Alleluia’s brief capture by the HRL awakens a darker
version of himself, one hellbent on death and destruction. With his origin revealed, Sumeragi ok’s a
dangerous mission for the dual personality Meister that he claims must be done
by his own hand. Meanwhile, the
kidnapping of a prolific Holy Leader brings Celestial Being to Azadistan. Setsuna confronts his past and once again
meets with Marina Ismail. If the
operation to reclaim their target fails, will Setsuna be true to his word and
unleash his mobile suit upon the country that destroyed his?
Whew, halfway done (with Season 1 anyway), almost hard to
believe. But hey, im happy ive been so
consistent with reviews for this endeavor…and im still enjoying it, every little
bit.
The series split into two halves this time, both dealing
evenly with central developments around Alleluia and Setsuna. Alleluia was up first. This isn’t the first time Gundam has delved
into soldiers being modified by the military.
It goes as far back as the original series with Cyber Newtypes created
by Zeon. The Super Soldier Project we
saw here falls into that vein of plot but takes it a bit further with
Alleluia’s freaky, survival fueled other half, Halleluiah. His torturous, slow kill of that one HRL
pilot was terrifying and it makes me worry about the safety of the other
Celestial Being crew members. I mean
yeah all of the Meisters have a past but how long until Alleluia snaps and his
other half tries to kill them all? I
might be reading too much into it and for now it seems that with the
destruction of the Super Human Institute and all of it’s child prodigies,
Alleluia’s matter has been put to rest.
Cudos to Sergei, who stepped up to put two and two
together about the Super Soldier matter and put the scientist on his team
connected to it behind bars. Of the military aces we’ve seen so far, Sergei has
been my favorite. With his age comes
wisdom and a fighting spirit that you cant help but respect. I also like his connection with Soma, who he
views not as a weapon but as someone who shouldn’t be on the battlefield but
he’ll do his best to protect her. He’s a
far cry from freaking Graham, who apparently we can add psychic deductibility
to his list of ego stroking annoyances.
His brief encounters with Lock On and Setsuna (the latter he met in
person) had his Gundam fantasies on display in full, managing to go toe to toe
with Lock On. As for his encounter with
Setsuna, again, we’ve seen rival meet under unusual circumstances. Heck, Amuro and Char met randomly while both
on leisurely strolls in a colony and didn’t really suspect they knew each
other…though Char is hard to not know cause of his mask. But Graham piecing together Setsuna is with
Celestial Being and possibly a Gundam pilot…I don’t know, I just don’t like how
he needs to be right about everything and so freaking confident, let Graham be
wrong for once.
The second half of this block took place in the Middle
East, with Setsuna and Celestial Being looking into the kidnapping of a
prolific religious figure head. The
payoff from this storyline was two fold: Setsuna coming home and seeing the
resolution to the entire matter. Setsuna
being unable to save child soldiers from the coup d’etat forces forced him to
the revelation that he cannot become a Gundam…but his determination to bring
Rachmadi back safe and sound renewed his determination to become the embodiment
of his Mobile Suit was a good rebound for him.
His brief exchange with Relena, er, Marina, was noteworthy as well,
telling her to fight for what she believes in much like he does. Celestial Being got put in a positive
spotlight around the world, but how long will that last I wonder.
With some strong stories this batch, we did get some
nitpicks and some of them are lessons not learned from prior ones. I am of course talking about Saji and
Louise. The “light hearted” moments came
from cut aways to Saji trying to impress Louise’s mom…no just…no. We also have some other side characters who
have yet to yield any prominence to the story that information gathering and
nothing more. Sure we got to see Hong Long
be a ninja for a few moments but I still don’t get why he and his “mistress”
are even around. Surely all of the info
gathering could be left to the super computer VEDA that Tierria has so much
faith in. The cast is large enough and
sometimes it just feels overstuffed even for a Gundam series. If you’re going to have them in the series,
give everyone something to do with purpose besides exposition.
Speaking of Tierria, I did get a small bit of
satisfaction watching him screw up for once.
His revelation of the sweet looking Gundam Nedleeh, made everyone see
that even Tierra can mess up at times.
He may scoff it off, but we know haha.
That’s enough Gundam reviews for one week everyone. Time to take a breather and get back to it
next week as we get to the intense and better (?) second half of Season One of
Gundam 00.
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