Hogan Reviews

You can read my review of the first half of Season 2 by clicking HERE.

Gundam 00 reaches its TV series conclusion with a string of pretty crazy episodes, both plot-wise and action set pieces-wise. While there are some definite highlights and the final confrontations at the end are very satisfying it is hard not to once again look back at the more varied and interesting world of Season 1 instead of the more straight forward good vs. evil plot featured here, but that’s still not to say this season doesn’t have some great moments, just that I do now understand when people say that Season 1 was better, where as before it all sort of blended together in my mind due it being so long since I watched them. Anyway, let’s take a look at the end of 00! The series. The actual end comes after this…

At the end of the previous bunch of episodes Celestial Being was able to take out the “Memento Mori” space laser and Episode 14 kicks off with their escape back to Earth, during which Setsuna is separated from the rest of the crew during re-entry. While the other Gundam Meisters deal with some Innovators Setsuna takes on Ali Al-Saachez once again, this time though Ali lures Setsuna to an abandoned industrial zone and gets our main protagonist to leave his suit so he can meet our main antagonist Ribbons Allmark for the first time. Ribbons reveals he was the pilot of the Gundam 0 when it intervened and saved the child Setsuna’s life, and that he manipulated Veda into choices him as a Gundam Mesiter, the old grand manipulator story. Thankfully unlike most protagonists Setsuna isn’t interested in any of that, refuses to hand over the 00 Gundam and tries to shoot his enemies first, though ends up shot himself. He escapes and even manages to overpower Al-Sachez but they’re both stopped in their tracks when a broadcast of Marina and her child orphans singing a song plays in their cockpits. Setsuna soon heads to Marina and the Katharon rebels in order to get medical treatment.

A look at Sumeragi and the rest of the support crew, just because I haven’t actually featured them in a screenshot yet…

We then reach our next pivotal moment as a group of soldiers led by a man named Pang Hercury stage a coup d’état at the AEU’s Africa Tower orbital elevator. Good old Sergei arrives to talk to his old friend and finds out his plan isn’t to overthrow the current regime but to show the world how brutal and flat-out illegal the A-Laws often are by airing their inevitable use of Automatons to kill all in the local area while actually safely shipping the civilians down to the planet’s surface. The plan works briefly but the footage of the killing is manipulated to show the coup soldiers shooting people instead of the Automatons, thus achieving nothing but giving more sympathy towards the A-Laws and the government. Tch, governments manipulating coverage of something to suit their means?! Surely not! Setsuna eventually reconvenes with the rest of Celestial Being after another showdown with Mr. Bushido and his Trans-Am capable mobile suit, but when they all arrive at the elevator site to help the coup Sumeragi is shocked to see the enemy formation had been created in anticipation of the whole orbital elevator crashing down to the surface.

Setsuna sighs that yet another Celestial Being exclusive feature is now free game for the enemy.

Sure enough a second Memento Mori cannon is activated and pointed at the Elevator’s space platform and despite Setsuna damaging the canon it still manages to fire and cause enough damage that the station slides down the tower and “purges” its outer shell, raining down shrapnel on a city or two below. Sumeragi broadcasts a plea for help and soon Celestial Being, Katharon, a bunch of Federation Army suits and even a few A-Laws groups all help out in trying to destroy the debris before it can hit populated areas. After the horror Sergei’s son Andrei spots the leader of the coup and assuming he was responsible for the incident kills him, and then when he hears his father’s voice he assumes he joined with the terrorists and kills him too, thinking he was responsible for his mother’s death making the decision easier. Sergei apologises to Andrei in his last moments while seeing her other self’s father figure die snaps Marie back into her previous, war-focused personality. We then jump four months into the future where we see that the coup has failed in a spectacular way as now the regular Earth Federation forces have been absorbed into the A-Laws, giving them even more power, while Celestial Being have found themselves constantly hounded by A-Law attacks while being oblivious to the fact that their new crew member Anew being an Innovator is the reason. Sumeragi sees no other choice but to head for their main goal: the Veda mainframe, and to get the coordinates they’ll need to capture an Innovator.

This happens sooner than they’d thought as another A-Law encounter (which for the record once again lets out favourite tragic lovebirds Saji and Louise mentally communicate via the 00 Raiser’s crazy Trans-Am mode) sees Revive Revival get captured, but all that does is allow him to activate Anew’s Innovator self. At this point I’d like to mention that Lockon the second has fallen for Anew and the feeling is mutual, and even though her Innovator personality was reinstated she still can’t bring herself to kill her former love. Revive and Anew escape with the 00-Raiser add-on but it and Revive are re-captured, while Lockon and Anew confront each other out in space. Anew manages to break her programming and wish to come back with Lockon but Ribbons takes control of her remotely and goes in for the kill but at the last moment Setsuna arrives and kills Anew just in time to save Lockon’s life. The two lovers get a momentary goodbye meeting in the weird Trans-Am astral plain before Lockon is brought back to reality and soon punches the hell out of Setsuna for killing her, even if it was clearly the right choice (Ah, love is blind etc.)

The dangers of orbital elevators…. maybe don’t build them overlooking cities next time…

That leaves things heading into the final showdown with Ribbons, well apart from side-characters Wang Liu Mei and her assistant Hong escaping with the location of Veda thanks to Regene turning on her fellow Innovators. This leads to several things, mainly Wang and Hong’s eventual death (but not before Wang manages to give Setsuna the Veda coordinates); Nena Trinity, who this whole time had been working for Ribbons, also turns on him and is happy to get a chance at redemption against Ali Al-Saachez but is surprised to find out she’s not the one to be getting revenge and instead Louise arrives and finally kills her parent’s killer, although the experience breaks her mentally it was still a great moment; Setsuna duels and defeats Mr. Bushido again and this time wins but leaves him alive to think about the future rather than be consumed by the past; and Regene is killed by Ribbons and Al-Saachez, but we hear that Setsuna may be a “purebred Innovator” and that Aeolia Schenberg’s whole plan was to use all that technology to bring about purebred Innovators and unite Earth as a singular force “for the dialogues that are to come”. So lots of loose ends get tied up, and we see the first proper hints at the 00 finale, and I’m not talking about the stuff in the spoiler paragraphs below here!

Overall Thoughts:

Louise gets her revenge… for a moment I thought she might get the old “this makes me no better than them!” realisation, but nope!

Gundam 00’s final quarter is full of several big set-pieces and all the loose ends get tied up just in time for the big cliffhanger to set up the film finale. As I’ve said the more straight forward good vs. evil set up isn’t as interesting as Season 1 and some characters like Allelujah have barely any character development in this second season’s second half, there is still a lot to like visually and no loose end is left un-tied which is a relief given the movie it would’ve been easy to leave some stuff for that… then again the film could probably have done with some mort story, but I’ll get to that next time…

Celestial Being head to where Veda is but are met with a huge A-Law force but are assisted by the remnants of both Katharon and the Coup forces, plus a bunch more turncoats led by Sumeragi’s old ally Kati who I don’t think I’ve mentioned yet, but hey… it’s a big cast. They reach Veda’s location and find Ribbons in charge of a massive colony ship created by Schenberg dubbed “Celestial Being” and part of it has been turned into a large GN canon which in combination with a large wave of suicidal Innovator mobile suits means getting to Veda will be no easy task. As most of the cast deal with the kamikaze suits Lockon faces off with his family’s killer Ali Al-Saachez, Setsuna and Saji confront Louise and Andrei, and Tieria manages to infiltrate the Veda core and confront Ribbons. There he reveals his knows the real reason Celestial Being was created and that he and Ribbons are “Innovades” and that Setsuna was the true Innovator, but is shot and killed before he can reveal any of that to the audience… or so it seems! In reality Tieria transferred himself into the Veda mainframe itself and took control, his body may be dead but he is now Veda itself, allowing him to cut Ribbons and the other Innovades (I guess) off.

So many glowing particles…

It’s wrap up time! Louise’s mobile armour is badly damaged allowing Saji to rescue her and the two finally get back together when she sees they both kept their rings on them despite everything; Lockon kills Al-Saachez in a really fun scene where it looks like Lockon falls for Ali’s surrender only to shoot him dead when he tries to get the jump on him; and Tieria explains Aeolia Schenberg’s plan which is basically to create a unified humanity that can turn into Innovators that can therefore live a much longer life that will be needed to colonize other worlds and that the “dialogues that are to come” are with alien races that we will encounter. Aliens mentioned in Gundam?! Oh just you wait… Anyway, Ribbons exits the good ship Celestial Being in his Reborns Gundam and fights with Setsuna across the final episode, including a final duel in the 0 Gundam and the Exia after their respective suits are destroyed, which was fun. You won’t be shocked to hear Ribbons is eventually defeated by Setsuna and the main cast survive the war.

The unexpected Gundam vs. Gundam final showdown!

We then get treated to an epilogue sequence where the A-Laws are disbanded, Saji and Louise leave the fighting behind as a couple, Allelujah and Marie quit Celestial Being and go hiking on Earth, Marina begins to rebuild what’s left of Azadistan and the Middle East in general and Setsuna, Lockon and Sumeragi, with Tieria/Veda on their side, leave to watch over Earth for when the next armed intervention is needed. We then get a zoom over to Jupiter, which lets off an eerie silver flash…