This post was last modified: Oct 10, 2017 at 4:12 AM by Stirling.

機動戦士ガンダム00
Mobile Suit Gundam 00

Starting just a bit before Macross Frontier, this was the then-newest entry in another of the pillars of the mecha genre: Gundam. The Gundam franchise was what paved the path for less showy and cartoony robot portrayals, and more dramatic and war-like space operas. Sustaining through the years with a major animation project constantly in development except in the roughly five years between Mobile Suit Gundam III: Encounters in Space and Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam, it is now a cultural pillar of Japan. The most previous episodic series released had started as a modern reimagining of the original plot that was marred by same-face syndrome, a meddling director's ill wife, a horrible sense of character development, primary character hijacking, nuclear detonation survival, no thematic sense, and forcing major events from the original series into a different world. Funnily enough, a very direct retelling with modern sensibilities of the original story was being printed as a manga during that same period and has been lauded with much praise. In an attempt to go forward even more boldly, Sunrise pushed out Double-Oh.

Set in "our" timeline of Anno Domini, the story takes place in the early centuries of the 2000s, with terrorism and energy being some of the largest problems plaguing the world. While the latter should be fixed due to space elevators and solar plants, regional politics has divided the world into 3 factions who are all supported by a singular elevator located in their mainlands. The issue of terrorism stems off of this, and the realistic causes of deprived nations attempting to reestablish a religious or cultural hold on land in the face of being left behind by the newest developments in cocky cultures. A genius has developed a solution to these by his design of the Gundam Nucleus-fueled solar furnaces that power the protagonists' mobile suits, usage of the former to advance humanity into a new evolutionary path in preparation for first contact, and the founding of the paramilitary research group: Celestial Being. This group is following a plan laid out by this genius as directed by a super-AI known as Veda. It recruits people by an unknown system, and is assisted by genetically produced terminals called Innovades, which one of the main pilots and the overarching enemy happen to be.

This is intended to be a fleshed out world explored throughout; however, a handful of major events are constantly examined through a huge cast of characters. The events themselves are well paced, but little impact is actually allowed to sink in as you're seeing so many perspectives of these events. Additionally, in anticipation of plot twists and a "plan" that isn't realized until 50 episodes and half a movie in, the viewer is left to find side material to understand motives and histories of key figures. This leads to a minor issue of being detached from the characters, but they become more developed as the factions facing the Gundams catch up in technology - until . . .

Yes, they turn red and go three times faster. Shaaa.

This was the beginning of Gundam 00 no longer being driven on conflicts of ideology and characters, but on devices. Now that the enemies were on par with the super weapons the Gundams were, not to mention the introduction of the Thrones as anti-heroes who were quickly taken out, we primary driving force for all feelings of distress is competition of who has the stronger machine. Not the tactical minds that it had established and from-here-on attempts to portray as meaningful anymore. Not the metaphor of the will of a misguided people. Just who has the flashier robot. The Trans-Am system provides the perfect "ace in the hole" for a bad situation to be resolved from now on. This continues into the second season, which just lifts the basis of Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam's conflict and forces it into the Gundam 00 universe.

The series is resolved with a movie about first contact with aliens, and the only thing worth watching is this, which is the opening for the movie; an in-universe movie.

Overall, Gundam 00 is worth a watch if you enjoy robots, space operas, modern themes, and characters you want to like. You may not like them as much as you possibly could with a better writer and stronger direction of plot, but there are few characters you'll dislike. It's a good first entry into Gundam for someone totally unacquainted and is some plebian who thinks 1979 animation is below them - somehow - and won't watch the original series' trilogy compilation movies. On another Day, I will be going in depth into the characters, the design of the mobile suits, and the music of 00.

tl;dr: gundam 00 tried to be a contemporary-issue focused, planned-ending, legend of the galactic hero with setup for the amount of characters to drive such a show, but only made it about 15 episodes in before the staff realized they couldn't do 100 episodes for season 1's established plotlines and it just became generic-ass-gundam-shit 10 episodes later, continuing for the whole second half, and only to be saved and simultaneously ruined by the movie finale

This post was last modified: Oct 10, 2017 at 4:28 AM by EH2.

Gundam 00 was a steaming hot mess but I liked it more than some other Gundam stuff

Looking forward to you talking about IBO at some point

i dont know shit about gundam so i expect to be extremely informed by the end of this.

actually i know about g gundam, which i am fond of (but it does have its problems)

i really liked the early parts of gundam 00 but every time i would try to watch it i would fall asleep mid-episode
that happened consistently for like a week