Kurogane's Anime Blog

Gandamoo finally shifts in to high gear this week.

Let’s see, Saji gets more heartbreak upcoming with Kinue finally killed by Ali al-Sarshes, or whatever his real name is. Well, she did get warned already.

The main plot development in this episode is the world finally uniting as one, in order to repel the Gundams, especially now that they’ve each been given a fair share of GN Drive-equipped mobile suits. The Trinity are the first to taste this new power, which kinda makes me pity them since I can foresee them dying by the end of the season.

What really surprised me this episode though is Wan Liu-Min’s more sinister side, as she reveals herself to the Trinity, offering them assistance under the guise of her own desire to see the world change. I foresee her becoming at least a semi-final boss, even if it sounds a bit unlikely.

The other major thing to happen is Alexandro Corner being led to the main body of Veda by his green-haired sidekick, whose name is revealed to be Gibbons Almark, who is a Veda interfacer like Tieria and Nena and he seems to have plans of his own as well. Not surprising if he turns out to be the final boss. Either Aeolia Schenberg devised a pretty elaborate scheme or CB’s true ideals are going to be hijacked by someone else, judging from the plot so far.

Oh and Graham Aker is GAR, seriously. He’s offered captain position of the new GN Drive mechas but declines it to fight them with a Flag because of his vow earlier. I really can’t help but respect that. On the hand… his AEU “supposedly” counterpart, Patrick remains a huge running (literally and figuratively) joke.

That line can so be taken out of context.

The calm before the storm episode. Exia, Virtue and Dynames face off with the Thrones, with Nadleeh revealing a hidden feature that allows him to control any unit linked to Veda, after stopping Eins and Zwei from doing that docking thing. I love that actually. Docking in the middle of a battle is really illogical. But Tieria should’ve let them dock and then activate that Trial Feature. Makes them an easier target. Anyways, the Thrones retreat, leaving a parting gift, Setsuna’s background and real name.

Setsuna’s real name turns out to be Sorun Ibrahim, which really doesn’t fully sound Arabic, but who am I to judge Sunrise’s naming sense? He was also part of the KP-something, who decided to suicide bomb Ireland for some reason, I suspect it’s the Irish love for alcohol since there’s no other reason why Ireland would be screwing up with the world’s oil export market, which took out Lockon’s entire family. This sparks a faceoff between Lockon and Setsuna, and I really expected better of Lockon, but it seems my expectations were too high. Long story short, he decides to trust in Setsuna after shooting off some hair. *rolls eyes*

As for Louise, okay I was wrong, she still has her legs working fine. God damn Sunrise plot armor. Anyways, she decides to split it off with Saji, because she’s going to be a burden and cue emotional flashbacks complete with insert songs. Just as they were gaining some brownie points… they had to spoil it so soon. Well, hopefully that’ll be the last we’ll be seeing of random Louise x Saji moments.

Saji’s sister also gets some headway in her investigation of “Lagna”, who turns out to be her boss. Meanwhile, a “rat” in CB contacts the three main powers and leads them to a base in Antartica, chockful of solar furnaces. I’m starting to think CB’s “eradicate war” ideal is to “let them kill each other after we stir them up with our technology”. I’m starting to envision an Last Exile-ish situation in the future with CB as “The Guild”, regulating battles between the three super powers.

In all honesty, I have to admit this is a decent episode of Gundam 00. It actually managed to engender sympathy for Louise in me and rightly shows the injustice of war via the suffering of innocents. Seriously, Neena isn’t yandere, she’s freaking psycho. The fact that it’s Rie Kugimiya somewhat makes it more… frightening. Oh well, even Houko Kuwashima was in this kind of role before, so it’s not too surprising. But I’ll say, this is going to spawn a whole group of Kugimin character jokes…. imagine Shana in a Gundam.

But really, poor Louise finally gets a real role in the story, other than just being the bitchy girlfriend of wimp Saji. You have to admit, she really didn’t deserve having her whole clan wiped out, plus losing both legs and her left hand. I’m really thankful that they didn’t chicken out on the gruesomeness of war by letting her get away uninjured, or worse… dying (so that she’ll get naked “spiritual” cameos”).

It will be interesting to see how this will impact poor Saji, and possibly define his future role in the series. Or they could just forget about him and get along with the main storyline at last. I find it pretty much a flaw when the fate of a side character is way more interesting than the main characters of the series.

Okay, Neena is pretty hawt. But she kinda scares me with her threat to Setsuna of “not making her mad”. Will she turn out to be a yandere before the end of the series? I guess it would be the first Rie Kugimiya role to turn yandere if it happened lulz.

As for this episode, it’s hinted the GN Drives are Jupiter-made, and Eins shows off some impressive firepower with his GN Mega Launcher. Seriously, overkill, plus the whole “docking” thing…. it’s so “Super Robot.”

Also, the Haro’s. The damn Haro’s. Man, they are hilarious. Totally. Especially when Orange Haro calls Purple Haro “Nii-san! Nii-san!”, and Purple bullies Orange. Even the Meisters and Sumeragi did a double take at that. I sure hopes Micheal dies soon. He is soooo irritating.

Also, I feel like running a pool to bet on Louise’s death by the end of the series. I’ll put the current odds at 7 to 3, though the next episode preview shows her already injured.

Yeah, I decided to jump ship and get Shitnsen in the meantime. Yeah, boring mostly recap episode is boring.

That aside, hearing Rie Kugimiya in an Gundam show is just lol. Much more when Neena has such awesome boobs, especially for a Rie Kugimiya character. Really. Awesome boobs. And she has freckles as well. LOL.

As for the new Gundams, Neena’s unit is pretty awesome with her Stealth Field feature, while the bits on Zwei are just overpowered. Oh, and I hate Zwei’s pilot the most. Neena’s Haro is pretty disturbing to me for some reason.

While the show is going down the usual Sunrise trainwreck trail, you gotta admit, the new OP and ED are both awesome.

Been looping Stephanie’s Friends ever since it was out a day or two back. The powerful vocals and meaningful lyrics makes this song rather addictive. Too bad the ED sequence in the show itself is a bit…

Oooh… pretty… Wait! I’m supposed to be watching a Gundam show!!!

Continue ->

As expected from Lockon.

Whew, after the mess that was episode eight, episode nine redeems my trust in this series a bit.

Celestial Being finally gets in to a pinch of their own, and frankly, seeing the Gundams kick ass out of everyone was beginning to get boring, so this makes for a nice change and most of all, this episode portrays them as more “human” as well too. Wonder how will Sumeragi will fare against Sergei, who seems to be master of sneaky but effective tactics.

Also, it’s revealed that the Gundam Meisters current names are just codenames, quite logical considering the illogical names that some of them have. I appreciated the character development between Lockon, or Neil, his real name is, and Felt. I do hope they’ll be able to handle it better than…uh, Setsuna and Marina’s relationship, which is definitely screwed up.

One part I still don’t get though, is how Saji and Louise fit in to all this. I get they’re trying to show a contrast between the “normal people” and the ones who are fighting… but really, they seem just to be there for the sheer comic relief that Louise provides with her abuse of Saji :P.

Wow. This episode doesn’t make any fucking sense.

Just because you see someone who looks like a fellow countryman, doesn’t mean you need to go save said person when he’s clearly shooting people on the road.

Just because you are pissed off with someone who hasn’t tasted the suffering of being a child soldier and having their country destroyed, doesn’t mean you need to reveal your real name and position as a Gundam Meister, especially when said information is supposed to top-secret.

Just because you’re flying back from a mission, doesn’t mean you need to show off your uber-powerful mobile suit to the passengers of an airplane.

Seriously, this episode makes no fucking sense. When one thinks that the fanservice was the most sensible part of the episode… you know the show is seriously heading in to troubled waters.

Holy shit. Is it me or did Gundam 00 almost turn in to a Super Robot show?

This episode, Kyrios managed to output enough propulsion to slow down the descent of the Gravity Block thing, which I would estimate is around at least 300x the size of it and not to mention an exponentially larger mass than it. That’s like, already Super Robot-level feat. Reminded me of Top wo Nerae! 2 02 where Dix-Neuf went to rescue a crippled battleship from planetfall. That was still within bounds of reason. This is beyond belief.

If that wasn’t badass enough, Dynames managed to cleanly shoot off the other two sections of the Gravity Block parts. From the ground. From 10,000km’s away. Like. Wow. Like. Unbelievable. Like. What the fuck?! BTW, his scene soooo reminded me of Evangelion.

Looks like Gundam 00 is going to be more interestingly memorable that I expected it to be.

P.S. Pink mobile suits look damn ghey. And next time, equip any mobile suit just going for a field test, with HARMLESS PAINTBALLS. Okay, yes they did equip the Tieran Taozi with paint bullets, but it seems they do explode with quite some force to DISLODGE the Gravity Block. Maybe someone skimped materials during the construction.