The battle to reclaim VEDA and stop the Innovators
begins. With the world now in their
corner, Celestial Being launches it’s desperate and possibly final
operation. Win or loss, neither will
come without significant cost. It all
comes down to Setsuna and his latent Innovator abilities. Will he accept who he is destined to become
and change the world to save his family?
The age of the Innovators has begun, but is it Setsuna F. Seiei or
Ribbons Almark who will set the right path for the future of humanity?
I’m just going to come right out and say it, I love this
ending…it’s got some story issues and creative choices that feel like a bit of
a cop out but even so, I enjoy the heck out of it. And after 50 episodes of varying degrees of
success, can you ask for a better feeling watching a finale?
Endings can vary when it comes to Gundam shows. They can end on a somber even downright
depressing note like Gundam 0080, Zeta Gundam or Victory Gundam. OR it can have a more optimistic and hopeful
one like Gundam Wing, Char’s Counterattack or even the original Mobile Suit
Gundam. And actually, much like Gundam 00
has shared plenty of similarities with the Universal Century saga, we got a lot
of nods to the MSG finale, even the “almost” everyone surviving ending. It didn’t look good for Celestial Being with
everyone seemingly set to meet their end.
Hell even Patrick apparently bit the dust…sacrificing himself to protect
Mannequin cause he’s THE MAN like that.
But much like Gundam’s legendary Newtype Amuro Ray, once Setsuna tapped
into his true destiny of being humanities first Innovator, everything started
to turn up sunny. Everyone could listen
to each others thoughts and do a lot of forgiving, or at least start the path
towards it.
Setsuna’s revitalizing of the Gundam Team also allowed
Lock On and Alleluia to get a nice second wind of pure kick assery and take it
to the Innovators, er sorry Innovates one more time. After basically having nothing to do but
shout “Marie” for most of this season, Alleluia managed to get arguably the
best line of the series for me, just in it’s delivery alone by his psychotic
other half, “You’re all so dependent on VEDA.
You don’t have what it takes to beat us anymore!!!” Hell yes, a fitting way to start the
destruction of the bad guys.
And talk about fan service nods to Mobile Suit
Gundam. It wasn’t hard to figure out the
design of O Gundam is an almost exact replica of the original RX-78
Gundam. But it was sure freaking cool to
see if face off with Setsuna’s first Gundam, Gundam Exia back in action. A bit of old vs. new but still entertaining
and well done nonetheless. Set to the
backdrop of Marina’s song, Setsuna and Ribbons had their final battle and went
out in style, not a bad way to end the events building up to this point.
It all does feel a bit like too good to be true that
almost everyone got off scot free save for Ribbons and his Innovates. I also would have liked it if Setsuna had
shown a bit more anger losing Tierria, the two of whom probably had the best
bonding developments in the series. And
even Tierria isn’t entirely gone as he now merges with VEDA. Even Lasse, if you remember he was even on
this show, survived his life threatening injuries. And yes, Saji and Louise found each other and
made peace after all the crap they went through. But you know what? I’m ok with that. It was still an edge of your seat nail bitter
and I just wanted to see Ribbons finally get what was coming to him.
Plus my man Patrick survives to marry Mannequin…WOOOO
HOOOO!!!
One sort of out there nitpick. While this is the end of war against the
Innovates, it’s not the end of Gundam 00.
We know that Setsuna will keep fighting with his crew if need be and the
world is moving towards a better unification.
But we also got that haunting final post credits image of something
pulsating within Jupiter. What will
happen when “the dialogues that are to come” finally occur? Does this mean we’ll see something never
before attempted in Gundam franchise history?
Well…I’ll say yes to the fact that there is a sequel
movie, Mobile Suit Gundam 00 The Movie: A Wakening of the Trailblazer and while
I have seen it, I don’t own it and it’s been a while so I wont be covering it
anytime soon. You’ll just have to wait
and see if I ever get to it. But for
now, this is the end of Gundam 00.
What are my final thoughts? Well flaws with many of the characters,
motivations and plot usefulness aside, it’s a pretty solid entry in the Gundam
legacy. It’s animation is pretty crisp,
the soundtrack is amazing, the action is fast paced and doesn’t rely on armies
of thousands to up the ante that much.
And the characters for the most part are pretty memorable. Setsuna, Tierria and both Lock On’s (Neil and
Lyle) were all fleshed out and given moments to shine and evolve as the story
progressed. This did mean that 4th
meister Alleluia had his story wrapped up quickly and his role on the show
reduced in both seasons. And I’ll admit,
I kind of wished Saji would have gotten a Gundam as I saw him as the fifth
pilot of the Gundam Wing inspired group.
Wouldve been cool to see him forced to use something he despised for so
long to accomplish his dreams. BUT STILL,
I’d say that if you were looking for a good jump on point to the Gundam
franchise…start with the original Mobile Suit Gundam. But 00 is just as good a place to look at as
well. 00 may have scents of past entries
but it never seeks to perfectly copy them but evolve them in their own way with
new spins and new perspectives…something Mobile Suit Gundam is more than up to
the task of doing as it as it keeps…well
how does Setsuna put it? Oh right,
“SLASHING THROUGH TO THE FUTURE!!!”
8.5/10
8.5/10
Off to Otakon and taking a bit of a break from new
reviews for next week. Might have an
Otakon piece late tomorrow but next Tuesday the classic reviews recommence with
Outlaw Star. And check back two Mondays
from now our next new review of RWBY Vol.2
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