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November 16, 2008

Mobile Suit Gundam 00 - 32



Short Synopsis: Allelujah and Soma crash down on a remote island.
Highlights: Surprisingly quiet and focused for a Gundam 00-episode.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7,5/10 (Good)
Ooh, surprise. At first I wasn’t too much excited about a full episode dedicated to Allelujah and Soma, but the creators did a surprisingly good job on it, and it was an episode well spent. There was no melodrama, and yet their story reached a satisfying conclusion. I was wondering how Allelujah would finally convince Souma to stop attacking him, but it turns out that she too had a split personality. The twist has been built up for well enough, so it really shouldn’t come as much of a surprise.

I also liked the reaction of the rest of the team at the discovery that Allelujah brought a girl with him, at the end of the episode. Overall, this episode was really un-typical for this series, but it worked surprisingly well.

In other news: Marina learns that Azadistan is gone now, and the next episode should probably shed some more much-needed light into Tieria’s mysterious clone. I only have one complaint for this episode: Mr. Bushido.

It’s annoying, but I can live with the strange name. I can even deal with the fact that the Japanese are treating the “Mr.”-part as his last name. I can deal with the mask. But please: why the heck do you abandon your target after it’s had a technical breakdown? Seriously, finish the guy off already. This is war, for God’s sake, not a friendly baseball competition.

Telepathy Shoujo Ran - 21



Short Synopsis: Ran and Midori meet a grumpy old grandmother.
Highlights: Awwwwwwwww
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10 (Excellent)
So yeah, the premise doesn’t sound the most exciting, but for a series where drama definitely isn’t one of the strong points, it pretty much surprised me in terms of impact it made. Episode 19 and 21 were really genuine development for Midori, and far away from the usual cheesy drama from this series. I must say that I really like the idea of having Midori meet someone with the same outlook as her parents: scared to death because their daughter had strange powers.

Okay, so what if Midori’s violin just appeared from out of nowhere, this was such an adorable episode either way. I’m really glad to see that the creators had no intention to leave the series without any of the characters sufficiently developed, as I started to fear a few months ago. After all, the characters have been fleshed out really nicely, and their problems established, so it’s good to see that the added bit of drama actually works for this series.

It’s actually a bloody shame: I know that there are two novels that still need to be animated, which are going to take up four episodes. That leaves just one episode that the creators can fill in on their own wishes, and there’s still so much left that they can stuff in there: a bit of development for Ran (ironic how the titular character receives less development than her co-star, isn’t it?), an episode dedicated to Rui, Midori’s parents. Ah well, if they’re going to have to choose one: go for Midori’s parents. They’ve been strange McGuffin’s so far, but we hardly know anything about them. What’s up with them right now? Are they still scared of Midori? It would be awesome to see Midori as she tries to talk to them again. That’s in any case something that really fits in with the development of the past episodes.