abstract art, the fall of the aristocracy, fungi, and the Castlevania video games.

This is where ZZ Gundam momentarily stops being the goofy show we came to love in it's first half, and the horrors of war rear up again and again. We found this second batch of episodes to be really impactful, cementing ZZ Gundam as potentially the funniest and most tragic Gundam series that we've covered so far.    In this conversation we talk about how ZZ interacts with the themes that we've discussed so far in the Gundam franchise and how it handles it's peculiar tonal pendulum (we would argue quite meaningfully).

Who knew that reading about the world ending over and over again could be so fun? Exterminator! isn't as talked about as William Burroughs earlier work even though it contains some of Burroughs' most popular short stories, including "Twilight's Last Gleamings", "The Discipline of DE", and "Wind Die, You Die, We Die". In the context they're included here, we found the stories sang out twice. This is a collection of strange and affecting stories that seem to swirl together into a single text thanks to the steady (but not predictable) employment of leitmotifs throughout. Themes, images, phrases, or even whole characters or events pop in and out of these stories, adding to the richness of the reading experience. Over our conversation on this pleasant evening, we attempt to scratch the surface in a wide-ranging discussion of these leitmotifs and their strange prescience concerning modern American life.

We went into this iteration of Gundam hedging out bets, but it easily ended up being our favorite series in the franchise so far.   Bright Noa recruits a new generation of Mobile Suit pilots from the unlikely corner of Shangri-La, an impoverished space colony where we meet our new protagonists junking for salvage from the previous wars.   Despite dealing with some heavy topics and doing a lot to expand on the world of Gundam, this series takes a lighter more episodic tone for its first half. And we absolutely loved it.   Listen to our discussion of Mobile Suit ZZ Gundam and count the ways that we get Glemy's name wrong (we don't get it right once).

So this book might literally be your grandfather's Gundam 0079 because it was released really close to the original run of Mobile Suit Gundam and written by Yoshiyuki Tomino himself, robbing me of claim to that cliche. Nevertheless, reading this novel is a very different experience from the animated '79 Gundam experience. You can find out how in this episode. It was really fun to record this episode as we fill in some of the gaps of Amuro's journey and the experience of newtypes.

Finishing up Kamile's tragic story, Pleasant Evenings return to discuss the second half of Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam. We take turns discussing what it means to be a perfect soldier, brood parasitism among birds, and what happened to Reccoa's character in the back half of this show.

A few months ago we announced we'd be diving into the world of Mobile Suit Gundam, and with our new episode talking about Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam, it's officially a sub-series! Mobile Suit Book Club.   Yoshiyuki Tomino parlayed the success of the original MS Gundam theatrical run into a well-heeled sequel that doubled down on everything that made the original series so interesting, exciting, heartbreaking, and strange. Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam is a favorite among fans, and we had a great time digging into everything we liked and didn't for the first half of its run.   Join us next time as we round up the rest of the series and continue our exploration into the Mobile Suit Gundam.

After a longish absence, Corbin and Roberto come back to announce our most ambitious project yet: podcasting the entirety* of the Mobile Suit Gundam franchise. We're starting things off with the trilogy of movies adapted from the original series which we found to be a very exciting introduction to Universal Century and the poor people who have to live in it. If you're Gundam-curious like us or already an ascended Gundam sage we hope you join us on this adventure. Email: eveningspleasant@gmail.com

This was a pleasantly entertaining read and a great showcase of the romantic nostalgia that Tokien's Middle Earth is such a great stage for.    The episode itself is definitely one of our loosest and most deranged. We had a great time recording it and I hope that translates to a fun listening experience.   You can email us at eveningspleasant@gmail.com for any comments, questions or book suggestions!

My favorite description for the curious effect of Robert Aickman stories was given by Neil Gaiman: "Reading Robert Aickman is like watching a magician work, and very often I'm not even sure what the trick was. All I know is that he did it beautifully."   His story Into the Wood is one of the more curious entries in his catalogue in that he has somehow inverted the ghost story to such a degree that the real terror becomes a world where nothing goes bump in the night. We discuss the feeling of surrendering to mystery and the way modernity casts itself in opposition to it.   For recommendations and comments email us at eveningspleasant@gmail.com

10th episode! We didn't plan anything extra for the occasion, but it is coincidentally our very first episode about a comic. So let's say that's how we are celebrating the milestone.    It brings me great joy to introduce the medium to Pleasant Evenings with none other than Junji Ito. His works practically need no introduction as it feels like Ito's name is already mentioned alongside the likes of Edgar Allen Poe, HP Lovecraft, and Stephen King in the pantheon of horror writers.   For the uninitiated and the super-fans alike, join us as we discuss what makes his stories so effective and the breadth of his imagination through his stories The Human Chair (adapted from an Edogawa Ranpo story), Fashion Model, and Long Dream.   For any questions, comments, or reading suggestions reach out to us at  eveningspleasant@gmail.com