As you can imagine from this picture, episode 24 is pretty emo. If you haven’t watched it yet, maybe you want to do that first before reading my usual cynical tearing down of what many people may find the most touching episode in the series. On the bright side, we are almost done! (Until season 2 at least.)
If I had to use an analogy to describe this episode, which I don’t but I shall anyway, then I would say that it’s like the fireworks during New Year celebrations. They are pretty nice and colourful but they last only a short while, burning themselves up in the process. Also, the whole fireworks get old after a while when you see them every year.
This is a very shitty analogy, so we shall stop here and move on.
Summary
Ptolemaios and the UN forces regroup their troops after the furious fighting in the previous episode. With just 11 Jinxes left, the UN receives a mysterious reinforcement in the form of a gigantic gold space pimpmobile. The two sides then clash in a final battle for survival, though it seems clear that Setsuna and gang stand no chance against the flying bling fortress.
“That’s no moon…”
Episode 24 is what Sunrise has been saving up for all this while, baby! And by saving up, I refer to the human cast of the series. Just like soylent green, the secret of Sunrise’s patented storyline formula lies in the death of human beings, and, continuing from episode 23’s light appetizer, we are slowly moving into the main course of total annihilation.
Patrick, a long lost member of Team Rocket, finally bites the dust in this episode, courtesy of Tieria Erde. While logically speaking it’s a miracle that he even managed to make it this far, from the perspective of story-telling it makes little sense to have him die at this point of the story, especially considering he just barely escaped death in episode 23.
Dr. Moreno, the doctor who wears a pair of dark sunglasses while he treats potentially-fatal wounds, dies an attack that takes out the entire starboard side of Ptolemaios. Since he had a total of about five seconds worth of appearance in the entire series, I wonder if his meaningless existence was the remnant of an aborted subplot, or if Sunrise really, really wanted to have someone who wears sunglasses in the show?
So he does have eyes…
Halfway through the episode, Christina and Lichty start to share their life stories. This is where you start to sympathize with them before they die later on in the episode. Yes, they die. To her credit, Chris saves Feldt’s life with a white lie, thus preserving the sanity of thousands of fanboys. The world owes you one, Chris. From a storyline viewpoint, this probably paves the way for Feldt to mature into a hardened Gundam Meister with a sexy body.
A cyborg’s got to do what a cyborg’s got to do
On the bright side, Sunrise can now lower the budget and lay off a few seiyuu.
That said, I am not heartless. Though the whole thing was a blatant attempt to create an emotional moment after so many episodes of weak character development, I did fall for it (a little). Christina and that guy, may you rest in peace and not be resurrected as brainwashed cyborg killing machines by the villain in season 2.
By the way, if you are wondering about Lichty’s cyborg body, his parents were orbital elevator technicians and he lost them, along with half his body, as a child during the Solar Conflict .
Screencaps
Is she going to do something or what?
Setsuna is mentally preparing himself for the ensuing rape
Question to Europeans: What’s with the funky colours?
“What’s that weird thing you’re using?” “A pencil.”
First the gold pistol, now this. Definitely compensating for something
Pikachu suit
They need to nerf this in the next patch
“Fire ze missiles!” “But I’m le tired.”
So, has anyone figured out why space smoke is pink in Gundam?
“HULK SMASH!”
It’s amazing how the rest of the room is completely blown apart
This is like Survivors in space
:(
:O
T_T
As a bonus for finishing this review, I present to you a short story.
though, all weird jokes aside, I feel the urge to point out that a character dies in almost every other episode, and that a good amount of the original Ptolemiaos crew has been blasted to smithereens.
I can almost imagine the board meetings at Sunrise…
Producer: LOL HAY GAIZ! Here’s this HYOOOOGE list of people that we’re gonna kill off! Take a gander!
Artists and Animators: yay! less work!
Writers: yay! more dramatic deaths!
*elsewhere*
Fans: Oh no! a chain of random plot devices!
honestly, the whole dramatic death or loss of incredibly minor character is kind of…filler-ish? can’t find a word for it. someone help me.
Well, that really surprised me that a golden gundam that has been loaded with like 7 gn drives was made and nobody knew about it, and those side containers can just get disconnected? so why didnt they just take one each adn start shooting instead of waiting at the bridge to get shot? Sunrise is killing all the MS so they can earn more money by bringing in new suits later in the series, they had trans am and they chose not to use it but just literally get owned. And what happened to grahem(flag pilot) he hasnt shown his face, can we jsut see him kick some ass..~~
@ leo: well, not just the mobile suits, but characters that were brought in just to die or something.
“I run a blog and can’t get views unless I’m needlessly bitter and cynical! Pay attention to meeeeee!”
Thank you for translating G00 o.o and… >_>
sorry about lack of politics, I think the political education process for Japanese youth HAS to be mixed with a lot of explosions =( it’s like African Americans calling each other niggers while Obama is trying to get elected =/
It’s funny because Sunrise bashing actually went out of fashion a while ago when they started getting their act together following Gundam Seed Destiny. The new trend is Gonzo bashing. If people haven’t already seen it, give Dragonaut a try (actually don’t). It’ll give everyone a whole new perspective on what haphazard writing is.
Okay, all jokes aside, I still think Sunrise is doing fine with this series IMO and I think the majority of people agree on that one. Speaking of agree, I have to side with you on the whole Wang being a pointless character thing. Throughout all of Season 1 she didn’t do a single thing beyond act self-important. The writers will have to get on that next season to make sure she isn’t completely wasted. Even Marina the so called useless princess has had a bigger effect on the series in regard to influencing Setsuna to find his own conclusions to what makes the world tick.
Yes I came back, but only because I have an uncanny sense for when I’m being parodied. I love how I always end up being an elitist jerk who ends up telling everybody what to do all the time in parody. In reality only 25% of that is actually what I’m like. :p
By the way, about that whole bottoming out of Bear Stearns. Analysts are saying to liquidate (RRSP’s only I imagine) and apparently the EU is looking for a way to further decouple from the U.S economy. The EU as I understand it has been looking for economic independence for a while now, but is now the right time? Seriously I don’t know, I’m no economist. What I do know is the Canadian Dollar dropped an entire cent in one day last week, which strikes me as something to be alarmed about. It’s funny because old Bushy is saying the economy has never been sounder…….why he feels the need to talk about the economy I’ll never know. Last time he did that back in his first term the stock market took a nosedive if I recall. It’s times like these I wish I was still in University so that I could get an economics prof’s perspective on all of this….
Well anyways, like I suggested last time, Legend of The Galactic Heroes is a great series that also happens to have a lot of politics. You get a bit of analysis on Monarchy versus Democracy too along with the inner posturing and ladder climbing of the characters. LOGH kicks the crap out of 00 in every respect as it stands at this point, but I still think 00 is a very good show so far. I can’t really rank it overall though since it isn’t done.
….By the way, the smoke looks purple to me. Am I going even colour blinder?
….One last thing, despite our disagreeing on the overall quality of the show, I appreciate that you stuck with it and continued to translate. That’s the mark of a true fansubber. I’ve seen way to many other subbers leave viewers cold and dry when they stop being interested in a show themselves and it is pretty selfless of you to keep on trucking despite your disappointment with the show. So good job.
Nerodon:
Woulnd’t the GN-X accelerate to really high speed just before crashing. That’s a really big mass force were talking about. Most of the weapons used by the Gn-X if not all are energy based (therefore thermal damage) best example, when lock-on’s armor gets penetrated by a Gn-X’s saber.
The bullets and artillery shells of the previous episodes were most likely moving at a similar speed than normal tank shells today.
Each shell weighing about 100 kilos fired at a speed of about 900 m/sec
makes an impact force of 90 Mega Joules
…etc
After reading your dissertation, I feel compelled to point out that force is measured in Newtons, not Joules. You have confused it with kinetic energy. Additionally, “Mega Joules” is one word; and there is no such thing as a “mass force.”
Hope that helps.
Patrick is still alive, his cockpit unit is intact… Remember when his enact got shot in half? This is similar.
Why are the main characters dying? Well in a real war with such MS they would have all died off ages ago, end of story. Most of the other gundam series were total BS in this part.
NOTE: Sunrise still existed because of Gundam Seed and Gundam Seed Destiny… Remember how GS and GSD both had their plot modified to suit the fans…
Oh yeah Dark mirage, you going to do a code geass review?
There is a rumour that Nena is NOT going to make it into Season 2…and it is pretty hit right now in Japan.
Does that mean she will die too?
I don’t think Patrick’s done just yet, check out his GN-X after Tieria’s shot, seems like the cockpit is still intact. ^^;
http://www.marvinryan.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/patrickcorlasawar2.jpg
@Martin: Thanks to our good friends Fukuda and Morosawa who don’t appear to work there anymore…..at least I hope not.
And you I still don’t know where along the line all of these negative traits started to get attributed directly to Sunrise, but a lot of different people work on different series when it comes to their shows. Unfortunately the entire studio get’s blamed for the mistakes of two of it’s former employees and now they have one of the worst reputations in the western anime community for no good reason and many people act like they can’t do anything right. How long is it going to be before people let the stigma of Gundam Seed Destiny go I wonder. 5, 10 more years? I mean how long ago was that anyway and how many solid shows have they done since. Xenoglossia, Code Geass, Gundam 00, Gintama, Freedom, Votoms Pailsen Files…it just goes on. I lost a bit of faith in Gundam after that Seed Destiny, I thought that it may have even killed the franchise because it was so poorly handled, but all has long since been forgiven as they got their act together not too long after.
Still I guarantee the drama continues through to Code Geass R2. We’ll get the initially “Lol Sunrise Trainwreck” internet meme and then everyone will just end up liking it anyway. Meanwhile I’m just going to skip all that and blog it straight up from the beginning.
Episode 25 should be out on Saturday March 29th by the way Roy Mustang. By that time the week after, Code Geass R2 will have begun airing. It’ll probably be hard to miss the moment it goes on air as the internet is liable to go a little haywire then. Anyway, The only thing I’m really worried about with the new Code Geass is that the character designs look like they might have taken a hit in artistic quality. I hope it turns out to just be the way they look as static images. Character designs tend to look kind of crappy when you see them on series homepages.
@svenz
rail gun (equipped on flag and enact)is a new technology (as in now..)which propel projectile at high velocity using enormous amount of electricity resulting off-the-hook muzzle power. how powerful? it travels at mach7,can hit target 20km apart with accuracy of hitting centermost of a 3m square target.The high velocity generates kinetic power better than a conventional shells;without using gunpowder. today’s most advance tank can achieve about 2km/s muzzle power with effective range of 700m; which can still do collateral damage.
that rail gun guaranteed a hole where you can peep timbuktu through it even if u r equipped with the most advance/thickest armour in the world. my exia model’s box stated that it weighted 57.2 ton, comparable to challenger II tank. If a 15 hour of barrage of those ordnance doesnt give any splint to its form, i dunno what kind of metal they used to construct it.but hey, this is just fictional,wth rite?
i hate to burst some peoples bubbles but the gundams were always vulnerable, the only reasons they had survived thus far are
a)in most of the early episodes they were doing the the attacking rather than being attacked
b)in those instances they had the element of surprise
c)they used gurella warfare tatics (hence why the 15 hour bombardment plan almost worked, if the thrones hadn’t shown up, they would’ve been captured for sure)
d)they operated in hunter killer teams, one fast melee unit supported by one firepower unit (surely you people noticed that once the gundams ended up on their own they usually got owned in some fashion?) the fact dynames was permanently out of action not only took away a quarter of their firepower it completely messed up how they operated
i actually liked it…though im not raving about it either…it’s sort of like a necessary episode..i hope all these questions and so on would get answered in season2…anyway, thanks for the review Di!! ^_^
I can picture Felt piloting Dynames in season 2.
dude dm that pikachu suit and hulk smash made my day man LOL super funny ass shiett. keep doing yur thing man.
pikachu suit. oh boy that’s brillant!
I know how to defeat the MA. You need to flip it on its back and attack its weak point for MASSIVE DAMAGE! RIDGE RACER!!!! (thatisn’t irrelevant if you get the meme… btw i am a PS3 fan! don’t hurt me)
Ha ha ha, I always enjoy reading your blog. It’s funny and full of sarcastic comments! Although personally I think this episode is pretty serious and touching. I somehow think that you “like” Gundam 00 a little bit, don’t you?
Waiting for your blogs for the last episode anyway. It must be very enjoyable!!! ^^
Seriously why the fuck is smoke pink or purple in Gundam? I’ve been wondering this for like, ever…..
saruto, gundam has always had pink/purple smoke in space, don’t ask why, it just does…(is there even smoke in space at all?)
alright peoples place your bets on whos gonna die next, strong contestants are alleujah and tiera who’s gundams are armless and are surrounded by three GNX units
however summeragi, feldt, and ian are in the running for being in a slow moving container shuttle….thingy with a limited supply of GN particles
course noboddy could die as we haven’t heard the entire backstory for any of the characters mentioned above
btw my fave quote was fire ze missiles
@marvinryan
by the way marv…that pic shows the canopy still intact with the suit.cockpit isnt there so Patrick is toasted!
“By the way, if you are wondering about Lichty’s cyborg body, his parents were orbital elevator technicians and he lost them, along with half his body, as a child during the Solar Conflict .”
LOL you obviously didn’t watch the Nyoron version of 24 where he says, “My body’s filled with this sensation, Am I still alive? Did I die?” which makes way more sense than Shinsen’s, “I was attacked along with my folks. Half my body’s like this. I don’t know if I’m living or dead.”
Nyoron subs remind me of YBHT for Naruto except Nyoron makes up their subtitles while trying to guess what the episode is about rather than for comedy.
EDIT: Then when she says her last words to Felt the Nyoron version says, “I can’t talk much longer, take care of yourself” and Shinsen says, “You should try to dress up a little more”
@marvinryan and hi5speed2ron
are you even sure that is there the GNX’s cockpit is located? there is equal chance it could be in the upper torso like with the throne gundams
Ok ok so it has been quite a while since i last posted >.> let us take a look. Well anyways i like most if not all of the reviews. This place is probrably the main reason why i keep watching G00. Though the main thing i like is how realistically people die in this series (note: not HOW they die, more like the fact that they ACTUALLY die)
On a side note, i wonder what the next gen suits will look like in this series and how they will be powered..judging from Sunrise previous encounters (GS & GSD) We can assume something so uber powered everybody will be in shock. I mean in GSD when you look at the strike freedom you can see just how everything goes boom in a split second and how taking out an entire fleet can happen in seconds rather than take any effort at all.
And here we are now waiting for the conclusion of the series. :0 Can’t wait to see what happens! -prays for more deaths-
@Ford: You n00b. Nyoron’s is not a translation at all.
Ford: I just have to ask, are you fluent in Japanese? Since you think you know what they are saying. Nyoron is translating like they want and what they themselves feel sounds right instead of translating the words.
If you listen to what they are saying, she doesn´t say that she can´t talk much longer…
It´s the wrong words, I´m not fluent in Japanese, but I´ve learned some words and no, no talking words in that sentance.
Considering who it is that died it makes more sense to tell Felt to dress up since we´ve witnessed her forcing Felt to go shooping twice…
but let´s stop here. If you want to watch nyoron subs then do so. I´ll keep waiting for either Menclave or Shinsens versions.
Fun for everyone.
‘Pikachu suit’ definitely made my day. I was pissing myself laughing afterwards. DM do you actually like G00???? just wondering
Of course DM doesn’t know Japanese! That’s why he’s making all those captions up. He can’t even pass JLPT Level 4! Bwahahaha!
He just guesses his way around all those H games. 㪠ミラージュ殿？ >_>
I am hoping for this series to have that f’ing moment of truth, like when Kira and Asuran fought till death. Or when Hero fought Zecs Marquees in the south pole. The battle between setsuna and that arabic hairdresser (al-fakir) or whatever his name is is going to be the highlight of this series.
I am hoping for setsuna to get his strike freedom gundam soon :)
@ random hero’s post 70;
that assault container has Dynames inside, so we can be sure it’s ‘infinite’…and all the reason for Christina’s “white lie” (just to quote DM here)
as for the pink/purple smoke;
what DO you guy want there instead? black/grey smoke (or as I want to call it, “regular” smoke)? instant bang(aka no smoke)?
BTW, I love the pencil comment xD
@info600
you make a good point there, but said container is still a sitting duck….actually now that i think about it, probably not, cos there’s only a couple of those GNX thingos left, and the gold pimpmobile is focused on setsuna, and because kyrios and nadleeh are just torso’s it could swoop in, snatch them, along with exia which might share a similar fate and then go into hiding,
a bling-bling mobile armor! how about that!
well, too much blood here,
this series makes me sick now,
how`bout saji will take a revenge to CB?
So we’re talking about the smoke’s color. Okay. But in the first place, is “smoke” (with the shape and behavior of the smoke that you usually see) possible in an almost zero-gravity & almost vacuum space? Did you ever wonder?
I may be picking up a new series to blog after this, and I guess Code Geass s2 is the obvious choice. (I did own code-geass.com until not too long ago. >_>) But it all depends on how much I like the first episode.
As to whether or not I like G00… I did honestly think it was really awesome at the start of the series with its somewhat hilarious depiction of modern politics, and that it had at least the potential for greatness. But not so much now.
i did hope that they would feature the Pope and Dalai Lama in the series because religious leaders also have big influence in politics. but as what DM said, the politics stuff just faded before reaching halfway of the series. by the way, where is Nena Trinity?
Too many loose threads which the show hasn’t wrapped up yet. I agree that the show has lost part of its political message in the endless slaughter. But, that’s war eh?
Many questions I have which I’m sure others have asked (and answered) already. Politely waiting for the show to answer my questions, since I am SURE they have a proper answer for my questions, right? RIGHT? (I reserve comment in view of my superior intelligence)
1) Where is Nena Trinity? rehab? Throne Drei? scrapped for spare change?
2) What happened to Marina Ismail? got married?
3) Where is Ali al Sarshes after he got pwned by Lockon?
4) Where is Graham Acre and his custom fucking Overflag?
5) Why should Alejandro Corner help the UN, since he wants to dominate them with the GN Drive technology? “shoot them all except 1, i’m gonna pwn your economies with this”
6) Why is DM so damn funny?!
lol @ pikachu suit. he likes gold so much, he sprinkled gold particles in his beam cannon! nerf!
Is the pikachu suit comment really that funny to some people? I mean it resembles it, but I’m not killing myself laughing over it. Internet peoples sense of humour confuses me sometimes.
Whatever, apparently DarkMirage struck comedy gold with that one of the variety that would make Alejandro jealous.
There’s one thing I just don’t get it:
How can the Gundams end warfares on Earth with warfares? At the end, should all the Gundams destroyed and all celestials perish, everyone back at home would just go back to their old ways and the good old days are back again with trigger-happy gunghos shooting in the air…
Pretty weak concepts if you asked me… OO is more like an EMO drama for younger EMO audiences.
Once I can get a PayPal or credit card, I shall donate you $500 +_+. Also, I wish you would come to the Anime Expo in US during the summer, because I don’t think I can stalk you to Japan next year <_<
gonna hafta agree with Kaioshin Sama on the princess thing. I feel that she honestly influences Setsuna’s decisions, actions, and morals a tad bit, so I think she’ll play a bigger role in season two.
I totally need to draw a picture of this:
Wang Liu Mei: Go Pikachu! Thundershock!
Alejandro: PIKACHUUUUUUU!!!!
@Svenz
Lol yea I did mix up Joules and Newtons
Force (newtons) = Mass x acceleration
Energy (Joules) = Force/time
So not only we must calculate Force of the impact but the time it takes to dissipate on the surface of the target… (I’m no engineer so I won’t ever bother to try calculating that)
@Highsped2ron
Those railguns do have enormous power and I don’t know any existing metals that wouldn’t at least melt from the intense heat generated by impact.
Unless they actually coat their armor with GN particles or something to cushion the impacts. (which would actually make some sense) Yet for example, the impact of a really heavy GN-X suit at high speed simply overwhelmed that tiny cushion of GN particles, or maybe it wasnt on since he wasnt in a complete defensive stance (weapons and engines were still on).
@nerodon
your actually very close to the truth in regards to the gundams defences
taken from wikipedia:
In addition to armor composed of durable E-Carbon, all suits are installed with a GN particle based physical barrier system, for use in such circumstances as independent atmospheric reentry.
in regards to the railgun, and the paragrph above about the gundams defences, the directors made up a metal called e-carbon which is apparently very durable and is used for just about everything, so it must have a very high heat tollerance for use in the union and aeu linear guns
bear in mind that when the gnx rammed dynames it was already damaged from the previous battle and the pilot was still injured so it wasn’t operating at 100%
Been away for quite a while.
Anyway, just to ask, what about Tieria and Allejulah?
“That’s no moon…”
Yo Momma was so fat that Ben Kenobi said “That’s no moon… that’s your Mother!”
Random Robot Chicken Reference.
~ Dazzer
@codename:v
In the series, Lasse said similar things as what you’ve said…
After seeing the first episode, my first criticism on Gundam 00 is that the space elevator shown in the series is not quite believable. It’s too huge and bulky to defy gravity. But in the second episode, if i remembered correctly, it mentioned that the space elevator’s “structure is inherently weak.” Another criticism, as what codename:v said, is that CB’s crusade for ending war with war is somewhat futile. But then again, the series “criticizes” itself, for defense. They are aware that some of the concepts are weak, which is a good thing because they are aware that the viewers are NOT stupid.
Trying to end war with war…we all know its stupid and not going to work.
But hey, doesn’t it sound like something thats happening in the real world already? :\
Force (armed intervention or war) is the last resorts to ending war. When peace talks and other methods didn’t work, force became the only option. Probably that’s the reason why war had ever broke out in the first place.