Thread by @umedachanka

Full Frontal's Lalah

- a look at parallel setting that didn't quite make it into the anime and at the Frontal and Angelo dynamic as a whole -

A thread!

If you only watch Gundam Unicorn via the OVA or TV anime, Angelo Sauper IS likely to strike you as a reference to a character from a preceding UC show, just not the one his similarities are most overt to.

On the surface level, you are looking at a Mashmyre Cello clone.

A Neo Zeon official with a rose theme, obsessively in love with his leader and a mobile suit based on the Hamma Hamma? The case seems clear and closed.

And based just on the anime, this might as well be the case. If you go deeper into Gundam Unicorn lore though and take into consideration the novel and the prequel manga Bande Dessinée Volume 0, you'll find that a vast majority of Angelo's content was cut, obscuring the

primary reference: Angelo Sauper is a Lalah. Not Unicorn's Lalah, the series has many Lalah types, but definitely FULL FRONTAL'S Lalah.

In this thread, I will lay out my evidence for this claim but in order to get there, I will have to start on a more general level.

For the sake of this particular analysis, I will regard Unicorn and 0079 each as multimedia entries - every installment of canon and its interpretation counts towards the whole picture.

I will begin by outlining the base importance Angelo holds for Frontal in the novels, as the anime skips most of it, and then delve deeper into the clear Lalah parallels. Please bear with me for a moment here!

The imagery of the rose in the vase is, unsurprisingly, key to Angelo and Frontal. The novel makes fairly clear that each view themselves as the vase and the other as the rose.

We are beginning from Frontal's end, where this is most overt.

The scene in the office sets up Angelo and the rose as parallels. Frontal and the office are artificial and lifeless. Angelo and the rose, both initially concealed by Frontal's strong presence, are the only living things.

Even the end line of the scene groups them together.

The implication is that just as the rose is the only thing that is truly alive in the office, Angelo's presence is the only thing that is truly alive about the artificial being Full Frontal.

The flower and vase are further clearly linked to Frontal's own perception of himself as a vessel as they are his focal point when he explains this condition. He further keeps up some very charged flower symbolism by literally bringing it to his lips...

An easy inference to make would be that Frontal thinks of himself as a vessel and of the vase as the will of the people. But then, the rose is very specifically associated with Angelo, being a gift from him.

In the prequel manga Frontal also outright compares him to a rose.

That theme obviously continues as he sanctions crafting the spare parts from his Sinanju into the ROZEN Zulu.

As an already Lalah-related aside that I am sure is not actually intentional. Lalah and Char had purple rose imagery in the movies and game reanimations:

In turn, Angelo thinks of himself as Frontal's keeper/vase ('Did you notice that I chose the vase?') and Frontal as a rose:

Their relationship clearly has at least some degree of mutuality, further cemented by the fact that they are literally Newtype mind-connected 24/7 canonically, with the exception of few noted plot-scenes:

The exact amount of real relationship between them is contested in the novels - which is definitely not dissimilar to the tension of using her vs real care that Char exhibits with Lalah in 0079.

But for that, first let's get the obvious base parallel out of the way: Angelo shares Lalah's backstory. Or at least, the Tomino version of it.

So let's forget The Origin for a moment and look to Tomino's 1996 novel "Amuro and Lalah - Secret Rendevouz".

In this novel, Lalah is a sex worker before being found by Char. Upon their meeting she can immediately tell he is Zeon, despite his disguise, and he understands she is a Newtype. When she runs away from the brothel, he fights her pursuers and takes her with him.

Angelo's novel backstory (that was also adapted into Vol 0) shares the major beats of this. He is a sex worker, Frontal kills the people in his brothel and takes him. The novel, as shown below, strongly implies he responded to Angelo's psychic cry for help.

This makes both Lalah and Angelo ex-prostitute Newtypes who work as the right hand of their respective Red Comet and are in love with him.

It's something, but it's flimsy still, so rest assured I am not done here.

Remember Angelo's faux-death in the anime? Remember how it was near incomprehensible?

Well, trust me, in the novel it is not. In the novel it is a direct intentional antithesis to Lalah's death.

The basic beats of the scene are as follows:

Frontal sends Angelo to confront the Unicorn in his Rozen Zulu. Banagher tries to understand Angelo and the Unicorn reaches out to connect their minds. But while Banagher indeed gets to see Angelo's whole backstory through this

connection, it does not serve to bring about understanding. Instead, Angelo is mortified by this invasion to his mind and finds Banagher still too different from him to ever feel connected. He attempts suicide.

Frontal witnesses the event.

This is where the thread might get a little messy, because I need to address a few important things:

-Banagher's interpretation of the situation
-Angelo's view of Frontal
-Frontal's intentions for Angelo

Only after that, I can really go into the parallelism.

Like with Amuro and Char blaming one another for Lalah's death, Banagher and Frontal each also find the other person culpable.

Banagher's interpretation is this:

He thinks of Frontal as uncaring for only watching the scene unfold and states that Angelo only sees what he wants to see in Frontal, afraid to uncover his true self.

I'm going to be honest: I think that is the perspective Fukui wants you to agree with, but I think based on the

actual text he wrote, it's kind of nonsense.

All of Angelo's view of Frontal aligns with what the narration ALSO says about Frontal. Let me show you.

Angelo sees Frontal as two things primarily. Tired and inhuman.

Let's start with tired. Here is some of Angelo's lines.

Here's a statement from the director of the anime, describing Frontal of tired and (gasp) Lalah as the one to eventually make him realize that. Fukui himself had some input in that since he made the choice to have the people guiding Frontal to the afterlife show up.

source: 00tn2.blogspot.com/2016/05/gundam…

And here is the scene in which Zinnerman's feelings are set parallel to Full Frontal in the anime itself, describing him as..... you guessed it, tired.

Further, Angelo is clearly aware of Frontal's inhuman nature and psyche. He describes him as such in the segment I posted above where Frontal is about to find him and he demonstrates awareness of it at many points.

He RELISHES in it.

And I mean, he is 24/7 at least superficially connected to a mind that Banagher describes as a total horror of void and emptiness.

I'd say Angelo knows what he is dealing with at the least better than everyone else.

Vol 0 also shows that Angelo is perfectly capable of questioning Frontal and did so initially. He swears loyalty to Frontal BECAUSE he learned to understand these things about him.

Angelo loves Frontal and is closer to understanding him than most others. Just like Lalah loved Char in full awareness that his feelings for her would never be returned in the same shape and of the kind of person he was.

In reaction to Angelo's "death", meanwhile, Frontal and Banagher literally recite dialogue from Amuro and Char arguing about Lalah's death.

This is what makes Frontal decide Banagher's type of Newtypism is 'too dangerous'.

This dialogue happens in context of Angelo / in context of Lalah and the resemblance is striking.

With Frontal it is further made completely explicit that Angelo's destruction is what gave him clarity about Banagher's perceived danger.

And knowing this helps us understand why Frontal only observed as Banagher and Angelo connected. He was not excluded from the connection, like Char, but he wanted to see if the connection of Newtypes could bring about a miracle after all.

As seen below, Frontal is defined by hatred over a mankind that saw the Axis Shock and still did not change towards the ideals of Newtypism. Over the course of the story, Char's hope for the youth awakens within him and he begins to wonder if Banagher and Mineva have a point.

Of course Frontal is, to a degree, using Angelo by risking him and making him fight Banagher. But he does not risk him carelessly. There are scenes where he tells him to retreat for his safety or the time he personally saves him from crashing in Earth's gravity field.

This 'usage' of Angelo is an important test - what will happen if Banagher tries to apply his ideals of understanding to Angelo, the human who is most like Frontal in terms of rage? Can Banagher prevail or is he dangerous and needs to be opposed?

When Frontal observes, he is waiting for his answer Angelo is representative of all Spacenoids, the world. If Banagher can sway Angelo, he can sway a world. If Angelo is lost, then Banagher is powerless.

Angelo is the rose. He IS the spacenoid thoughts in Frontal's vessel.

I believe Banagher is wrong about Frontal being uncaring, in that sense. Frontal is sending Angelo into this battle precisely BECAUSE Angelo means something to him.

It just shows in twisted ways, like with any Char.

Frontal does say such things to Angelo after all.

And Banagher would assume that Frontal is playing a role here, reflecting merely what Angelo wants to see. However, that is contradictory.

If Frontal reflected what individuals wanted from him, why would he antagonize Mineva who desires a kind Char?

Frontal plays a role, but he has nothing to hide. He is not a liar. He never even once claims to be Char Aznable - when questioned about him, he is evasive or straight-up says Char is dead.

In that sense, actual LIES seem uncharacteristic for him.

Besides, it is notable that the novel specifies that Angelo and Frontal have been together for 3 years - that is pretty much all of Frontal's living memory.

Angelo is Frontal's Lalah, but it is not a 1:1 equivalent so much as a theme subversion.

But in the end, Char and Frontal return to their respective Lalah's. Char's soul fragment goes with his, Frontal's remains (his heart) head for Angelo.

(Fair disclaimer that the 'Lalah picks the Char soul fragment up' scene does not exist in the novel. However, the scene of Frontal's mobile suit and dead body coming to find Angelo somehow still exists in the anime, so interpreting it along with the novel seems valid.)

I feel like this thread wound up a lot less coherent than I wanted it to be, but I hope it made someone out there consider their relationship in more depth!

There is still far far more that can be said about Frontal and Angelo (e.g. themes of rage, bodily autonomy) but

I am ending my Lalah-focused exploration here.

Thank you for reading!