Gundam 00
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.
October 7th, 2007 at 5:42 pm
I thought you don’t watch Gundam shows…
October 7th, 2007 at 6:37 pm
Daybreak’s Bell is not one of L’Arc’s best songs. Now, if only they used “My Heart Draws a Dream”…
Am I seeing a trend of people deciding to put certain singers and celebs in their hate-list for the mere sake of la-di-da?
October 7th, 2007 at 9:51 pm
YAY HAROs!!
October 7th, 2007 at 10:46 pm
Guess I will try out the first Gundam Series I ever watch.
And you say it is quite good right ^.^
October 7th, 2007 at 10:57 pm
i’m so excited to watch the new gundam… i’m looking everywhere for signs of the 1st episode. veoh, youtube, crunchyroll, etc etc… argghhh!!!
this marks my 4th gundam series after GWing, GSeed and GS Destiny… i was still hoping for Koyasu Takehito to voice someone in this series knowing he’s such a gundam veteran…
October 7th, 2007 at 11:56 pm
UC for life
October 8th, 2007 at 12:38 am
I can’t get over the fact that the dude’s (gal’s) name is Hallelujah.
October 8th, 2007 at 10:21 am
UC sucks.
October 8th, 2007 at 11:59 am
Lol..Camping whore.
like a awper in CS.
October 8th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
I like how Gundam 00 skips Africa.
It would make a lot more sense to make Setsuna black, IMO. But lol main chara in a mainstream Japanese anime factor.
October 8th, 2007 at 4:22 pm
I was actually pretty dissappointed after watching the first episode of Gundam00, but sitll i’m willing to give it a few more episodes before deciding.
As noted, this time no gundam units were stolen (yay~ ?) But i still see the orbital ladders as potential rock debris for a all time favourite gundam crash scene into earth
October 8th, 2007 at 4:58 pm
Well it seems like the Middle East doesn’t belong to any of the three superpowers, so it makes sense that Africa is also an independent political entity, perhaps a satellite of AEU which depends on them for its energy needs.
Anyway, most people in the Middle East are fair skinned, or at least not black. So it makes no sense for Setsuna to be black… Though in the first place, his given name is Japanese. >_>
October 9th, 2007 at 12:30 pm
will odex catch this?
October 9th, 2007 at 12:58 pm
Does Setsuna looks like sousuke from FMP???
October 9th, 2007 at 9:19 pm
00 is cool and quite different from the previous gundam series in design. i mean the gundams do not have thrusters and side-skirt! definitely will be following the series but still need to get used to the character design though
October 9th, 2007 at 11:20 pm
>>I don’t like the opening theme song, though. I hate L’arc~en~Ciel.
Seconded. Doesn’t sound too shitty anyways.
And yes, Middle Easterners aren’t black. They’re rather fair. I see a whole lot of them in campus. Some people need to learn more geography. And Setsuna really gives off FMP’s Sousuke vibe… only way more emo.
Overall, G00 really looks interesting, will be fun to watch to see how it ends up.
October 10th, 2007 at 9:13 am
i feel so retarded.
it took me forever to figure out wth G00 was.
and i’ve read both tj’s and your post.
October 10th, 2007 at 11:43 am
Glad I’m not the only one who thinks Larcenciel singing G00 OP1 makes it all crappy.
I actually miss Nami Tamaki and See-Saw doing a lot of the OP/ED songs.
Oh and Virtue looks like some big fat mecha baby.
I lso LOL’ed at your screenshot of Ryumin, seeing that in the background people can stand vertically upside down so casually lol. Talk about maximising room capacity…
October 11th, 2007 at 11:06 pm
Turn A Gundam had a black hero and it failed. Japanese hate foreigners. Why else is Sagara Sousuke a Afghan-born Japanese?
October 12th, 2007 at 10:47 am
I would just like to comment that the names are apparently their “code names”. They are not their real names.
At least i saw an image with info which said “code name: Setsuna F seisei.”
So we can assume is the same for the others.
And also why are people so afraid of a few similarities with gundam wing?, FIRST they are very coincidentall and overall with the gruesome intro of a real world war, and the setting i think that they are trying to give a very different vibe with this anime.
They are trying to emulate our current conflicts and somehow introduce the gundam concept to that. Which i think is cool.
There are many difference with wing but the most important, is that is VERY different from seed. Let me just say that the only good thing about seed were the last 20 episodes or so of the first, and seed destiny was total shit..
I actually liked gundam wing, because it didnt focus half the time in characters that completly fail so i dont care.