Gundam 00 — Episode 9
This episode is a pretty good one because we are finally seeing some semblance of actual combat tactics being employed. Also, it has some character development for Felt, which is good. (But maybe not. Refer to the last line of this entry.)
It’s a Haro harem!
Louise and Saji do make an appearance in this episode, but thankful it is a short one. Dear Sunrise, please hurry up and kill them already! :(
Summary
We jump to about four months since Celestial Being began their armed interventions. They have since conducted over sixty attacks. Although the AEU and Union pledged to defend themselves against Celestial Being’s intervention, there has been no large-scale battles since Moralia. Mostly because Gundams pwn everyone too quickly.
The only power bloc that has declared its intention to actively crackdown on Celestial Being is the Human Reform League. Sergei has formed a new special task force with a rather silly name (chiobu? lol) to annihilate Celestial Being, steal its Gundams and sexually violate its bridge bunnies. (Maybe not the last part.)
His plan involves using billions of dollars of tax money to send out tens of thousands of communication devices to form a network in the area around the orbital ring. Since GN particles disrupt communications, all the HRL task force has to do is to see which communicators are malfunctioning in order to pinpoint the Gundams’ locations. Sergei’s a fricking genius!
And in no time, HRL manages to locate Ptolemaios. This means that Ptolemy does indeed give off GN particles, which seriously begs the question of why it needs Gundams for energy. Perhaps GN drives and solar furnaces are two different things after all.
The Battle Plan
Oh my god! A real battle plan! This makes the Seikai fanboy in me squeal with delight.
Immediately after they receive a hit on their spanking new networked detectors, the HRL task force launches an assault on Celestial Being, making it the first time so far in this series that Ptolemaios has come under any threat.
The HRL task force identities three separate regions where communication has been jammed. The first one is of course Ptolemy. The other two are actually Kyrios and Virtue which are scrambled as diversions after the Ptolemy crew realized that their location has been compromised.
HRL transport vessel
The HRL force consists of four multi-purpose transport vessels loaded with mobile suits. The vessel type codename is written as ラオホゥ in katakana, so it’s probably either Raohou or Laohou. I’m guessing it’s 牢厚, but I’m not sure.
According to Sumeragi’s plans, Kyrios and Virtue (top and bottom) are meant to be obvious diversions. She is hoping that the enemy will see through it and therefore ignore them.
Following that, she plans to have them circle around from the back and, together with Exia and Dynames which remain on Ptolemaios, form a classic pincer attack.
Unfortunately, Sergei is a fricking genius! He responds with his own diversion by sending two empty transport vessels to engage Kyrios and Virtue. Sumeragi doesn’t know that these two vessels have already unloaded their mobile suits and by the time she realizes it, it is too late for her to change her plan.
Unknown to the Ptolemy crew, the entire bulk of HRL’s mobile forces are actually concentrated around the two transport vessels heading towards them. Ptolemy, pinch!
Sergei’s tactic is brilliant on many levels.
Most importantly, the first move that he anticipates Ptolemaios to take upon realizing that it has been discovered is to head to the solar energy generator satellites. This is because the satellites give off electromagnetic radiation that interferes with communication, thus camouflaging the interference caused by the ship’s GN particles. And Sumeragi does indeed take that course of action. This is a fatal mistake because it cuts off Ptolemy’s communication with Kyrios and Virtue, allowing Sergei to lay an ambush for all three of them.
That said, Sumeragi is amazing too.
Within seconds of observing the enemy’s course of action, she deduces Sergei’s entire plan and even identifies him as the commanding officer in charge because he used the same tactic 18 years ago during the Fourth Solar War. Like seriously, how the heck can she do that? Of course, it’s too late by then as Ptolemy has already lost contact with Kyrios and Virtue and cannot tell them to head back.
I’ll leave the rest for you to appreciate when you watch the episode.
Speaking of Seikai, this episode does indeed give off the Seikai vibes. Ah, how I miss space combats fought in the two-dimensional planar universe with space-time bubbles and automated mines… Please for the love of Haruhi, watch Seikai no Monshou/Senki if you haven’t already. It’s one of the greatest sci-fi epics ever, according to me.
I digress. Moving on.
Screencaps
Lockon in a suit
Lockon visiting a grave
Lockon’s twin(?)
Evil(?) twin(?)
“Nice ass.” “Which one?”
Louise’s mother
Levitating earrings
Half the headline picture is a rooftop
Does she ever smile?
Representatives from the United Nations
DUN DUN DUN DUN!
OMG Felt is crying! T_T
Don’t come any closer you pervert!
My name is Neil Dylandi (no, really; that’s his real name)…
…and I am a child sex predator
What the hell is with that homoerotic blush?
Glow-in-the-dark Ptolemy
The peach ironman!
She doesn’t fire a single shot in this episode
I am kind of disturbed by the character dynamics between Felt and Lockon aka Neil… Felt, stay away from the abunai oniichan!
December 2nd, 2007 at 7:20 am
Are you sure Lockon’s last name isn’t Durande? That’s actually an Irish name (although it’s usually given as Durand)….
December 2nd, 2007 at 12:14 pm
Tom Yue:
That is possible… But ホゥ is read as “ho”. Felt pronounced it with a “o” sound instead of a “u” sound too.
Soulshift:
I did watch that lol. It’s good, especially Shizuka-sama. :P
Meebo:
I’m not sure actually. But the katakana says “dirandi”, so I don’t think it is Durande or Durante.
December 2nd, 2007 at 1:13 pm
About the twins in the begining of the episode:
It’s almost 100% certain that Lockon-02, that one who just visited the grave to leave the flowers was the Original Lockon’s brother, because Lockon-02 asks himself “It could be him?”, meaning that Lockon-02 hasn’t seen his original self for a long time.
So our Lockon is the one hidden behind the tree. He’s (much) faster than Lockon-02 and left flowers earlier than his Copypasta.
December 2nd, 2007 at 2:14 pm
DM:
Well, I was playing fast and loose with the pronounciation; I don’t actually, uh, /speak/ Japanese, just like how the producers don’t actually seem to /speak/ Chinese. :p
Since the official website did out Soma Pieris’ Tieren as Taozi (what a !@#$ing horrible name), I have a fairly strong impression that “tiger” (laohu) is what the producers wanted to go for, but they juuuuuust couldn’t quite get there…
December 2nd, 2007 at 2:36 pm
I guess it does make more sense than the thing I came up with.
But still, at least Taozi sounded like it. >_<
December 2nd, 2007 at 10:34 pm
Seriously the pink mecha looks like a polygonal peach to me.
I don’t know if this is a coincidence or what, but Haro looks like a giant orange. Is there a fruit plot behind all these?
December 3rd, 2007 at 4:36 am
Soma is probably finally like “About time that we have an improved cockpit”. It seems like the peach ms even has wider ranger of view than the gundams
December 3rd, 2007 at 8:15 am
Bah, Sumeragi did choose the worst course of action possible she was faced with an ambush and possessed superior forces. She should have fought her way through it instead of splitting her forces and losing the most vital thing when facing an ambush, communications. Any serious ambush means that the path of retreat would have been cut off and the flanks would be threatened, as such the forces in front are traditionally meant to hold the ambushed in place with firepower being stronger on the flanks to rake the enemy.
Looks like as much things change many things stay the same the UN is corrupt and toothless as it ever was with Alejandro corner as General Secretary. No doubt he has presided over a greater disaster than Food for Oil or that annoying issue of UN peacekeepers behaving themselves around under age girls in warzones… Still this meeting of a shouta-con and a loli-con could prove interesting.
Still Nice to see the HRL being busy during their extended absence due to Saji and Louise. Soma finally got a new HUD.
December 3rd, 2007 at 8:52 am
Ah, yet another cliffhanger? Well we know what will happen pretty much. Seeing as how it is way too early for Celestial Being to get killed off, they will either pull out some awesome strategic…strategy. Or some weapon that will blow all the enemies to pieces! Like a minni-sized Reqiuem or the guns off of Gundam Freedom (lol).
December 3rd, 2007 at 10:35 am
Heh. I don’t think Alejandro is the General Secretary? He’s just the UN envoy for that particular UN initiative.
December 3rd, 2007 at 11:41 am
I’m fairly certain that there’s just two Neil twins and the one that came early was Lockon while the second one was the normal one. I figure the backstory goes something like Lockon joined CB shortly after the terrorist attack leaving his twin brother behind.
Also there’s been an awful lot of Feltservice going on in these past two episodes, I hope they’re not setting her up to die.
December 3rd, 2007 at 11:42 am
About Sumeragi deducting the whole plan, she didn’t realize that the HRL wanted the gundams way too late else she wouldn’t split them up in the first place. Another fatal mistake that she made. The gundams are weak on their own (expect for surprise attacks of cuz) because they all have glaring weaknesses in terms of weapons.
December 3rd, 2007 at 11:46 am
And another thing, it’s funny how she told alleujah that if they get attacked during maintenance all they can do is blame God. That sure bit her back in the ass bad. She should have forced everyone to stay in their positions (incl herself) until the gundams finish maintenance. She lets her guard off too easily. Hopefully she won’t make the same mistake again.
December 3rd, 2007 at 12:55 pm
I kept pronouncing Sergei as “Sir Gay” in my mind while reading. Haven’t watched it though so I dunno if it’s really pronounced that way.
Oh and Felt’s too ugly for Lockon =( It’s her hairstyle…
December 3rd, 2007 at 4:28 pm
Sergei is awesome. Knew it from the first time i saw him.
Felt and ugly in the same sentence? kay
Why would it be more dangerous to split up when they wanna catch the gundams then when they wanna destroy them anyway?
December 3rd, 2007 at 6:42 pm
Well this was more enjoyable than 8. It felt more cohesive.
December 3rd, 2007 at 10:21 pm
I’m pretty sure Sumeragi operation’s general goal is to eliminate the enemy as quickly and cleanly as possible. If she were to gather all her troops at one point, no matter how powerfull the gundams are, it’ll still take quite some time to eliminate four fully armed squadrons. Not to mention that if she does do that, there’s a chance that the HCL troops might meet up with reinforcements before attacking.
In actuality, that plan would have been great as far as the situation gets if the enemies plan was to destroy or capture the mothership. As it turns out, it was an almost total failure. Lets just hope they manage to wring it somehow.
December 3rd, 2007 at 11:05 pm
Wow, first time CB getting their ass handed to them. This is the first episode that really got me wanting for more!
Sergei’s strategy really blew me off. At first I was disappointed that he actually sent his men to die at the hands of Kyrios and Virtue, but he really made great use of empty kamikaze vessels and so far only lost a few units at most.
Looks like Sumeragi and the Meisters are pwned this time, but maybe Veda has something interesting for us in the next episode :D
December 4th, 2007 at 10:27 am
Great work! Can’t wait for more.
December 4th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
иуиудуиылфнф ырщекф зуды вуиукф ыршифп ыектншг срвыислытоыимав аит лавд 9гп а каугав кпамк цйывакеры ак в пк увр вак н ее ы ву е ногоню