Gundam 00 — Episode 17
Wow cool, I actually found this episode to be pretty enjoyable, not because the writing suddenly took a turn for the better or anything (it didn’t), but because it’s just hilariously entertaining.
Now I may sound like I’m being sarcastic as usual, but I seriously enjoyed the sheer campiness of this episode. It’s kind of hard to describe, but at the risk of over-simplication: the episode’s so bad that it’s good. LOL.
Summary
The Trinity siblings come aboard Ptolemaios and some awkward pleasantries follow. The facade quickly disappears though, as it soon becomes clear to the crew of Ptolemaios that the three of them are a bunch of secretive jerk wads with some serious mental health issues.
I mean, they claim to be siblings related by blood. Seriously?
“We really are siblings. I’m just really tanned, that’s all.”
Nena apparently has a thing for Setsuna. This is subtlety conveyed to the audience by having her perform a mouth-to-mouth on him within five seconds of meeting him for the first time. Girls are sure liberal in the future.
“I love rebellious guys.”
Chuuuu~
Classy. This serves as a timely reminder for the audience that, yes, Setsuna is still the main character by virtue of the fact that he gets the chicks. (Even the crazy ones.)
We discover the shocking truth that evil Haro is actually Haro’s brother! This is unexpected because a father-son relationship is the industry standard for such a situation, but more so because toy spherical robots shouldn’t have siblings! Also, we learn from a scene at the start of this episode that purple Haro is actually over eighty years old! Good lord! This means that Haro’s little harem is probably more like a grandma bridge club!
Niiiisan!
That aside, evil Haro appears to have had its memories wiped when it was reprogrammed for evil because it doesn’t recognize our poor Haro, its long-lost mechanical sibling, at all. It should also be noted that big brother Haro swears like a 7th grade Halo 3 player and has eyes that blink with a glow of +3 evil. Jeez, Sunrise is sure going all out to ensure that the audience is not confused by any traces of ambiguity in the plot, huh?
Back to the main story: The trio refuses to answer any question about themselves and, every five seconds or so, Michal threatens to massacre everyone and his/her pet dog. Their real intention soon becomes clear when Nena slips off to secretly access Veda’s terminal unit, which in the eyes of Tieria is probably tantamount to having his wife raped by a stranger. The Trinitys leave after accomplishing their goal of defiling Tieria’s precioussssss, to carry out their next mission.
The rest of the episode is basically the trio spectacularly blowing up a MSWAD base and killing two recurring characters who will no doubt soon be replaced by identical personality stereotypes.
Wow, is that a Sputnik model behind him?
It is revealed that Gundam’s power generation mechanism depends on a certain mathematical theory, topological defect, and somehow this means that the devices have to be manufactured on Mars Jupiter! The logic overwhelms. So Jupiter is in some way related to 1) evil Haro, 2) GN drives and 3) Aeolia Schenberg’s real objective. Just don’t ask me how exactly.
By the way, those Haros need to talk less. A whole lot less.
Screencaps
Trinitys’ ship has four solar furnaces on board
Eviiiiiiilll
Travel in style
Posing
Many thanks to Sunrise for the helpful gender stereotyping
Sumeragi is not fooled!
Why aren’t all Gundams black considering they can only be tracked visually in space?
*wink*
Setsuna is not amused. *tsuntsun*
“Don’t piss me off! It’s that time of the month.”
Nena inside Veda
You know Howard’s going to die because he gets more dialogue lines than usual
Eins and Drei can combine, with Eins firing GN particles produced by Drei
So who said G00 wasn’t a super robot anime again?
Howard heroically charges at Throne Zwei…
…and receives multiple penetrations
Louise sets herself up for death in the near future
From episode preview: Okay not really, but close enough
This episode calls for a Futurama quotation from good old Bender: “Bender knows when to use finesse.” And so does Sunrise. (Wonder if anyone will get the reference.) Real-life would be a whole lot more straightforward if everyone behaved like a G00 character.
P.S. Mendoi-Conclave releases are getting delayed because we are having a hard time finding our preferred HD raw. I suspect it may have something to do with this…
February 4th, 2008 at 5:35 pm
Kaioshin Sama
That’s a very wrong analysis because, if anything, G00 is one of the most “narrow” sci-fi shows around, topped only by other similar Gundam series.
PLANETES covers more themes in philosophy, politics, the human condition and *gasp* actual science fiction than you can shake two sticks at. It’s genuine story-writing at work.
G00 brought in things like politics in an attempt to appear sophisticated, but subsequently discarded them in favour of simple fangirl baiting. It provides a superficial over-simplified world view that is easy for people like ferret to understand due, but thoroughly wrong and illogical. On the whole, it is closer to Naruto than Asimov.
And realism is not plausibility, so please do not misunderstand me. I am critical of G00 because its story is not plausible, not because it’s not realistic.
I love shows like Seikai no Senki, Evangelion, Nadesico and Juuni Kokki, and they are anything but realistic. As I’ve already mentioned, I’m willing to overlook transgressions of the laws of science because future tech is by nature unpredictable. That is not my issue with G00.
In every show that can reasonably be called “good”, the audience is able to identify the forces driving each character and the multitude of complex reasoning behind the character’s actions which give him/her human-like characteristics: that is what ultimately induces the viewer to feel for the characters and the story.
Characters in G00 are basically puppets that do what their stereotypes call for. They seek to achieve one single objective in life and react to everything that happens to them in the same predictable manner. They are empty, soulless and implausible caricatures masquerading as characters.
Realism, in the sense of authentic “hard science”, has nothing to do with my point of contention, although I did appreciate it when it was present in PLANETES.
Hexlord
It’s never too bad to think too much. You won’t know enough to tell what is “worth” thinking if you try to think about only things you consider to be “worth” thinking about. I don’t believe in “ignorance is bliss”.
February 4th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
Thinking to much can be bad, I agree. I also have a simple solution to that when it comes to this anime. If you don’t like it stop watching it. If You have time to nitpick over every little detail. get a life. Except DM, he provides a place for me to get a laugh at idiots running their mouths. Even if those idots leave it will still be worht coming here just because the nature of this anime can provoke some interesting and decently intelligent conversation.
February 4th, 2008 at 8:01 pm
@DM: The reason I agreed thinkg to much can be bad is simply because if you do you can find sumthing wrong with anything and that will lead to the enjoymeant of nothing. I agree with your stereo type judgment to a degree. I think they overplayed the stereotype by alot, however they did get it right too, at least they got alot of what human nature really is. However this is just my opinion. Lastly, from what I’ve heard that PLANETES show is in a different class of anime than G00, and it’s not right to compare them. Not in that its better or worse, But more like in genre. That show is more sci-fi and focused on people, where as G00 is action and mindless violence. They obviously have completely different focuses, even tho G00 did try to do the whole sociol-political thing at first.
@Kaioshin Sama: DM is entitled to his opinion let him have it. BTW any way you look at SEED it simply sucked. Also I did watch one other gundam series: Wing, it was much better than G00, let alone SEED.
Now I have two more things to say. Firs: I think its still to early to judge this show, Aren’t they making another season? If so its not to late to turn it around. Second: Why don’t we get back to the G00 focus rather than discussing other animes and comparing them, at least animes of different genre.
February 4th, 2008 at 8:29 pm
“You know Howard’s going to die because he gets more dialogue lines than usual”
lol, so true!
Your reviews are always very entertaining, man. This one’s particularly funny! The “posing” screencap looks like they took it straight out of a band or something.
Well, I’ve been watching Gundam since the UC era. No particular preference but I sure do like UC stuff. I thought SEED and Destiny was O-K only. Quite draggy sometimes, don’t you find? Anyone watch Dragonar too?
I was kinda disappointed when they did that flashback thing again. Sometimes makes me wonder, is it really about just rushing for deadlines or doing a quality animation. I don’t fully understand how the Anime industry works but, I don’t mind waiting 1 to 2 weeks so I can get a well-done episode.
Anyway, Thank You for always posting up the fast reviews man. And keep the blogging spirit up!
P.S. - Yes and I agree Planetes rocks!
February 4th, 2008 at 8:45 pm
OK, I get it. Thanks.
February 4th, 2008 at 9:33 pm
DM:
I guess what you said do make sense after all. So why not take a break from being online and stuff… maybe think about the things that you have said so far to the other readers.
Nobody here is championing the idea that “ignorance is bliss”. I personally do not think that “don’t think too much” is an equivalent to that 3-word phrase.
Anyway, its just a show. :)
February 5th, 2008 at 2:37 am
@DM: Well for most characters I think I have identified the force driving them, and other none major characters I feel I will. I think it can be considered a fault that there is still unrevealed information behind each character at this stage, but I trust it will come around. Well, I hope…….
I also agree that that is what makes for a good series. I get a lot of pleasure out of understanding why a character behaves the way they do, even if it isn’t within normal behavioural patterns because of some experience or belief system they have had.
Also any blogger that says they promote critical thinking is a friend of mine regardless of whether I agree with them on things or not because there are so precious few out there that do. I strive to be one of the ones that do.
Seriously, had I been on almost any other blog I probably would have gotten a face full of meme as responses and turned away by now having not learned or thought of anything. Here, I keep coming back because I’m getting new things to ponder and discuss.
February 5th, 2008 at 5:02 am
Heh, I agree completely. The discussion may be a bit off topic, but when the the ignorant ones aren’t running their mouths about things they don’t understand the discussions here are pretty intelligent. I know I don’t know eerything but at least I can admit when i dont and try to understand more when i know i don’t.
Btw here’s an interesting saying I once read:
Don’t argue with idiots, they’ll bring you down to their level and then beat you with experience
I think thats true, and it one of the reasons I don’t like argueing with them.
February 5th, 2008 at 6:02 am
Well, though I am a Gundam SEED fanboy, i can’t help but enjoy G00. Though i’m sure everyone loves the pure invincibility of gundams such as Freedom and Justice, I like this strategy type of combat as well. I only hope that the producers hurry it up with the damn GN-arms so we can go ahead wipe the floor with the Trinity Gundams just because they annoy me. We all know that the only advantage they have against the original four is that they have 15 episodes worth of info on them. Though I really hope Nena doesn’t get hurt, she’s cute ^.^, even if she is tad bit crazy!
February 5th, 2008 at 7:11 am
Hexlord:
You are being really condescending and if that is not your intention you should try to reconsider the way you treat others when you pretend to adhere to common etiquettes. This is also a real-life observation.
Kaioshin Sama:
I’d say that the kind of single-minded driving force behind every character in G00 is of a different nature from the forces that drive us in our interactions with the world.
Tama:
The problem is that it is awfully thin on strategy, especially in recent episodes. Not much different from SEED now, anyway.
February 5th, 2008 at 8:54 am
DM:
You probably think too much, but I will consider what you have said.
And hopefully we can have more of this real-life observation? :)
February 5th, 2008 at 9:47 am
There are unhappiness in our daily life against the people, the policy of the company or goverment.
Because of this, we should enjoy the story of CB against the world.
Because in the real world, you cannot go against the world unless you have power.
All i want after a day work is to enjoy the anime without thinking too much unless you are watching detective conan. lolz…
Enjoy the story…
I wonder when will that ali guy die a horrible death?
Before the end of this season gundam 00?
Graham should be able to survive until to the next season…
February 5th, 2008 at 10:10 am
Good point about Ali. Why did Deus Ex let him go?
February 5th, 2008 at 11:59 am
I don’t understand what was so bad about SEED? The storyline was clear yet innovative, and most of the characters were thoroughly developed. True, there were some stupid mistakes with small parts of the plot, and if you notice a lot of scenes(mostly combat scenes) were overused and repeated. But there was just something about the theme of the story that caught my eye. I want to make it clear that I am only talking about Gundam Seed and not Destiny because I believe that the whole second season ended as remake of the first with only a couple of more characters. So in the end Destiny pretty much ruined what Seed had accomplished. And what I believe to be one of the best Gundam series ever made.
February 5th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
Oh, btw did anyone notice how long Setsuna’s pause was when the girl asked him if he wanted to come with her? XD hilarious.
February 5th, 2008 at 4:48 pm
@ Zoso
Ha. I do not think anyone is really dissing SEED. It is just a matter of the three works that have been mentioned previously (PLANETES, Gundam SEED and Gundam 00) appealing to people of different preferences.
There is a big difference between a reasonable work and a realistic work. Gundam SEED was more inclined towards being reasonable as a story rather than being a realistic one. That is why some may not have high regards for it.
February 5th, 2008 at 7:38 pm
darkmirage I fucking LOVE your blogentries about Gundam00. I would have kicked the show in the garbage can but your entries make it worth watching. I’m laughing my ass off. great just great!
thanks a lot!
February 5th, 2008 at 10:01 pm
Reply 54:
I doubt Ali will die for a while. He’s one of the characters i bet will survive to the next season. Otherwise, there will be pretty much little left to talk about Setsuna F. Seiei. That’s what writers do nowadays: never kill off an important character until near the end, whether protagonist or antagonist.
I expect a few others to survive at the end of Season 1 too, although to a lesser extent [b]at least 1 of the Throne members[/b]
Not to mention, only 3 of the 4 Meisters (excluding the Thrones) have their past revealed. But what about Tiera? What is the developer hiding about him for 17+ episodes? The only thing we know about him is his relation with the Artificial Intelligence Veda.
February 5th, 2008 at 10:02 pm
On one note, it appears I can’t put a phrase above in bold. :(
February 6th, 2008 at 12:46 am
I doubt Elfman is really dead. People do not really die in Gundam, they are imbued with the uncanny ability to slip pass danger no matter how great the odds are.
Elfman is gonna return and create a pink gundam for Setsuna that is capable of shooting taiyakis.