Gundam 00 — Episode 23
My exams are next week, so I don’t have time to say too much. Not that I have much to say anyway since episode 23 consists of twenty minutes of pretty explosions and ambiguous character deaths.
Pseudo Summary
Remember in the previous entry where I joked that Exia moves three times as fast with TRANS-AM because it turns red? Well, it turns out that it DOES move three times as fast. TRANS-AM boosts performance by releasing all GN particles stored on the Gundam at once, faster than the solar furnace can replenish them. Once TRANS-AM runs out of juice, the Gundam becomes underpowered until its GN drive can restore the particle count to normal level.
And GN-X has officially been downgraded to the cannon fodder units. They drop like flies in this episode.
Patrick’s cool streak is put to an end when he gets owned by a piece of flying space rock and spins off into the distance Team Rocket style. A few characters may or may not have died in this episode, but if they really do die, you can be sure that they will be resurrected in season two.
Also, lasers! Explosions! Green missile trails! Big guns! Non-stop action! And that’s about all I have to say about this episode.
Screencaps
Just so you know he’s dead
“I AM GUNDAM!”
Virginia class moving practice targets
“I will protect Lockon! *wub*”
Obsolete technology
Why does AEU let him keep the Gundam?
He received too much airtime for his own good
This formation is also called the cam whore formation
The director found a new plaything
Three times as fast!
The Gundam is sort of just standing there
It all returns to nothing / It just keeps tumbling down, tumbling down, tumbling down
This sequence seriously reminded me of Evangelion
She has nothing on Lafiel
“RAAAAWR!”
We can rebuild him. We have the technology
Déjà vu happens when they sudo gedit /usr/conf/matrix
Apparently that oversize futuristic Wiimote is detachable
Basically it’s a hollow tube with a piece of cellophane paper taped over the front lens
Right: a live alien speciment
Tieria mourns the loss of his seme
Geometric isomerism is a form of stereoisomerism caused by the restriction of rotation about a double bond or a cyclo-compound and the presence of different functional groups bonded to each of the two carbon atoms involved. I hate chemistry.
March 17th, 2008 at 11:17 am
@DarkMirage: If it’s such a chore to do entries on something that fails to maintain your interest, why blog about it at all?
And if there is still a valid reason to continue these blog entries, then why not give us something more along the lines of an insightful commentary instead of resorting to these joke entries that probably only took five minutes to write?
If your real life activities don’t allow for weekly entries with meaningful content, then just don’t bother with it.
March 17th, 2008 at 11:28 am
LOL @ unknown’s comments…..”strike-freedom invincible custom” lol
March 17th, 2008 at 11:51 am
Predicted series end: Alejandro dies, and aside from that, hundreds of cliffhangers! It wouldn’t make much sense to have a completely different second season with no relation to the first, so they’ll probably have cliffhangers in a lot of places and then go a few years in the future perhaps?
March 17th, 2008 at 11:59 am
The ‘cheese’ factor of the Trans-Am system wasn’t so bad as I first throught it was. Indeed it makes them faster and more powerful, but it’s not a switch they can just turn on indefinitely.
I found out after watching that the Trans-Am system works only for a ridiculously short amount of time (seed break probably lasted tons longer). It was enough for Virtue to get out one huge blast (just one D:), Kyrios managed to shoot down a few units, heck Exia just used it to move faster and it ran out before he got to fight anything.
I think that even if it’s an advantage to CB it wasn’t as imbalancing as I first thought when it was shown in the previous episode. Also after it wears off the Gundam’s operational levels supposedly drop drastically for some time.
But yeah, lots of ‘deaths’ and cracked helmets, but no corpses so let’s see who really bit the dust and who didn’t in the upcoming episodes.
March 17th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
DarkMirage, I could care less if you’re summaries are short (wrt exam crunch time, college sucks like that), but keep up the screen caps and funny excerpts; they get me through the work day (sad, I know).
March 17th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
@RmX,
Here’s the deal. It’s DM’s blog, he can do whatever the hell he wants here.
If it bothers you so much, don’t read.
March 17th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
I like your web, keeps me entertained.
March 17th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
@Ascaloth: I agree completely that it’s all his decision in the end. I’m just making my comments is all.
By the way, post on the genderbending topic more! We need one such as yourself working on this madness!
March 17th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
Yeah….University is balls as I found out 4 years and 1 degree later. I just took my degree and ran away as fast as I could. Reading text is interesting, but not when you are forced to cram 300+ pages in a couple of days around exam time….per course. Anyway I knew your focus had been elsewhere for a while now. Mine is too come to think of it, which is why I’m like 5-6 days after the fact with each episode. Any plans to continue through to the next season though?
@RmX: I’ve got the large summaries/thoughts covered so don’t worry about it.
@ryvrdrgn14: I think people are too eager to call each new ability the CB Gundam’s display overpowered without considering the drawbacks. It probably comes from having watched too much Seed, where each new Gundam was like an epoch leap by U.C Standards. Pretty much every “upgrade” has had a drawback so far. Nadleeh loses most of it’s armor for enhanced speed and access to the Trial System, Allelujah trades for the more effective Hallelujah at the cost of discretion, Lockons large sniper rifle made him immobile, GN Arms is just a bigger gun, and now Trans-Am is like a Mist Quickening where you trade all your available energy for the chance to do some serious damage.
March 17th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
@Kaioshin-dono: I’m not worried about you. I’m worried about here.
But I guess people are telling me I shouldn’t be interested in the blog’s contents at all, so I’ll just call it quits.
And that’s an interesting FFXII analogy. Wouldn’t have thought of that one.
March 17th, 2008 at 2:30 pm
Dark MIrage ROCKS! ur funny comments on screen shots will keep me laughing for years to come!
March 17th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
RmX: I do it because I think G00 deserves to be made fun of for pandering to yaoi fangirls and because (most) people enjoy reading these entries without taking them too seriously. I mean, if you think that G00, as it stands now 20 episodes later, still deserves serious episodic analysis, I’m sure you can get it elsewhere.
Anyway, I don’t see why I have to have a valid reason to blog, and in any case I would hardly call anime episode analysis a “valid reason”.
March 17th, 2008 at 10:41 pm
lols…tt part of chem is not tt bad wat…lol… quite slack…XD
March 17th, 2008 at 11:03 pm
@Firzen_net: ……Uh you know that tons of people do screenshot lampooning right?
@DM: Well most people don’t take my readings to seriously either, I’m just into giving a full analysis unless the episode of something is really brutally awful (it’s happened all of twice) in which case I cut it short and head to the thoughts. That hasn’t happened once with 00 though. The thing is we all poke fun at Tieria and his girlish looks, but we also measure the good parts of the series and in the end they far outweigh the aesthetic design of the characters being bishouneny. I myself make fun of the series all the time (Taking Gundam too seriously cannot work as a viewing method), but I make sure to get across that I am indeed enjoying it when I am.
Anyway like RmX it was a fun ride, but if that’s how you will continue with your blogging then I’m calling it quits too. It’s always fun commenting on blogs, but not when there’s less and less each week to comment about because the style has switched to making fun of the series rather then analysis. You stick to that and I’ll handle the episode analysis, which for me is a valid reason to blog. I mean we all have different reasons as you said (Sometimes you do music, sometimes I do as well, sometimes you do figurines, sometimes I do Trading Cards etc), none is right or wrong since such a thing doesn’t exist in this equation.
Anyway, good luck with your studies and as a bit of advice, it’s probably a good idea to finish the season and then take your leave of the series. Gundam as a franchise has predominantly been a character drama and politics only come up when they are relevant to the plot so this was never really what you were looking for if that’s your game (which it is for me too). For politics I would recommend something more like Legend of The Galactic Heroes.
March 17th, 2008 at 11:33 pm
Yes, I don’t take your blog entries seriously, I just read it coz it really makes me laugh. I’m a Gundam 00 fan and though your “reviews” are bashing the show, I know it’s just for humor’s sake.
March 17th, 2008 at 11:46 pm
About the political issues tackled in Gundam 00, I was hoping that a “People Power” revolution in Southeast Asia will be featured in the show. Somewhat a farfetched hope.
March 18th, 2008 at 12:34 am
Meh, I was talking to my friend on msn about ep23. Joking around with him, by saying something like “Lockon will return with a mask!” “Dynames has super-secret-integrated-METEOR when he activates its Trans-Arm” but that fellow was overly serious and responded strongly to my comments… “NO! Lockon cant return! ..blah blah blah… I’m stating the facts!” Well obviously he’s way into the anime and is doing some seriously analysis shit. Oh I’m sure mobile suits are real, letting kids pilot a possibly muti-million equipment is what every nation will do oh yes so true.
Aside from those, gundam00 to me is more like using the “future” to explain, if not criticise present day happenings. Another thing which makes 00 special is that unlike more other series, there will always be generic grunt-units around (zakus, goufs I dont know) while 00 uses tierens and sorts(please shoot me if the next season has GN-drive Zakus). I like what DM’s doing, cause its humorous, light-hearted and provides a side-track from the relatively heavy storyline. Yes I know my life is sad but people who try to explain animes with logic just creep me out. Big time.
March 18th, 2008 at 2:55 am
wow… darkmirage… lo orang indo…?? wah hebat banget,,,!!
March 18th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
lol…no local language here…i cant understand wat ure saying,udah udah…
March 18th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
I wonder why, lockon didnt use his Trans am…
His clone brother may come back with a mask though LOL.