Gundam 00 — Episode 15
This is one predictable episode. I mean, the title “Broken Wings” pretty much spoils any element of suspense that Sunrise’s scriptwriters can possibly muster, assuming they try at all.
So yeah, the Gundams all get owned in a spectacular fashion, clearing the way for newer and better Gundams to take over the mess. G00, like most recent Gundams, is really just a series of 25-minute weekly commercials promoting Gunpla.
Also, Liu Mei in se-ra-fuku. :O
Episode Summary
The HRL chose Taklamakan for the location of the military exercise because it has information that terrorists are planning to attack its enriched uranium facility there, ergo Celestial Being has to go there to stop the terrorists. This utterly makes no sense because the combined might of the entire world’s armies is going to be there, and I don’t think there are any terrorists stupid enough to mount an attack under such circumstances.
Nevertheless, we have three mobile suits and three cute little trucks conducting a head-on suicide attack while the entire world’s armies try hard to act blind and pretend to not notice. As storyline goes, this is as contrived a plot as it gets. Any more and we will have to invent a new word to describe it.
And what’s even stupider is that Celestial Being actually takes the bait and sends four measly Gundams to destroy a small group of terrorists in the middle of a desert crawling with nearly one thousand Union, AEU and HRL mobile suits. I mean, seriously? I’m sure HRL would’ve taken care of the terrorists on their own if they realized that the Gundams weren’t going to show up after all.
If only Virtue could fly
Allelujah didn’t do much
Lockon should watch his back around Graham…
So anyway, the Gundams all get pwned after this. Kyrios is captured by the HRL, Virtue by the AEU and Dynames by the Union. Exia almost fell to the French thanks to Ali’s new mobile armor, but a timely deus ex machina intervention by one of those new Throne Gundams saves Setsuna’s day.
Enact is backwards compatible with a Solar Conflict relic
God is here
Screencaps
Whiny bitch
Obligatory airtime
Kyrios and Dynames mating
The new bitch
“They should really keep me informed beforehand about these traps.”
“Hold steady damn it!”
Dynames cheating on Kyrios with a Realdo
“We totally didn’t notice this huge row of Tierens as we rushed into this obvious trap.”
“Nope, didn’t notice these either.”
Man, Realdos look lame
“If my calculations are correct, we should be completely pwned by now.”
Is that her school uniform?
GN bazooka in burst mode
The perfect desert camouflage
“I will make you a man.” Actual quotation
The design makes no sense
By the way, Mendoi-Conclave’s episode 14 is super delayed because we are still finishing up the karaoke effects. Personally I don’t really care that much about karaoke, but I’m not the one making the decisions. It should be out soon together with episode 15. (Our new tracker is here.)
Probably.
January 22nd, 2008 at 2:52 am
Hey, it’s better than Seed. I’m good. ^_^
January 22nd, 2008 at 3:37 am
It’s alright Kinny, I knew you were only kidding.
January 22nd, 2008 at 3:03 pm
DM said:
“Therefore, most viewers actually seek a different kind of gratification from G00 than me, and they probably feel that G00 fulfils that requirement well, or at least well enough.”
Heheheh so full of sexual innuendo especially when I read it as ‘goo’.
Really DM, I think you are thinking about this show too much. I know as a blogger it’s easy to overanalyze. Oh god I remember the countless hours I devoted to translating Stellar’s blood results in GSD for a slaverying AnimeSuki public… but in the end just enjoy the explosions! Actually for someone who doesn’t enjoy explosions, and whom I don’t THINK is in it for the homoeroticism, I have no idea why you like Gundam at all, but to each his own.
January 22nd, 2008 at 5:05 pm
What a mess. It only takes one plot hole to ruin a good story and this episode had several of them. Blegh.
Not that it would have been much of a story if they had just stayed away. But they should have. The story just doesnt work.
And im pissed about those new gundams. This episode is where it went from somewhat possible future version of the earth to brainless explosions, and there is no turning back now.
The mistake, i think, was trying to mix storytelling with mechas. They keep swinging back and forth between politics and power struggles, and magical plot devices.
Oh well, it was a good 14 episodes at least.
January 22nd, 2008 at 7:59 pm
Is it me or are there a few Gundam Seed references going on? The bald guy at the initial meeting (Phantom Pain commander in Stargazer) , Ms, Manekin (Natarle captain of the dominion) and the infamous shot that saves Setsuna in true Freedom saving Archangel style? Nonetheless its getting interesting.
January 22nd, 2008 at 11:01 pm
With all the plot holes and Celestial Being’s ‘weird/illogical’ way of doing things, G00 is just asking for someone like Kyon to barge into the series and start telling them what’s wrong…
Better yet let Kyon join CB and become a Gundam Meister, now that is something to see…
January 23rd, 2008 at 4:08 am
Kyon being a Gundam Meister would almost work seeing as how boring and one note a character he is (and let’s face it, the Gundam Meister’s are pretty straightforward people). In fact, he would probably take the title as I think any of the Gundam Meisters had more character development in the first 15 episodes then Kyon has had in all the Haruhi novels I’v read up till now.
Face it, Kyon is doomed to play the eternal First Person Narrarator while all the other Haruhi characters are built up around him.
Though in all honesty I think Tieria is the Kyon of the series already, telling everybody else they can’t be Gundam Meisters and their choices are illogical because they don’t follow Veda’s advice to the T. No need to have two.
January 23rd, 2008 at 4:23 am
Sorry for the DP:
And to Guner who said it was a mistake to mix storytelling with mecha, why the heck should that be the case? Are you trying to tell me that Escaflowne shouldn’t have had a plot, or neither should Full Metal Panic try to develop a romance, or that we should take back that award that Patlabor got for best written manga?
I’m sorry but that is not a fair criticism at all and is basically just bashing the mecha genre. I suppose you’d also tell me that the only series that should try to have a plot are Slice of Life and Romance series and that Mecha series belong as nothing more than explosions and loud screams. I have a question, why do you think people like the real robot mecha genre in the first place? I’ll drop a hint, it isn’t the combat.
And one heavy action episode and you think it’s all of a sudden no turning back and they are no longer going to develop the setting, characters and the universe? What are you basing any of this on anyway? And where is this plot hole you are talking about? What plot hole?
What is with these unsupported attacks on this series coming out again now? They’re as unfair and as unfounded as my initial criticism of DM’s translations. I hope at least people do what I did and bring support for their criticisms now that it’s been requested, otherwise I’m going to do what DM reasonably did with me at first and suspect trolling of the series.
January 23rd, 2008 at 6:16 am
Suspect whatever you want kaio.
The plotholes were already pointed out, courtesy of DM.
January 23rd, 2008 at 6:52 am
The new Gundams’ are named after German numbers.
Eins = one
Zwei = two
Drei = three
Really original -.-
January 23rd, 2008 at 11:07 am
Those aren’t plot holes, those are criticisms of the writing, and criticisms by one person. Ones that I don’t happen to agree with and seem nitpicky to begin with.
No these are examples of plot holes:
Durandal’s presence on the Minerva in a scene long after he had returned to the Plant (courtesy of a reused scene and laziness)
Mwu La Fraga suddenly being alive again in Gundam Seed Destiny after taking a fatal shot that blew his Mobile Suit to smithereens in Gundam Seed, leaving his helmet floating in the debris (later retroactively removed in the “Special Edition”).
Kira suddenly ending up at Lacus’ estate in the Plant while being unconcious on an island in the middle of nowhere on Earth in Gundam Seed (Later partially explained by an extremely contrived set of circumstances in Gundam Seed Astray).
So far I have yet to see any instance in Gundam 00 that can be called a plot hole. Plot contrivance maybe, but not plot hole. Yet all series have there tropes of one or another.
January 23rd, 2008 at 12:07 pm
Good job talking about stuff i have never seen. Incidentally, its things like that that make me not want anything to do with the earlier gundams. What little i have seen of them was pretty bad.
Fine, not a plot hole if you really wanna be pedantic about it. Idiotic writing then. Bad enough to change what kind of show this is. It went from a political commentary wrapped up in mechas to good and evil mechas about to duke it out for whatever goddamn cliche villainous reason they come up with.
January 23rd, 2008 at 12:41 pm
You haven’t seen much other Gundam, but find what you saw of it to be bad, yet you somehow feel you can predict the course of events that are about to occur. Specifically you predict the worst possible outcome that could occur, one that the series is barely even hinting at as a fourth resort.
With that and the fact that you failed to bring up any evidence and just keep on hammering the same points, I’m going to do exactly as I said and say you are just trolling the series. Considering you seem to have no concept of what the show is actually like (Again you have not mentioned even one single event from the series you felt was poorly written in any three of the posts you’ve made) and are just arguing from points that are ripped from DM’s critique (and also very poorly intepreted versions of his critique which fail to highlight the actual problems he has) I wonder how anyone could suspect otherwise.
If you truly believe that the show can’t shift focus again (or in fact has, is or shouldn’t be allowed to) just because there was one large battle in it (One I thought was well set up and executed, if a bit prolonged) then I have nothing else to do but laugh at your argument. I have a hard time respecting arguments that clearly come from people who follow something just to complain about it. I mean at least if DM doesn’t like it he is watching it for the sake of his fansub hobby.
January 23rd, 2008 at 12:51 pm
As i already said, go ahead and suspect whatever you feel like. But do try to be quiet or at least less longwinded about it.
January 23rd, 2008 at 2:40 pm
“If my calculations are correct, we should be completely pwned by now”
My thoughts exactly!
January 24th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
Okay Kao and Guner are fighting for some reason these comments are becoming chat rooms well… not really but anyway^^;
I think the gundams should have eliminated the mobile suits somemore in fact kick ass until like the only useful pilots in the series or sub characters :(soma, graham, and ali surges) come in. I mean plasma fields that attack the pilot directly? Okay thats just cheep and lowly although quite ingenious. Comeon cant they just make awesome mobile suits like the UN did and actual have an good pilot(graham) that doesn’t need to have fuckin brain waves to weaken the pilots even more. I think they use the flaws of the pilots too much although this whole Celestial Being thing is entirelly flawed (if anyone wants to argue that Celestial Being doesn’t have its flaws their dumb) However this whole Gundam thing is about human flaws in my point of view. (Its my point of view Kay!!!!)
January 25th, 2008 at 10:07 am
I’ve said it before… I think the whole point that they’re trying to get at is that the original meisters are all humans with human emotions as well as their flaws. And at the end they want you to see how they “grow” and “mature”.
At least, that’s what I think. How they’re going about it isn’t particularly good. However if we all just step back and just look at it … we’re watching a cartoon, in a world that doesn’t exist yet. Its like saying the freaking death star was stupid for having a stupid exhaust 2 metres wide.
Predictions for me: Throne Gundams go around pwning everything with disregard, leading to original CB questioning the intentions of the Thrones, and of CB/Veda/Aeolia, and following by their withdrawal from CB, which eventually culminates with the original 4 Meisters against the 3 Throne Meisters.
I mean… god they’ve been hinting at it for episodes now. “I believe Celestial Being’s true goal is not the eradication of conflict, but something else” from epi 14. And if the 2nd opening isn’t a big enough hint.
~Dazzer ^^
January 25th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
Hi this is the first time I’ve posted here. I don’t know if any has brought this up yet but one thing I noticed about your reveiw/summary: you said they wandered into an obvious trap and that they sent four Gundams to take care of a few terrorists. Actually thats wrong, they knew that it was a trap. I believe sumthing was said about that in the previous episode and even if they hadn’t notice all the backup plans they had for the battle there is no way they made thos up on the fly, especially as there was no contact between the pilots and the others in Celestial Being. Considering hw the series has gone so far I,m willing to believe that CB went into that on purpose, knowing full well what was there and what could happen.
January 25th, 2008 at 6:21 pm
Of course they know that it is a trap.
But you have to have a pretty good reason to walk into a trap like that, such as with the Taribian incident.
This time they have NO REASON to interfere at all since no one in the world except HRL and Celestial Being knew about the terrorists.
January 25th, 2008 at 8:41 pm
Hmmm… I wonder…
Celestial Being surely did not have the intention of ‘giving up’ the Gundams by entering the trap, since the Throne Gundams arrived at the scene to prevent that from happening. So it makes no sense to even make a presence at the desert. As for why is that so…. please permit me to share my thoughts.
The only irk, in my opinion, is that the three world powers had actually concocted such a strategy. As Darkmirage has pointed out, there was no reason for CB to intervene with the terrorist attack at all. For the HRL would be forced to do the work themselves when they realise that the Gundams are not falling for the bait.
Whose fault would it have been if the terrorists had successfully blown up the plant? It sure will not be Celestial Being’s responsibility? The result would be disastrous with the radiation affecting the nearby military exercise conducted by the three world powers.
The three world powers should have noticed this flaw in the plan, and hence realise that it is not feasible in the first place. Episode 15 should have been a nice 25 mins of Lui Mei’s cosplay galore!
If I have made a mistake in my comments, do enlighten me in a nice manner. =)
January 26th, 2008 at 2:20 am
I agree with what you are saying, however CB ALWAYS has an objective, no matter what hey are doing. I don’t believe they walked into this without an objective, consideringhow they have always played things so far and the risks involved. I think that we jst don’t know the objectives of this mission yet, Hell for all we know the purpose could have been to show that they had the Throne Gundams. The actions CB take are confusing at best. I doubt we will understand nehting better until later in the series.
January 26th, 2008 at 3:47 am
In the show the HRL President or one of his advisor’s, I can’t remember which, states that if the Celestial Beings don’t show up they will issue a press release condemning the Celestial Beings for going against their creed to prevent terrorism and war, thus painting them as hypocrites and damaging their cause. CB could not afford bad press at the time when they were slowly being accepted. Basically they had two options. Go and risk getting captured, but protect there creed and become martyr’s for there cause if so (remember Alejandro mentioned them trying to be martyr’s and that the Gundam’s should be killing tools, this leaves me to believe he’ll side with the Thrones by the way), or don’t go and have bad press and automatically lose the engagement on the credibility front. It was a matter of upholding their cause and neither choice was more or less favourable then the other.
January 26th, 2008 at 4:22 am
That is a good analysis, but there is one slight flaw. CB doesn’t care about bad press or credibiliy, they care about results. Dont forget episode 4 when they go involved in the Taribian conflict. I agree that they do uphold their stated purpose however if they hadn’t intervened as The Sojourner said one of the other armies probably would have. That being the case they would have delt with the bad publicity, they said it themselved they don’t care if they are hated by the world. I still think there was another purpose behind this that we don’t yet realise. Of course I may be wrong this is all conjecture.
January 26th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
The purpose, such as it is, was to give the new gundams a dramatic entrance. And it was not CBs plan, it was the script writers. Its just a clumsy plot device.
January 26th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
The gundam writers should be fired… well for this episode.
CB has too much pride but WTF they do have to uphold their ideas or else. For example, two eps ago they just acted like little innocent people trying the stop war (Exia in Azadistan). So yaah -.-
but mostly the dumb writers messed the storyline flow.
January 26th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
I agree that the writers need to do better. Like I said you may I was just guessing at what it may be. If I’m wrong I’m fine with that too. All I am saying is don’t rule anything out.
January 26th, 2008 at 8:33 pm
gee. menclave took so long to release episode 15 of gundam 00 that the site i get my gundam from uploaded the episode subbed by shinsen subs. and theyre fairly crap. good enough to get by but crap
i just hope i get my episode 16 subbed by menclave.
January 26th, 2008 at 8:48 pm
i think you’re referring to ep.14
Liu Mei..so cute ^^
January 27th, 2008 at 8:56 am
Where can u download menclave’s subs? The only ones i can seem to find are the one done by shinsen subs.
January 27th, 2008 at 9:35 am
I see one way this could still work out to be a somewhat coherent story.
Evil gundam vs gundam plus the united world. Dunno where the new ones have been hiding until now, and its being overly optimistic anyway.
January 29th, 2008 at 5:32 pm
duh, of course there have to be plot devices. It’s anime.
Just wondering, could the terrorists have been fake ones? As in, played out by one of the sides?
And however contrived Gundam 00 might have been thus far, it sure beats watching GSD. Now THAT’S crap.
Trackback from
[Ascaloth] The Meister Intervenes! at Riuva : Research Institute for Unicultural Visual ArtsFebruary 8th, 2008 at 2:51 am
[...] the anime blogosphere, and yet they never fail to entertain bystanders. In fact, regular readers of DarkMirage and THAT will be familiar with the recent interventions in their negatively portrayed articles on [...]
April 9th, 2008 at 6:46 am
glad to see they got owned