Ramblings of DarkMirage

It’s the new Gundam series that’s not SEED! Gundam 00 looks like it’s missing a 7 and I still can’t figure out what it’s supposed to mean. It does look kind of weird and funny if you abbreviate the title to “G00“, so I shall refer to it as such for the rest of this entry.

The title aside, I actually enjoyed the first episode. Unlike every other Gundam series ever, no mobile suits were stolen in this episode, although for a moment it looked like one was about to be but it was just a false alarm. That’s good news.

Background

G00 is set in AD 2307, unlike the other Gundam series that use UC, CE and other arbitrary era names. This means that in 300 yeas’ time, by 2307, if we still don’t have Gundams flying around in space, we can look back and laugh at Sunrise for their silly predictions.

After running out of fossil fuels, the world presumably descended into chaos and eventually consolidated into three giant blocs, the Union, the AEU and the Human Reform League.

Union

President of the Union

The Union’s full name is “Union of Solar Energy and Free Nations” (太陽エネルギーと自由国家連合軍), which is frankly a very stupid name and that’s why they like to be called the Union instead. Anyway, it’s formed around United States, which makes the “solar energy” part extremely ironic if you consider the current president’s energy policies and the country’s infatuation with SUVs. But I digress.

AEU

Councillors of AEU

AEU stands for “Advanced European Union”, which is just like EU, except better! Also it sounds like “Anti-Earth Union Group” from Universal Century.

Jinkakuren

Chairman of Jinkakuren

Human Reform League jinrui kakushin renmei (人類革新連盟) is a bloc formed by China, Russia and India, which explains the nonsensical name. The name is shorten to jinkakuren (人革連), which can also mean “People’s Revolution Alliance”, so you can say that it’s a futuristic spin of Communist naming sense. Of course, as per mandated by the Law of Anime Stereotypes, Jinkakuren people are required to wear traditional Chinese costumes such as qipao so that no one would question their Asian heritage…

As usual, Sunrise’s story setting seems to be pretty influenced by current events, although I doubt that in 300 years’ time the geopolitical situation of Earth will be so predictable, considering how fast and drastically things change with every generation. I mean, just half a century years ago Japan took two American atomic bombs, just a century ago the Communist Party didn’t exist, just two centuries ago the Brits burnt down White House and three centuries ago USA didn’t even exist. But I digress again.

The three superpowers control the sources of Earth’s energy production, namely giant space elevators with solar panels in orbit.

Prologue

The start of the series takes place in AD 2301, in a yet-to-exist country in the Middle East. A group of mechas advances slowly through a town, killing everyone while declaring themselves as warriors of god fighting a holy war to cleanse the land of infidels. Save for the mecha, it sounds like something I just read on BBC.

Setsuna F. Seiei, the main character of the series, is still a young guerilla fighter struggling to escape from the fanatic jihadists, but all he has is a rifle that looks like 300-year-old technology. Just when all hope seems lost, an angelic mobile suit makes a deus ex machina entrance and save him, marking the beginning of his new life.

Hallelujah!

Fast forward 6 years, Setsuna is now all grown-up and cool bishounen-ish. He’s now an elite pilot working for the Celestial Being, a mysterious armed organization that is quietly and secretly executing a plan that will change the world.

I’m cool now

Celestial Being

Celestial Being’s goal is to eradicate war through armed conflict (平和の為の武力行使). There are four Gundam pilots, called Gundam Meisters, who pilot the four Gundams manufactured by Celestial Being.

GN-001 Gundam Exia

Setsuna pilots GN-001 Gundam Exia, a high speed melee combat unit.

GN-002 Gundam Dynames

GN-002 Gundam Dynames, a sniper unit, is piloted by Lockon Stratos.

GN-003 Gundam Kyrios

GN-003 Gundam Kyrios, which has a flight mode transformation, is piloted by Allelujah Haptism

GN-005 Gundam Virtue

GN-005 Gundam Virtue, a heavy weapons unit, is piloted by Tieria Erde.

Hmmm, but where’s GN-004? I wonder…

Summary of First Episode

As part of the Celestial Being’s plan, Setsuna attacks an AEU training base in order to destroy their new experimental mobile suit and to expose AEU’s secret arms build-up which exceeds the agreement set by international treaties between the three superpowers.

AEU’s experimental prototype

AEU’s experimental prototype getting pwned

Actually I’m reminded of Gundam Wing now… Oh shit. Well at least Setsuna didn’t steal the experimental prototype as that would have induced much worse déjà vu.

The rest of the episode involves an attempted terrorist attack on Jinkakuren’s space elevator which is foiled by Celestial Being’s Gundam Kyrios and Gundam Virtue. Like this:

Jinkakuren’s space elevator

Terrorists

Jinkakuren’s useless response team

Celestial Being to the rescue!

Mysterious cute girl interlude

Jinkakuren’s still useless response team

Terrorists

Gundam Virtue: I’m a camping whore

No more terrorists

Thoughts

Actually the first episode is pretty good. It has very nice animation, it introduces most of the important characters and factions and it has explosions. Not bad. I also realized that having Yun Kouga, the artist behind LOVELESS, do the character design isn’t as bad as I had imagined. I don’t like the opening theme song, though. I hate L’arc~en~Ciel.

On another note, Haro is in G00 too!

Haro in Gundam Dynames’ cockpit

And, going by the OP animation, this girl, Marina Ismail, appears to be the main love interest. Knowing Sunrise, the OP is usually quite a good guide for predicting plot directions. :P

Marina Ismail

It’s weird that she’s the queen of a newly-founded Middle Eastern country but she looks East Asian…

Conclusion

There’s no doubt that G00’s setting is partially based on recent events of our time, just as the original Universal Century was influenced by the second world war. I shall continue to follow this series because I’m really curious as to how Gundam’s usual anti-war message will be influenced by today’s headlines.

Tagged episode review, first episode, g00, gundam 00, mobile suit gundam, sunrise, yun kouga
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