![\"Gundam](\"http:\/\/www.darkmirage.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/10\/14_gundam00_ep2a.jpg\")
<\/p>\nAs expected, the series is very heavily influenced than contemporary military and political events. (Although it’s kind of doubtful that the political situation will remain so consistent for the next three hundred years when you consider how much has changed in the last three hundred.)<\/p>\n
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It’s like when you watch Lucky Star<\/strong> and go “ZOMG COOL” when the characters make a reference to some obscure game, except that Gundam 00<\/strong> (G00) does it with CNN headlines. It’s like a crash course on modern politics, and it’s quite timely too considering the whole Iraq debate that’s been making its rounds in Japan’s Diet.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n First of all, we now know the nations that comprise the three power blocs in the story.<\/p>\n Although it’s not clear in the picture, Japan is definitely part of the Union. Surprisingly, the United Kingdom is not, but I guess it makes sense. Although it would make sense too for Japan to be part of the Jinkakuren, but I guess the producers didn’t want to piss off the nationalist right. By the way, the black dots represent the locations of the three space elevators. They are all on the equator. Union’s elevator is located somewhere around modern day Columbia and northern Brazil.<\/p>\n Besides China, India and Russia, the whole of South East Asia is under the Human Reform League (Jinkakuren). This is probably because the League wants to secure its energy pipeline laid on the seabed starting from its space elevator located to the east of New Guinea to somewhere in India. Well maybe not just India, but the episode confirmed that there is a pipeline off the eastern coast of what is currently Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n AEU is pretty much just EU. Africa and the Middle East are left unclaimed by the three great powers, just as I discussed in my previous comments. Since AEU’s space elevator is located somewhere around modern day Congo and Tanzania, I think it’s safe to say that the African continent is more or less a dependency of the AEU.<\/p>\n Interestingly, one of the councillors of AEU looks just like Germany’s first female chancellor, Angela Merkel<\/a>. It made me go LOL.<\/p>\n And the Union’s president makes some very interesting remarks.<\/p>\n We intervene in other nations’ conflicts for our own people’s safety and for national interest. That just sounds like we are going to witness a 24th century Iraq War soon. I love this show!<\/p>\n This episode is about the Celestial Being launching an “armed intervention<\/a>” against the 300-year-old civil war<\/a> between the Sinhalese majority and Tamil minority<\/a> of Sri Lanka. Except that in the show, Sri Lanka has fallen into anarchy and the island is now referred to either as the Former Sri Lanka, or Ceylon Island. Interestingly, Ceylon Island<\/a> is the historical name of Sri Lanka and even now is used in certain situations, such as Celyon tea<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Tamil minority are backed by the Human Reform League. This is because the Tamils control the eastern parts of Ceylon Island and there’s a League solar energy pipeline running on the seabed off the coast there. Because of the League’s interventions that destroyed the balance of power, Tamils gained overpowering advantage and the ruling Sinhalese majority government collapsed as the country fell into anarchy.<\/p>\n What’s I really really love about G00 is that the producers obviously did their research. They didn’t just take some random political trivial and stuck it into the story, they actually understand the intricacies of what they are doing. This can really help to educate the otaku population on current world events when they do wiki-research on the real-life parallels found in the story.<\/p>\n For example, one little detail they paid attention to is the way that the different blocs referred to Ceylon. The President of the Union referred to it as “Former Sri Lanka”, while AEU’s and League’s personnels referred to it as “Ceylon Island”, thus reflecting a difference in opinion regarding the political situation there. Just like how we use “Myanmar” in South East Asia but the western countries prefer its colonial name “Burma”.<\/p>\n If this keeps up, G00 may just become my favourite Gundam series ever. :P<\/p>\n P.S. I translated episode two for Conclave-Mendoi<\/a>. ^_^<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As expected, the series is very heavily influenced than contemporary military and political events. (Although it’s kind of doubtful that the political situation will remain so consistent for the next three hundred years when you consider how much has changed … Continue reading ![\"Gundam](\"http:\/\/www.darkmirage.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/10\/14_gundam00_ep2b.jpg\")
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\nWe are not running a charity.
\nI’m sure [Celestial Being] will reveal their true intentions soon.
\nWhen the time comes, it will be our destiny to deliver judgement upon them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n![\"Gundam](\"http:\/\/www.darkmirage.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/10\/14_gundam00_ep2i.jpg\")
\nJinkakuren mobile suits piloted by Tamil rebels<\/p>\n![\"Gundam](\"http:\/\/www.darkmirage.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/10\/14_gundam00_ep2j.jpg\")
\nSinhalese soldiers<\/p>\n