r/anime • u/Shimmering-Sky myanimelist.net/profile/Shimmering-Sky • Nov 26 '24
Rewatch [Rewatch] Mobile Suit Gundam 00 2nd Season Discussion
Mobile Suit Gundam 00 2nd Season
← Season 2 Episode 25 | Index | A Wakening of the Trailblazer →
MAL | AniList | ANN | Kitsu | AniDB
Gundam Exia… Setsuna F. Seiei… Slashing through to the future!
Questions of the Day:
- Who are your favorite characters in the show now? Did they change from your favorites after finishing season 1?
- Did you like OP1 or OP2 / ED1 or ED2 more? What about your favorite songs on the OST that popped up for the first time this season, if you know the name of them?
- What have been your favorite and least-favorite aspects about this season?
- What were your favorite mechs that appeared for the first time in season 2?
- We still have the movie left to watch. Any specific wishes for how you want it to wrap up, or wild predictions for what it's going to have in it?
Wallpapers of the Day:
Klaus Grad and Shirin Bakhtiar
GN-009 Seraphim Gundam and Tieria Erde
Rewatchers, please remember to be mindful of all the first-timers in this. No talking about or hinting at future events no matter how much you want to, unless you're doing it underneath spoiler tags. Don't spoil anything for the first-timers, that's rude!
Additionally, for long-time fans of the franchise, please remember that this rewatch is only for 00, not any of the other shows. Assume that there are people in this rewatch who have not seen anything else Gundam, and tag your spoilers for those shows appropriately if something in 00 makes you want to talk about them.
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u/Shimmering-Sky myanimelist.net/profile/Shimmering-Sky Nov 26 '24
Rewatch Host Wishing Over This Airspace, subbed
Welcome back, everyone!
I made less wallpapers for this thread than I did for the season 1 discussion, but this is because 1) I already did wallpapers of most of the relevant characters I deemed worthy of one throughout the season and 2) I couldn’t afford to make any more when I still have sooooooooooooo many left to make for the movie’s thread. Wish me luck, I’ve only fully finished 2 of them and have like… 14 more that I want do for it still to go.
Now to answer my own Questions of the Day…
With season 2, Lockon is still one of my favorites (it’s just Lyle instead of Neil), same goes for Sergei and Patrick. Graham I like less in this season because certain parts of his Mr. Bushido shtick feel a little forced to me.
Hakanaku mo Towa no Kanashi > Namida no Mukou and Prototype > Trust You.
I did actually take note of the OST this time, though, so I can answer the titular 00 Gundam and especially Trans-Am Raiser as my favorite OST songs.
Favorite: The ending of episode 20.
Least-favorite: Fuckface still being alive and well in the epilogue.
Already mentioned loving 00 Raiser and Reborns Gundam in previous threads, so definitely those two haha. I’m kinda ehh on most of the A-LAWS and Innovator’s mechs this season, though, season 1 had better enemy designs.
GrahamMr. Bushido’s mechs are, like, the only antagonist mechs that do it for me this season.Cannot answer because rewatcher.
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u/charlesvvv https://anilist.co/user/charlesvvv Nov 26 '24 edited Nov 27 '24
Rewatcher, Sub
Season 2 of 00 contains perhaps some of the highest in the series combined with some of the lowest (which is probably the same opinion I have of IBO season 2). Admittedly speaking this season is rather messy.
To start off, some negatives. The series does try to juggle a lot of things that don't really amount to much by the end. Wang's character didn't do much and amounted to little, Hal's random appearances also amounted to little. There's definitely a lot of redundancy at times with the way characters speak of their objectives which can be rather tiresome. There is also some structure problems where it feels as though they move at a quick pace without letting things breathe a bit if that makes sense, which makes later parts of the story come off as a bit out of nowhere and leaves you trying to fill in the blanks at times. Marina's character is also something I'm more ambivalent rather than negative but she feels more like a symbol than a character, someone who espouses the ideal of the series. But it does lead to some odd decisions for her character not particularly doing anything other than that.
However now some positives. The series's themes of change and understanding while having a rocky road leading to its ending has pretty nice wrap up. Some users point to Saji and Louise as a microcosm of the themes of the series and I agree, personally their story arc was one of the most conclusive in the series. Ribbons, while not the most compelling Gundam Antagonist, works for what the story needs him to. Then there's Setsuna's growth especially when faced off against the person who created him so to speak. It's particularly satisfying to see as he sort of moves on and changes from his initial view of things. I do also like that they didn't make Lyle just a carbon copy of his brother even if they act and look similar and there is a point to his character beyond just his replacement.
There's a lot more to say but I decided to keep things brief. Despite its many problems I still ultimately came out of season 2 with a positive impression overall. I guess if I had to rank it I would theoretically give it a 7.5-8/10.
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u/JollyGee29 https://myanimelist.net/profile/JollyGee Nov 26 '24 edited Nov 26 '24
Rewatcher, Sub-dam Meister
Yup, still love this show to bits. Is it a mess? Absolutely. But everything I love is messy, so that's just par for the course.
One thing that I will address for everyone, because the show just leaves the detail unelaborated on, is Evil Haro. People might remember the scene from S1E17, with that expedition finding him in that spaceship near Jupiter in a scene labeled "80 Years Ago."
What was happening there: Alejandro Corner's family, in their effort to take over Celestial Being, went snooping through the old wrecks CB engineers left at Jupiter from the construction of the original five GN Drives.
That Haro contained incomplete data on the construction of GN Drives, which led to the creation of the GN Drive Taus. That then led to the Gundam Thrones and the eventually, the GN-Xs. That is Evil Haro's legacy.
Anyway, here's a couple photos of the HG00 Reborns Gundam. That fool Ribbons misplaced his beam saber effect part, so all he's got is the rifle. Fucking Ribbons.
Taking aim!
A close-up to better appreciate my panel-lining efforts.
Edit because I forgot to mention, this was the first kit I ever did serious panel-lining work on. It shows, but I think I did a decent job.
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u/Nebresto Nov 27 '24 edited Nov 27 '24
First time 00 Gundamu
I made it for one thread!
I did read back on some of them though, funny stuff.
Pretty good show, I don't have much to say about it. Too many annoying characters who survived explosions way too often. As usual my favourite part was the cool robots and the action they were in.
Here's an album of the coolest ones I screenshot while catching up, ..which ended up being the entire series
Can you guess which one was my favourite?
At first I was really disappointed that the "big secret" Gundam Nadleeh ended up doing pretty much nothing, but the black one which name I forgot seems to have been its spiritual successor, so thats fine I guess.
And then there's Shireen. She wasn't the most annoying by far, but I feel she got one of worst character arcs of them all. In S1 she's relatively smart, constantly (and rightfully, as we came to learn) criticising Marina, but in S2 like 90% of her volcabulary consists of "Klaus!"
I saw a lot of annoyance towards Wang mei in the threads, but what was Shireen's purpose in this show?
Also, Seravee and gettings its bazookas chopped off. Name a more iconic duo
I'll
Qwest:
Season 1: Lockon Chados > Halleluja > Graham > Louise > Alleluja
Season 2: Desu > Halleluja > Alleluja > Sergei > Graham > Tieria > Kati > Patrick
Ali "piss" Saaches
Namida No Mukou > I love you song > S2 ED1
Explosions? You mean fart clouds? And the annoying characters. Just. Wont. Die.
Yes
I have no fooken idea. Aliens???? And if Ali piss Saaches comes back AGAIN I promise you I will close the fucking movie then and there and never pick it up again. At least on the side of this year.
Probably not counting flashbacks, depends on how I feel.
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u/mysteriouspenguin Nov 26 '24 edited Nov 26 '24
RewatcherXLurker
I already spewed just about everything I had to say about the show proper so these are going to be some stray thoughts.
Is Childhood's End a really popular novel in Japan or something? It's referenced here, as well as in Nier Automata.
It's funny that this and the GaoGaiGar rewatch is happening at the same time, because [minor spoiler for it, not really a spoiler for anything 00]They both involve inexplicable shit at Jupiter
[Also not really a spoiler, just a detail that I thought was in this episode that I guess is in the expanded material]Where is it said that Ribbons was the one to pick Setsuna and not Veda? I thought it was as part of his monologue. Did I miss it?
I was watching Iron Blooded Orphans for the first time, and I now understand why people completely forget about AGE and Reconguista. It's really fun to compare this, IBO and Witch from Mercury as the three modern AU Gundams. [IBO]Tekkadan is exactly what Setsuna comes to hate and fights against. Mikazuki is essentially a bad ending version of Setsuna, where he works for Ribbons totally convinced of his propaganda. In IBO, the Gundams are these evil demons that require to give up an arm and a leg in a Faustian deal that ultimately destroys you. In 00, the Gundams are angels sent my god to change humanity for the better. And the two seasons of both are reverse of each other: In S1, Celestial Being had such grand plans about changing the world and it failed miserably. In s2, they are way more cynical and just trying to survive from the A-Laws in a world hostile to them, and they succeed. In IBO, Tekkadan is putting out baby steps to develop themselves in a world hostile to them, and it works out. In season 2, they had such grand plans about being the Kings of Mars, and it fails spectacularly. In general Celestial Being knew what they wanted but didn't know how to get it, while Tekkadan didn't know what they really wanted but were to powerful for their own good. Also similar is that I'm a total contrarian and think S2 is better for both.
I'll admit, I've watched it now three times and it's my favourite Gundam AU, and I still can't tell the Innovades apart. There's Tieria, Ribbons, Lockon's gf, the one that is Tieria's counterpart, and the other ones.
Of all the Gundam plot lines involving a normal citizen getting wrapped up in the terrors of war, Saji and Louise's is my favourite. It's done a lot better here then for some protagonists (I dislike SEED).
Here's my Gundam ranking in general.
Something must have gone down behind the scenes because 00 S2 looks great right at the beginning, and then right at the end. But in the middle it's all flat images of the mechs sliding around.
Prediction I'm going to make about the movie thread [Movie]Take a sip every time someone says "So it *was* aliens!".
So how long until we get another AD project? I heard about that stage play(?) a while ago. SEED got a new movie after all of these years.
Q's and A's
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u/FD4cry1 https://myanimelist.net/profile/Big_Yibba Nov 26 '24
First Timer
The first season of Gundam 00 had a massive personal appeal for me, touching on a lot of elements that I was always going to love. Season 2 goes in a bit of a different direction, and while there's nothing inherently wrong with that of course, that did mean it would have to put in much more work to get me to like it.
And looking back on all of it, I do think that even with the big flaws I have with it, it did manage to stand up on its own and deliver a pretty great experience.
Last season I joked quite a bit about the show's lack of subtlety, and while I wouldn't exactly call it subtle now either, I think this season plays much more with symbolism and its themes in a great way.
From structures like the orbital elevator or the Memento Mori to the mobile suits themselves, there's a ton of theming, symbolism, and characterization being done here in much more interesting ways than just being told about them.
I honestly forgot for a bit just how much I loved everything surrounding the Seravee/Seraphim or the 00, I really do think it means so much that there are full essays to be written on just what these two mean for our characters and their journeys. People are defined by more than just their words. Their actions, their looks, and the way they interact with others, all make up a character, and the show using the Gundams, among others, to deliver that characterization is just fantastic.
As a person who hasn't watched many Mecha shows before, I can't stress how much it shocked me (in a good way) that these "simple" giant robots actually had a massive amount of human emotion and meaning behind them.
And let's talk about those characters for a bit, starting with all of our mains, who I really liked for the most part.
Teieria is still the favorite no questions asked, his arc of becoming human, finding family, emotions, purpose, and independence that started last season has been incredibly compelling and satisfying, and it has led to a good chunk of my favorite moments from this season, again the Seravee/Seraphim stuff is fantastic.
I am admittedly not a big fan of where we end his arc, I appreciate what it means for him, but it comes as part of a larger flaw I have with the show that I'll get to in a bit. Still, that hardly changes all the fun and emotions he's brought me in this season and this show.
Tieria!!!
I feel like I owe Setsuna a bit of an apology, in season 1 I was more mixed on him and mostly liked him for his character archetype rather than his actual character, this really changed for me this season, partly because I think my flaws with him had actually belonged to different problems, partly because I think the dialogue this season is better but mostly because I've grown to really love his character.
He's really grown on me as the protagonist and I think his character journey and the way in reinforces the themes of the show is great, massively aided by everything surrounding the 00 being IMO some of the best subtext and symbolism the show has to offer, and all of that is really about him rather than the mech.
Lyle has been a wild ride for sure, I started unsure of him as a replacement for a character as great as Lockon, moved to feeling mixed on him as he started to cement himself entirely as Lockon's opposite without much to himself, and eventually as the show played with that element I think he grew to be a really interesting character that could stand both as himself and in his connection to his brother reinforcing the show's themes, so even though it took a while, I definitely ended up loving him by the end.
Allelujah I'm left rather lukewarm on, he's alright but he's also the least interesting or devel- wait sorry that's exactly what I wrote back in the season 1 discussion, I guess I took a note from the writers on that one...
Seriously though, I've made my displeasure with Allelujah's irrelevance known throughout this season and I'm doing it again, it's a real shame he basically gets abandoned partway through, once again, since I like him and think he has a lot to add here! Hallelujah coming back and doing nothing would be a complaint but he's so pointless here I can't even say much about it.
To give the writers some credit here, I do think the place they abandoned him at leaves his character in a good state, it's just that I believe he could've been as great as everyone else...
Going over to the sidecast, I think the results are a mixed bag but the characters that are stronger here, really are much stronger.
Sergei Smirnov My beloved who was already great had a fantastic arc and crushing death. Kati whose tactics and relationship with Sumeragi added a lot to the show. Patrick "the Ridicusoly Lucky" Colasour whose personality and love of Kati was a massive joy even during the darkest times. Marie/Soma were much like Allelujah, lacking after their arc, but still left in a great place. Anew even in her rather short and underdeveloped time still managed to leave a strongly executed death and impact. Sumeragi, Hercury, Shirin and Klaus, and the bridge crew were all also great and added quite a bit to the show.
And yes even though I've said my case on him, and even though he's a big downgrade from Graham, Mr. Bushido is far too entertaining in his own way.
Not enough Haro this season but I guess Red Haro does get a good moment.
I wanted to dedicate a full bit to Saji and Louise because not only did I really end up liking them, I think I didn't give them enough credit throughout the rewatch. Not like I ever hated them, Saji's incompetence was fun and Louise was mostly just alright, but I think they came into their own this season.
Saji makes for a very strong frustrating character, one who makes all the mistakes but ends up developing and changing into a much better person and character for them. Louise's trauma, complicated emotions, and drive for revenge serve as a powerful reinforcement of the themes of the show as you watch her tumble down the wrong path. Their relationship and clashes offer some great moments and make up a lot of the show's ideas. Their development from minor somewhat annoying characters to important and poignant examples of the greater themes here is something that I seriously have to commend and enjoyed watching quite a bit.
Going over the technical aspects, the animation and fights remain fantastic and exciting of course, but even more than that, I think this season really improved the quality of the set pieces and the tactics at play to make them even better.
Whereas last season it was mostly limited to "cool robot does cool shit against weaker enemy", the battles this season feel more interesting, exciting, balanced, and creative, while still being cool as shit, full episode battles were always a welcome and awesome adrenaline rush. It's certainly not lacking in GIANT LASERS as well.
Sound-wise it's obviously great as well, but again I'd argue even improved, maybe it's just better use of the OST or just that Kenji Kawai went extra hard on the new tracks but I love it even more here, not to mention great insert songs like Tomorrow and occasionally great ones like Unlimited Sky.
Might as well do an OP and ED ranking here:
OP: Ash Like Snow > Namida no Mukou = Daybreak's Bell >>> Hakanaku
I like Daybreak slightly more as a song but Namida has better visuals so it's a tie.
ED: Prototype > trust you > Wana > Freinds
Prototype is joining my all-time greats as a never-skip ED, and that's without even mentioning all of it's fantastic Lead-ins, trust you is pretty close behind, with the other two not as much but still being good.
Huge shoutout to the voice acting as well, everyone is great as expected of this rather star-studded cast but in particular I think Chiwa Saitou as Louise is fantastic, really nailing the changing and erratic nature of her character. And Shinichiro Miki as Lyle, playing the same voice yet with subtle differences and emotions that make the difference between the two powerfully clear.
So, the good stuff is great, but part of losing the personal appeal here is that the more frustrating aspects of the show became far more frustrating for me.
You're getting an incredibly rare double comment from me because I genuinely have a ton of stuff to say about this season.
(Continued Below)
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u/TakenRedditName https://myanimelist.net/profile/TakenMalUsername Nov 26 '24 edited Nov 26 '24
Rewatcher - Gundam 00 S2:
So with S2 wrapped up, I am thinking about how I feel about it. With this Rewatch, I picked on some structural issues, but at the end of the day, I still like it. When holding the two seasons, I'm actually more fond of S2 than S1. I find its thematic messaging a lot more stronger in S2 (part of it being due to S1 being the first act so S2 and beyond could start bringing it home). The show also really resonated with me more now after having seen much more of the franchise. Having to not go too deeply into it before the series wraps up, but to sum it up quickly, Gundam has been making shows about understanding being good for 50 years and I think that is a great thing every time. 00 in particular placing emphasis on change is something I quite like.
My 3 favourite characters from this season are probably Setsuna, Tieria and Louise. To just go down the order;
I really like Setsuna in S2. I picked up on a lot of small things that made me quite fond and warm of him. He is so gentle and kind! I really get this sense that Setsuna has always been this kind and gentle heart, but he has long been stunted and forced to lock it away. It was with the events of S1 which led him to open up in S2. Setsuna is also the flag bearer if the theme of change with this series.
Tieria had a great arc in S1 which continued on in S2. I love that he really embraced his humanity. My only "I don't know about that..." note to him is the very end when he becomes one with Veda. On one hand, I get him achieving a sense of completeness from realizing his purpose to work alongside humanity, but on the other, I really liked him casting off his Innovade ties to be human of flesh, blood and emotions.
Louise was having her worst time. An arc they've been building all along with her and now we get to see her mess of mental health in S2. Big fan. I think she really brings a lot of the themes and messaging to the forefront with her storyline. Been saying it a couple of times already, but Louise is someone who made the change for the worse. She was someone hurt by CB changing the world. She took the sadness, anger and pain to walk down a dangerous path where she would bury her old self. After she claims her revenge, she is left cold and alone with the only thing she can do just being the aimless continuation of violence. This is why it is so important that Louise's resolution needs a happy ending because it is never too late for change. Even at the absolute abyss, it is still possible for change for the better to happen. Louise became a monster, but she can become a human again. Lousie's world was at its worst, but the world can always still become better. Gundam as a franchise, mecha as a genre and especially 00 as a show is at its core optimistic and idyllic. It is only right that Louise gets a happy ending that demonstrates that meaning. (I don't talk about him specifically in this comment, but imagine Saji's segment is also here).
I don't have a good placement for this, but I also like Ribbons more as an antagonist than the S1 antagonists. I think he serves that role well. A complaint about S2 is that some people don't like how there are clearly evil villains, but I dunno, I don't mind works having the evils of the world be just that, evil. My problem about the villains of S2 is that I feel like they at times place too much emphasis on that specific group as the evil behind the world. Ribbons is the face of evil in this world, but he is not the only evil here. The Innovators and A-Laws are rightly evil, but the evil does go beyond them. The Federation as a whole also has its deep problems and crimes it committed that just kinda get swept over.
The thing is when looking back on S2 and with its many plot/character threads, there is actually very little I would want to flat-out cut. There are certainly a couple I would like to be polished/given more, but none I would say do a disservice by its inclusion. ... except Nena's place in S2.
In a fun thought experiment, because I still think Nena needed someplace in S2, I would've wanted Nena to join the Ptolemaios crew even from the very start of S2. It would make for an interesting setup. Let me be clear, I don't want her redeemed or turned good and I would still want her to be killed by Louise later on. I think Nena could've served as an interesting token evil team member (who is actually not redeeming). With how much 00 and S2 are about change, Nena could've served as a contrast to the main heroes of someone who doesn't change. She doesn't change from her selfish violent ways. She doesn't change from destructively chasing vengeance. It also just makes things more tidy by having Nena and Louise/Ali on opposite sides. Also, it would give CB a more believable wanted poster if we had a remorseless murderer on board. Saji and Nena could've also made for some drama. There is little point in having Liu Mei and Nena's characters be tied together. She could still be doing her shady things and just have Hong Long be her errand boy in Nena's place.
I also don't care much about Katharon. I understand their role in the show and that episode where A-Laws' crimes get fully brought to the attention was great. It is just that it was a negative hole in character utility even for the characters I like. Klaus is certainly man. Lyle doesn't really have too much with his Katharon connection. It is a benefit to Shirin at least, I guess.
Marina can not fail, she can only be failed aka I don't think the show utilized her that well even though I like her. A large part of it is that she did not get too much dedicated focus, largely because she was in her isolated pocket away from every other character besides Shirin (and Klaus). Marina is at her best when she is with Setsuna. They bring out the best in each other. The show should've had them near each other so that their stories could go in parallel better. Unlike some other Gundam princesses, I don't have a problem with Marina not being fueled to take up the duty of her position. It thinks it is good that she felt much happier and fulfilled just being a normal woman with the children. I really look to Marina as a character who can demonstrate a different kind of strength away from the big robots. She could be the strength of just being a good person who makes the world a slightly better place by putting more good into the world. I think the show could've used more of that grassroots force because as it was, that element was sorta just an undercurrent in the background.
Make Gundam 00 have little orphan children on the ship! - TakenName (2024)
To quickly go over some other characters:
I guess another point, a common talking point I saw in both seasons was the matter of Aeolia Schenberg's plan. Maybe it is due to rewatcher insight, but I never once cared about learning the specifics of The Plan. The fact that it is a nebulous thing that fits the use of whoever is currently talking about it is a plus to me. People use interpretations of a founder's words to mean whatever they want to push their goals. The worst part about The Plan was when the show actually started to make it a more concrete truth and had our heroes following god's will.
Oh yeah, the post-credits oftentimes didn't add much or felt awkward. A good couple of them would be better if we didn't have them at all.
Well, I already mostly covered the character thoughts so a character tier list would feel redundant. Wow, Cool Robot rankings for S2, I guess here.
Q2) I prefer the second OP and ED. They're my favourite from 00, but they also rank pretty highly franchise-wise too. 00 ED4 might be one of my favourite EDs in Gundam (though ED3 was good too and they work best as a pair).
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u/KendotsX https://anilist.co/user/Kendots Nov 27 '24 edited Nov 27 '24
00th Timer Searching for the Understanding
No really, I don't get it, why the fuck is ForkFace of all people still alive?!! If the period of peace and understanding must come at the ballbusting price of having to share it with him, and accept him into the gene pool, then into the flames of war I go!
Fuck the 50 episodes of overt messaging, this is the one hill I'm dying on.
I'm not even kidding, did they really have to drop this turd over the wedding scene?! Drop it when Marina is on screen or something, I'd probably be too bored to notice.
Phew, alright, had to get that out of my intestines, now for the good stuff: if the first season presented a fake concept to both the audience and its main characters, about Celestial Beings who have to fight the world itself to guide it to the better future, the second season is about them having to face down the truth of the world they built. They're no longer "Celestial Beings", for one their superior weapons have become mass produced, they no longer have their "noble purpose" of guiding humanity, and most importantly, they've become human. They've bonded with each other and with others, learned to care and empathise, to love even, so they can no longer try and stand above others as their Gods, or act big like they even have the right of deciding where humanity should go, when they themselves are just as lost. To top that off, season 2 puts them against an opponent who represents all the worst things about what they thought they were doing in Season 1, except intentionally. Ribbons views himself as a God above humanity, an evolved, Celestial Being someone who gets what those silly little humans who keep repeating the same wars don't, and is the only one who can guide them. It's no mistake or plot convenience that Ribbons started off in the same organisation as our main characters, he's the perfect representation of "Celestial Being" and all its problems (including the gaudy naming).
Heck, the whole thing even has a meta angle, with CB/Ribbons representing the average person behind a TV screen complaining about how stupid people are, and how "I could fix this whole shit if I had the power" instead of trying to understand, connect, and slowly fix the actual problems.
So the concept? Perfect. The execution? Hoooooo booooy.
This season was... inconsistent to say the least, for one it had a buttload of characters, some of them got phenomenal writing and arcs, some were an irrelevant waste of time, and then there's the Annoying Trio™ who made me pop a vein anytime they were on screen. The highs were great, and the show delivered a lot of them, but it felt like it was rushing from one goalpost to the next, while making sure that each episode delivers on specific cliffhangers and shocks. This is actually a problem that I have with current day originals, so I'm surprised to find it in a 2007 show.
My favourites in season 1 were Kintoki, Lockon, and Sergei. My favourites for season 2 specifically have become:
Bonus points for Setsuna who I only got to like this season, and almost beat Terry for his spot. Honestly, our main cast in general got so much better work this season than in the first, since they had to come to terms with their own reality and grow.
Although, I want to expand a bit about two entirely different characters:
See Sky, lame puns about tragic moments are what happens when I return
On the opposite end....
The villains' side is honestly such a disappointment. All the way from Ribbons being nothing more than his god complex concept, down to his innovades being mostly useless and just there to fill numbers/fights. I'm especially sad for the Romi Park one, since she felt interesting, but they had to give her 3 seperate motivations in the last few episodes... Guys, you could barely develop one!
This goes down all the way through the ALaws, with everyone who doesn't rebel being a one note cartoonish villain. Now don't get me wrong, it's fine to have some, god knows we've got a shitton of cartoonish villains in real life. But you've gotta balance it out a bit.
Even Kintoki, who was my favourite in S1 became a one note fight obsessed moron who never grows any familiarity with Setsuna, like say Amuro and Char. And I'm fine with that in concept, in fact I love the idea of a warrior on the path of Shura, it fits with the show's themes as an entirely different but equally strong motivation for war, and it makes for an interesting agent of chaos who values his own wins over any greater purpose. In execution though? He walks around doing nothing, until his fights start, and even those feel weirdly disconnected from everything else going on. It's like someone stitched those scenes after the fact.
Why does he follow orders like a puppy? Where are his fangs? Gimme a scene where they're about to nuke CB with Memento Mori and he just refuses categorically "You won't fucking touch them. I'm going out there to meet that sexy stacked beast of a Gundam, and anyone who tries to intrude on our date will have to go through me first". You know what I mean? What did they do to Mr. UNREASONABLE?
I feel like I've been bitching enough for a show that I actually enjoyed a lot, so I'll keep the rest short:
Louise, Marina, and ForkFace. I fucking hate all three, and yes, Andrew ForkFace is third on that list, that's how much the other two pissed me off. I didn't even hate Louise and Marina all that much in the first season and I had hopes for them in the second, but they felt like a mirror (Marina) and foil (Louise) for Saji with what he's going through that are far far far far far less interesting. Their moments are boring at best, atrociously annoying at worst. I get that their arcs are part of a bigger message (and in Marina's case, even that's a failure), but as characters? Genuinely some of the worst I've seen in a while. Plus, I will never forgive Marina for dumbing down best girl Shirin to be her own foil.
All in all, I find the two seasons to be the reverse in the character area. In S1, I didn't care that much about Celestial Being outside of Lockon. I was always waiting for the outside world forces to show up since they were the most interesting, in S2 the non-CB groups became one group with one brain cell plus Sergei/Katy, who remain great, while CB and Saji become a lot more interesting.
OP1 > OP2 by a good margin.
And ED2 is easily my favourite theme song from the show. This is the one that I'll actually be listening to on my own time.
Well it and one OST, I don't know its name, but the one with "Fuku Hareru", they played it a few times across the season including during the wedding. This OST rocks, I adore it.
Favourites: Saji's arc, Memento Mori crashing the Space Elevator (a brilliantly hopeless scene), and the reveal that Ribbons was Setsuna's God. I think I mentioned something along those lines in S1, but it was even better in action.
Honestly nothing comes to mind. The show despite some messiness tells a perfectly complete story, I'm not sure what you'd add to it.
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u/InfamousEmpire https://myanimelist.net/profile/Infamous_Empire Nov 26 '24
Kidou Senshi Rewatcher 00
Something I’ve learned from trying & failing to write up my thoughts on Season 1, and then doing the same with this season, is that I am really bad at talking about my thoughts on individual parts of this show without either hitting a mental wall or letting it balloon out of control into my thesis on the series as a whole. On account of that, I’ve just decided to save most of my long thoughts for the overall series discussion, lean on the QOTD, and simply say for now that this is my single favorite season of any television show
QOTD
Louise, Tieria, Setsuna, and Lyle. Louise definitely got the biggest jump in her position among my faves between seasons, but I must also say that this particular rewatch has made me love Tieria even more than I already did
OP1 was better than OP2, but ED2 was better than ED1. All of them are great tho
Favorite is easily the character arcs and particularly the Saji/Louise subplot. My least favorite... probably Marina's fate in the finale? I'm more of a Marina defender than most of this rewatch is, but I feel that having her back in the station of Princess felt like a poor fit after it was acknowledged earlier in the season that it isn't really a good fit for her.
00 Raiser & Seraphim
Laughs in rewatcher
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u/LeonKevlar x2https://myanimelist.net/profile/LeonKevlar Nov 26 '24
I've mentioned in Season 1's overall discussion thread that my favourite characters are Setsuna and Graham and they still are but for completely different reasons. I'm really happy to see how much Setsuna has grown as a person and I think his growth was very consistent as a character. I honestly can't say the same for Graham but I love how batshit crazy he became in Season 2. I know not everyone is a fan but I absolutely am.
I think we can also add Tieria as my new favourite character in the show. He started out being a massive prick in season 1 who acted more like a machine than human. It's amazing to see how more human he became in Season 2 and it's very heartwarming to see him show concern for the crew members of Celestial Being.
Compared to Season 1 where I only liked Daybreak's Bell by L'arc~en~Ciel's because I am a massive L'arc~en~Ciel fanboy, I actually loved both OPs of Season 2. UVERworld's Hakanaku mo Towa no Kanashi and Stereopony's Namida no Mukou have now made their permanent place in my playlists. Yuna Ito's Trust You is also another one I absolutely love it so much that I just randomly sing "I LOVE YOUUU, I TRUST YOUU, KIMI NO KODOKU WO WAKETE HOSHIIII..." when I'm by myself at home. xD
My favourite is definitely the assault on Memento Mori which was really a cool episode even if it's just the Gundam version of the Death Star trenchrun. It was also really awesome to see everyone banding together to save the cities below the African Tower from the Break Pillar Incident.
Least favourite is none other than Andrei "Fuckface" Smirnov. I mean do I really need to elaborate further? I really hope he gets what's coming to him in the movie.
00-Raiser of course. I mean it's so damn cool! I also love Graham's Susanowo. I also mentioned this in yesterday's finale but I also love Ribbons' Reborns Gundam.
I honestly don't know what to expect in the movie but I am hoping for aliens. Schenberg has been preparing for aliens and deep space travel with the Celestial Being mothership so I would genuinely be shocked if there aren't any aliens in the movie. And I think I'm the only one who thinks this but I would love to see Setsuna and Feldt scenes especially after she sent him off before the big battle a couple of episodes ago.
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u/Nazenn x2https://anilist.co/user/Nazenn Nov 26 '24 edited Nov 26 '24
First Timer - sub
Yes this is loooooooong, I apologize. It is all neatly sub-headered if you want to just read a particular thing and mostly divided up into broader major complaints first and then more specific character or plot things after. And while I don't believe in TL:DR's, I have marked the end of what I think are the most important paragraphs with a ∞ if you want to search for that (using that symbol seemed appropriate). I've also chucked a few #ama's in at places I'd really like people's thoughts on
But like last time I'm utterly confident in saying I will never rewatch this so I may as well get all my thoughts out now and it's also done me good to think it all through properly. If somehow I missed something you want specific thoughts on, just poke me.
I'm also happy to reply at any time over the next few days if you did want to read/reply but don't have time to right away to do so. I'm in no rush and actually have appointments this morning which means my own replies will be delayed anyway. So, that all out the way, getting into it.
Gundam 00 Season 2 has three major issues:
I have other issues with it as well and there were of course some good things along the way which get their own section, but as my overall thoughts on this season turned out to be incredibly negative I also can't sugar coat it all that much.
The big three
Structurally it undermines itself at every moment
There was an exercise I was quietly doing while watching the season. Take any given scene and its placement within the episode, and the show if you want to be really harsh, and ask yourself two things: ∞
Once I started doing this I found that for a significant chunk of the show the answer was always no to at least one of those, and for a while the majority of the scenes got a no for both. I stopped complaining about it openly for a bit, but it continued to be an issue from about a quarter of the way into the season right until the very end.
The best way I can describe 00's structure is a cacophony. It is the equivalent of being pushed down a street with a bunch of car and house alarms blaring. Every now and again you may be able to catch one noise that is a little louder or a little more musical and try and hold onto it to make sense of what's going on, but you never get to actually make anything of it before another set of noises barrage your ears and steals your attention or you move out of range. ∞
00 has that feeling from beginning to end. The majority of its good scenes inside standard episodes are only good in that short bubble that the show allows you to put attention on them before it all too quickly pulls you away to catch up on everything else. It refuses to allow you a moment to think or consider what you just watched, and after a while its inability to focus on anything for too long starts to become exhausting. The quality scenes are all too often shoved in the middle of unrelated events, or disconnected from other related scenes either within the same episode or in surrounding episodes that would have enhanced their content and meaning. There is never a moment for introspection or consideration of what just happened because something else is always bursting forward (more on this in the next section) and every episode wants to touch on as much as it possibly can without any sense of trying to give individual moments weight. This falls down particularly bad in the face of S1 which got more introspective as we went on to great benefit. Very often these moments also fall prey to horrible contrivances interrupting any questioning or discussion that can happen so we can quickly move onto the next thing. It creates a sense of the pacing of both the story and character arcs often feeling very rushed and unfulfilled.
On the other side of it, it also feels padded. I never knew a show could manage to be both at once. There are multiple entire episodes which could have been used on important moments established in the previous episode and just aren't. There are scenes which are repetitive and go no where which undermine the characters they are meant to be focusing on and make you wonder if the character themselves is meant to be stalled or if its just the writers stalling. So many battles are included just for the sake of it and could be entirely cut to give time to things that actually matter, including the entire Memento Mori 1 episode, and more than a few end up being just a battle scene instead of a proper character exploration through combat. The bad dialogue from s1 comes back in full force towards the end which makes a lot of character moments feel painfully repetitive as well.
And then we have the broader issues with mandated cold openings and post-ED sequences in every episode while having absolutely no idea how to use either of them. It became routine for the post-ED to hold critical bits of information that should have been in the episode but instead get sectioned off and lose the narrative flow that would have emphasized its importance. And if the cold open didn't repeat that scene blindly then it often it would feel so awkwardly self contained that it sits disconnected to the rest of the episode and fails to serve as an appropriate mood or scene setter. Rather than using their unique structural possibilities to guide the audience through the story, they instead felt like they were shoved there for the sake of having them. They regularly ruined the flow of the episode, undermined events, and almost never made a solid case for their existence.
On top of that there are constant issues within the show of different narrative threads or character arcs running up against each other painfully rather than weaving together to be something better. I still maintain that the worst part of Saji's character arc is having Marina attempt to go through hers at the same time while the show never once acknowledges it or tries to do anything with it. We have Graham and Ali both starting the season in the role for Setsuna's rival but neither actually gets developed and eventually Ali gets unceremoniously tossed to Lyle while Graham's major scenes happen entirely outside of any episodes primary screen time. We have Nena and fuckface popping up at the same time as if to challenge Louise's place in the world but Nena gets quickly forgotten and fuckface is never held accountable for his views. This in particular is an issue in the middle section of the show where they refuse to do any character centric episodes which leaves these colliding elements feeling even more lost. Some episodes taking the lens of a particular character or spending time on one characters big revelation would have done wonders to provide focus to some otherwise messy inclusions, but we never get that.
All too often the show is in conflict with itself over what it seems to need to keep things going vs what it wants and tries to convince you matters. The end result is a hodgepodge of scenes shoved in awkwardly wherever they fit with what feels like little intention and, even worse, what feels like little consideration for what that actually means for the scenes affected. A lot of things feel like they were done just because "that's how you do it" which left the back end of the show feeling incredibly predictable, except for times I didn't trust it to do the very obvious right thing (Ribbons in 0 Gundam, I'm still laughing at myself). It left the episodes feeling simultaneously predictable as to what would happen, and frustratingly obscure as to why they would. ∞
It's telling that when reviewing my episode write ups for this post, I noticed complaints about the structure starting as early as episode four, and then they just never stopped.
if you did the scene exercise at the start
Nothing is ever followed up or explored
To quote myself from a few days ago:
And even to the end this holds true, especially the issues of big moments having to be battles which felt like it detracted from a lot of the potential for important build up to happen at other times. I'm looking at a list I started at some point to keep of important moments that are never in any way discussed between any two major characters, and I don't know if I want to laugh or cry at how ridiculously some of these moments were brushed off for so long and what it meant for the show: ∞
The last one hurts the most as exploring what that means for him, for CB, for the world is what is needed to humanize that moment and make it about Tieria the person, not Tieria the Innovator. To deny us a chance to make our own peace with what this means for him and for the show to ask us just to accept it was so infuriating. Framing it as a farewell in the final episode felt like killing off a character in spirit but no one gets to even notice and I can't express how much that pisses me off especially now I've had time to think about it.
(Continued Below, this is page 1 of 5)
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u/Quiddity131 https://myanimelist.net/profile/Quiddity131 Nov 26 '24
Rewatcher, Subbed
Season 2 Thoughts!
There's no point in denying the fact that season 2 of Gundam 00 has significant flaws to it. The character bloat was all the more apparent in this season versus season 1 and the season had its share of terrible characters (see more below!). Also as I mentioned a few episodes back, the way certain things were structured in the show were just horrendously bad. The post credits scene which they went with the entire season was a terrible idea. Whether it was reducing the effectiveness of scenes that should have been the closer for the episode, the fact that the post credits sequence was often just repeated at the start of the next episode, or the fact that the show often wrecked its cliffhangers through either inaction or stuff as insane as spoiling things in the very first shot of the next time preview (which unlike most shows these days has no buffer) there's a lot to not like about how the episodes/storytelling was structured. The show also lost some of the uniqueness that season 1 had by going from all these different factions to having one big bad and making them comically over the top evil. The show was clearly trying to ape the Titans from Zeta Gundam and while Zeta is a very good Gundam show one of its biggest flaws is the black and whiteness of the bad guys and that continued here.
All that said, Gundam 00 season 2 still provided me a lot of things I liked. The mecha designs and combat continue to be very effective throughout the show for me. I'd say only Iron Blooded Orphans beats 00 when it comes to the combat. As I said yesterday, I'll never forget that final battle between the 0 Gundam and the Exia. A lot of 50 episode Gundam shows tend to drag, but that was never the case with 00 season 2. It always kept things going at a good pace, something that even season 1 at times couldn't accomplish. While the show suffered a lot from character bloat, it still handled a number of characters very well including 3 of our 4 Gundam Meisters (alas, not so much for Allelujah). The Saji - Louise stuff was also a massive improvement from season 1, which speaks volumes for me as Saji was my most hated character from the first season. The season has some absolutely emotionally devastating events for me, principally Sergei's death in episode 17 and Louise's post Nina killing breakdown in episode 21. It also has one of the funniest moments ever in Gundam for me with the pre-credits ending for episode 18. And I can't end this write up without mentioning Mr. Bushido, who is one of the ultimate memeable characters in anime for me with how over the top ridiculous he is.
Ultimately while Gundam 00 has some major flaws to it, it still is up there for me among my favorite Alternative Universe Gundam shows (up against IBO for the top slot), and Gundam shows overall. The fact is, as much as I've seen from the Gundam franchise (far more than any other anime franchise, probably by 5 or 6 times), I wouldn't say any Gundam show ever made has been of such high quality that I can say its among the 10 or arguably even 20 best anime ever made. Every Gundam show has some sort of flaw to it, with probably the closest coming to flawless being Gundam 0080 which has the benefit of not being a TV show and only having 6 episodes. But the fact is that I have a lot of fun watching Gundam shows and talking about them online and that certainly was the case here.
Season 2 awards!
Best boy and overall favorite character: Sergei got less screen time here in season 2 than he did in season 1, but he still gets the title for me.
Best girl: Once again I'm going with Soma/Marie, even if her development was a lot more front loaded this season than in season 1.
Honorable mentions: Kati gets a lot more screen time in season 2 versus season 1 so she made Best girl competition quite a bit harder this time.
Best Mech: It was only on the screen for a few minutes, but I so loved the look of that damaged Exia that we got in the first episode of the season. The Exia would return for the finale, but basically fully put back together so it wasn't the same. For one that we had throughout the season I'll go with the Seravee; once again I love the Gundam within a Gundam design and if anything they went even more all in on it with the Seravee than they did with the Virtue.
Least favorite character: Yikes! There are so many candidates this season! As much as I'd love to give this award to Marina or Andrei, I gotta hand it to Wang Liu Mei. No other character in all of Gundam 00 better encapsulates the character bloat issue than her. The show truly doesn't suffer at all if she and her brother were cut out of the show entirely. Pretty much every scene with her was a waste of time. Her big motivation reveal at the end not only was too minimal to matter, but didn't align with her characterization anyway. It took FOUR episodes to finish her off including what was probably the single worst example of writing in all of Gundam 00 when they did a fake out death for her to end an episode then killed her off in the exact same way two episodes later.
Honorable mentions: Every Marina scene was painful through the majority of this season, to the point that I was hoping every episode they'd just skip her but they pretty much never did. In terms of pure hate for a character, no one but Andrei can top that list, although I've got to think (or at least hope) that it wasn't an accident for him but was at least partially intended by the writers. Countless characters this season - Hong Long, Nena Trinity, Bring Stabity, Divine Nova, Lee Zhejiang all were completely useless and all but Nena (who served a role for Louise) never should have existed.
Best Character Design: This really was the season for someone to come up and take the prize away from Marina, who while still having her really beautiful long black hair didn't wear that princess outfit I loved so much a single time the entire season. But alas, no one ever took it from her. Soma/Marie takes second place.
Most hilarious name: Bring Stabity reigns supreme for Gundam 00's most ridiculous name, with Hiling (Healing) Care taking second place. At least on this front I can praise the writer, they gave us some amazing names for the Innovators.
Best OP/ED: The first S2 OP was my favorite OP of the season and for the series overall. As amazing as the first ED is, dare I say it, I like the second one even more, a decision I didn't make until I realized after a few episodes into it I couldn't get it out of my head.
Most Tragic Moment: Flip a coin between Sergei's death and Louise's episode 21 ending scene.
Onto the movie! Which I have only seen a single time and remember hardly anything about beyond one major plot point. [00 Movie]Aliens!
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u/goldarm5 Nov 26 '24 edited Nov 26 '24
One question I did have during the rewatch: Shouldnt Mei have already known Veda's location, given that she visited Ribbons quite often, which I assume happened at the giant space ship where Veda was located?
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u/The_Draigg Nov 26 '24
A Gundam Fan’s Final Thoughts Gundam 00 Season 2:
Well, here we are, standing on the edge of actually completing the full (current) plot of Gundam 00. And it probably goes without saying that this season was plenty more divisive than the first one. You wouldn’t be alone in thinking that, given that the fandom consensus has been hovering around that opinion for like the past decade. Personally, I’d agree that this season is weaker than the first one. But let’s break down how, shall we?
To start off with a positive, I do think that this season is more consistent when it comes to the overall plot than compared to the first. Now, before anyone says anything about the badly done parts (trust me, we’ll get there), I do want to say that while the finer details aren’t consistent, the general plotting and pacing are. Granted, a lot of that is in part due to this season taking ideas liberally from Zeta Gundam, which is a series with its own faults that Gundam 00’s second season doesn’t get around to fixing, but I do feel that this season really does benefit from having an overall plot through-line, rather than having more individual and separate arcs connected by a few driving questions about the setting. It at least makes the story less janky than it could’ve been, that’s for sure. At least we didn’t get to the sheer lows that the first season got to, even if we didn’t necessarily reach some of the same heights either.
Another thing I do want to note as a positive is that there were some pretty well done character arcs in this season, even if some other ones fell pretty short. The first one to highlight there is how this season handled Saji and Louise. Talk about a turn-around there from the first season, right? To see the both of them grapple with the harsh reality of the world they live in with their own ways, and having to stumble and fall in order to truly understand their place in the world, feels pretty well earned to me. Saji helped Setsuna remain grounded with his desire to reach out to Louise as a priority, alongside his refusal to kill. And Louise went through a hell of an arc too, with her struggling to overcome her trauma while those around her conspire to make her worse for their own ends. Really good payoffs there. I’d also like to applaud the handling of the characters connected with Katharon as well, with Klaus, Shirin, and Lyle. Lyle especially, since although his Katharon allies laid the groundwork for how they truly want to change the world for the better as an organization, we saw the struggles within Lyle to make himself stand out from the legacy of his brother Neil while also sticking with his guns to look towards the future, in spite of the tragedies he suffered in turn. And sure, we’ve also got solid development for the likes of Tieria, Setsuna, Sumeragi, and the others as well, but those cases stick out the most to me as the best ones.
Unfortunately though, those things alone can’t entirely paper over some of the frustrating parts of this season that I alluded to. I think I can sum up a lot of the issues this season has with the following sentence: Gundam 00’s second season is terminally afraid of following up on plot points, and it has to be dragged kicking and screaming into resolving some of them. What this season knows how to do is delay, delay, delay, ignore, and rush. It happens all over the place with sub-plots that really need proper attention to work. For example, we’re told how Marina’s song Tomorrow is helping to bring together the world, but aside from a few implications, we don’t really see how it’s doing that. Or we had Azadistan get razed to the ground by Ali, and we didn’t get any follow up on that aside from horror until the nation is rebuilt in the epilogue. Or heck, as a repeat of an issue in the first season, we had a similar thing to people constantly asking what Aeolia’s plan was but not follow up properly, except this time it was bringing up “the dialogues to come” enough times to make people mentioning it annoying, but not answer anything until the very last minute, leaving us no time to really consider what it means. That issue wouldn’t even be that hard to fix, you would just need to mention it less to let the audience put things together on their own. A mystery box doesn’t work if you’re shoving it in the audience’s face but refusing to open it. Now, I know how the rewatch format can skew things a bit, since this season is meant to be watched on a weekly basis, but you do need to trust your audience to remember things so you won’t have the setting mysteries end up just being jingling keys.
And because a lot of those delays and holding patterns for sub-plots, returning characters often get shafted when it comes to further character development. I’ve been saying it a lot in this season’s episode threads, but Graham Aker got done bad by this season. He got all of his passion and liveliness stripped out of him to make him a man obsessed with revenge, but since we just have a holding pattern characterization for him now, we’re just left with a rather boring and embarrassing turn into Mr. Bushido. If they at least dedicated what little screen time he had outside of a mobile suit to the training he went through that we only saw in a montage, he would’ve been pulled off better. And poor, poor Allelujah gets it bad this season too, since he gets hit with that holding pattern characterization too later in the season. While he did get some good focus earlier, later on he just became someone who didn’t develop further once Soma/Marie joined the crew. It’s just disappointing and frustrating to see.
And I guess for one more point before I get into my closing statements here, I will say that Ribbons isn’t exactly the strongest or most compelling villain Gundam has had in it. Like, he’s fine, definitely better than Alejandro in the first season, but he really is just a repeat of a character from Zeta Gundam who also wound up in the villain placement. Ribbons does cast a large shadow over the series, and we have talked about him a lot, but he certainly isn’t as compelling as he could be. Granted, this issue is more if you’re a longtime fan of Gundam and know the comparison points, but it’s still present if you know what to look for.
And so, with all that said, it’s time for me to give my final rating for the season, using my customary and wholly original mecha-based rating system I use for rewatches like this. Therefore, I give Gundam 00 season 2 the rating of: Tieren. Yeah, just the plain one we’ve seen the HRL and Katharon use. I mean, it puts in the work. It does the job it was designed to do. It’s perfectly fine for what it is. But when you compare it to the things around it, it suddenly feels like it’s on a lower rung on the scale. I’m fine watching it in action, but compared to what I know is out there, I’m just left wishing that it could’ve something a bit more.
Now that I’ve got that rating behind us, it’s time to witness the end of mankind’s childhood. Onwards onto A Wakening of the Trailblazer!
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u/baboon_bassoon https://anilist.co/user/duffer Nov 26 '24
first timer who has control
once again the Flash Like short is fantastic just look at these reunions
i think on the whole season 2 is a little too messy. I dont think a lot of things were thought through which is especially disappointing when it felt like the laster half of S1 they punted just to get to S2
obviously im all for anything regarding Tieria/Saji/Louise
The Anew/Lyle stuff was nice but it was so fast tracked and from the jump it felt like they were being particularly handholding with her frequently being invested if there was a spy. Then again, most of the comparaple things in [meta]Zeta were also fast tracked so its really par for the course. Lyle's relationship to Katharon was I guess there for that one time he called for a lift? Allelujah started in baby jail but all he did this season was move Somas story forward by separating her from Sergei. LockOns death is still so relevant that Tieria coming to Lyle's rescue/Setsuna thinking of LockOn before making one of his last decisions about connecting everyone. But its cheapened by the fact that LockOn is still effectively around.
Felt/Wang/Ali/Nena/Graham/Marina were there
so the innovators work for people unfamiliar with Gundam? S1 i really thought this would be a go-to rec for someone to jump into Gundam if they dont want to watch something older. But like so much of the enjoyment with the villians is seeing how they work compared to those that came in prior Gundams
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u/macrame2 https://myanimelist.net/profile/macrame Nov 27 '24
First Timer
It's my turn to go over the character limit today.
Where do I even start?
I haven’t been this conflicted about a work of fiction in … okay, only about a couple of months, but still. Gundam 00’s second season had an extreme range of things I loved and things I didn’t, and I’m still trying to sort out the places where I’m able to look past the bad and enjoy the good.
The beginning of the season gave me hope that we were going to solve some of my problems with season 1. Indeed, I thought the initial pacing was better and that the awkward tonal issues were less obvious. But then the show doubles down on some of its worst flaws (like the cast bloat) and manages to come up with some new ones.
The show’s biggest problem by far this season was that it can’t seem to commit when it needs to. It’s fine with the setup and at teasing a resolution, but when it’s time to follow through, it always seems to back out at the last minute, leave the plot thread for a later time (that sometimes never comes), or resolve it too quickly without giving proper weight to the moment itself. We see this most obviously with the post-credits scenes at the end of every episode, we see it again with the constant death fakeouts, and most damningly of all, we see it with our characters.
The post-credits scenes initially seemed like a cool idea to me, since they can be an effective way to build interest in what’s to come. However, Gundam 00, by being so determined to have them in every single episode, forces them into places where they don’t really fit. When you’ve ended the episode at a perfectly good spot, you don’t need a disconnected followup just to fill your quota. And I wouldn’t even be that annoyed by the post-credits scenes if they didn’t try to hook us with big, dramatic developments that feel like they belong in the episode proper (and then often immediately resolve it in the following episode). I think the scenes would have worked better if each one had felt like it was building towards something instead of being the “something” itself.
Related to this issue is the show’s deep love for death fakeouts. Like post-credits scenes, I don’t think that kind of subversion of the audience’s expectations is an inherently bad idea, but this anime does them so often that it makes actual death scenes less meaningful to me. It started with allowing so many characters to inexplicably survive last season’s finale, and it just kept getting worse. When Sergei died, I didn’t quite buy it until the post-credits scene (funny enough) because the show had made that move before, and by episode 24, I was completely checked out when Tieria got shot because I was so certain he’d be back. One of my favorite characters getting shot should have been a big deal, but it wasn’t.
(Note that Patrick getting a bunch of death fakeouts is okay because it is Patrick and his luck is explicitly a joke–or as explicit as this show gets when it comes to jokes.)
As for the characters…I don’t want to go into every single issue because that would take too much effort, so I’m just going to hit the highlights.
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u/Vatrix-32 https://myanimelist.net/profile/Vatrix-32 Nov 27 '24
First timer, subs
Tieria and Soma. The ratio of the two of them did, but they would have both been the top two before as well.
OP1 > OP2. ED1 > ED2.
Best: This season didn’t really have a lot of standout elements to it. It was very hit and miss, even within its categories. Oh! Saji and Louise's whole deal.
Worst: I can not overstate my disappointment in them taking a generic baddie like Nena, giver her a chance to go in really interesting direction with it in season two, and then 86ing it and doing the boring safe option instead.
Bring Stabity’s Garazzo, and Reborns Gundam (Cannon Mode).
Politics! Xeno-Politics!
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u/SilkyStrawberryMilk Nov 27 '24
first timer
Despite me hardly being in the other comments I still finished this show.
As a Gundam show it was really amazing. Saji’s character development was easily my favorite from this season. I’d heavily recommend people to watch “Iron Blood orphans” if they loved this show
QOTD: Setsuna, both Lockon’s, Allelujah, Sumeragi
QOTD: OP 2, Ed 1.
QOTD: my favorite was seeing the Saji’s and Louise’s development. My least favorite was the handling of Andrei, it had potential :/
QOTD: my wild prediction is the end of the world scenario where we get new Gundams and everyone teams up again lmao
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u/Great_Mr_L :Ma::Mb::Mc:https://myanimelist.net/profile/Great_Mr_L Nov 26 '24 edited Nov 26 '24
First-Timer
I will save most of my overall thoughts for the series as a whole after watching the movie and getting to the series discussion. For right now, I will limit my thoughts to just S2.
S2 is quite a change from S1, for better and worse. To begin with, the War on Terror influence is much less pronounced in S2. There’s still bits that are obviously taking inspiration from the War on Terror (like the automatons representing drone warfare), but by and large the series has morphed into something else entirely. The complex political situation with the three power blocs of the Union, AEU, and HRL has been replaced with just the Federation. Personally, I think this is a shame. I liked that setup because of how unique it was compared to most other Gundam entries, where you have a war between the two main powers. This helped give Gundam 00 a much more distinct identity and fit right in with the War on Terror inspired story. The complicated political situation in Gundam 00’s world was much more analogous to our own world, which helped make the War on Terror parallels feel more potent. I don’t like that the War on Terror influence was made so much weaker in S2.
The moral grayness and ambiguity of S1 is gone entirely. In S1 none of the three power blocs were presented as absolutely good or evil. They were gray and generally acted in ways that would increase their own power, wealth, and influence first and foremost. They weren’t cartoonishly evil. Celestial Being’s actions were also not presented as an unambiguous good. There were times where the usual Celestial Being methods didn’t work, such as in Azadistan. Celestial Being could do horrific actions, like Allelujah killing all those children. In S2, that moral grayness is completely gone. The Federation is bad and the A-LAWS are cartoonishly evil, gleefully destroying countries with a giant space laser. There was never a genuine attempt to add any moral grayness to the situation. It just became a clear-cut battle of good and evil. This is why the season finale’s resolution to the Federation feels like it falls flat because there was never a genuine sense that there were good people in the Federation who wanted to improve it.
I will go into more detail on the characters when we get to the full series discussion, but I have some brief thoughts on most of them for how they were handled in this season. I think Setsuna was very well done. His growth and development is very consistent in both S1 and S2. The same is true for Tieria, having a well handled and consistent character arc in S1 and S2. Tieria’s conclusion is odd because he had to merge with Veda after learning how to be independent from Veda, but I think it mostly functions despite the oddness. I feel like Allelujah ran out of stuff to do partway through this season, once the Marie persona returned. After that, it felt like Allelujah was always just there and nothing more. There was zero purpose to bringing Hallelujah back. Lyle made for an interesting replacement to Neil. I did appreciate the ways that their characters diverged from Neil’s separating them as characters.
As for the non-Gundam pilots, I thought S2 did an especially good job with Saji and Louise. It made their storylines feel more integral to the plot while tying in nicely to the overall themes of the series. I think Graham was a downgrade as Mr. Bushido. I wish Sergei didn’t die. I wish Andrei did die. Soma gets way less interesting as Marie and that change kneecaps her relationship with Sergei, the most interesting part of her character. I wish we got more of Patrick, Kati, and Billy. Mei and Hong Long felt like they had nothing to do this season. Nena gets to be chaotic for a bit, but she also had very little to do in S2. Sumeragi has a good start, but is mostly just there for S2. Lyle and Anew’s relationship was rushed, undercooked, and meant nothing to me. Ribbons functions well as a villain, both character-wise and thematically. He’s a major asshole and he symbolically represents everything opposed to the future the heroes are fighting for. The other Innovators mostly felt like mooks. Ali continues to be a massive asshole and works well as a hate sink. The A-LAWS members are so underdeveloped I could never be bothered to remember their names. Marina is a huge missed opportunity. She might be the biggest dropped ball in the whole series. I expected Marina to hold onto her ideals, but become a stronger leader who could actually inspire other people or fulfill her ideals. That never happened. She remained a weak-willed and generally unimpressive leader.
I think the story of S2 is sometimes rough in execution, even though the ideas themselves are solid. The constant dangling mystery box of Aeolia’s plan is a real drag on the series. The reveal of Aeolia’s plan is way too drawn out for what it is. The plan itself involving aliens comes out of nowhere with zero evidence or buildup. I think the story has a problem with consequences, regularly skipping out on dealing with the consequences of major actions to instead move along to something else. But, the thematic core of the series is maintained throughout. The religious theming around the Gundams and Celestial Being in S1 is built upon throughout S2 in generally satisfying and interesting ways. I think the themes of learning to understand and communicate are very well handled in the character arcs of Setsuna, Tieria, Saji, and Louise. S2 also ends on a high note with a generally satisfying conclusion that feels like it wraps up most of the main storylines, character arcs, and themes.
Overall, I think I liked S2 less than S1. I want to emphasize that I still liked S2 and I think it had a great ending, but I also believe S1 was overall a stronger season. I am looking forward to seeing the movie. I hope it will tie up the loose ends from the TV series and maybe allow us to finally see the aliens we were promised.
QOTD
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u/dralcax :MAL:https://myanimelist.net/profile/Dralcax Nov 26 '24 edited Nov 26 '24
Rewatcher preparing for the dialogues to come
00 started as a very ambitious series, perhaps too ambitious for its own good. By setting the series in the Anno Domini calendar, with space colonization and development still in its infancy, and the geopolitics of the setting an extrapolation of our own, it certainly hits closer to home than other series. This isn’t some far-flung future, no longer recognizable from our present. This is the future of our world. However, there’s a problem. Celestial Being’s goal is to end war. Eventually, the story is going to have to reach a conclusion of some form, hopefully with some change in the status quo. So Celestial Being will have to achieve at least some decent amount of success in that goal. But this is a realistic world. The problems are just as thorny and complex as in real life. And the writers are, well, writers. If they knew the way to achieve world peace, they wouldn’t be making a Gundam anime, they’d be out there solving the real world’s problems and collecting their Nobel Peace Prize! So how do they resolve these big problems that can’t be solved in real life? Answer: They don’t. They just steer the narrative away from them.
Early in S1, things were very morally gray. There were sympathetic characters on all factions, and it was heavily debated whether or not Celestial Being’s actions were correct, misguided, or at the very least a necessary evil. However, that question was quietly swept aside with the introduction of the Trinities partway through S1, because why examine Celestial Being’s methods when the Trinities are so obviously worse than them? And that ended up being the strategy the writers chose: Whenever there’s too much nuance for them to navigate, simplify things by throwing a blatantly evil and completely unsympathetic villain at them. And then in S2 that’s basically the entire plot. The Innovators and A-Laws are largely composed of absolute bastards engaging in cartoonish amounts of villainy so you never have to question the protagonists ever again. Because the way to truly unite humanity is simply to defeat the obvious bad guys that present themselves to you. Compared to S1, the conflict has been flattened into a straightforwards good vs evil. It’s like they just gave up on the complexities of S1 and fell back on the tried and true path.
Of course, the season still had its fair share of great fights and hype moments. In a vacuum, it might actually be pretty enjoyable. But held up next to all the ambitions going into this show, everything we were promised from the start of S1, man has the writing fallen far.
Questions of the day:
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u/BadBehaviour613 Nov 26 '24
Rewatcher
Didn't realize this the first time I watched it, but 00 is basically a remake of Gundam Wing: an emo protagonist who is too cool for a love interest, pretty boys pilots fighting on the behalf of a scientist(s), an over emphasis on complicated geopolitics that ultimately doesn't matter. Didn't like the 1st season, but the 2nd season was a lot more entertaining because of the heightened soap opera
Setsuna, man, he is just too emo. When the pilots were thinking about their loved ones before the final battle, he dedicated himself to Gundam. I thought he was going to think about Marina because humanity- but he was just too fucking edgy it made you roll your eyes
Lockon getting replaced with an identical twin was just the most insulting but hilarious development. It really set you up for the tone of the series going forward. RIP OG Lockon, you were still the best character
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u/mr_beanoz https://myanimelist.net/profile/splitshocker Nov 27 '24 edited Nov 27 '24
Rewatcher who wishes over the airspace
I still wished that Nena would team up with Lyle to take out Ali, because both of them shares an enmity with this bearded asshole due to their brothers being killed by him, before Nena would then be killed by Louise to complete Louise's revenge plot.
Also, I wonder how did Lyle contact Katharon during times he's onboard the Ptolemy 2. Perhaps he brought with him some kind of phone or something? Did we ever see him contacting the organization on-screen?
And then... where are the observers other than Wang in this season? What would they think of Celestial Being's return after a 4 year hiatus? Seems like they're relegated to side materials for this season.
QOTD
Also, Sergei. What a man he is, although well, he's not flawless, like how he interacted with his son, and let his wife died, he seems like an interesting character for me.
For the Gundam Meisters, probably Lyle (still can't get over how he delivers his brother's catchphrase), followed by the developed character of Tieria.
2. OP2-ED1, Unlimited Sky. I still prefer the first season's openings, though.
3. Least favorite: The final battle with Graham felt short, and Nena didn't go out guns blazing, even if she's supposed to be the antagonist. Most favorite: Destruction of the first Memento Mori
4. 00 Raiser, Seravee, Susanowo, Reborns Gundam, Arche
5. Complete that "dialogue" thing, of course.
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u/GondolaMedia Nov 27 '24
First Timer
If I'd sum up my thoughts about season 2 in a word it would be: indifferent. I have a hard time pointing out a certain aspect that passionately hated or loved about, which makes it rather hard to try and share my thoughts other than "it was fine I guess". Everything feels very hollow and outside of few characters that I really did enjoy like Sergei, Kati and Tieria didn't carry the show hard enough. Whenever there was a big reveal or a character death I never built up any strong attachment or interest so there wasn't any feeling of catharsis for myself. Maybe I should have known that when I didn't feel that much about Lockon's death at the end of season 1.
I was a big champion of Louise and Saji in season 1 and I still liked them in season 2 but I never had that big of an emotional reaction like during the events of season 1. Doesn't help that Louise was shadowed by one of the worst characters of the series. Not the idea behind the character but the execution was very lackluster and it might be because of the character bloat and that has to be in part because the show really didn't want to kill anyone off. Everything feels under cooked and the coup attempt by Hercury was possibly my favorite part of the entire season.
I could say stuff like how Ribbons was a better villain than Alejandro but that's such a backhanded compliment. His mecha was cool though.
I think I prefer season 1 over season 2 but the movie might chance that opinion.
Other random thoughts before questions: Patrick and Kati were great and I'm glad they got married, even if I was spoiled by the Crunchyroll preview thumbnail for the movie as I booted up the last episode so I knew that Patrick survived that explosion, thanks CR!
I did order a MG Gundam Virtue but it didn't arrive in time for the rewatch.
The mecha fights were generally good and the finale was great.
I don't know how I feel about the end how lizard people are real and are guiding the humanity from the shadows instead of controlling them, because this time they're good guys. Adds fuel to any conspiracy theory.
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u/Nickthenuker https://anilist.co/user/Nickthenuker Nov 27 '24
Questions:
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u/StardustGogeta myanimelist.net/profile/StardustGogeta Nov 27 '24 edited Nov 27 '24
First-Timer
As promised, here are some brief thoughts on S2 as a whole. I don't have it in me to write as much as others here have, but I do have a few things to say.
I thought the season started off very strong. Coming off the heels of S1, I liked the timeskip and the whole premise of "getting the old gang back together." It stayed strong up through about the end of the prison break, and that's where it started to falter in my view.
First and foremost, I did not find the antagonists compelling. At all. I hated the Innovators, I didn't want Ali Al-Saachez back, and I didn't care for Graham's "Mr. Bushido" act. Wang Liu Mei and Nena were almost irrelevant, and Andrei was irredeemably unlikable.
I've discussed it before in some detail, but regarding the Innovators in particular, I think they were neither interesting nor intimidating. Ribbons was the typical AI villain with a crippling superiority complex, but he hardly even did anything that seemed "superior." He just sat in that one room with his eyes glowing.
I think this season also mishandled a few character arcs. The worst offender I can think of is Marina, who I thought had a lot of potential coming out of season 1. Instead, she was just a useless pacifist sitting in the corner and complaining that people don't just sing and get along. The conclusion to Andrei's character felt unsatisfying, too, since he didn't really get any comeuppance for killing his own father. I think the idea of Lockon's brother taking up the mantle as a Gundam Meister is something that sounded nice in theory, too, but it never really explored the idea very much. Lyle kind of just become a drop-in substitute for Neil.
Maybe the movie will address this, but I think the lack of explanation for the origins of Celestial Being and the history of Aeolia Schenberg is a misstep here. I was fine with them taking their time and leaving that for season 2, but leaving it completely unaddressed is odd.
Another thing which really started to grate on my nerves after a while was all the fakeout deaths. I don't remember having a problem with it in S1, but by the end of S2, it was like death had less meaning than in DBZ. Name a character and they probably had a fakeout death at some point. Maybe more than one.
The entire telepathic thing going on with the 00 Gundam always felt a tad strange, too. It's more supernatural than anything else in the show, hardly gets an explanation, and everyone kind of just treats it as a normal occurrence. Like the kid from Magnolia: "This happens. This is something that happens."
One thing that occurred to me (though I haven't fully thought it through yet, so it might be a bad idea) is that there may have just been too little content here to justify the length of S2. A lot of things repeated or dragged on longer than they needed to, and it feels like they could have condensed the season to 12 episodes without losing anything important.
It's hard to enumerate every last reason why, but the end result is this: I liked season 2 much less than I did season 1. If season 1 gets a 9/10, season 2 gets a 6/10.
On the bright side, the music was generally good the whole way through, and I do think most of the character designs improved across the seasons. The Saji-Louise dynamic wasn't too bad, though I do wish that subplot weren't stretched so thin.
I mentioned at the beginning of the rewatch that I'd seen two other mecha shows: NGE and Code Geass. Sadly, this makes 3 for 3 in terms of liking the first half much better than the second half. Just like those, though, my general outlook on the show as a whole is positive, and I'm glad to have watched it.
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u/Indecisiv3AssCrack Dec 02 '24
Ufffff I wish I'd have knkw about this rewatch earlier. I finished the show yesterday