Gundam 00 — Episode 20
Ow, god my hurt heads. I slept on cold concrete floor last night without a proper pillow last night. I should really be sleeping early tonight…
Unfortunately, it’s already too late for that. Gah. This episode is pretty decent. I realized that the shorter each scene is in an episode of G00, the more interesting I find the episode to be. This probably has to do with the fact that I find most of the mindless dialogues boring, so rapid scene transitions serve to reset my bored-o-meter before weariness kicks in.
Summary
Sunrise covers up a gaping plot hole by having a nurse explain to Saji that Louise’s left hand cannot be regenerated because her body cells were somehow affected by the beam weapons used by the Gundams. So now we know that medical technology isn’t that incompetent three centuries in the future after all.
Saji finds out that he has to pay the bills
Of course, since Louise wasn’t actually directly hit by the beam, this raises an interesting question as to just how harmful GN particles are to human beings at long distances? Are most of the military personnels in the world impotent by now? This is a question of utmost scientific significance and requires a thorough and rigorous investigation.
Meanwhile, the three world superpowers, armed with their new secret weapons, jointly declare their intention to wipe out the Celestial Being terrorist scums for good.
That European guy is totally evil
They pledge their combine military strength to form a unified army under UN authority, giving birth to the largest army humanity has ever seen.
Meanwhile, Sumeragi orders Ian the tech guy and that male crew member, whose name I cannot remember, to retrieve and deploy the GN arms system, which is basically a smaller rip-off of the Meteor system, which is in turn a smaller rip-off of the Dendrobium system.
“So uh, we finally get to do something and possibly die soon, huh?”
Supposedly, there will be GN arms systems for all the Gundams, but so far only one is ready for deployment, which is Exia’s I guess.
Each of the power blocs receive 10 out of the 30 GN drive-powered mobile suits, GN-X, that they found in Antarctica. Imagine if the traitor within Celestial Being had decided to give them 31 mobile suits instead? They probably would’ve fought a war just to decide who gets the extra one.
What I don’t understand about the future is its preference for monochrome interfaces
The Union is assigning the Overflag pilots to its share of the new mobile suits. Graham rejects the offer because he promised Howard to defeat the Gundams with his Flag, and he is a man of his words. For god’s sake, just swap the heads or something and call it a Custom Flagdam.
That guy needs to change his barber
On the other side of the blue marble, Sergei and Soma abandon their Tierens for the spanking new mobile suits without any qualms. Patrick is busy trying to get laid and doesn’t give a damn, but he probably gets a GN-X anyway.
Is he supposed to be modelled after someone?
Meanwhile, the President of the Linear Train Corporation, Ragna Harvey, meets up with Ali to discuss the secret delivery of GN-X to the various nations. I guess Ali is not only a mercenary but a smuggler too. It sort of makes sense, since he seems to have some magical ability to hide and transport his stolen Enact around. But not really.
Evil and proud of it
Ali subtlety blackmails Ragna into arranging for him to join either the Union or AEU army as one of the pilots of the new mobile suits. Showdown with Exia lies ahead.
Kinue is stalking Ragna, who refused to accept her request for an interview. She ends up making the biggest mistake of her life by trying to pry information out of Ali. This part doesn’t make a lot of sense either. She basically asks Ali, “Hey, so what’s your secret business with Ragna?” and expects a reply. The only reason she gets one is because Ali is batshit insane…
“Stop right there. This is the hairdo police!”
…and also because he kills her after that. That’s right, with no build-up whatsoever, Ali randomly decides to stab/shoot Kinue in the stomach and leave her to die. One can never be sure when it comes to Gundam, but she looks pretty dead. Maybe she’ll be back as a cyborg reporter sent back in time to do an exposé on her own death.
It always rains when this happens
Alejandro Corner reveals his true villain self. Apparently, the Corner family has planned to usurp Aeolia Schenberg’s plans for centuries and Alejandro was bidding his time because he couldn’t do anything with Veda around. Ribonze, the green-hair uke, has the same ability as Tieria and Nena, which allows him to secretly access Veda. Thanks to him, Alejandro can proceed with his evil plans and S&M yaoi fantasies.
“I’m the bad guy. Surprise!”
They manage to locate Veda’s physical system hidden on the dark side of the moon. Man, the dark side of the moon sure has a ton of top secret stuff lying around…
Wang Liu Mei throws her support behind the Trinity siblings, an extremely bad choice that, in my opinion, will probably lead to the death of either herself or Hong Long. Probably the latter. At the very least she will surely become impotent due to increased exposure to the red GN particles. Why Liu Mei, why?
Liu Mei joins the dark side :(
The Trinity gets owned by HRL’s new GN-powered Choubu Jinx Squadron, which is a terrible name, while on a mission to destroy the League’s regional base in Guangzhou. No one dies, though.
Briareos, is that you?
Well that was a pretty plot-heavy episode. I have a feeling that the next one will have a lot more static dialogues. Sigh…
Screencaps
Europe wins
Secretary General of the UN?
This Ikeda hippie is the only foreign correspondent JNN has
It’s a phallic symbol
ZOMG who is this? Hint: Not a new character
Some things are more important than the fate of the world
Kids, this is what happens when you take candies from strangers
Face-off with Liu Mei
The HRL pilot survives, but is sterilized
Now every Tom, Dick and Harry has a GN drive
New HRL anti-Gundam tactic: Chinese martial arts
“There is no dark side of the moon really. Matter of fact it’s all dark.”
GLaDOS’s secret cake factory
I feel a little hungry.
February 26th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
WTF, a bunch of traitors, 30 new Gundam type mobile suits. GAWD if I found a traitor in my company I would burn the bastard at the stake. Well at least part of CB’s goal was accomplished, the UNIFICATION of the 3 world powers. Now CB just needs to pwn those guys, I have no idea how the ef they r going to do that. But either case that GN Arms thing sounds awesome! Can’t w8 to see it in action. The next episode better be kik ass awesome!
February 26th, 2008 at 2:53 pm
Gundam 00 have yet to come up with miracles of someone supposedly dead coming back well and alive. But yet it’s a 50-50 chance on whether she will survive or not.
The only clue the writer left is her losing unconscious in a pool of blood, when few people walked in the rain. Even Wikipedia had said she’s “dead”.
BTW, the showing of one reporter for JNN’s overseas news does not mean JNN have only one such reporter.
February 26th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
Dan, they’ve done it before. Kira learned to pilot The Strike Gundam in like 5 minutes. He killed war veterans lol. And it was Coordinator vs. Coordinator then.
February 26th, 2008 at 11:27 pm
no Coordinator vs. Coordinator
just Ulitimate Coordinator vs. Coordinator
February 27th, 2008 at 12:38 am
@darkdestiny: Wikipedia saying she’s dead doesn’t mean much you know.
I prefer the spoilers in that they say she “left the stage”, only to return later when least expected. It’s not revival, because she never died in the first place. =P
And about that JNN hippie. He’s frickin’ everywhere. That’s the point, lol.
February 27th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
Dude Ali is freaking scary man, sadistic, my new fav. bad guy of the series
February 27th, 2008 at 6:01 pm
Ah? Back to the old blog layout?
February 27th, 2008 at 6:06 pm
SAJI IS THE SHOW’S HERO!!!1
lol
February 27th, 2008 at 8:53 pm
RmX: The reason why I quote the word “dead” is because I don’t believe she is, yet. But I admit I miss the “leave the stage”.
EDIT: OK, the info seems to have changed on Wikipedia that her status is unknown for now. But I think we’ll know what happens to her (at least) in the next episode.
Anonymous: I guess so. Seems I’m not the only one who noticed the change.
February 27th, 2008 at 10:51 pm
I LOLed at these lines
That guy needs to change his barber
It always rains when this happens
Anyways i cant remember where i seen Ribonze and Alejandro in the past few episodes,they didnt do anything much right?
February 28th, 2008 at 1:49 am
>>GLaDOS’s secret cake factory
I LOL’ed at this line.
Remember, the cake is a lie.
February 28th, 2008 at 2:08 am
Just watched this episode, I don’t think Saji will pilot a Gundam. But the GN X kinda reminded me of NRX-009 Balient.
Link: http://www.mahq.net/Mecha/Gundam/x/nrx-009.htm
February 28th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
screw that weird cyclops thing anyway I don’t like the sound of addons … G00 has gotten PREEEETTTtty bad lately. Awesome edits…. cool now I dont have to use extra text boxes
February 28th, 2008 at 9:27 pm
They might pull a Destiny again… and switch main character in Season 2… Saji makes a good Kira afterall… but I still don’t think he will pilot anything… not the way he is now anyway…
February 29th, 2008 at 9:29 am
It’s very interesting how all of you are comparing Saji to Kira. But let us remember, Saji has no pilot training or experience what so ever. And also let us be reminded that Kira being a super coordinator just has to glance at things to be able to master them. I highly doubt that saji can do that.
That’s just my opinion, however I do think that Saji would, in fact, make a good gundam pilot. It would be very amusing in the end. But i don’t think he has a big enough shock. I mean, it’s not like his girl is dead, just without an arm.
February 29th, 2008 at 11:02 am
It will take years for Saji to even start piloting even a mobile unit. But I feel the reason why they are having Saji in the series is, not just to have a civilian point of view of the situation, but also about the things that led to the world at AD 2307, like the orbital elevators. He’s studying about space exploration, right?
Keba: correction. without a hand not an arm.
February 29th, 2008 at 11:13 am
Just to note, are the Trinity siblings really from Celestial Being, or are they manipulated by someone into thinking they are part of the organization? Everything about them seems so confusing.
February 29th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
one for darkdestiny: the trinity sibs are probably a part of some civilian scavenger or investigators who found a research facility in jupiter note: gundams can only be made in stupiter(jupiter)
They find that purple haro of the trinity sibs who isfloating around in the research facility which is abandoned this is eighty years back
that haro is filled with info on G00dams its incomplete so gundams are imperfect but powerful trinity sibs were then genetically made some years later and gundams were made.Edit: whatever i tried explainging it saji is NOT going to pilot but maybe haepl?????????
March 1st, 2008 at 6:50 am
“…and also because he kills her after that. That’s right, with no build-up whatsoever, Ali randomly decides to stab/shoot Kinue in the stomach and leave her to die. One can never be sure when it comes to Gundam, but she looks pretty dead. Maybe she’ll be back as a cyborg reporter sent back in time to do an exposé on her own death.”
Um sorry, no, not at all what happpened. First of all the scene lasts approximately 2 minutes and six seconds so there is plenty of build-up, secondly Ali pretends to be his Gaily Biage identity until the opportunity arises to tell the truth when Kinue asks him for answers, at which point he switches to intimidation mode as Ali. Thirdly we have no way of knowing yet what method Ali used to injure Kinue or if it was even him (a long shot, but we didn’t see him on camera so the possibility is always open that he had an accomplice meet him or something). Fourthly Ali didn’t just randomly decide to kill her, but was trying to do a favour for Lagna by getting rid of a snoop. Fifthly the only time you can’t be sure a character is dead in Gundam is when their apparent death appears off camera (that’s a cinematic technique used in almost any form of media actually), the exception being Mwu La Fraga in Gundam Seed. No comment on the last line.
What you just described is almost the complete opposite of what actually went on during that scene.
March 1st, 2008 at 8:27 am
Five episodes left what will happen with those dumb writers doing the story.? oh and person above DM wasn’t feeling all that great OK
Gundams get pwned and “Whinged” gets captured however Exia comes back in GN arms system and kicks little bug lookin mobile suit ass or at least the dumb writers let the lieutentat and soma live they should both die or at least kill lieutenatnt something. he is too smart…EDIT: Kao you type tooo much
March 1st, 2008 at 9:07 am
@Peter Road: And not one word of it goes to waste. I’m a writer/debater by nature, I kind of need to be detailed and thorough. I prefer not to have to hit the edit button and to get what I want across the first time.
Now, when you say “Dumb Writers” are you concerned about anything other than the battles (which make up very small chunks of the episodes) or not. I mean good lord, if what you described is all that happens in the next 5 episodes I would be distinctly unimpressed. Luckily there’s so much more going on then simple combat that there’s little chance of that happening. More than likely it’ll be a cliffhanger like Code Geass.
What to you would consitute intelligent writing by the way? I mean come on man, give us your take instead of just going on about how it’s bad. Don’t be afraid to go in depth because right now your complaints lack weight and focus. To me the character relationships, competing ideologies and politicking are intelligent enough writing for a fictional mecha series. It’s not like it’s 1984 or Starship Troopers level sociopolitical commentary, but it’s damn fine discussion material for what many see as little more than excuse to sell model kits.
March 1st, 2008 at 11:23 pm
Kinue Crossroad’s status have been confirmed – she died because of blood loss.
Reter Road: Yes, that’s why I stated the second possibility. Their insistence as part of CB seems a bit weird.
What else can Menclave work on after Gundam 00 Season 1? I guess, Code Geass?
March 2nd, 2008 at 3:02 am
@darkdestiny: The fansub wiki has them lined up for Geass R2 alright.
March 2nd, 2008 at 11:22 am
i think this series is ok, its good actually, better than gundam seed. but i think that they need to work on character development more. but as always in gundam series alot of good and bad guys die in the end. maybe theyd make a second series off of gundam 00.
March 2nd, 2008 at 11:34 am
hold on hold on, you all are talking about saji, all you have to do is look at the original gundam, mobile suit gundamand zeta gundam, they can be playing the same script, but saji is difantily going to play a major part in the series later on. maybe act as a scientist or something.
March 2nd, 2008 at 1:54 pm
There is a RUMOR post on the web right now:
1) Lockon will be blind for the rest of his life.
2) Allelujah will DIE in battle.
3) Ali Al Seige first sets up the 3 gundam trinity(s) and murders them one by one
4) Ali hijacks Gundam Throne Ziwi in EP 22
5) Graham dies in battle (Overflag upgraded to UNION Asura)
6) GN arms is destroyed fighting against Ali…Setsuna survives.
7) Few crew from Plutonimus survives the final attack. CB is no more.
8) CB becomes an underground organization working secretly with new casts from Season 2.
Not sure if this is true…though.
March 2nd, 2008 at 4:34 pm
Rumours may be true, but again not. Will have to wait a while.
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