Between being dragged into a war for the future of a country and the abduction of their most precious crew member, Garrod and the gang are not getting any post Christmas breaks and it looks like things are actually going to get a lot worse before Gundam X reaches it's conclusion…it’s kind of exciting too in many ways.
Every member of the cast has noted how everyones kind of changed since the return of the UNE. I’d say that applies to Gundam X as a whole. No longer are we in a post apocalyptic adventure setting. Things have changed to a more politically charged scenario akin to earlier Gundam shows like the OG 0079 series, Zeta and Gundam Wing. You’ve got old men talking hostile takeovers across the planet, you’ve got back room dealings between rival nations. I really felt for Estrado’s President Willis, being placed in a no win scenario to protect his country. Surrender or fight, either way ends badly but I guess surrender means less lives lost for the time being. And what of the old kooks living underground and heading this ruthless new UNE? Oh theyre there…looking old and decrepit and now declaring that once they’ve seized all of Earth, theyre going after their true enemy…the one they never defeated. It begs the question: if the SRA are still around in space, will they become the new “good guys?” Hard to place that title on them when they did go through with a catastrophic colony drop. More than likely both sides need a serious ass kicking and permanent dismantling. But we’ll get there I’m sure.
Back to the crew of the Freeden, everyone went through their own period of adjustment and self analysis about where they stand in all of this. Witz is all for fighting for a cause because he’s been doing that all along for his family. Jamil desperately wants to make sure the sins of 15 years ago don’t repeat themselves again…that’s not going to well. Garrod has the one weapon that could end everything in one or two shots and that weight pushes him away from the one sure positive constant in his life, Tiffa. And Roy, well Roy decided to peace out for a bit because he didn’t want any part of the Estrado conflict. Because this is a Gundam show, that didn’t last long. In a way, Roy being brought back to the fight felt a lot like Wufei in Gundam Wing. Roy was sulking/hiding in his own way but he did find inspiration through a beautiful woman, jus a bit more tragically. Whereas Sally Po survivied to fight another day with Wufei, the beautiful Yurina died in Roy’s arms and her comrades sacrificed themselves to get Roy out of the city and back to his crew. Ron Pearlman will always say it best, “War…war never changes.”
Hiding and snickering in the background, the Frost
Brothers began a string of broken record repetetiveness throughout this entire
set of episodes. They selected a string
of pilots to go after Garrod and the Double X and, to their credit, they know
how to pick them. These four pilots are
arguably the most terrifying enemies in Gundam X to date. All of them apparently had Newtype potential,
one could even control the Flash System that enables a user to remote control
Mobile Suits. But you also had a psycho
killer, a kind pilot with split personality and a guy with a death wish. Four times we watched Garrod, Witz, Roy and
Jamil go into battles with overwhelming odds stacked against them. Four times we saw them triumph by the skin of
their teeth. And four times we got Olba asking
“Is it time brother?” And Shagia replies, “Yes.” What is the Frosts plan here? Are they testing pilots or setting them up to
die?
It might be the latter because we ended this Christmas Day set on a huge
cliffhanger. While we only got to see
this universes Newtype Labs for a brief period of time, the events here will
shape the final act of Gundam X in many ways.
First, it’s not the UNE or SRA that might be the biggest problem: it’s
the Frosts. No it’s not just because
they’ve become maddeningly annoying.
It’s because they’ve got some serious beef with being rejected in favor
of more pure Newtypes, they even have a classification of “Category F”…F is for
failure maybe? Now they don’t just want
revenge on the people who wronged them, they want to take over the Earth (and
probably Space at this point too). And
Newtypes? I guess they need one for a
Flash System (probably Tiffa) but every other one can just die so they can be
on top. Jeez, some people do not handle
rejection well. Just how far these two
jerks can take this goal will no doubt be seen in the last 9 episodes. But considering the UNE is full of old men
who think they can still rule the world, I’m betting the Frosts can either
manipulate them or slaughter them all in like 5 minutes. Oh and then there’s Tiffa. Just when she and Garrod finally got back to
a good place and were this close to admitting how they felt, Tiffa gets
abducted and taken into Space. Looks like after all this waiting, we’re finally
going to Gundam’s prettiest setting tomorrow.
Much like Turn A Gundam, it’s about damn time.
There is one thing that’s bugged me about Gundam X as a whole that I should have addressed a long time ago: the Narrator. Yeah there’s a faceless voice who is filling in the blanks at various intervals and even just flat out telling us whats going on in certain characters minds…after the characters in question have discussed it themselves. I get the need for some exposition to flesh out the world or a faction of power like in Gundam Wing. But the narraration of Gundam X has only gotten sillier and unnecessary as the show has gone on. I’d say it’s arguably the weakest element of the show. But then it has to compete with the continually lackluster Mobile Suit designs. There are times where I found it hard to tell the Mobile Suits of the UNE, Estrado and their neighbor country Gastar during their major clashes. I’m also 50/50 on how I feel about the new Airmaster and Leopard Gundam designs. Are they improvements? Ehhhh…I guess, theyre both armed to the teeth but…idk. I’ve never really been a fan of these overall mecha and I’m not extra thrilled with them now. At least the titular Gundam X and its subsequent incarnations all look fantastic.
So, next stop is SPACE!!! Sorry, I know I harp on this a lot but I usually think Gundam is at its best when its spacebound and we’ve been on Earth a bit longer than necessary. Hell there was a chunk of the show dedicated to sea combat alone. It’s time to push beyond the sky and get the rest of the pieces in place for the big endgame…whatever that may be. See ya tomorrow for the beginning of the end of After War Gundam X.
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