I was going to write about Gundam AGE episode one, but sdshamshel beat me to pretty much all the points I wanted to make. So go read that first and then I shall tell you of the reason why bouncing Haros are so great.
Back?
Good.
One of the things that stood out in the first episode of Gundam AGE was that Haro bounced. And often that involved a lot of stretch and squash. For the life of me I couldn’t recall how much this happened in previous shows with Haros that I had encountered. Not wanting to hook the VHS player up to watch the movies, I went to the salvation of the lazy researcher, Youtube.
Here’s a problem with looking up Haro clips. People like to take videos of their Haro collectibles. So after I fought through video of alarm clocks and cat / Haro interaction, I got to this clip of Haro walking up some stairs. Not much stretch and squash there, but this second clip has some in the section where Fraw Bow gives Haro a kicking.
I found some other clips attached to “comedy” videos that indicated that Gundam Seed had stretch and squash Haros too. I couldn’t find any for other iterations though, the Gundam 00 clips had very rigid Haros, often hovering using their little flaps. Most likely though, I guess it all depended on the animators for any given scene. Maybe those with Gundam more readily at hand can share their favourite Haro bouncing scenes. Back to the point at hand.
Here’s why bouncing Haros are great.
At their core they are essentially what adults use to explain to kids how animation works.
Remember how it felt to learn how it worked, and that more importantly, that you can do it yourself? Haros, when they are used as bouncing balls, rather than dumpy robots or spherical mechanical flies, tap into that feeling. Sure, giant robot samurai with laser guns and swords are cool and everything, but more people can draw a Haro. And they could probably animate it bouncing too.
Haros are the squeaky voiced powerball door into animation. Let’s hear it for the Haros!