Gundam 00 — Episode 16
The cardinal laws of Gundam story-telling: When things go wrong, it just means that it’s time to throw new Gundams at them, and when animators fall behind schedule, it’s time to do a recap episode and disguise it as real content.
Summary
Three new Gundams save the day.
Gundam Throne Eins piloted by Johann Trinity has some kind of long range cannon thing. It is also very black, like a bottomless abyss sucking away the hopes and aspirations of humankind.
Gundam Throne Zwei piloted by Michal Trinity launches little flying thingies that look and move just like funnels except that they don’t shoot lasers but rather ram the targets. EDIT: Eh. I guess they do shoot lasers after all. That’s what I get for watching the episode at midnight and writing the review 15 hours later…
Gundam Throne Drei piloted by Neina Trinity can expand its GN particle field to a really large area in an intentional wing-like spread that looks almost biblical. She calls it the “stealth field” because it disrupts enemy sensors over a large area, but I find it a little ironic to call such a firework display stealthy.
Together, the three of Gundam Thrones rescue Setsuna and friends and wrap things up before the commercial break. The battle itself is somewhat anticlimactic. There’s pretty much no fighting at all; it’s basically a bunch of mobile suits getting blown up by the Thrones. Just when the Gundams finally seemed to be evenly matched, the balance of power suddenly reverts back to the unilateral pwnage that we’ve been seeing since episode 1.
And the rest of the episode is spent on ten minutes of old recap clips with new voice-overs by Alejandro and his Guardian buddies. That’s not too say that it’s totally useless because we get to learn more about the organization behind Celestial Being, but it just feels kind of lazy of Sunrise to have a clip show at this point of the story.
This scene, where Alejandro and the other Guardians are discussing about the new Gundam Thrones, is reminiscent of Evangelion’s SEELE, with each Guardian being represented by a piece of artwork instead of a black numbered monolith. (Speaking of that, Throne Drei’s red “wings” look like the Evangelion ones too!)
“I paid a trillion dollars for this painting to drill a hole through it.”
“I like to pretend that I am invisible.”
“This statue emphasises my superior intellect.”
“I have no idea what this is supposed to be, and I am too rich to care.”
Celestial Being and the Guardians are two separate organizations that are part of a larger system that we still don’t know much about. It is also not explained as to whether Aeolia Schenberg founded Celestial Being as a member of this greater power or as the founder of the overall parent organization, but I think it’s probably the former.
The role of Celestial Being is to conduct armed interventions and force change upon the world, while the role of the Guardians is to watch over Celestial Being so as to keep it in check. The Guardians are mostly powerless to act except in the case where there is a unanimous consensus among all the Guardians, in which case they are as a whole empowered to veto any decisions made by Celestial Being.
As far as the Guardians know, there should only be five functional solar furnaces in existence. Therefore, the appearance of three new Gundams is a surprise to them. Sumeragi and the rest are equally clueless, so we can conclude that Celestial Being, or at least the branch of Celestial Being that we currently know, has nothing to do with the Thrones, the implication being that this mysterious supernational organization has other operating divisions beyond the Guardians and Celestial Being.
And well, we finally have a female Gundam pilot, Neina Trinity. She’s okay I guess, but her brothers give off villain vibes at over nine thousand times the background radiation level.
The Trinity
“I’m pretending to be Buddhist.”
…They are totally not siblings.
Also, Neina has a purple (evil) Haro.
Apparently the next episode will be action-packed, or so the episode preview says. But I don’t trust G00’s episode previews any more.
January 27th, 2008 at 5:51 pm
I’ll just anticipate the appearance of the next female to appear in an anime show and blindly claim her stupid intellect and retarded personality to be hot and then brand her as my e-penis belonging. When she becomes popular I can claim that I liked her first or just kick her away when she turns out to be in the discount bin.
January 27th, 2008 at 6:27 pm
G00’s getting totally crap now… Emo Meisters + overkill Gundams makes crap.
January 27th, 2008 at 6:38 pm
“Also, Neina has a purple Haro.”
Evil Haro..Evil Haro..XD
January 27th, 2008 at 6:43 pm
Looks like we’ve got to wait for more things to be revealed about these 3. As of now we can only make assumptions about the Trinity.
January 27th, 2008 at 6:47 pm
Gundam Throne Zwei’s funnels shoot lasers. That’s during his second try at Sergei and Soma. And talking about overkill now. How’s anyone gonna win against that?
I love their interface though. A half sphere monitor. Dunno how to phrase it any better.
January 27th, 2008 at 9:08 pm
Hot Damn. At least they are not three fat dudes like the original trinity. 5 furnaces? 4 original Gundams, therefore there is still an unaccounted furnace somewhere? Maybe PG&E is using it.
January 27th, 2008 at 10:12 pm
It can be assumed that Celestial Beings have one more Gundam being made, or that furnace could be stolen. The last furnace could even be on Ptolemaios too.
January 27th, 2008 at 10:14 pm
Yep, this episode was not that great. The next has the Flags going at it with the Thrones, should be better
January 27th, 2008 at 10:29 pm
Maybe the Guardians use it for keeping their huge cylindrical room warm in winter.
January 27th, 2008 at 10:32 pm
wow that has to be the most diabolical looking Haro I have ever seen.
January 27th, 2008 at 10:42 pm
purple haro will destroy the world.
January 27th, 2008 at 11:09 pm
Don’t you mean when ‘things get routine’?
I expect plenty of angst at being replaced by the next generation (or next wave?) of Gundams before Veda (whoever that is) predicted it. And rivalry.
Or perhaps they’ll convert their solar furnaces over and kick ass in tandem, but that is quite unlikely.
January 27th, 2008 at 11:22 pm
By “when things go wrong”, I don’t mean that the story goes bad, since it’s indeed been bad for some time. What I mean is that the first batch of Gundams get their ass kicked, so it’s time to throw in some new ones.
January 28th, 2008 at 2:50 am
i thought the official romanization of the Trinity’s names were Johan, Michael, and Nena
January 28th, 2008 at 4:41 am
It could be that the other solar furnace is on Gundam 0, the ONE GUNDAM that Setsuna has a crush on
January 28th, 2008 at 5:10 am
A random guess:
There could be some hint as to why Johann looks such an allelujah-alike.
‘Johann Sabastian Bach - the composer of the piece ‘Allelujah”
an interesting coincidence, or a hint of something?
January 28th, 2008 at 5:10 am
Maybe the Guardians will also have telekenetic powers like the Second Foundation.
January 28th, 2008 at 5:48 am
I smell a gundam seed type of development. Trinity vs. Celestial Being? like Kira and buddies vs. the world’s gundams? I dunno, but its just a hinge… an itch behind my gundam analyzing brain.
Does anyone know when Initial D fifth stage is coming out.. gundamm 00 is becoming too predictable… or so it seems…
January 28th, 2008 at 5:55 am
Sunrise loves to put in clip shows (recaps). This one is done without wasting an entire episode, but it’s still disappointing to see one in a way.
Since we’ve got more mysteries instead of having things geting cleared up, I’ll just wait ’til Sunrise leaks out more info via magazines or in the next episode.
January 28th, 2008 at 6:28 am
Good god, these new Gundams are overpowered. And I thought things were too one-sided with just the first group. I mean seriously… if Celestial Being and Team Deus Ex Machina are teaming up, how are we even going to PRETEND to have intense, outcome-in-doubt conflicts anymore? I think it’s high-time for Graham to go on a killing spree and just slice about half the Gundams into ribbons.
But yes, Nena is hot. This makes up for a lot.