#twilight axis

Conceptually, the story is fine: it’s about a mechanic named Arlette and a test pilot named Danton who used to work for Zeon, and they’re recruited by a third party to investigate the ruins of Axis for something. While there, they encounter a new Gundam- the “Tristan”- that is also hunting for something. After their first skirmish ends in retreat for both sides, Arlette and Danton make their way to the surface of Axis and find the Sazabi, which the two of them apparently helped design and test. While rooting around in it, Arlette finds a piece of psychoframe in the shape of a cross, and then dispatches in what the wiki says is the Ahava Azieru, which is either a prototype or successor to the Alpha Azieru, in order to serve as a decoy so her team can escape. She immediately encounters the Gundam, which is now inside of a giant Neo Zeong-style armor- the Kurwenal- and the pilot (who is unnamed) easily defeats Arlette. Then Danton dispatches in a busted-up mobile suit to try to rescue her, and he’s about to get obliterated before she resonates with the psychoframe she picked up and reveals to the Gundam pilot that she had a tragic backstory as a failed Cyber-Newtype who was rescued from being disposed of by Char. The Gundam pilot fucks off because despite appearing to be a sociopath he relates to her backstory, and Arlette and Danton retire back to their civilian life.

What makes it so bad is the fact that this all happens in the span of 26 minutes, and that’s the extended “compilation” movie, Twilight Axis - Red Trace: this was originally a set of six 3 minute episodes! Worse, despite having such a strict runtime, the director decided that telling a story chronologically is for chumps, so not only is it moving at HYPERSPEED to fit the runtime, it’s jumping around in time while doing so. Trying to criticize details like “it’s very unclear when this takes place besides after Char’s Counterattack” and “it’s literally never stated why they’re investigating Axis in the first place” and “they don’t define what factions are these characters working for” feels silly when the answer for all of them is “there was no time”. And it’s not even like they just used the story as an excuse to deliver some short but high-quality action scenes, because nothing in this holds a candle to Unicorn. Even the new mechs they introduce aren’t especially worth noting: admittedly, I like the idea of a Gundam Zeong, but at first I thought the Ahava Azieru was just the Nightingale and the Tristan was a repainted Gundam Mk-II or Nu Gundam. So again: what was the point of this?

In Conclusion:

If I ever get the opportunity to check out the light novel or manga version of Twilight Axis, I’d absolutely go for it, because like I said earlier, the concept is fine. But the execution here is just so genuinely confusing that I’m going to spend more time wondering about why this production even happened than anything in the story itself. This is an easy pass, but if you, like me, have a morbid curiosity, it’ll only take you a little under half and hour to experience how bizarre it is for yourself.