With Celestial Being backed into a corner, the time has
come for forces moving against them to emerge from the shadows and finish them
off. With Lock On injured, the team is
down a pilot in their most dire time of need.
A great battle begins and it will not be without great loss on both
sides. Setsuna vs Alejandro Coroner,
Lock On vs Ali Al-Sachez, Alleluia vs Soma, Tierria vs VEDA itself…this is
where the future of Celestial Being will be decided…and where an enemy that has
observed long enough makes its presence known.
“Youre just forcing your own distorted ego upon others,
and now im coming for you to cut that twistedness out of you.”
It may not have been perfect but the Season One Finale
definitely delivered on many expectations of epic mayhem and game changers,
setting the stage nicely for the second half of the series to come.
I opened with that quote above from Setsuna’s final clash
with Graham because I think it sums up my feelings about Graham as a
while. He claims to be the voice of
humanity but in fact he’s just a fanboy pilot with a very creepy Gundam
fixation he calls love. At least someone
was finally willing to call him out on his problems and though the fight ended
in a draw, Setsuna wasn’t taking Graham’s crap.
It looked like the end for both pilots but I think it’s safe to assume
they’ll be back.
As to who wont be back…well man, Lock On…
The best character of the season went out on his own terms
when his card came up: taking a parting shot at the man who killed his family
and saving the people he calls friends.
Celestial Being lost more than a teammate and friend, they lost a
brother and the heart of their team.
Setsuna’s cry was worthy of silent mourning. Tierria’s own sense of loss was
noteworthy. But the most chilling
acceptance of this was poor Haro’s cry, “LOCK ON, LOCK ON” repeated over and
over again that got me. The poor little
robot lost his best friend and partner in battle…no one was safe now as we
rolled into the final act.
The team’s losses did not stop there as we lost Christina
and Lichtendahl and Dr. Moreno…yeah who was that last guy we’ve never seen on
Ptolemios AT ALL until the finale? Who knows, he died just as soon as he
appeared…why? I guess it was to give a
sense of dread for everyone else, not that this wasn’t done well enough with
Lock On. Losing Lichtendahl and Chris
was…sad but not as sad as it could have been since we didn’t get to know them
very well. Especially Lictendahl’s
cyberization which could have been a great mini arc of it’s own. I feel like besides Sumeragi and the so cool
he needs little exposition Ian, we didn’t spend a lot of time with the
Ptolemios crew as much as we did the Meisters.
Thankfully we did get a good trade off in losses. First off F YOU TEAM TRINITY!!! I have to hand it to the writers, trying to
make us feel bad when Michael and Johann bit the dust but really…you had to
cheer, even if it was Ali Al Sachez doing the dirty work. I especially like how Michael, the most rabid
of the trio, was killed without realizing it by a gunshot. Sure Nena got away but doesn’t change the
fact that my second most hated cast members (behind Graham) finally got what
was coming to them and it was very entertaining.
I still don’t see why we couldn’t have had more build up
for Alejandro (and now Ribbons too?) coming to the end of the season. All this time before now he’s just popped up
on screen, standing or sitting with a glass of wine to throw in a random line
or two about the world and that was that.
Now we’ve discovered he was behind not just the Trinity’s but the VEDA
hack as well, all to outdo Aeolia Schenberg and his plans. Couldve used some time on the history of
Aeolia and the Coroners there. I did
think it was cool Aeolia had tried to preserve himself to see the fruits of his
labor at the right time…but sadly that would be opportunity taken and in this
first season, sometimes those opportunities were missed out on. The death of Aeolia did trigger the “Super
Saiyan” mode of the Gundams…I mean the TRANS AM system. I could see this as sort of a throw back to
Gundam Seed when Kira, Athrun and Shin activated their latent “Seed” abilities
to similar effect. I would be worried
this would make the Gundams too over powered but the intensity of the final
battle still had them all on the ropes at many times so it wasn’t a huge
advantage that lasted long.
And what a way to leave everyone: Alleluia captured (with
his Halleluiah personality dead?), Tierria and Setsuna both missing in action,
Lock On, Lichtendahl and Christina dead.
Celestial Being down all four Gundams and pretty much in tatters all
around. Hell we almost lost Patrick in
his battle with Tierria, thankfully we got confirmation he was ok. Even Soma and Sergei got a nice moment at the
end, solidifying how far they’ve come this arc as student and mentor.
We left the team in dire straits…then jumped forward 4
years later…and we’ll get to that next week.
So how was the first season of Gundam 00? Well it was pretty damn good in my
opinion. The throwbacks to Gundam Wing
were nice touches but it never stood on those memories and instead 00 built new
ones of its own. The cast is stellar,
even the characters I disliked the most are worth noting for that lasting
impression. The mecha was excellent, the
music sweeping (and Kenji Kawaii killed it with the more somber scenes in the
finale), the action and animation both some of the best Gundam has had in a
while. As with any show with numerous
plot lines and a large cast, some were treated better than others with Setsuna,
Lock On and Tierria getting solid character arcs while Alleluia was sidelined
too quickly and others like Alejandro, Wang Liu Mei and the Ptolemios control
crew not getting nearly as much development time. Im sure some of those unexplored ideas and
arcs will pop up again in the second half though.
Well look at that, one season down, one to go. The Summer of Gundam 00 continues next Monday
with the beginning of Season Two of Mobile Suit Gundam 00.
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