Gundam 00 – 02

Posted by Shin

Still at the introductory phase of the series, we are given some background information on the three key human factions, which include the Union, Human Reform League and the AEU respectively. After the announcement made by the Celestial Beings on their stance, the entire world is in an uproar due to the nature of their motives, which seemed too good to be true. Unperturbed by what others may think of their holy crusade to purge the planet of wars, the Celestial Beings sortie their Gundam Meisters to Ceylon(Sri Lanka) to intervene and put a halt to the conflict between the HRL and the Tamil rebels. Completing their mission with the utmost ease, the Meisters return to base, only to have Setsuna encounter a Union pilot by the name of Graham Acre who claims he has been captivated by Exia's existence, and seems to want to engage in combat.

A pretty decent episode, especially how they relate the show to current political events at present, namely the Sri Lankan conflict and the scene where the Union President talks about how they go to war to protect their country and profits which is somehow similar to some US foreign policy. Despite all that political stuff, they still manage to keep the show interesting, by slotting in some Gundam action in between, and as it was in the previous episode, these new breed of mobile suits are still without equal. It would be interesting to see if Graham can beat Setsuna, despite knowing what these Gundams are capable of. Serious matters aside, I wish they'd show more of that twintail girl I mentioned last week, Wan Ryūmin, as she is the only one I can rely on at this point to keep the yaoi-ness in check. Lawl. Shin out.

Gundam 00 – First Looks

Posted by Shin

After a long hiatus, Sunrise's flagship series is now here. And for the very first time in a long while, the first episode does not involve stolen Gundams. It does however invoke memories of past Gundam titles I've seen, namely Wings and SEED. The story this time around is set 300 years in the future when the world is divided into 3 core factions, the Union of Solar Energy and Free Nations (that's USA for you), the Human Reform League (made up of China, Russia and India) and the Advanced European Union (self-explanatory) are waving wars with one another over fossil fuel which at the point of depletion.

Enter the Celestial Beings, a private military organization bent on eradicting warfare from the world, through whatever means necessary. No matter the reason, they will act against any country or organization that support war. To aid them in their mission, special mobile suits known as Gundams have been deployed and through a series of well planned attacks and the intervention of a terrorist attack on a satellite orbit station, the Celestial Beings have made it clear that they will stop at nothing in achieving their objectives.

Oh wow, stopping wars by waging a war? They had better explain this blatant contradiction in the Celestial Being's purpose, or this is going to end up like SEED all over again. On the plus side, they brought this issue up at the very beginning, so perhaps there's more to it than what it appears at first. Not bad for a pilot episode, as we got a glimpse of what the Gundams can do, although it does seem overpowered as usual. With more factions this time around, it will be interesting to see how the conflict evolves, as at this point there is no clear cut on who the good guys are, despite the Celestial Beings claiming to be so.

As for the Gundams themselves, I wasn't too attracted to the designs, as I did with the ones in SEED and SEED Destiny. I guess it's because it's not as "loud" and the designers this time decided to go for a more subtle look, making it look somewhat ordinary in my opinion. Speaking of designs, the characters in this show weren't as bad as I first imagined it to be, although Hallelujah still looks like a faggot to me. The rest of the cast are fine, despite the males looking as good in terms of beauty with the females. Thankfully, I can still look forward to the girls in this show, as I've taken a liking for the twin-tailed chinese girl in purple cheongsam whose name I didn't catch, and as such, the excessive amount of bishies can somewhat be forgiven. Also, the opening song by L'arc-en-Ciel was pretty neat and matched the animation sequence nicely. Guess they got tired of TM Revolution already, hehe. In any case, I'll be following this show and expect Sunrise not to mess up this time around. Shin out.