First off thanks for visiting my blog thing. The intent of this blog is pretty simple. To get as many people into shows I think are really cool and deserve more attention than they actually get. So what that means is that, unless i am voicing an unpopular opinion about a popular show, nothing like Attack On Titan gets in. Without further ado.
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Gundam. How this name plucks at my sixteen year old heart strings. Basically the Gundam series and I have a little bit of history. Gundam seed was the first series I ever watched period. From there I have watched Gundam Wing, G Gundam, The original Gundam, 08th ms team, all that’s out from Unicorn. After watching all these, a pattern emerged. Space colony has super mecha called gundam, reluctant hero fights, blonde guy appears donning a mask, blows colony up, embark on special ship, and flee. This happens in Gundam, Gundam Seed, Gundam Age, and Gundam Unicorn. I am I the only one who doesn’t like this? Anyway when Gundam 00 popped up I kinda figured it would be the same as all the rest, well simply put i was wrong. I’ll just say it so you hardcore Gundam fans can flog me now with dislikes rather than at the end of the thing. This is my favorite Gundam series. Hell it might be my favorite mecha series.
The plot-Well it’s sorta like gundam wing. Four gundams wage a war with Earth. They do so in the name of a private armed organization called celestial being. This organization is dedicated to ending war. That’s it for the first season. I can’t talk about the second season, because spoilers and stuff, but the second season is a much more linear straight forward plot than the first and is a whole lot more cheery. The first season, is probably one of the darker incarnations of gundam I have seen thus far. Yes it has the same themes of war and stuff we’ve all come to know and love about the gundam series, but it also has political intrigue. Many of the early episodes are about Celestial being intervening in conflicts and the political consequences that come out of their actions. Since their mission statement is to eradicate war, they are required to intervene in every single conflict. This means that they in many instances they are used for political gain. The plot therefore consists mainly of 1 to 2 part episodes until around episode 14. It’s a very good storyline, in the sense that it’s really unclear where the series is actually going. It doesn’t have a predictable plot line, seeing as there are no real ‘good guys’ or ‘bad guys’ everyone is colored in grey.
Visuals-The visuals are stunning. I cannot put this in any other way. There are two reasons for this, one is simply that most of the plot occurs on Earth, making for a much more colorful and dynamic background during fight scenes. Now this is just speculation, but consider this. Gundam seed had fifty episodes airing in a single year. Gundam 00 has 25 episodes in the first season. Logically if each of the series had the same budget, then each episode of gundam 00 has twice the budget of a seed episode. It shows. There aren’t a lot of repeating frames, in fact I had a hard time finding them. Another thing that helps is the GN particles. More of this please! I don’t have the scientific knowledge to verify that these things actually could exist, but they make the fight scenes look fantastic! If you’re looking for cool action scenes, then you won’t be disappointed. The fact that there are now four gundams also means that you don’t have the ‘gundam’ syndrome I hear so many people complaining about. While the suits are powerful, there is no longer one suit capable of taking out an entire army, looking at you strike freedom.
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| Among the best Gundam designs I have seen |
Audio- Sound assets are great, with a solid soundtrack that can stay epic in the good scenes and not distract you from the battle or talking scenes. Speaking of dialogue, there is a lot of it. For this the voice actors have to be up to par, and I’m glad to report that they most certainly are. In both Japanese and English the voice actors are fantastic, though I would have to lean slightly towards the japanese dub, seeing as the voice actor for Setsuna, in my humble opinion is slightly better than his english counterpart. Even with my biased opinion, it is definitely one of the better english dubs I’ve heard.
Characters- The characters in this anime are generally good. Each of the meisters have their own motivation for joining celestial being, and each are revealed slowly, so that each has some mystery about them. Every character is interesting and entertaining with only a few exceptions. The series tries to introduce the civilian perspective by having the lot unfold through the eyes of two civilians. It does this well especially toward the end, where the paths of the two plotlines collide. I can’t complain about the characters seeing as they are supposed to have certain views in order to entertain a certain kind of viewpoint, but they were straight up annoying in the beginning. The character whom I cannot stand is Marina freakin Ismail. She provides the ‘oh why do we have to fight, war is terrible’ perspective. She is the Relena of the series. I have nothing against a character of this archetype, except for two things. One she gets in the way of my shippings! and more importantly no matter what she is always advocating peace, peace, peace, and can’t get it through that thick skull of hers that yes, peace is the ideal way of solving a conflict, but we don’t live in an ideal world. Look I love peace as much as the next guy, but everything in moderation. For instance, while it is completely true that Gandhi's revolution worked very well, in a situation like say, the Cuban revolution, things might not have turned out so well. She is my one complaint with the series. From what I’ve seen on forums no-one has many complaints about this, but I really hate her. She’s so wimpy, hell even Relena picked up a gun once in the series! Even Saji, who is a whiny bastard with equally pacifist views, fights in the second season! I hate her so much!
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| Don't let her looks deceive you, she is evil! Well not really...but you get the point! |
Wrapping up, I love this series, and even though it has two really annoying characters, the rest of the cast is spot on, with great action, a dark complicated storyline, and an ending that still sends chills up my spine.
Highly reccomended.
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