Hogan Reviews

When I started this run-down of the Gundam series I was looking forward to two things in particular: watching all the UC series in order for the first time (and Victory for the first time in general) and finally getting round to re-watching Gundam 00, and it’s time to finally check the second one off the list. I have very fond memories of this show, though I’m interested if its because this was the first Gundam show I watched weekly as it aired and discussed each episode online with other fans or whether the show really is as good as I remember. Judging by the first thirteen episodes though I have a feeling it really is that good, especially the character and mech / mobile suit designs and world building. So, let’s take a look!

To get started on Gundam 00 we have to have a quick recap of what the world is like, which in this case 00 has the honour of getting the actual Anno Domini calendar for their timeline, implying that this is our future rather than an alternate timeline, which… well, doesn’t make any difference, but hey. After the near complete depletion of fossil fuels the world joined together into three different “power blocs” to co-fund a massive solar array around Earth, accessible via space elevators, eventually giving them near-unlimited energy. The three blocs are the Union of Solar Energy and Free Nations, often just called “The Union”, which is made up of the Americas, Oceania and Japan; the “Advanced European Union” of AEU, comprised of Europe and surround islands; and the Human Reform League, which is made up of countries in Asia. Sadly, and realistically, poorer countries like those in the Middle East were left out of these deals and have fallen into poverty, leading to many wars over the last bits of resources and whether they should become puppet states under one of the blocs to survive, the latter leading to “holy wars” to protect the homeland. Add in small skirmishes between the three blocs and despite the energy crisis having been sorted the world still knows plenty of war.

Setsuna is inspired to stop the whole killing thing…. at least the killing outside of a Gundam thing, anyway…

The Middle East part is important because our lead protagonist is Setsuna F. Seiei, otherwise known as Suran Ibrahim, a former child soldier of the Middle Easten country Krugis. I can’t express how refreshing it was, and still is, to have such a character as the lead in a series like this. He is one of four “Gundam Meisters”, or you know, Gundam pilots, who work for a special organisation called Celestial Being whose goal is to eradicate war by using their far-advanced machines equipped with “GN Drives” to stage armed interventions in active warzones and disable both sides. Setsuna has a bit of Heero Yuy about him (from Gundam Wing), very stoic and dedicated solely to the missions, though in his case his background causing him to emotionally shut off kind of makes sense (he apparently killed his own parents as part of his initiation into the Krugis terrorist cell…) He saw a Gundam when he was a young boy stopping the war in his homeland and now wishes to “become a Gundam”, or literally personify their ideals of stopping all war. His Gundam is the Exia and is more melee focused than the others. Speaking of the other Meisters: you have Lockon Stratus, the fun relaxed one (with a tragic past, naturally) whose Gundam Dynames is set up to be a sniper; Allelujah Haptism, someone who was experimented on as a child to become a “perfect super soldier” but only ended up with a split personality disorder and whose Gundam Kyrios can transform into a plane; and finally Tieria Erde, a by-the-books believer in the cause with a big secret that I can’t talk about yet, and his Gundam Virtue is a massive chunky beast with crazy-large lasers.

The four helpfully colour-coded Gundam Meisters having a friendly chinwag (plus engineer guy I can’t remember the name of).

*sigh*, now that’s that out of the way let’s look at how this set up actually works, plus talk about all the other characters that appear as well! Obviously the first few episodes are all about setting the scene and introducing the lead characters, as I did above, so while Celestial Being make their first public appearances and perform their first armed interventions we’re introduced to Union Ace Pilot Graham Aker, who watches Setsuna easily take out the AEU’s newest mobile suit in amazement and later tries to take him on in his basic FLAG suit, and while impressive he doesn’t get the job done. We see the Human Reform League’s top pilot and colonel Sergei Smirnov and his latest subordinate the super soldier (same as Allelujah) Soma Peries have similar luck engaging the Gundams, and in fact Soma goes somewhat insane when in close proximity to Allelujah, nearly killing a bunch of civilians. In some non-solider-related storylines we have Princess Marina Ismail of Azadistan fretting over the fate of her country; reporter Kinue Crossroad looking into Aeolia Schenberg, the apparent creator of Celestial Being who died a few hundred years prior; and Saji Crossroad and his rich girlfriend Louise, who are happy studying and falling for each other and despite Saji having lost his parents young and living with his sister Kinue he is an extremely positive and upbeat person. That’s literally it for them, but um… their story takes a turn in the next chunk, let’s put it that way.

The best image I could capture of all four Gundams. Seriously, they’re almost never all out on the same mission! Makes sense, most of the time that would be overkill to say the least…

00 really starts to kick off with Episode 6, which sees all four Gundam Meisters attack an AEU exercise with over 100 mobile suits and look like they’re going to pull it off thanks to the “tactical forecast” from their leader Sumeragi (forgot to mention her… there really are a lot of characters introduced…) and the Celestial Being super-computer VEDA but Setsuna goes off-script when a pilot he fights turns out to be Ali Al-Saachez, his old terrorist cell’s leader. Al-Saachez is a great villain because while every other “bad guy” is either a corrupt politician or a soldier just doing his duty but on the wrong side of our protagonists Ali is just in it for the war and is worried that Celestial Being might succeed and “put him out of business” by eradicating his favourite pass time. Sometimes a bad guy who’s just a bad guy works. Anyway, they still manage to make a win out of the situation but it leads to Tieria to distrust Setsuna for daring to not follow orders. This continues as Setsuna ends up meeting Marina Ismail and admits to both being a former member of Krugis (who Marina’s country beat in a recent war) and of being Setsuna F. Seiei, a Gundam Meister of Celestial Being. Good thing Tiera didn’t hear about THAT. Blimey. Anyway, a short while after this and the Human Reform League mounts an attack on Celestial Beings’ spaceship base and manage to capture Allelujah but he switches to his “evil” personality and breaks free. At the same time Tieria reveals his Gundam can shed its massive armour and become a sleek model that can disable the tech around him. This was supposed to be kept a secret so the super-strict Tieria beats himself up about it later…

I’ll leave it there before we get to the spoilers, but overall the series really holds up still. The characters are interesting and multi-layered, the world building and politics are legitimately interesting, the mech and character designs are great, and the “new 16:9 HD animation” (I remember that being such a big deal at the time…) looks great on Blu-Ray. While I remember being pee’d off at a naff plot twist at the start of Season 2 I have high hopes the series will stay as good as I remembered it…

Overall Thoughts:

Soma Peries captures Allelujah… I wonder why they went with “Allelujah” rather than, you know, Hallelujah? I can’t imagine its worrying about upsetting religious people given a lot that happens in the series!

Gundam has always had a good mix of current events / politics along with mobile suit battles and war and Gundam 00 I feel might have the best mix. I don’t know if that is another decade and a half-ish of getting older made me appreciate the political stuff more or what but it was really interesting, plus the lead protagonist being a former radicalised child soldier from the Middle East having to fight the man who convinced him to kill his own parents to please their God in a mech battle is something else. Again the characters, their designs, the mech designs and the animation are all top notch, I can’t give this half of the series’ first season anything other than a 5, and long may it continue.

Episode 11 sees Allelujah put two and two together about Soma Peries and asks for permission to track down and destroy the lab that created him, which he does with the help of the taunting from his alter-ego. Celestial Being make sure to leak the lab’s experiments to the press shortly beforehand for PR’s sake, obviously. The final two episodes of this half see a war breakout across Azadistan due to a local religious leader called Massad Rachmadi getting kidnapped by a terrorist group who wish to stop an attempted deal between the country and the United Nations led by a man named Alejandro Corner and his assistant Ribbons Almark. Pay attention to those two (really stupid sounding in classic Gundam fashion) names for the future…

Setsuna tries to exorcise some demons… or at least one very bad demon!

Setsuna is sent to his old stomping grounds and meets Graham Aker in battle again, until rebels attack both sides. A bit of investigating leads to Setsuna and Lockon taking out the terrorists, including Setsuna having a rematch with Al-Saachez, this time coming out on top and overcoming his initial fear and repressed memories. He then rescues Rachmadi and personally delivers him to Princess Marina at the Azadistani palace in his Gundam Exia to show the world that Celestial Being is truly different from the likes of terrorists. Good stuff.