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ADVISORY: This is the episode we'll be showing for Wednesday evening's screening at SVA Theatre in New York City (as of this writing, a few tickets are still available). If you're attending, you may want to hold off on watching this one. Or you could watch it beforehand and smugly sit in the theater with arms folded and mutter things to the effect of "I already knew that" or "I knew that already." People love it when you do that! If you're unable to make it, or if you're one of the dozens of people worldwide who do not live in New York City, think of this as an advance review copy. After the screening, Alex, Seth and I will have a conversation onstage in which we'll field some of y'alls' questions about scorigami and the production process behind it. So if you have a question, leave it in the comments below and we'll try to get to it!

Anyway, hey, it's Jon again. This final episode of Scorigami in particular is one that Alex and I have been planning, in some form or another, for many years. It features some of the wildest stabs at data visualization we've ever attempted, all in pursuit of questions that ultimately do not matter at all. And although we won't spoil it here, we finally identify the one score on the scorigami board that's technically possible to achieve, but that in practice would completely defy human comprehension.

As always, thank you all so much for showing up for our Patreon. We hope we're making it worth your while. If you're interested in showing this to your friends who aren't members, the entire Scorigami series will publish on Secret Base's YouTube channel across the month of September, with this final episode dropping around the end of the month.

(One goof of note: around the 55-minute mark, some of the projected point totals you see are incorrect by somewhat small margins, although the highest figure is correct. Also, please enjoy my misspelling of "success" as "sucess." It's a typo that will haunt me for eternity, although if I had to misspell one word, I'm glad it's that one. Clearly, I was not serious about success.)

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Comments

Owen Stegall

No question, but I just wanted to say from the bottom of my heart that I appreciate all of the work y'all do. You shape my view on how there's a story worth telling no matter where you look.

CJ

I'm scared to watch this one, I just know it's gonna give me existential anxiety 🫣 But I'm going to guess in advance that the hardest Scorigami would be 10-1, since it requires the 1-point safety that's already basically impossible to do without collusion, plus two safeties, and that's it

Ben

1.5 hours of Scorigami content? Excellent

Ben, A Human Hair

In a world increasingly divided across all kinds of arbitrary lines, we come together as one and unite under the healing and inclusive banner of SCORIGAMI

Roger Ward

Personally, instead of a throw through the uprights to get a single point rule I think it would be very interesting to see an NFL adopt a CFL 1-point rouge system. I think teams could get very creative with it, and maybe even make kicking something interesting that we actually want to watch. A punt actually becomes meaningful if there's the potential to score points because of it.

Nicholas Poer

I was not expecting a creepypasta half way through the video but there it is, just lying motionless on the 50 yard line, undoubtedly wishing for an end to its miserable existence, if it were capable of such contemplation and self-awareness..

Lewis Miller

Wait wait wait wait hold on 8-7 has never happened?

Nathaniel Budijono

You have to have water if you want to be the champion!!

Nicholas Poer

Also, I'm pretty sure that's just a stack of mattresses, not pixels across all video collaboration between Jon and Alex. And no, I don't wanna buy a mattress, I've already got an apartment full.

Tyler Read

Hello, welcome to Cooking with the Bois. Today we’ll be making fajitas in a phone booth.

Michelle Mottey

I’m so happy I got the Patreon to secret base haven’t regret, and will not. Wonderful series

Benefit of the Doud

I adore Jon for his turn of phrase. “Trying to hang your coat on a waterfall” has just been surpassed. Congrats, Jon you diabolical wordsmith. 32:41. No other spoilers.

Marco Di Pietro

Beautiful and horrifying. Like a butterfly with a billion legs.

Thomas Beuster

This is the most terrifying video you've ever made

Jake Baffa

tears at the end of another Jon Bois about a meaningless thing yeah he’s my goat

Ricardo

Would be cool if you recorded the post-screening chat and released it on the p'dcast! But also, I get you have lots on your plate already.

Mitch Okun

Question for the NYC conversation: I assume at, this point, y'all heard about Blaseball which, when it exists, had "Jonbois" in it's name pool. But were you aware that because of all the weird shit that happened in those games (fractional runs, negative runs, a weird tie once because of computers) ... we had our own "Sclorigami" (Blaseball fandom stuck the extra L into most words) ? sclorigami.sibr.dev I will be attending the NYC SVA show and hope to have a copy of the 3D image with me as a visual aid!

Daniel Barrera

When I opened this and saw an hour and a half run time, the joy that flooded my veins was unmatched. And it did not disappoint! Bless you Jon and Alex!

Prestidigititis

1:09:14 - [Rosencrantz and Guildenstern have entered the chat]

Ryan Petriello

I think "We've entered another realm here, one that's far larger, and doesn't operate on the dead currency of winning and losing. Unless you let those limits go, you're an astronaut who brought your wallet." might still be my favorite Bois-ism, but that line at 32:41 is certainly colorful

Fox Doucette

"Outside the accepted tactics" and a "patently unfair act" will ensure that we will never get two teams with no playoff worries, their seeds locked in for a Week 17 clash, to collude on a score of 4-4, or one team leading in a shutout scoring one final touchdown and deciding to run the ball all the way back to its own end zone on the PAT for a one-point safety. Could be 6-1, could be 34-1, could be 575,999 to 1, would the commish allow it? It would fundamentally be the Germany-Austria gentlemen's-agreement match from the 1982 FIFA World Cup applied to the NFL.

Fox Doucette

It seems to me the most likely scenario to create 8-7 would be a team that scored a safety to go up 2-0, surrendered a touchdown and PAT to fall behind 7-2, then scored another TD and failed on the two-point conversion and went up 8-7 when they were trying to go up 10-7. It doesn't seem to make sense where both teams score a touchdown and yet one kicks a PAT and the other goes for two and makes it. In neither case (team down 8-0 scores or team down 7-0 scores) to accept the potential of 8-7 or 7-6 and needing a safety to go up 8-7.

Lewis Miller

might it be possible if it’s the last game of the season and a team is down 7-0, really needs a win to get into the playoffs and for whatever reason doesn’t like their chances in overtime? Say they’re forced into a backup quarterback who gets a magical Hail Mary to score the final touchdown and doesn’t think said quarterback will be able to carry them through overtime and would instead try to run the ball on a 2pt and risk losing there and then as opposed to, in their mind, “guarantee” a loss in overtime. In any case it seems a low enough, normal looking enough score that I’m surprised it’s never happened

Fox Doucette

The only way I could see that one-point safety happening would be someone from the offensive team having a Jim Marshall moment. Something like a sequence of QB throws pick, offensive team player forces fumble on would-be pick-2, then whoever recovers that fumble has the Marshall Moment.

liz

horrifying. thank you!

Alex Schlesinger

Was I the only one to let out an audible “yeees” at the return of Pierre Dutour’s Round Up?

Hammerblight

"Clearly, I was not serious about success." Well done, points awarded. Though I can't blame you for recounting them to be certain it's the right total.

pinecone606

42:12 lost poker episode mentioned!!

Hafkie

forever mad at the world series of poker for taking that one down, i know a copy of it is floating around out there but still

Mike HBC

I'll be at the screening, so I'm not watching this yet, but wouldn't the technically achievable but hardest score just he 139-1 or something?

liam says sorry about the long name

obviously this was going to be perfect and absolutely did not disappoint but credit as well for making Flying Dragon into just a prompt for 'oh shit, here comes something equally stupid and profound to get emotional over' over the years

Assigned Conor At Birth

"And just as a reminder: The whole conversation will be recorded and posted here, so even if you can't make the screening, you could still submit a question and see it asked."

Howdy

"As true as ever, you need water if you wanna be a champion." What great callback

Matthew Thayer

You know, maybe prop betting on scoragami will lead to the next great explosion of scorigami: A coach or a QB has money wagered through agents on a scoragami happening, and the opportunity for a natural-looking scorigami shows up(or even unnatural, as baseball players seem not to care if it's remotely convincing), and they go the last mile to scoragami. The final score would very likely stand in the record books, even if they made the charge of manipulating the game for gambling purposes stick. They wouldn't have the opportunity to do it all that often, but the long odds might make it profitable to wager on scoragami each game if the opportunity shows up even once a season.

Harrison Hodges

Every so often I'll think of that titans-jags game from a few years back. the titans are up 7-2 with the ball on their own 1. derrick henry, of course, runs 99 yards for a TD, but i wonder what might have been if he had instead gotten stuffed in his own end zone for another safety.

Donovan Meade

thinking about the existence of the year 2443 made me writhe with anxiety, and it just got worse. thanks jon.

Boreal Tempest

The irony of the Bobcats carrying it across the third line is not lost on me.

Sebastien Rempel

My heart rate damn near doubled the moment I heard the start of Ostinato, I knew right away some fuck shit was about to happen and I wasn’t disappointed

Josh

really incredible, jon's magnum opus

drossb1

I get so many looks when I need water and say "you have to have water to be the champion" and then I have to explain that it comes from a video that isn't even on youtube anymore. May be time to reupload it here. Another awesome video. My favorite series ever across all mediums, except maybe avatar the last airbender

MGM25

I wonder what scores have a chance of getting Scorigami in 17776 or 20020...

Ryan Petriello

Regarding 26:01 and Jon's 1-point proposal, even though the CFL has had the rouge forever (making all scores theoretically possible), upon a cursory glance, games ending with the losing team having only 2, 4, or 5 points are still much rarer than 1, 3, or 6, although anything below 7 is still pretty rare. I think the CFL is generally higher-scoring on average than the NFL, which probably accounts for scores <7 being rare, but despite every score being theoretically possible there's still a very uneven distribution between certain numbers. With Jon's proposal or the adoption of the rouge, even though the 1, 2, 4, and 5 point rows become much more statistically likely outcomes, the scoring distribution might still be pretty wacky, especially if field goals and the 7-point touchdown+PAT are still the primary building blocks. (data taken from https://cflscorigami.ca/, I did not do this research myself)

minjachi

YOU HAVE TO HAVE WATER IF YOU WANT TO BE THE CHAMPION

Matthew

'a train driver in search of a steering wheel' for mine... bias on that from I do drive freight trains so hits beautifully hah. All 3 rippers.

dk382

I think it could happen in the first half. Team A scores a touchdown and PAT, Team B then scores a touchdown and decides they'd like a shot to go up by one early in the game and scores an two-point conversion. Then, neither team scores again.

chili sunrise

I can’t believe the bit about “one point if you throw the ball through the uprights” from part 1 was foreshadowing for a longer rant

David

hey now I finally understand the "NFL's New Overtime Rules" meme!

Henry Dillon

question(s) for NYC: hey jon/alex/whoevers reading 17776 and 20020 are some of my favorite works in fiction. 20021 never released, is there a version of it that was planned? was it scrapped due to SDSU and UAB both getting new stadiums? or did you just plain not want to.

Tugo Tiger

I absolutely love this so much! I was so waiting for you to point out the LA Tech game from 2017! I was gonna pull my hair out if you failed to mention it hahahah

Trey

let’s go baby. return of the two point, one point safety. i really hope alternatif plays if/when 6-1 comes up again. i’ve terrorized at least half a dozen people in my life with that song

Adam

When I started this video even with the experience of having watched basically all the bois videos I was still wondering how this video was going to get to an hour and a half. When they added a second level to the monolith I went “oh no”

Jon Martin

I say this with the utmost love and respect: I came in with pretty high expectations for just how far you guys were gonna take the whole "abuse of math to satisfy our curiosity" concept and still my expectations were completely shattered

Anirudh Ganesh

"Like serving fajitas in a phone booth" was uttered with such nonchalance as if it were such a common occurrence

Johnny

Future scorigami gets a little fuckey

Weyherman

It’s everything I could’ve wanted and more. God bless you incredible dorks

Evan Long

The only other factor I can think of for the infinite touchdown strategy is… how long can a kicker’s leg reasonably hold up before the muscle starts to get sore and weaken? The ball has to be kicked into the end zone and must at least make it to the 20 yard line. At what point does fatigue set in enough to make a pro kicker incapable of kicking it that far? Do you sign multiple kickers to your roster before the game? The limits of how many points can be scored in a football game may be based on human anatomy after all…

Anirudh Ganesh

Jon's computer at the end of rendering billions of shapes plus running 25 videos at the same time in 1000x speed must have sounded like a spaceship taking off

Dylan Lane

I was hoping someone else would spot this

Miles W

I don’t actually think the one point defensive safety is as unlikely as Jon is making it out to be. It requires the team going for the two point conversion to throw an interception, the guy who catches it to return it to the end zone but since he views it as a formality he really hotdogs it once he gets inside the 5 yard line and one of the offensive players forces a fumble with an easy strip. The ball then either rolls into the end zone where an offensive player falls on it or it rolls through the end zone. I think this guy play just requires a rivalry where there’s bad enough blood for the defensive player to want to rub it in and the offensive players are dedicated enough to really chase him down. Or even more possible, the defender starts celebrating early and drops the ball on the 1 where it rolls into the end zone and is recovered by the other team. Or he gets REAL cocky and, thinking he’s already in the end zone, throws the ball into the stands, resulting in the defensive one point safety and maybe an excessive celebration/unsportsmanlike conduct penalty enforceable on the kick. Honestly for a second I thought this would be even more likely because in a situation where the defensive team is already leading to the extent that the difference between them scoring one or two points is negligible I could see a player doing this to really rub it in, but of course that necessitates them to already be leading so it wouldn’t end up in a 6-1 or any other score to 1 Edit: ah nuts, didn’t realize that would be a touchback but I could still see a scenario where the player fumbles on the one, ball doesn’t roll into the end zone, offensive player picks it up and his momentum takes him into the end zone where he’s tackled.

Chiral

It's very funny that the "12 man team" is dismissed because that's not especially different from what a coach does now and especially so with the better communication options we have now than the 30's

Chiral

The commissioner thing being brought up is especially interesting because (presumably) in the time between this being recorded and today it was actually used to end a game! Lions v Falcons both teams decided to stop playing out of respect for a player that sustained an extreme injury in the final quarter and after a few minutes of both teams standing around the game was ended early.

DressToKILT

The losers of the first 70-11 game were fed to the Emperor of Mankind to sustain him on the Golden Throne.

Dave

"You've gotta have water if you want to be champion" holy shit what a deep cut

Ethan Howard

52:10 was waiting for this game to come up as soon as this section began haha. I was there with my Bills-loving father and we just sat there in disbelief. 10 points in 0 seconds

Ben Sweetser

“You gotta have water if you want to be champion” damn near brought a tear to my eye

Justin Bacchi

not an important point here but: that's not what strength of victory means. strength of victory is like strength of schedule (which is the tiebreaker right below it) except you ignore losses. there are all sorts of points-based tiebreakers starting at #7, so this will actually improve your argument of just how meaningless three points actually are in terms of end-of-season tiebreaking procedures. as such I will be sending you an invoice of 69 cents as soon as you tell me which zip code dorktown is located in

Thomas Beuster

Quesrion:What team has made the most scorigami, ever?

alex

you'll be shocked to know it's 1 of the 2 flagship teams that still exist, the bears (128 total, 89-37-2 record) -alex

Thomas Beuster

Now what team (including defunct teams) has participated in the least scorigami?

Kalvin Filarski

I imagined Jon having to walk into someone’s office, the guy who manages the production budget and was like ok look, we have the ending for the Scorigami project… but I’m going to need some more infrastructure to make it work. And then he draws on a whiteboard what it looks like and the guy goes “fuck it I’m in.”

Alejandro Gonzalez

Question for NYC: A lot has been said about written rules that will never apply in practice, but is there anything in the rulebook that says a dog can’t play football?

Daniel Brandes

Loved the ending. About things being allowed to be meaningless. It reminded me of the beautiful and strange essay Meaningless Work by fluxus artist Walter de Maria. You should read it. Has beautiful stuff in it like: “Meaningless work is potentially the most abstract, concrete, individual, foolish, indeterminate, exactly determined, varied, important art-action-experience one can undertake today. This concept is not a joke. Try some meaningless work in the privacy of your own room. In fact, to be fully understood, meanIngless work should be done alone or else it becomes entertainment for others and the reaction or lack of reaction of the art lover to the meaningless work can not honestly be felt.”

LordBloodVein

Getting shiny-hunting flashbacks from watching this video.

MudkipOfDespair

Just saw it at the theater. I think this is easily the best work out of SB ever. I can’t imagine how this will be topped, only that I know it will be.

jamez

Jon Bois for NFL commissioner

Kevin Graham

It's probably more likely for the atoms of the universe to spontaneously form out a 6-1 game than a 6-1 game to actually happen organically. I call this the Boltzmann Scoragami.

Tim Meyn

Just getting home from the screening, what a great time, looking forward to whatever is next. Died at the cheeky reference to Andrew Feldman's water breakdown.

DiabeticGod

rest in peace poker vid.

Trenchgun

was at the live screening of this, incredible experience, loved the throwback to breaking madden, kid me could never get his name on one of those jerseys (and not for lack of trying lol)

Ometeotl

I still enjoy 8-7 as one of the most interesting unachieved scorigami. It looks so simple and basic but requires you to think about the psychology of the game to realize why, in the few scenarios where each team just had trouble scoring, one would choose not to take the risk of losing by going for 2 and would rather take the chance of going to OT. Of course, there's always the option of 2 FG (or a missed extra point TD) and a safety.

theMasochistGamer

There's a beautiful irony in one of the scores in the most unlikely scorigami on the board being the incredibly common 10. Great work, as always.

Dr. Katz

These cubes putting Dave Stieb’s improbable double blown no hitters in 9 2/3 innings to shame.

mapleboy

have we considered another avenue for the intentional one-point safety? for example: tonight, let's say, the eagles are up on the cowboys 34-0 in the fourth. the backups are in and they score a touchdown to make it an even 40. inexplicably, they line up to go for two. mike tirico and cris collinsworth are bewildered. nobody has any idea why they'd do this. but then, after the snap, sam howell just takes off towards his own end zone. he runs out the back of the end zone for a one-point cowboys safety. announcers, fans, everybody even slightly aware of football, are all losing their minds. the game ends 40-1. the coaches shake hands, and nick sirianni says to brian schottenheimer "hey, did you know you're now the only coach in nfl history to score exactly one point in a game?" schottenheimer is taken aback by this. "congratulations," sirianni says. the "go fuck yourself" is left unspoken. the ultimate sign of football disrespect, rivalled only by another eagles-cowboys game in the 1980s that you've already covered. why on earth would the eagles do this, even to their biggest rival? i dunno. but it was fun to write.

Harrison Hodges

Team B can commit an unsportsmanlike on the 2-point attempt each time to make the kicking distance manageable.

Whytfbuddy

probably tied with a bunch, the Tonawanda Kardex played in exactly one game ever

Secret Base

love this and i think this is far and away the most likely way for a 1 to happen. still difficult to imagine but not impossible: maybe it's week 18, there are no playoff implications remaining, the two coaches are old friends and coach A does it as sort of a goof / hat tip. -jon

Jimmy Keffer

Calling back to the forbidden episode at the height of the improbability was more than I could have ever asked from this finale

Jason Free

Definitely need to bring back the bigger fields. (Extra 10 in the middle) and deeper end zones (start with 5 yards plans to add 10 total bringing it to 20 yards) suspend the uprights so they can be back on the goal line and not be a concussion magnet. BRING IN THE ROUGE!!!!

Clayton Hurdle

Not gonna lie, when we were talking about games in the 21st millennium, I could only wonder how Nick and Manny are doing.

Beuriot Quentin

Jon, even as a non-American, I know that strength of victory doesn't mean margin of victory but the overall combined record of the opponents a team has beaten so Mike McDaniel running up the score on Denver has zero incidence on that tie breaker

bryan

**MATT SPAETH MENTIONED** go gophers ski u mah

Maxwell Fairbairn

It’s still available on YT, it’s just been reuploaded by a different channel. I rewatch it quite often it’s one of my favorite videos on the site.

James Valentino

Hey Jon, I know you love having your info panels onscreen during your videos. Could you consider adding a ‘now playing’ tab for the music in your future videos? Much appreciated, great video :)

sammitchgamgee

Absolutely thrilled that we saw a week-one scorigami the season after this documentary came out. Shout out the Bills offense for missing 3 2-point conversions to make it happen, and shout-out Kyle Hamilton for almost making a 1-point safety for the defending team on a 2-point conversion

Fox Doucette

Shout-out to CBS Sports for including the scorigami in the headline and John Breech for mentioning how there were seven scorigamis in 2024 in the article body. It's grown beyond the Jon Bois verse.

Fox Doucette

The NFL should go metric. Grid looks the same as always, it's just in meters instead of yards. So 1st-and-10 is closer to 1st-and-11 in yards and the field is about five yards wider when expressed in meters.

Dasamont

Scorigami is kinda like Balatro. It's an innocent and silly game, and predatory gambling sites want to use it to take your money

Redwraith VEVO

Oh man, the callback to "Why Do I Do This For A Living." One of my favorites. You gotta have water to be the champion.

Boreal Tempest

I do really appreciate the metaphor about how incomprehensible billionaires' fortunes are.

Ryan Outlaw

Ah part 4 probably just a short one, he thought. Oh God. Sweet God.

Mathtron 5000

I imagine there will be an addendum to the YouTube version after Week 1's Scorigami

Sarah Dynamite

"You have to have water if you want to be the champion." Nice callback to an old video there. Amazing.

Hafkie

thinking about how there is a non-zero chance mike mcdaniel gets fired before this drops on youtube

Ben Watson

What a great series. Thanks Jon and Alex and the Secret Base team. Great stuff.

Edward Tischler

While I 100% agree with the message that sometimes, things just are completely meaningless, Scorigami is one of the few things you can root for no matter what team you support, who your favorite player is, or even if football isn't a sport you particularly care about. It's a great example of something so human, a goal that provides nothing when it is achieved except for the memories of the excitement that led up to its achievement. I love numbers, so of course I'm gonna love scorigami, but all of the numbers-haters in my life love scorigami as soon as I tell them about it. It's the closest thing there is to religion in the world of sports.

Dylan JT

Yep, I have 26 teams tied for 1 scorigami each: Chicago Boosters, Chicago Stayms, Cincinnati Celts, Cleveland Panthers, Columbus Wagner Pirates, Fort Porter, Gary Elks, Kewanee Walworths, Logan Square, McKeesport Olympics, Minneapolis Marines, Muncie Flyers, New York Brickley Giants, Pullman Thorns, Richmond Athletics, Rochester Scalpers, Rockford A.C., St. Louis Gunners, St. Paul Ideals, Syracuse Stars, Thorn Tornados, Union A.A., Utica K. of C., Washington and Jeffe Collegians, West Buffalo, Wheeling Stogies

jmundt33a

Might be a good idea to remind the NFL that ties included on that big chart.

Myf

My favorite thing about the 100-6 Houston-Tulsa game is that Dr. Phil played on the losing team

GordyHowitzer

Something I wish was explored was the concept of a competitive max-scoring game. I'm imagining a game where every kickoff is returned for a touchdown and two point conversion. Doing some quick math, and assuming a kickoff return takes about 30 seconds, we could have 30 touchdowns per quarter, 120 per game plus one for each team in overtime, resulting in a score of 488-488.

smartbagel

I feel like if we ever see the forbidden score of (spoilers) 10-1 on the scoreboard, the losing team with fight back with 16 points while the winning team defends their lead with 10 points...

Gabriel Valadão

I'm a bit late to the party, but I tried to create a understandable example of getting to the model 4 probability. It goes like this: Going to the casino, You have promised yourself to only 1 bet in each game. To reach the model 4 number, you'll need to: - Win in Craps (1 in 4.5) - Get a blackjack in your first hand (1 in 21) - Go to the roullette table and win while betting on a number (1 in 38) - Win the highest jackpot on a slot machine on the first try (1 in 8,000) - Winning in poker with a Royal Flush on your first hand (1 in 649,739) And just like that, you reached the odds of 1 in 18,6 trillion. Congratulations! You're probably Mr. Rocky Valentine and you are in the other place in that Twilight Zone episode.

J. Buck

Scorigami today! Jags Texans 29-36

An Graves

Game dev here, what happened in breaking madden was likely a fairly common kind of mishap (with various causes) where every object you might consider 'animate' moves itself to the coordinate (0,0,0), or the origin - it's pretty reasonable to think that the origin in a football game would be the center of the field. As to the fucked up pose, like another 'all zeroes' - this time for the rotations of bones. The jersey mismatch is somewhat more mysterious, it's possible that the colors on a jersey use a team index that got zeroed while the actual design is baked into the texture, a reasonable system considering every team has multiple palettes anyway and you'd want to limit the number of comparatively space-heavy textures. Also: within the last week i learned there's an obscure mecha from an untranslated Gundam book called the Hrududu, and while i was curious why the hell that was i did not check because Gundam names can be really hard to pin down. Didn't expect to learn it here