Mobile Suit Gundam 00 - 27
Short Synopsis: Setsuna recruits a new and an old Celestial Being.
Highlights: Good to see some build-up for the new setting.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10
As for the shows I’m not blogging:
- Kannagi has excellent production-values, but at the same time the characters move like robots with weightless hair.
- To Aru Majutsu no Index… the freaking building was on fire, complete with fire alarm and sprinklers. Why the heck did nobody notice anything? Why was the building still in one piece?
- The sister in Kemeko Deluxe downright sucks. The second episode already shows that the inspiration (and budget) was running out. There are enough better comedies this season.
In any case, this series is quite refreshing after Code Geass and Macross Frontier of the past season. I like the 4-year time-skip a lot, and it has a lot of potential, but there still are a few questionable parts here and there. It’s great to see that Setsuna has grown up, but at the same time Saji is turning into the new Setsuna: the central immature character who questions everything and grows as the series continues. Ah well, at least he is just of the type that needs to calm down, but at the same time, I really don’t hope that he’s going to hijack a Gundam to kick Nena’s behind…
The different growth of the characters really differs from character to character: Soma didn’t change a bit, while Sumeragi lost all of her confidence in the past few years. Louise also surprised me that she turned into a soldier, but at the same time Tieria still feels pretty much the same as he did in the first season. I think a huge task of the first half of this season is going to be to establish the development for every single one of them, and make them feel more complete. Marina Ismael: what has she been doing for the past four years, really?
The OP and Ed are pretty much the same stuff. I really don’t get it: this series has a great soundtrack, which became even better with the second season, and yet it’s stuck with the OPs and EDs full of cheesy J-Rock. And to think that Gundam Wing had an such excellent OP. Ah well, at least the battles got some extra budget when compared to the first season, but I’d just wish that the creators would spend it on something other than flashy Solar Furnaces. The sparkles are nice and all, but they don’t really add anything.
Oh, and while it may seem that I’m criticizing a lot here, I actually really liked this episode. With a huge setting also come huge risks, and I appreciate this series to take a gamble and go with such a complex setting. It can fall apart very easily, but when it works, the results can turn out very interesting. And I guess that that’s the appeal of this series: it may make a few mistakes here and there, but it never forgets to remain solid and consistent. Really, the two mecha-epics this season promise to surpass the mecha-epics of previous season in every way, apart from perhaps Macross Frontier’s huge budget, but let’s not get too ahead of the facts.