With the Willghem fully operational, the Militia, under
the command of Guin Lineford, is one step closer to leaving the Earth. However, there still stands one last obstacle:
the captured city of Maniupich. Only by
liberating this city from the Moonrace can Loran and his allies ascend into
space to confront his people on their home turf. To this end, Loran must broker a peace with
an ancient Earth culture living in the mountain, the Adesans. Meanwhile Queen Diana, pretending to be Kihel
Heim, finds herself powerless to stop Lt. Phil from usurping her power and
taking full command of the Dianna Counter.
If she is to salvage this disastrous situation, she too will have to
find her way back home…back to the Moon.
Well it only took 34 episodes but we finally made it to
Space. Sad to say though, the final
stretch to get there wasn’t a smooth one as I feel like this set of Turn A
Gundam episodes suffered a bit from delayed build up. Sure the flight to space and what came after
it was great. But there were still three
episodes prior that might’ve been my least favorite of the series so far.
We kicked things off with a full filler episode dedicated
to everyones favorite Moonrace screw up, Ensign Poe. She’s now so desperate to bring down the
Gundam and retrieve Queen Dianna that she’ll even head out while having a high
fever. Sigh, I guess you need to give
Poe points for trying but she is easily the weakest female character in this
series and that’s kind of a shame. She’s
got spirit and considering how many times shes lost a battle, Poe’s a trooper
for continuing to try so hard. But her
blind loyalty to Phil and her trigger happy nature (that also jumpstarted this
whole war mind you, I haven’t forgotten that), make her so damn
unlikeable. At this point, I always
groan when Poe goes into battle. Cause
you know she’s just going to come back emptyhanded again and for some reason we
got a whole episode dedicated to Poe failing yet again. I didn’t need to watch that, not with space
so close.
Next we got what could have been a very lore exploratory
heavy two parter with Loran and his friends encountering the Adesans living in
the mountain they needed to get to space.
Unfortunately, this arc was heavily rushed and ultimately
unnecessary. I don’t think I gained an
appreciation for the Adesans or any of their culture by the time the whole
thing was over. There’s plenty of missed
opportunity here to do some serious digging into the “Dark History” and even a
deeper understanding of the Turn A itself.
Instead we got another culture in the middle of another power struggle
that’s even more baffling than the Moonrace infighting. In the end, the Adesans had access to a Mass Driver
needed to get the Willghem into space…that’s it, nothing further was needed of
them and I think their story arc could have been erased altogether without
hindering the main plot. Needless to
say, this was the second of two major stumbles that had me worried.
AND THEN SPACE!!! Yes, I was cheering when we finally got
to see the sea of stars and thankfully the race to get there was just the shot
in the arm Turn A Gundam needed after a couple of dismal detours. Not only did we get to see Poe defeated (God
there needs to be a loss counter everytime this happens) but Harry’s joining up
with the Militia now. Harry Ord might’ve
just displaced Zechs Merquise from Gundam Wing as the true successor to Char
Aznable in my mind. Not only did we get
to see him take charge and kick all kinds of ass but we got to see his greatest
moment to date. He purposefully landed
on Poe’s ship and walked to the bridge like he owned the place, respect
bestowed and everything, not even Poe’s “commanding” could halt Harry or have
him be arrested…then he kissed Poe to give her special medicine to kill that
fever I mentioned earlier…then he just walks away…DAMN he is the loyal Mobile
Suit piloting bad ass we all wish we could be in life.
By the way, have I mentioned how gorgeous Turn A Gundam
is? If I haven’t, or it’s been a while
since I have, then im gonna add more points to the animation department cause
space looks the best it has during the entire 90s era of Gundam. It looks more wondrous than ever and seeing
the Turn A float around, while giving Sochie a tour of her new surroundings,
feels like a nice homecoming for the Mobile Suit. Gundams were born in space after all, this is
their true home and playground. I also
loved the design of the giant space station known as Stacktraeger. It had a very 2001: A Space Odyssey feel to
its design just rotating in space like it does.
Plus the thing is freaking massive and just a taste of more awesomeness
we’re going to get now that we’ve changed settings.
It sucks to even write down that Turn A Gundam suffered
some misteps in this set cause I am really enjoying this series, it might even
make my Top 5 Gundam shows if it can stick the landing. As much as ive complained about us only now
getting to space, everything that’s happened on Earth has never been
boring…save for the three episodes at the beginning of this set. Point is, if the story has been this tight
and well done til now, I cant wait to see what happens when we finally get to
the moon, which we’ll hopefully get to on Wednesday. We’ve only got 15 episodes to go before the
grand finale (only 15, man ive been blowing through this), let’s make our time
off planet count. See ya soon.
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