Before I go into my usual hate-filled blasphemous rant, I have an announcement to make. Due to real-life circumstances unrelated to World of Warcraft, this will be my last G00 post. On a related note, I will be flying off to Japan tomorrow for about a month, so look forward to more Japan-related posts and of course some Comiket 75 coverage at the end of the month.

Now on to the hate.

Summary

She’s a jailbait

My characterization of the relationship between Billy, Sumeragi and Kati as a love triangle turned out to be wrong. It is more of a lesbian love-hate rivalry between Sumeragi and Kati, with Billy being the spectator.

His country is about to be destroyed and he is bored

The Federation is planning to make an example of the Kingdom of Suiru (Saudi Arabia?) in its bid to dominate the Middle East. Kataron offers to help but is probably useless.

Ali looks out of place in Ribbons’ bishounen zone

Ribbons must be well-read in history because he has very cunningly avoided falling into the age-old trap that has doomed so many ambitious conquerors in the past. As the famous saying goes, “Never get involved in a land war in Asia.”

Who didn’t see this coming?

Instead of launching a ground invasion, he has constructed a gigantic orbital particle cannon thing called the “Memento Mori”, which is latin for “remember that you are mortal”, an ironic bit of self advice perhaps.

It’s okay. GLA can rebuild through their tunnels

Unfortunately, his mastery of history appears to be confined to the classical to modern eras and he failed to account for the fact that every single super space cannon in Gundam history has resulted in the eventual downfall of its user after the first shot. Since the cannon is probably only good for one shot, he should have saved it for Celestial Being instead of wasting it on a generic Middle Eastern kingdom. Mere mortal indeed.

Does Hiroyuki Yoshino get paid twice?

And Hallelujah is back! Oh shazbot.

Thoughts

As much as I believe that nostalgia often distorts the true quality of past works and places them on unrealistically tall pedestals that future works can’t ever live up to, I have to say that I do miss one thing about Gundams in general: the human touch.

No, I’m not talking about the Gundam X ED theme by the late Warren Wiebe, although that was a nice song. I’m talking about the human condition, the morality of war, the heartfelt emotions injected by the writers and the general human-oriented nature of the original Gundam.

Who is that person and why do we care?

Although I thought Gundam 0079 was overrated and poorly put together, it did possess the human touch. One of the things that differentiated Gundam from the rest is its willingness to cast both sides of a conflict as complex individuals driven by very human goals. That is ultimately what separates Gundam from Dekarangers and made it great. War is never a battle between good and evil, it is the cumulation of our collective misunderstandings, greed, pride, fear and tragedies, an Gundam — born out of post-war Japan — understood this.

The same cannot be said about Gundam 00. The villains are overwhelmingly one-dimensional and the protagonists have tacked-on back stories that feel like one huge afterthought. Early attempts made to incorporate current affairs into the story so as to create authenticity and maturity were quickly abandoned in favour of a more simplistic geopolitical paradigm in the second season. The new sentai-style uniforms don’t help either.

Just misunderstood?

The bottom line of modern Gundam is not storytelling but rather model-selling. New mobile suits are introduced often for no particular reason. That by itself might not have been such a terrible thing, if not for the fact that the plot is routinely desecrated and defecated upon in an attempt to provide justification for more shingata.

The original Federation and Zeon had their share of heroes and villains. ZAFT and Earth Alliance both used weapons of mass destruction and eventually suffered the consequences. Celestial Being and Ribbons… Hmmm… I guess there is a remote possibility that Sumeragi is actually a scheming evil mastermind and Ribbons is just trying to save the world from global warming.

Just think about it.

Screencaps

Before she took up drinking

Emergency board meeting to discuss the economy meltdown

Amazing character detail for a guy we won’t ever see again

Most useless heroine of all time?

HG model kit out soon

So how old is the mother when she gave birth?

She’s a girl, right? I feel funny inside…

The start of something new?

The goggles. They do nothing

All she does is cry and babysit

Awesome

“NO”

;_;

>:)

Redhead fight

How can he pilot the thing with that blinding light?

Well I guess that’s the end of my reign of terror. But before I sign off, here’s a parting gift for you to chew on. Flame away.

Includes only series I’ve watched

P.S. Vanessa Hudgens is cute.

Ptolemaios launches itself into space propelled by the power of pure awesomeness and the anti-physics properties of GN particles. With years of experience watching spaceship launches on her belt and an inhuman sense of intuition that can only be wielded by a matured woman, Katie Mannequin immediately manages to match the distinctive trajectory of Ptolemy’s ascend with the scent of Leesa Kujo, her former lesbian lover in college. Sumeragi is busted.

That settles it for the summary. Now let’s talk about something else.

The Psychology of Gundam 00

Okay, that’s a rather presumptuous title. IANAPBIPOOMB, (I am not a psychiatrist, but I play one on my blog) but I would like to spend this short respite away from the magical world of Azeroth to discuss some of the character motivations that exist in Gundam 00.

They sit around all day and pose for an imaginary camera

The Innovators — Physically and mentally superior to humans, their only fatal flaw as a new master race is the lack of reproductive capabilities. This no doubt creates a species-wide inferiority complex hidden beneath an air of superiority. Sort of like a pretty boy version of Hitler. Their ultimate goal is probably to rule over all mankind and fulfil Celestial Being’s supposed goal of eternal peace, but doing so on their own terms and free from the spectre of Aeolia Schenberg, an ordinary human whose apparent prescient wisdom is no doubt a great source annoyance for the Innovators. Also, they probably want to kill everyone who laughed at their names.

Conclusion: A rather twisted variant of the Oedipus complex.

“Who could’ve imagined that I would be proven wrong despite my absolute confidence!”

The A-LOLS — Power hungry bureaucratic fat cats mixed with duty-bound brainwashed soldiers of honour. A supposedly elite force whose leaders probably believe they are the only ones capable of maintaining peace and unity on Earth. The organization’s symbol consisting of three phallic arrowheads contradicts the feminine uniforms donned by its members and hints at the underlying paradoxical conundrums that this so-called elite group, one in which a village idiot such as Patrick “Team Rocket” Corlasawar can find employment, is founded on.

Conclusion: Mild schizophrenia.

Celibate Beings

Celestial Being — A group of young adult males and females trapped on a spaceship at the apex of their sexual maturity. Due to work-related stress and the unconventional circumstances that they find themselves in, they are forced to repress their reproductive instincts. Hilarity ensues. Also, their sole father figure, Aeolia Schenberg, has been a rather disappointing one so far. All in all, their repressed desires materialize in the form of irrational suicidal actions and gender confusion.

Conclusion: Not getting enough.

She gets a total of 3 minutes of airtime across two seasons

Wang Liumei — Batshit insane. Probably has something to do with the fact that the only friend she has is her own brother whom she treats like a slave.

Setsuna is in danger

Saji Crossroad — Desperate for the touch of another human being. Unfortunately he boarded the wrong ship. Dangerous tendency to whine and emotionally break down. A loose cannon on a military vessel armed to the teeth.

“I want to preorder the limited edition black special”

Mr. Bushido — Socially-awkward Gundam otaku weeabo whose love-hate relation with mechanical suits has left him without the essential social faculties to reintegrate into society. He seeks to destroy Gundams to free himself from his inner prison. Attends Comic-Con.

A tinge of regret

Marie Parfacy — Secretly lusts for an older fatherly figure despite being in a relationship with her childhood sweetheart. This is possibly due to the fact that, considering her current residence, her relationship with Allelujah is likely to be purely platonic in nature and she is not receiving sufficient intercourse to placate the sudden oestrogen imbalance that resulted in her recent growth spurt.

The lower body is better shielded

I Don’t Remember His Name — Probably has a wife and two kids he has to feed with the pay cheque he earns from oppressing third world nations. Doesn’t really matter since he dies 5 seconds later.

I learnt from Sunrise to recycle my content

Arche Gundam — When it was young, it was always picked on by the other Gundams in school for its unconventional appearance because it was extremely obese. It was frequently accused by the playground bullies of being a “regular mobile suit” undeserving of the name Gundam. This prolonged period of physical and mental abuse finally drove it over the edge and it grew up to become a psychopathic serial killer. It also lost a lot of weight over the years as a form of over compensation.

Screencaps

Seravee’s parts get dismembered

Sunrise gets to reuse Tieria artworks

*KIRA*

Wikipedia in the future

He’s doing some sort of dance

Soma is like Allelujah’s pet now

Sumeragi was a mistake. This is where his true passion lies

It’s mint condition and still in the packaging!

Starlight Breaker

“Who would’ve thought that a side character would lose to the main character?”

“My god. It’s full of stars!”

Sent by Katie via telepathy

And he never cut his hair ever since

Is this going to be another love triangle thing?

They all love to pose for empty space

“Here I have a surprise for you”

“Oh wow! Who would’ve thought that 00 would get an upgrade module?”

Now back to fishing in Azeroth. I just love to click my mouse. Well, it’s more like I hit level 70 yesterday but since I haven’t bought WotLK, I have nothing else to do except to fish in Orgrimmar as a Night Elf Rogue.

It’s like the bastard child of Mission Impossible and Xtreme Bass Fishing.

P.S. I can’t believe there isn’t a single “Team Rocket is blasting off again” video on YouTube.

Episode 8 has so much dorama and lulz, it’s like anime blogging. Maybe someday there will be a Genshiken-style anime about blogging and the blogosphere will finally have its very own Madarame. Or is that Cory Doctorow? In any case, I digress.

Summary

As Admiral Akbar famously said in an alternate reality version of Star Wars, “It’s a goddamn trap wtf don’t go there dude!” Wise words indeed.

I’d be disturbed too if my female clone hit on me

With the help of Wang Liumei, who may I remind you again is totally evil now, Regene successfully lures Tieria into a cunning labyrinth of androgynous lust and deceit, aka a dinner party. Setsuna, always on the lookout for his seme half, volunteers to chauffeur Tieria to his doom.

You can almost see the knives they plan to stick into each other

By sheer coincidence, Billy and Louise also happen to be present at this posh circle-jerk of Federation fat cats, creating the perfect setup for melodrama when they inevitably meet Setsuna.

You can tell that she’s tsundere

But of course the greatest trap of all is Tieria herself. Himself. Due to his effeminate character design, it is no surprise that Tieria looks great in a formal dress, possibly better than most of the real female characters in the show. Coupled with a voice-changing device, the final package is a masterfully crafted gateway into /y/ on 4chan. Doujinshi coming your way soon.

She just keeps getting better XD

Louise gets to pilot Soma’s custom Ahead. I wonder how Sergei managed to explain the fact that the Ahead was found intact but Soma’s dead body was nowhere to be found.

Male or female?

Innovators are popping up left and right like rabbits caught in a magician’s hat while in heat. I suppose most of them will eventually die pointless deaths, and since they all look and sound alike, I shall make no attempt to learn their silly Engrish names.

Perhaps he will turn out to be the ultimate saviour

And Patrick Coleslaw is alive! Team Rocket is back in business.

Thoughts

Louise is so cool. I hope she goes berserk soon. Berserk blonde female pilots are awesome. Also she looks so much better with short hair. Okay, that’s my fanboying for the day.

“What you say!?”

And I think Patrick is too incompetent and too much of a comedic relief to be allowed to remain in A-LOLS for long. Maybe he and Kati Mannequin will leave A-LOLS together and join Sergei in the anti-LOLS Federation faction that’s probably coming our way.

Setsuna the Pimp will be the demographic to look out for in the next election

I think Louise and Setsuna would make a great match. Saji is too wimpy for the new Louise and Marina is too boring for emokid Setsuna. It would be such an awesome plot twist. Sunrise should buy my script.

Screencaps

Tieria needs to get new glasses or something

Precioussssss

From independent mecha pilot to docile housewife

It’s a female Mr. Mime

He got your nose. For real

OMG THE MOON IS CRASHING INTO THE FRIGGING SEA!

Looks like the new expansion pack is out. Gotta get the new armour set

The easiest character to animate

:)

:D

I haven’t met a rich/famous person who actually walks with eyes closed

Oh noz. What is Ribbons planning to do to Louise? >_<

Louise is in so much danger…

orz

A new-age Cinderella story

Tieria realizes that he is not the only trap around

Now all the young and impressionable Gundams who watched this will go on a diet

Life is like a box of chocolate. Eventually, it expires.

What a sweet episode. Things seldom go so smoothly in a Gundam storyline full of misunderstandings and betrayals, at least not till the grand finale. Then again, this may just be a setup for the next emotional free fall. As one learns from experience, it’s never a good idea to invest your feelings and expectations in a fictional character. Well, except for the ones I love. They would never betray my feelings.

Summary and Thoughts

SPOILER! Harry Potter dies!

Allelujah and Soma get hitched in this episode. That’s about all you need to know about it. Oh the new insert song “Unlimited Sky” by Tommy heavenly6 is pretty good, although I strongly suggest they change their band name.

It’s always the girl who tries to kill the guy

Parallels can be drawn between this episode and various other memorable ones in Gundam history, such as when Aina and Shiro crashed into a deserted snowy mountain or when Cagalli and Athrun crashed onto a deserted island. It is a timeless plot technique used to bring former enemies together in a night of awkward passion that ends in a reluctant farewell.

She’s a big girl now

But instead of returning with Sergei, Soma/Marie chooses to stay with Allelujah, thus breaking with tradition and setting off into uncharted waters. This is rather surprising, since (assuming that Celestial Being doesn’t let her pilot Gundams too) it effectively transforms her role as the tragic heroine who might have unknowingly killed her childhood sweetheart (ala Louise) into a damsel in distress who waits at home for her hero’s return (ala Marina). And we are only at episode 7.

Sumeragi is sad because she wanted Allelujah for herself

I suppose the far more likely scenario is that after she spends a few episodes of quality time with Allelujah, an event of cataclysmic proportion puts the entire world in danger and she is either compelled to rejoin the Federation out of her loyalty and once again be forced to face Allelujah on the battlefield, or she somehow convinces Celestial Being to let her pilot a Gundam, in which case she will probably be forced to face Sergei.

Or maybe she just gets knocked up and stays at home for the rest of the series. Who would’ve thought that Allelujah would be the first one to get some tail. Setsuna is such a disappointing lead.

It’s like watching Oprah

Anyway this episode really goes to show that Gundam 00 is about as subtle as Homer J. Simpson. The main characters just love to explicitly spell out their motivations and inner thoughts to the audience.

Screencaps

Now that Louise is cool, he is the worst character in the show

Setsuna dies. Saji becomes a Meister

Tieria turning around to wave goodbye to Setsuna

Commuting from bed

“MARIE!”

“TEST SUBJECT E-0057!”

“Please be gentle”

It’s full moon. You can see her claws coming out

Her headache allows her hair to defy gravity

Allelujah forgot to zip the body bag

We should all bandage our heads when we have a headache

Draw a straight normal from Allelujah’s eyes

They should have cooler guns in the future

The Taliban flees to the Pakistani border

He’s basically the megane version of Osama bin Laden

Okay, who didn’t see this coming?

Sergei is huge

It wants a hug

Grace is still a little girl

The communicators only work when you leave the cockpit

I… don’t know what to feel

My exams are almost over! I have one short paper left. Woohoo! Also, I started playing World of Warcraft again.

Perhaps someday history will look back to the 21st century and cite Gundam 00 as a cinematic masterpiece of our time, a work of pure literary genius not fully appreciated in an era of barbarism and ignorance. Maybe the SQL server that hosts my blog will someday be unearthed by digital archaeology robots and I will forever be remembered as the Great Evil who sprouted weekly blasphemy, polluting the minds of an entire generation, and obstructing the legacy of the greatest creative work ever produced by humanity.

Then again, pretty much all other works of fiction must spontaneously disintegrate and memories of them erased from our collective DNAs in order for that improbable dystopia to materialize.

Summary & Thoughts

“Surprise!”

Setsuna and Marina return from the area of land mass formerly known as Azadistan without any fanfare. Oh Sunrise, you silly cocktease. Perhaps Ali was in a jolly good mood.

He accidentally the entire Kataron operation

Saji is sad. He is in a terribly unstable psychological state. For the first time in his life, his actions have caused direct harm to the people around him, as opposed to the years of political oppression imposed upon tributary states by the imperialist Union indirectly facilitated by the general climate of political apathy prevalent among its citizens of which Saji was one. Boohoo.

Why are flashbacks grainy? Mine aren’t

Sumeragi is sad. She has a flashback-induced panic attack which results in her temporary incapacitation. Surprisingly (to me), she used to work for the AEU. Considering her Japanese heritage and her intimate physical relationship with Billy, I’ve always thought of her as a Union person. Not that it matters.

“Yoda, I am. The way of the Force, I shall teach you”

Soma is sad. Her self-orchestrated depression is so illogical that it just might be the most believable emotion exhibited by any character in the show thus far! She’s a real woman! Her interaction with Louise in this episode has further convinced me that she’s turning insane from all the oestrogen. The fact that she developed so rapidly physically might mean that her hormone-producing glands are working overtime to compensate for twenty years of loli-ness and she is not psychologically prepared for the onslaught of womanhood. Boohoo.

She should’ve joined the Federation

Marina is sad. Her country, and no doubt her royal treasury, just went up in flames. Also, Setsuna is leaving her to die in the desert with a bunch of cannon-fodder types who are delusional and believe that they constitute a credible resistance to the combined might of the Federation when their fortified stronghold could not even withstand the attack of one squadron of A-LOLS’ generic mobile suits. Boohoo.

And after the emoing, there’s some mecha fighting because A-LOLS are back for more. Sometimes I wish they would just use a tactical nuclear missile and be done with it. Also, Andrei is in love, Allelujah is lovesick, and Saji is just sick.

Screencaps

Violence never solves anything, unless you use enough of it

You will see this on CNN’s next election coverage

“I cry to let the audience know I am sad. The burning city wasn’t enough”

“My stepfather was an abusive barber. So what’s the story with your hair?”

“I AM YOUR BROTHER!”

Her shapely figure compensates for her flat character

Turns out that Moreno guy was not needed after all

“Bitch, where’s my money?”

The colour burns my eyes

Oh no! I should update my h264 decoder!

Wow! Louise is shorter than former loli

Teenage romance is bittersweet

I still think it should fly the other way

“YUU HABU KONTOROORU DESU!”

Bajura

This reminds of Red Alert 3. It’s a shitty game

Anti-MS cannons don’t kill people. People kill people

The IFF system is whacked. It says that Lockon is inside that thing

Serious Louise is cute

This confrontation will end well because it’s only episode 6

Physics is the source of true knowledge and enlightenment. Everything else is just a derivative of the Great Unifier. All hail the holy Proton Collider and its powerful tangential acceleration.

This is hands down the most boring episode so far. Maybe next episode will be more exciting when Marina and Setsuna die in a fiery plane crash. I’m so hungry and sleepy.

Summary

*insert Power Ranger joke*

Celestial Being pays a visit to Kataron’s top secret base for no good reason. They could’ve handed Marina over to Shirin in episode 4 when they met on an island for no good reason, but for some reason they really wanted to visit Kataron only to leave without doing anything in particular other than exchange hellos.

He forgot to tiptoe

Oh right. I guess they also wanted to dump Saji on Kataron. I totally forgot about that guy. Saji decides that he doesn’t want to stick around a bunch of underground al-Qaeda losers and escapes from the top secret base by telling the lone guard he has to go pee. Houdini-level brilliance.

Makes you wonder what’s on the guy’s face

Of course he gets captured by the Feds and it’s not long before A-LOLS shows up at Kataron’s well-concealed super top secret base. If only they had locked their front door…

I wonder what he ate for dinner

A-LOLS sends in the heavy firepower in the form of killer robot poop. A ton of people die and some things get blown up. I don’t really care. Soma is all emo because people die. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s that time of the month. She’s totally infatuated with Sergei.

“USO DAAAAAAAAA”

Saji is all emo because he has turned into the very thing he despises (how surprisingly ironic), so he’s well on his way to wearing a mask and becoming the dark sith lord.

Thoughts

I have only one thing I want to talk about. Why is everyone over-reacting to the fact that A-LOLS uses automatons to kill people? Allelujah says it’s because the people who use automatons do not feel the weight of the trigger being pulled and thus do not have to live with the sin of killing with their own hands, but that’s just wtf.

Someone had to push the button to deploy the killbots, right? Isn’t that pretty much the same as pulling the trigger to fire guided missiles?

I’m pretty sure they used the same 3D isometric tool Utawarerumono uses

And would it really have been better if A-LOLS had blown the whole base up with artillery fire or missiles instead of sending lame Tachikoma rip-offs?

Well I’m going to keep this entry short because my exams just started today so I should really do something about that.

Screencaps

Either she’s really small or the people are huge

“I am an emotionless PR robot”

His/her parents must have hated him/her

Sound structural support

“You’re not the boss of me!”

I wonder what is happening below the camera focus

Maybe they will end up together

The mask doesn’t even cover his scars right

Always take candies from strangers

Hurray! Let’s take photos in our top secret base and mail our friends

They are off on a honeymoon

“LICK MY SLEEVES BITCH!”

She’s getting 5 seconds every episode until she dies in episode 24

It’s not a window

Tribal warfare

Dragonball

Sakura Taisen: Azadistan wa Moeteiru ka?

He killed his therapist and broke out of the nuthouse

I wonder if GN particles can induce something similar to the photoelectric effect. Are they massless radiation or particles anyway?

Meh. It’s an okay episode. Slightly less interesting than playing Macross Ace Frontier, but definitely better than watching paint dry. If I have to rank this episode on the scale of one to five, it’s a koala bear. It’s cute and all, but no one goes to the zoo just to see a bunch of tree-hugging furbags.

Summary

In a love comedy, this is the part she wakes up and jumps his bone

Before colours were invented in the 50s, the world was black and white, and traffic accidents were rife. A young boy by the name of Subject E-0057 met a little girl in a secret research facility in space and became a man. The little girl was actually lying stark naked in a glass box, but the flashback had to be edited due to the will of a mysterious group of superhumans known only as The Censors.

This show glorifies terrorism

Marina wants to return to Azadistan so that she may once again be captured by the Federation and relive the blissful days of solitary confinement and interrogation that were rudely disrupted by Setsuna. Oh that silly girl.

Her arms are way too thin, and omg his pose looks familiar!

Grace is confused about her feelings for a complete stranger who looks exactly like the person of her nightly fantasies. In reality, Lockon is really the same person because Sunrise reuses the same animation and voice-acting. It’s like if God created two people with the same DNA sequence, they would really be the same person! Either that or maternal twins. Yeah.

People with funny haircuts get promoted a lot in A-LOLS

A-LOLS has a new overly-confident asshole wasting precious airtime. It’s unlikely that his character will be developed in any meaningful manner before he dies with the standard-issue Surprised Lookâ„¢ as his ship gets vaporized into a pink cloud of Clefairy dust.

Some kind of underwater mating ritual

The new guy sets a rather clever trap for Ptolemaios which basically involves attacking them with a new top-secret mobile lobster and a lot of mysterious fluids. Sumeragi sees through his brilliant plan and responds with the superior tactic of doing nothing. Tieria and Setsuna are the ones who actually save the day. Hurray.

“Hai, watashi no namae wa bushido desu. Kawaii~! Sugoi~!“

Graham is basically a weeabo otaku now. He wears that pseudo-Orient getup, pilots a mobile suit with the clichéd kabuto motif, and makes people call him “Mr. Bushido”. I’m guessing he attends Anime Expo too. He’s probably going to die by seppuku.

The Katagiri family has a proud ponytail tradition

And Billy joins his uncle in the dark side to take revenge on Sumeragi for using him like the tool he is. How unexpected.

Thoughts

Screencaps

“WTF who cut me into pieces?”

“Is my role in this series meaningful?”

“No”

“I knew I should’ve auditioned for Marimite instead”

Alcohol: the cause of and solution to all of life’s problems

She’s pregnant

The head is rather fugly

The foreground and background have vastly different animation budgets

The cougar prowls

“I bought this limited edition helmet at Comic-Con”

It’s not pink! This is unacceptable

First fan service of the season?

*twitch*

Aeolia Schenberg has invented the solar furnace. Gundam 00 will soon be reality.

On an unrelated note, I think Jenna Fischer is the girl of my dream. <3

I watched this episode last night in a semi-comatose state so I can’t remember anything about it now. Luckily, I had the foresight to save the screencaps first, so now I can simply extrapolate the episode’s plot based on 26 still images and fill in the gap with my extraordinary mastery of Gundam storytelling. It’s like reading a manga without speech bubbles.

Summary

“No, I expect you to die”

Allelujah may or may not have been anal probed during his stay at Guantanamo. It’s not torture; it’s just the tactical application of enhanced interrogation techniques.

“It’s all Setsuna’s fault that I’m still a virgin”

Saji learns the truth about Gundam Throne, but continues to blame Celestial Being for everything that went wrong in his life. This is a common self-delusional mental state that has evolved to prevent suicides, but has the nasty side effect of encouraging revenge killing.

If only she weren’t evil

Liumei, who is now 100% villain, provides information about Allelujah’s whereabouts to Celestial Being so as to lure them into a trap, just for the lulz. Liumei neither forgives nor forgets. Fortunately, the trap sucks.

Celestial Being launches a rescue mission that involves the annihilation of a few thousand marine creatures. We all know that dolphins are fearsome underwater Allied anti-ship units and Sumeragi cannot afford to take any chances.

Too cool for tools

Setsuna shoots Allelujah with his handgun because he is too lazy to undo the locks by hand. It’s not clear how he manages to fire four rounds in different directions without moving his hand. Or perhaps it takes him four shots to the exact same spot to break the chain. Either way, I would rather rot in prison than have Setsuna rescue me.

“Freeze! NYPD!”

After almost blowing Allelujah’s feet off, Setsuna abandons him to look for Marina. Allelujah bumps into Soma, whom he addresses as “Marie Perversity” or however you spell it. Apparently the two of them used to share the same test tube at the research facility or something. Soma doesn’t remember him but gets a headache when he asks for sex, like all women do.

Atmospheric diffraction of sunlight

I’m not sure if this has something to do with Lockon’s Irish heritage, but there’s a frigging huge rainbow at the end and everyone lives happily ever after until the next episode. Awesome.

Thoughts

I have nothing insightful to contribute with respect to this episode and whatever plot development it supposedly contains. But I do have one observation to make…

Soma and her bodyguards

The guy on the left dies

The brown guy dies first! I’m pretty sure this is some variant of the Hollywood black-guy-dies formula. Quick, someone inform Debito Arudou!

Screencaps

I took this screencap from Death Note

Shakugan no Ribbons

Hannibal rising

“Waterboard him, boys”

Short hair is nice too

The new Power Rangers

“Please fight evil with us, Purple Ranger Sumeragi”

To hell with aerodynamics

This scene is right before the tentacle rape

Green and Irish? It’s undeniable proof

“Mountain lions? Oh shit”

All girls learn to master the art of faking a headache

Is it just me or has her character totally changed?

She is worried about what Setsuna is planning to do to her

This is downright gay, literally

She’s shocked because he’s eating her nose

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but there’s not enough Louise in this episode.

Well, that was a huge disappointment. Episode two didn’t do anything interesting at all. Looks like the spaceshipwreck is still quite far off. The character feuds are building up though, so it’s all a matter of time. Also, Gundam 00 is such an anticlimax.

Summary

It all began over two hundred years ago. A brilliant bald guy by the name of Aeolia Schenberg was always getting picked on by schoolyard bullies for having a girly name. He vowed to take revenge on the world of Social Darwinism by building giant robots called Gundams that would fly around the world to blow bullies up and defend the weak and the nerdy. And so he did, using super powerful magical artefacts called “GN drives” which were forged in the centre of an intrasolar gas giant by Celestial Beings, a mysterious brotherhood of galactic space wizards founded by Schenberg.

Due to the magical properties of GN particles, (which are infinitely versatile and can be used for propulsion, offence, defence, and heating pizzas) the GN-drive-equipped Gundams achieved in no time total superiority over lesser humanoid mecha designs bounded by the laughable laws of physics and reality.

However, Aeolia was not content with mere perfection. What if he had to heat two pizzas up…at the same time? Solving this immensely difficult problem proved to be the greatest challenge he ever faced in his life, except for the time he got his ass kicked by an entire football team of jocks for being a pansy face. But his brilliance pulled through and eureka! The long list of equations and theorems all pointed to one single conclusion: he must build a Gundam with two GN drives. Not one, but two. The idea was untested, dangerous, and probably heretic, but he went ahead with it because he wanted to play god.

And thus, Gundam 00 was born.

Seriously though, this whole thing is rather lame. Double the GN drives = more powerful? Who would’ve thought?

Oh yeah. Here’s the real summary, done in captions because there’s so little to actually summarize.

Gundam 00 refuses to work because it is an attention whore

Lockon is back in a weird way; Grace’s panties are sort of wet

Manekin and Peries meet at A-LOLS (that’s how I’m spelling it from now on!) headquarters

Graham the Creepy Voyeur is stalking Ms. Kyonyuu and Ms. Petanko

Saji is locked up in the crazies room

Setsuna chases Billy away and forces himself onto Sumeragi

Marina gets shot by A-LOLS and dies in the second episode. Oh snap!

Liumei is evil and Nena is her slave

Gundam 00 refuses to work without Setsuna’s magic touch

A-LOLS shoots! G00 saves!

I hope Sunrise doesn’t sue me for copyright infringement because I basically reproduced the entire episode above. All of it.

Thoughts

I think G00 (the Gundam) is stupid, and Ribbons is an idiot. What? Two GN drives!? That’s unpossible! Damn you Aeolia Schenberg! *shakes fist*

The directions of the beams don’t even make sense!

But that aside, this is an okay episode with no real surprises. I can honestly say that not one bit of it is unexpected except for the part where Marina gets shot and dies! Oh man, Sunrise is so brilliant. Who would’ve thought that the main female lead would die in the second episode? As much as I love Marina for her fan serviceability, that’s seriously the greatest single moment in Gundam history. Wait, what do you mean she’s not dead? Damn A-LOLS pansies.

I sincerely hope that Saji is not going to be wasting airtime with his emo angsting for the next ten episodes or something. He needs to get off his butt, find a Gundam, and fight Louise to the death ASAP for my amusement.

And is it just me or does Neil’s twin brother feel like a huge cop-out. It’s like Sunrise really wanted to kill a main character for good just to prove that they have the balls to do it, but wimped out at the last minute and threw in this identical twin to appease the angry mob of yaoi fangirls.

It’s magic

Also, “twin drive” sounds a lot like “twin tail”, and Gundam 00’s capricious behaviour is right on the mark: it is a tsundere mecha whose heart can only be reached by Setsuna’s burning hot passion. How homoerotic.

Screencaps

Twin drills

Come on beach episode…

“There is a mole in our organization”

“………”

I keep forgetting… Who is he again?

“Hey, I’m going to bait the fans by pretending to reveal your real given name”

“Attack to Spain! Attack to Spain! Spain, please come in!”

Setsuna is such a playboy

“Guys, we must go through the entire history of our organization every time we hold a meeting in case anyone is listening and needs clarification”

Androgynous cleavage

Haro’s diet consists primarily of portable computers

“Once again, I have cut an unworthy object”

Everyone’s a fan of May’n all of a sudden. It’s not cool and indie any more.

Why does everyone assume that I would be blogging Gundam 00 Season 2? I never said that I would. It’s not good to be overly presumptuous. I mean, it is true that the only thing keeping this blog from becoming a desolate wasteland is my weekly episode “review”, but that doesn’t mean anything! So yeah, you can take your baseless preconceived notions and stuff them up that place where you stuff things up into! (Turkey?)

So anyway, let’s get this thing going.

Summary

Don’t tase me bro!

These guys called A-LAWS, who sound like a cross between A-HOLES and ARROWS, are totally bad ass dudes who have been running the post-Celestial Being solar system like their own private Sim City, except that Will Wright didn’t make slavery an option in the game. If I had to compare them to one classic group of assholes in a previous Gundam universe, it would probably be Titan from Zeta.

“This is so not in my contract”

Saji is finally realizing his true potential, not. After appearing to be cool and grown-up for the first 30 seconds of his appearance, the degeneration process kicks in and he’s the same old crybaby by the end of the episode. This is to prepare him for the journey to real maturity that he is about to embark on, something he should have already completed in the five years since season one. But let’s give him a break: he’s not been getting any.

He grew up into yaoi doujinshi material

Now, I’m not one to read up on background stories from magazine articles, so I don’t know what the heck is going on in G00 right now. Judging by this episode, I guess there’s a lot of political tension between the regular Earth Special Forces Earth Sphere Federation and the elitist A-LAWS, just like in Zeta. In addition, there are some random third parties like Celestial Being wandering around messing things up, just like in Zeta.

Saji should consult an optometrist

Everyone is all grown up and cool now (just like in Zeta) and Setsuna even changed his suit colour to a less gay shade of blackish grey. Peries and Sergei are living together and there’s some rather disturbing chemistry going on between the two of them that I want to pretend is just my misunderstanding. I like Peries more now that she’s not loli anymore. Louise is an A-LAWS pilot now, which I totally predicted one year ago when she lost her hand.

I quote myself:

… But seriously, I can just imagine Louise being abducted by some top secret joint Union-AEU-HRL black project to manufacture cyborg pilots for whatever super weapon they plan to build to counter the Gundams …

They sewed her hand back

In Gundam, losing an arm means that it’s time for an upgrade! That said, Louise’s a pretty crappy pilot so far, but I guess she’s due for a berserk pwnage sequence sometime in the next few episodes, Stellar style. I think I may be in love.

Thoughts

I realized that my summary didn’t actually summarize anything about the episode, but screw you! I’m sure everyone’s watched the first episode by now! Leave DarkMirage alone!

“AI EIMU GANDAMU”

In any case, the first episode is great. I can’t say that that’s unexpected since the first season had an awesome start too. I want to believe that this is a sign of improvement from the ending of the last season, and that this season will finally be awesome now that everyone’s grown up and not so whiny. I really want to believe it, but unfortunately Sunrise made a cynic out of me with the false hopes it’s been giving me over the years.

In order to not raise my hope again for nothing, I’m going to be a pessimist and assume that episode two will drop right back into clichéd dramaville and it will be a one-way ride to hell from there on. In fact, I’m going to just call this a “trainwreck” right now at this stage, before anyone else does. Remember: I did it first!

Of course, I may be proven wrong. Perhaps the forgettable first season was intentionally meant to be an awful prelude, so as to accentuate the awesomeness that will be season two. Maybe now that the main characters are all grown up, both literally and figuratively, the real story behind this boy-love franchise can finally take its ultimate shape. I want to believe, but let’s not.

In any case, this show should be worth watching, considering the number of female cast members who have now reached full fan-service maturity. Mmmmm.

She’s legal now, right?

It’s a good thing Grace didn’t die. Christina did a great service to mankind

(*ﾟДﾟ*)

Setsuna is most definitely gay

So…*cough* I wonder when the next swimsuit episode will be?

Screencaps

He sounds like a good guy, but his eyes look evil

What’s going on here?

New loli to fill the loli gap now that everyone’s grown up

In space, no one can see you pose

The cameraman is upside down. What an idiot

They repainted their Realdos and call it an upgrade, just like an MMORPG

Red vs Blue, just in case you can’t tell the two sides apart

Tachikoma rejects

Pew pew pew

Twice the penis size

This thing actually looks way cooler than all the Gundams

After Louise left him, Saji became a crack addict

*Cue Imperial March*

I should really be studying.