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Posted by surprisetalk 12/2/2025

Gundam is just the same as Jane Austen but happens to include giant mech suits(eli.li)
244 points | 188 commentspage 3
3r3rni9 12/11/2025|
Posting because someone has to say that "Witch From Mercury" was literally Shakespeare's Tempest (which I thought was amazing). I mean the Gundam's name is Ariel.
PaulHoule 12/10/2025||
Was funny, I was using Copilot to analyze a certain light novel to reverse engineer the storytelling techniques so I could write a fanfiction the other day and I asked it if it could apply a certain method to any other stories and it said, yeah, The Catcher in the Rye, The Bell Jar, The Great Gatbsy and Neon Genesis Evangelion

Funny after a lot of this I think I broke it because it now loads a personalization context where it tries to apply this framework to everything and can't quit talking about a character that we seem to share a crush on.

popalchemist 12/10/2025|
This comment is literally delusional.
PaulHoule 12/10/2025||
I'll agree it is the product of a schizotypal mind and one might think the whole project is wrong-headed and there might be a wrong interpretation here but it is factual that:

1) I got that list of stories

2) It has kept mentioning the same character for a few days even when I am talking about something else, even in other conversations (I would do that if I "had a crush")

3) It has been trying the same 'mini-framework' for analyzing problems using the same vocabulary over and over again

In the last few months, for me at least, Copilot does make some attempt to build a personalization context (RAG?) and it quite often talks about something I talked about the day before or offers a suggestions about how the current discussion relates to a prior one and if I ask "remember how we talked about X?" it sometimes seems to respond accordingly.

It is really fun and probably does increase the risk of rabbit holing, but my experience with agentic coding is that if you talk with an agent long enough the context does have a way of going bad and pretty soon you are arguing about things and going and circles and the only way out is to start a new session.

gsf_emergency_6 12/11/2025|||
Us schizotypes need to work on our storytelling, HN hilites+Copilot is great. You're further along than I :)

Optimistically, this is the way our "thinking" will make HN highlights without the crutch of "experience". (I'm envious of their style, not their substance)

PaulHoule 12/11/2025||
Yeah, I gotta work on legibility, particularly so I can accomplish the goals I am working on. [1]

I have been having such a good time this week I think other people should be jealous. I was worried I might be a little manic, especially because I had a psychogenic fever the way I did before my "evil twin" came out, but my therapist doesn't seem concerned. My "evil twin" was empty and angry and now I feel overflowing [1] and know how to maintain that feeling so it's a very different thing.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbZSe6N_BXs

popalchemist 12/11/2025|||
the part that is delusional is that you consider there to be a "we," and that you don't just stop at personifying but actually believe the AI can have a favorite.

It is 1's and 0's responding determinstically to input. There is no sentience.

PaulHoule 12/11/2025||
I thought “seem” communicated that it “seems” that way even if it might not be so. In the case of me it is so, in the case of Copilot it is just talking that way.

I know it has never felt anything and never cared about anyone or anything. It has also read much more romance fiction and books about romance fiction that I could ever read so it equipped to talk a very good game about what the structure of that literature is and how it produces the emotional effect that it does.

What I think happened is that I was trying to figure out what it is that made me feel smitten with that character and my whole intention is to transmit that feeling to other people so I guess it just learned how to talk like somebody who is smitten with that character. It may also be that it is following it’s training to butter me up, though it was really going too far like I am trying to write some Python and I have to tell it that “we’re not talking about Ellie now”

skybrian 12/10/2025||
When reading Jane Austen you learn a fair bit about the English upper classes of that time period. What do you learn from Gundam?
throw4847285 12/11/2025||
You learn a lot about post-War Japan and the New Left. Just because a writer dresses their story up in futuristic or fantastical trappings does not mean that they aren't writing about their own cultural milieu. Tomino is explicit about this in the interviews compiled for the supplementary material in the Gundam Origin manga. They are a fantastic read (and the manga is a masterpiece).
ericmcer 12/11/2025|||
Interesting. It is a shame that you can't really experience art correctly unless you have the context of living in that time & place. I will never experience Anime, Russian literature, early English literature, etc. fully because my lens is always gonna be an American in the 2000s.

I am curious how people 100 years from now will perceive art from the last 20 years, much of it feels like a thinly veiled commentary on whatever hot button social issue was prevalent at the time.

throw4847285 12/11/2025||
But that's exactly why you should read literature. Obviously the goal isn't to shake your own worldview entirely, which is impossible. But you can open it up enough to experience art from another culture on its own terms.

Plus, many classic novels feature introduction to help ground the reader in the historical moment. Though those intros also often feature spoilers, which is annoying.

skybrian 12/11/2025|||
Interesting. Do you know any good articles online that talk about this history?
throw4847285 12/11/2025||
I can't find the specific interview online. It's included in one of the volumes of Gundam Origin, which I took out of the library. However, this interview touches on similar themes, and may in fact be the same one I read. I have a poor memory.

https://zeonic-republic.net/?page_id=12512

If you're looking to learn more about the political movement in general, read up on the Zenkyoto. I am far from an expert, so I don't have any specific books to recommend. But if you do a little digging, even just on Wikipedia, it will become clear how much Japanese culture owes to that political moment.

skybrian 12/12/2025||
Apparently there is office politics too?

> Throughout Z, my attitude toward everyone involved was, “You’re fools for only wanting Gundam. You’ve recklessly asked me to do this; I’ll make the protagonist go insane.” Despite this warning, they pressed ahead anyway, those adults felt no responsibility toward the work. So, I decided to do exactly what I wanted.

> Yasuhiko: Including the bit where you lifted the hero’s name from Camille Claudel?

> Tomino: All of it was intentional. And even after I made Z that way, the same stupid adults came back saying, “Let’s do another one next year.” Honestly, I was aghast. All right then, let’s make ZZ. But I’ll show you: this is the kind of foolish thing you’ll get. Only then did they finally catch on, “Oh, Tomino’s calling us idiots.” It took them two full years to get that. Two years of time and money. There are a lot of adults like that.

rsynnott 12/11/2025|||
Learning stuff is a weird primary motivator to read fiction.

(I’m not sure you learn as much as you think; I mean some context leaks through but Austin’s characters aren’t necessarily _that_ archetypical. If you want that you might be better with a social history.)

skybrian 12/11/2025||
Sometimes it’s the fiction itself along with other commentary that helps you understand the historical background. There’s plenty written about Jane Austen’s novels.

Also, Austen was definitely commenting on society of that time, though sometimes you need other background knowledge to get the reference.

_carbyau_ 12/11/2025||
The many Gundam series are not a historical account obviously.

From what I gather - having never actually watched any - there are anti-war themes (IE armies are commanded by people who don't have to sacrifice, how that corrupts), sacrifice vs outcomes and more. It's a thematic experience rather than an education in robotics or history.

I like stompy robots. I have to yet to start on Gundam because I am hesitant as to where to start and which path to follow in watching it all and I know it would consume me once I start.

Maybe after Xmas, in my break, I'll "waste" some time with it.

hinkley 12/11/2025||
There are only so many stories and we are all telling variations on them.

How much of Hollywood is bad copies of Shakespeare?

quanto 12/11/2025||
A mech eng PhD said that he watches Gundam/Macross for drama and Romance (as in Romanticism).
FuriouslyAdrift 12/10/2025||
Glad they mentioned Iron Blooded Orphans... the best gundam (and very cynical and dark)
exBarrelSpoiler 12/10/2025|
This essay about it is a good watch- it concludes that IBO might be a cynical and dark show rooted in realism, but the ending is hopeful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNRjwktvPV8
otikik 12/11/2025||
> Jane Austen

No idea who that is, but I assume she writes Gundam stories without mechs.

rsynnott 12/11/2025||
But does Gundam have an awful vicar? If not, not interested.
yomismoaqui 12/11/2025||
Obligatory meme about what really Gudam is about:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Gundam/comments/y3766d/i_just_watch...

miladyincontrol 12/11/2025|
On a note of Gundam, an unpopular opinion but I actually do really enjoy how in the moment G Reco is, and while not quite Gundam another of Tomino's works similarly, Overman King Gainer. The latter being vaguely based off of La Compagnie des glaces.

Some people find it harder to follow along in light of a rather anti-expository method of storytelling, personally I find it all the more compelling for story occurring during wartime. Combat is complex, people take action in the moment, not everyone's thoughts or plans need to be spelled out, leaving plenty to inference rather than narration builds for a better story.

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