Gundam 00 — Episode 22
Once upon a time there were three siblings (one with an unhealthy obsession with his sister) living happily in the forest. One day, a big bad mercenary appeared in front of them and shot two of them dead.
When story writers run out of ideas, character deaths are the best way to emulate plot progression, just like how lazy anime bloggers write crappy episode reviews instead of coming up with original content. *cough*
Summary
“Arrrr. Shiver me timbers! There be landlubbers about!”
Lockon is fine! He needs three weeks to heal completely, but meanwhile he is wearing this pirate eye patch that is making Feldt all hot and bothered. She is jealous of the homoerotic tensions between Lockon (seme) and Tieria (uke), who by the way isn’t even human (bestiality?).
“Aeolia Schenberg hates our freedom (to kill each other).”
The UN keeps up its attack on and Trinity siblings, driving them to the brink of exhaustion. It calls its new anti-Gundam operation Fallen Angels and is taking credit for “developing” the GN-X weaponry system. Politics: take credit for everything but do nothing.
The Old Glory getting an upgrade
Graham’s Custom Flag is getting a GN drive. I guess someone took my advice on making a Flagdam! But I still think that my idea of swapping the heads make more sense since the body of a Flag is clearly not designed to disseminate GN particles…
“Setsuna, you’re our only hope!”
Setsuna decides to go down to Earth and give the UN a piece of his mind, and to finally prove to himself that his precious Gundam is the best-est Gundam in the whole world. I am Gundam! Gundam. Also, the new GN arms’ assault container can apparently launch into space by itself, so everything’s cool even though Exia can’t use the space elevators anymore. (How convenient.)
“Hi.” *Bang*
Ali, everyone’s favourite psychotic serial-killing mercenary, is back and he kills Michel within seconds of appearing in this episode. (Must be some kind of world record.) Hurray! one less annoying siscon in this world. Ali then proceeds to hijack Zwei, which has its biometric lock disabled by the hacked Veda, and pwns Johann with it.
Exia is anorexic
Exia appears in the nick of time to save Neena from certain death. I guess this means that Neena will soon turn over a new leaf, join Celestial Being and possibly become Setsuna’s personal sex slave.
Hannibal rising
Libonze finally manages to unlock Veda completely. Aeolia Schenberg’s cryogenically frozen ass shows up and he gets shot in the face a few times by Alejandro with a solid gold handgun that fires silver anti-vampire bullets.
“Oh snap! Why didn’t I keep my body in a bulletproof glass… Or didn’t I?”
But Aeolia planned for this and a hidden contigency routine in the system causes Veda to unlock all the (real) GN drives to function at their full potential. (Begging the question as to why Aeolia crippled them in the first place.) This happens just in time to save Setsuna from making a fool of himself as usual.
Red makes you go three times as fast
And by “full potential”, I mean “flamboyant red paint scheme”.
Instead of destroying Ali and ending this whole shit once and for all, Setsuna chops off a bit of Zwei and gracefully steps back to allow Ali to escape, while he hovers motionlessly in the air trying to strut the coolest pose he can muster with a bright glowing-red Gundam.
“I AM GUNDAM!!!”
Frankly I seriously don’t understand Michel’s role in this whole story; he took up way too much airtime for a character who was just there to die. But I’m just glad that he’s dead.
Screencaps
GN arms’ assault container
Sleeping beauty
Would you trust your life with this doctor? He’s clearly blind!
Feldt stalks Lockon
“Tieria, why won’t you accept my feelings?”
Training to be a whore
This makes sense…
Please do not adjust your TV
It’s funny how Gundams always hold each other like people do
Those crazy European designers
Don’t do drugs
Oh noz
The victorious hunter poses for a shot with his prize
Alejandro loves his bling
You know it’s more powerful because it glows now
This must be some kind of futuristic radio channel
By the way, Mendoi-Conclave’s release is being delayed at episode 20 due to intensive typesetting involved in recreating Saji’s cellphone messages. Don’t kill the messenger/translator!
March 9th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
“I wonder how Marina is feeling after Setsuna cheated on her……”
With what? A Gundam? You know, the only reason he saved Nena was for the Gundam. He feels lonely with only one ):
March 9th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
Now that Corner has complete access to Veda, I wouldn’t be surprised if he turned Veda against them and used it to create plans against the meisters.
Season 2 Sumeragi vs Evil Veda in a battle of who is the better strategist, Setsuna actually gets it on with Marina, Lockon accepts Felt’s feelings, and Tieria and Nene have some cyber ***
March 9th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
Just IMAGINE what happens when ALL 4 Gundams activate the trans-am system at once…
…major pwnage!!
March 9th, 2008 at 7:05 pm
Strange, I’m still watching gundam while I dropped dragonaut already(right after the time skip). I wouldn’t really say dragonaut’s script is any better than 00 when it mainly consists of “hide and seek” and rescue who ever is in trouble.
I wouldn’t be so sure about Setsuna and Neena being a couple either. Considering the increase amount of body count, and the fact this is gundam, I don’t think Neena will even be able to make it pass season 1.
March 9th, 2008 at 7:07 pm
It should be pretty obvious to everyone that the Trans-Am is a reference to the Pontiac Trans Am, which in turn had a whole TV series revolving around it involving a talking car with a turbine engine. Uh, a reference in that it’s way out there, just like the Knight Industries 2000.
March 9th, 2008 at 9:37 pm
True. Although I don’t think Lockon would be able to use the rifle thanks to his eye.
We’ll soon see if the limitless running time for the GN Drive will be affected with the “full potential” unlocked.
March 9th, 2008 at 10:29 pm
Ah just as I expected. A GN flag for Graham.
I wonder.. how do the Fallen Angels charge their GN-X ? Do they use the solar furnace retrieved from the Trinitys?
If so, will they reverse engineer that one?
So I guess Wang Liu Ming is now working with CB again, since the Thrones are wiped out. Will Lockon get Neenas Gundam? It has a Haro Slot so it makes perfect sense.
March 9th, 2008 at 11:01 pm
Heading for clifhanger season ending - check :p
Seems to be a good ep though. Having someone like Ali pilot Zwei with big ass sword and Fangs should alteast be a little challange. But that makes me wonder, how do they controll the fangs?
But oh well, have to wait for the subs.
March 10th, 2008 at 12:15 am
@Johannes: Nah, don’t think they’ll take Nena’s Gundam from her. The bad pun in Lockon’s name will lose it’s meaning then. Besides, someone mentioned Dynames was in next week’s preview, so all seems well with it. And also, how do you think Nena will endure being Gundam-less? I bet she’ll throw a tantrum, and I really don’t want to see that! XD
March 10th, 2008 at 1:04 am
this is why gundam’s my favorite
March 10th, 2008 at 2:35 am
*looks in feldts direction* hmm,i feel another hinata forming here, with a slight dash of rei added for good measure
alejandro having a gold pistol comes as no suprise to me, i always knew he was a pimp, with his flashy space-yacht thingy and that cabin-boy libonze at his beck and call
when are we going to see the standard flag used more? that thing has seen bugger all combat in the entire series, now that i think about it, neither has the mass production version of the enact
i am noticing a recurring theme in the gundam franchise, namely the arch nemesis having a mobile suit with remote weapons (the zeong, sazabi, and providence gundam spring to mind)
i was hoping team trinity would’ve lasted a bit longer than 7 episodes, oh well, no one liked michael anyway, he will not be missed
March 10th, 2008 at 2:36 am
finally, Nena comes to the light side. And we finally see Ali Al scram away like the filthy little rodent he is. I can’t wait to see operation Fallen Angels bust when they can’t so much as see the Trans Am modified Gundams.
March 10th, 2008 at 4:33 am
Wow, I didn’t think I’d feel bad for Neena, I guess I’m just a too nice for this show, lulz.
Also, Alejandro’s Golden gun seemed to have pretty little ammunition…
Happy that the Flag’s getting a GN Drive though, as I still consider it the coolest mecha in this show. ( :
(I guess it’s pretty sad that the coolest mech in a gundam show isn’t the gundam, in my opinion that is)
March 10th, 2008 at 5:06 am
Interesting addition to Exias abilities…. i wonder a) how many times he forgets to use it during battle, and b) how long it takes the combined nations of the world to counter it!!
Personally i have a feeling that each Gundams ‘unlocked’ mode will be different, i mean think about it, the only reason Exia needs to move around so much and so fast is because its a close quarters fighter unlike the other Gundams.
Add to this the fact we have already seen Virtue under go a change and become Nadleeh, with the link to Veda it cripples anything with a GN Drive… though how much use Nedleeh is now has yet to be seen! I really hope they don’t take the easy route and just give all the Gundams the same ’super-power’ and really work out something which draws on the abilities of the custom units and their pilots!!
March 10th, 2008 at 9:28 am
OMG! Lockon is lovable!
Shiver me timbers! XD
March 10th, 2008 at 11:54 am
If you take the storyboard from a larger perspective, and number of weak twists per episode ratio… you can clearly see the extremely horrid planning if any that has gone in this anime. It is almost sad. Anyone could come up with a better twist than the crap we get to “admire” in double 0.
Basically, Kill off the characters they are too lazy to develop because they noticed that they had put a tad too many in the first place. The ones that don’t die are fogotten untill they get the minute of fame and simply come in out of nowhere. And some get a brief 10-sec apearance to remind us of their existence.
Apart from that… put the gundams in deep doo-doo by giving everyone GN-X suits… and the only way to get them out of that plot-hole is to make gundams simply more powerful than everthing.
All that only to leave way for an even more powerful enemy later on… (My only wish is that Graham kiks some sort of butt soon enough)
Am I seeing Mobile Suit Z here or something?
Should this be irritating or entertaining?
I am currently making a joke parody of gundam because it is so easy to make fun of. hihihi.
I wonder what twist will they throw at us to end the season…
March 10th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
AWESOME! love it!.. I was waiting for Setsuna to kick some tail!… and I am happy those trinity kids vanished…. and no more Louise!!!!!!!!
March 10th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
This commentary has two completely seperate trains of thought going on at the same time. I need some popcorn or something.
@Kururu: So “this is Gundam” finally means character death instead of ressurection again like it should. The franchise has a long history of killing off characters who we think are critical to the story but aren’t really beyond a certain point. Anyone remember the Shrike Team, Teteth Halleh or Baran Blutarch?
March 10th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
They must have thought that Zeta Gundam is so successful because of the death count.
I really wish Nena would become like Fllay in Seed Yonkoma.
March 10th, 2008 at 8:56 pm
QUESTION TO YOU GUYZ!PLEAZE ANSWER PLEASE!!!
wt did they mean when they referred to Feldt as “going through ‘that’ age?” do they mean that she has a serious crush on John ‘Lockon’ Silver ? if that is the case then I p0o0or girl, i feel this serious is gettin’ a yaoi tide. soon you’ll c t-shirts flyin’ with smooches of 2 people of the same sex ( and i mean male!).
Seriously, if they had killed of Johann and Nina it would be way better to have that Michael as an extra hubby on celestial being.
Another question…..do u guyz rembr the girl who was supposedly handing over the shining-glowing GN drive -like ball round thingy to Setsuna at the first op theme of the serious ? At first i thought she was Marina , but after much consideration and micro-zooming the tests show clearly that that woman is no Marina!!! THEN WHO THE HELL IS SHE !??
i do hope they get more peopled involved with celestial being as this organization is running ‘apparently’ out of sponsors , 1st Aljendro then chinese girl then the corpse of Alioe shehenperg0o ( sorry about mispelling his name) exactly how much money does these ppl have !?