"Gundam Ridiculousness" Topic

I love Gunpla.

I finally started watching Gundam. (79, the original).

It's ridiculous.

It's like watching Superman fight street thugs. There's no drama and no stakes. The Zeon troops and mobile suits are just pantomime enemies to get slaughtered by the Gundam. There is never any drama or concern!

I'm 20 some episodes in and there is no jeopardy other than one ancillary good guy dying.

Am I missing something?

I'm actually rooting for Zeon since they are bravely fighting against truly hopeless odds.

I have heard of neither of these shows.
They sound Japanese, is that correct?

Yes.

Gunpla is not a show. It's building Gundam model kits.

To be fair, at the time Gundam first came out, that was typical of the Genre. Good guys have the unbeatable <Spaceship, Meca, hero, whatever> and the bad guys get mowed down until they resort to 'not playing fair' evilness.

And still get beat.

But Gundam begins to have those traits that change the genre. The fact that ancillary good guys die in the show was ground breaking. The backstory of the bad guys being more interesting the the good guys story was innovative.
The hero being majorly flawed, and a bit of a jerk, was new.

Was it pretty boring by today's standard? Well, yea.
But you are comparing Apples to Oranges, by trying to apply today's sensibilities to the show. The show is 45 years old. You could be describing the original Battlestar Galactica, and it would be the same.

It's also silly on the face of it— a giant jet/spaceship that turns into a giant robot? Why? Because young boys will think that's cool. (Hey, I used to watch The Space Giants, which is practically the same premise.)
So one kind of has to just swallow the absurdity of it from the start and go with the tale.

I managed to watch the opening show, but I've never gone beyond that.

My mecha-style show was Exo-Squad, which ended too soon.

Exo-Squad is awesome.

Isn't it? I was an adult when it came out, and I saw an episode by accident, and thought "This is a really intelligent show!"

Update: I kept watching and it grew on me. The overarching story itself is pretty good. The whole ‘newtype' thing is kinda silly, but it does explain why Amuro is so unbeatable.