Ranked #109

Mobile Suit Gundam 00 Second Season

Gundam 00 season 1 was for me an instant classic. It combined a great story with excellent action scenes. Also all the characters were realistic. They had a past, motives, weaknesses etc. Needless to say I was looking forward to the second season. After watching 23 episodes I decided to write this review, because I think season 2 is a letdown.

The re-introduction of the 4 meisters is wonderfully done. After that the story just won’t startup. Half of the season is dedicated to explain in depth why some characters are fighting. Because of this, the main story progresses really slow. The action scenes are not as good as the previous season. In season 1 it was 50% teamwork and 50% strategic planning. I was always wondering if the mission would be a success. Now it’s 70% gundam 00 and 30% rest. So when 00 arrives you know they’ll win. They have put too much emphasis on gundam. The other gundams and characters don’t get the time to fully expand them self.

The story itself takes a new path. The new theme is “innovation”. I think it’s a bit confusing, because it is combined in the plan of Aolia. At this moment I am still not sure what the plan of Aolia is, or if it is still his plan. Also the reason why they are fighting in this season is different. I feel that they are not fighting for world peace through armed intervention anymore. Let that be a reason why I liked the show. They were willing to sacrifices themselves for a better world. Now it feels that they are fighting the new main antagonist and not for a better world.

This season focuses more on Setsuna and gundam 00 than any of the other characters. Too bad that he is boring. The only thing on his mind is gundam. In one episode he says: “Ore wa gundam”. That sums up Setsuna a soulless machine. I think he is the wrong character to put so much emphasis on. It wouldn’t hurt to give Setsuna some romance, to give him some emotions. Tieria is one of the characters that remains interesting. The new lockon feels like a cheap replacement, because he walks, talks and acts the same as the original lockon. If they had the balls for it they would have introduced a new meister. The good thing about the new lockon is that he feels different than the old one. Allelujah was one of my favorite characters of the first season. It was refreshing to see a mentally ill main character. In the first season he was a psycho unpredictable crazy fighter, now he is a boring you-wont-even-miss-him whiner. Without the aggressive hallelujah he is boring and I have lost all interest in this character.

With the introduction of a new antagonist he also brings with him around 8-10 high level enemy opponents. With “high level” I mean that they have a better gundam and don’t die within 1 blast/fight. All these opponents are arrogant, dull and boring. Not once did they reach the level of season 1 opponents, for example Graham Acker, Ali El-Saachez, Andrei Smirnov. These characters were interesting and they all had their own reason to fight. The new opponents are boring and uninteresting.

Some important characters from the first show return, but I think they should’ve stayed dead. They play some role (most an annoying part) in the first half of the show, only to disappear for 8 episodes. And then reappear again at the end. During their disappearance you have not missed them once. These roles could have easily been filled by the new enemies of this season. I am wondering why they even made these characters return.

Conclusion
I liked the first show because of the realism. The gundams were not that overpowered, the action scenes were exciting, the story was an original and interesting set of protagonist and antagonists. In general, every episode made you want more. After a couple of episode my excitement about season 2 was over, it no longer made me want more after every episode. Mostly because the characters are not interesting anymore. The new enemies are boring. The story progresses slow and I still have no idea where the show is heading. I am not saying this is a bad show, just that it is not a worthy successor of gundam 00 season 1.

I give it a 75 out of 100.

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The conclusion of the first season left a bad taste in my mouth. That taste stayed throughout the entire second season, but by the end of it, I'd gotten so used to it that I didn't care anymore.

(This review assumes familiarity with the first season of Gundam 00 and references several season one spoilers. Season two spoilers are hinted at but not explicitly stated.)

STORY - Gundam 00 had a precarious premise from the very beginning. The "war to end all wars" story is one that seems to be visited often, but because it's such an idealistic goal, series pursuing it always stand on a shaky foundation of logic and realism. As a result, it's a very difficult premise to execute well. One of biggest logical gaps for me is still the idea that Celestial Being's two hundred-year old technology can be superior to that of current-day armies, especially since Celestial Being itself seems to have a very poor understanding of the machines they're making use of. Instead, they are reliant on a supercomputer and the notes and secret power-ups passed down to them by a dead man. All of the questions I had from the first season surrounding the organization's conception and survival over the last two centuries remain unanswered for the most part, but the most frustrating thing was not knowing the ultimate purpose of CB until the series' finale.

It blows my mind that most of the characters didn't even seem to know exactly what the "real" purpose of their organization was. It's one thing to keep the audience in the dark, but seriously, even the characters didn't know? Yes, everyone fights for their own reasons, but if you're part of an organization, you should maybe know what they're up to. Just sayin'. The antagonistic Innovators are introduced this season as the new puppeteers of the world, along with their half-puppets, the A-Laws. Presumably, they know what's going on, but since the point of view of the story follows the members of Celestial Being more than the Innovators, the story becomes very reactionary. CB is trying to do this to stop the Innovators from doing this. CB does this because the Innovators are going to do this. But why should the audience care if they ultimately have no idea what anyone's fighting for? The goals from the first season seem to have gone to the wayside somewhere along the way.

The flimsy storyline also contributed to an entire season of awful pacing marred by way too many romantic subplots. Seriously, could there possibly have been more of them? It didn't take long for 00 to feel like one gigantic soap opera that just happens to take place in space with some kind of war going on in the background. In fact, I'd venture to say that the romantic storylines and drama were the main focus and the war, morals, and fate of the universe thing was the secondary subplot. Who will get Setsuna in the end? Marina or Gundam? Can Lyle save Anew from her overused mind-control plot device? Will Tieria ever be able to win Veda back from Ribbons? Will Allelujah ever actually do anything important in this series or say a word other than "Marie"? Will Saji ever stop being spineless, and will Louise eventually accept him again or just go to Andrei instead? Can Billy forgive Sumeragi for using him? Can Shirin and Klaus both survive to the end of the series for their happily ever after? Will Mr. Bushido ever give up on Setsuna? Will Patrick ever win Kati's heart??

It. Is. Ridiculous. To be honest, most of the relationship drama (romantic or otherwise) in 00 had the potential to be interesting, but the fact that there was so much of it limited the relevance of each individual subplot and put a huge strain on the viewer's ability to care, especially with an unclear central plotline to tie everything together. The conclusion of the second season and the series as a whole is just as bad as, if not worse than, the first season's ending. It felt similarly rushed, extremely anticlimatic and unrealistic, and didn't resolve nearly as much as I would have wanted. Many of the characters feel stranded at the end of the series, though you do get a resolution for most of the relationship nonsense, further supporting the idea that the relationships were the core of the series and that everything else was secondary. As far as the politics go, it was definitely more of a forced ending than a conclusion. A conclusion implies that things are actually concluded.

CHARACTER - With a few exceptions, most of the first season's gigantic ensemble cast returned for the second season's "four years later." A new season really wasn't necessary just for a timeskip, but it was still really nice being able to see Setsuna age. He's the most interesting character in the entire series just because he matures so much as events unfold, and even as he doubts himself, his motivation, and purpose in the world, he never falls into the trap of the Jesus-kun Syndrome -- when a character becomes a preachy moralfag and refuses to kill people, often accomplishing this by disabling mobile suits in battle instead of destroying them. That isn't to say that having morals and a conscience makes for bad characters, but I find it refreshing when the morals and conscience can coincide with the resolve to fight and the knowledge that killing is sometimes necessary. Rather than instilling the pacifist streak in Setsuna, Sunrise made a good decision in having Marina around to balance things out. As irritating and useless as she was most of the time, I think she was necessary to round out the points of views in the series; that is to say, she was a good idea, just poorly executed.

Lyle, the new Lockon, felt like a huge cop-out from the beginning. Sunrise actually succeeded in killing a character! ...But here's his identical twin to replace him. Great. It didn't help that they never utilized the "twin" or "brothers" aspect to the best of its potential, and Lyle's logic failed on so many levels. He did not want to be compared to his brother, but essentially agreed to take over his brother's previous identity when he joined Celestial Being by taking on his old codename, his Gundam, and his Haro. Lyle's romantic subplot with Anew was one of the ones that had the most potential, and there was a lot of good acting as far as Lyle's inner conflict and reactions went, but in the end, I don't think his character evolved as much as it could have, and static characters remain uninteresting.

Allelujah was amazingly disappointing throughout the second season and pretty much drops off the map after episode seven. You wonder whether his role as a Gundam Meister actually makes him a "main character" or not since he dwindles to the point where he doesn't even have any speaking roles for several episodes at a time. Since Hallelujah supposedly "died" for one reason or another, there wasn't anything in the way of personal conflict. Instead, he spends the whole time chasing after Marie/Soma Peries. Unfortunately, Allelujah/Marie interactions are idealistic and boring while Allelujah/Soma interactions are repetitive and boring. Marie's struggle with Soma and Soma's struggle with belonging and revenge are interesting for many of the reasons the Allelujah/Hallelujah struggle was last season, but the character(s) could have stood well enough on their own without the obligatory romance/attention of Allelujah. Really, Allelujah probably brought them down by turning it into a cheesy would-be romance rather than the revenge/moral conflict it should have been.

Rounding out the Meisters, Tieria changed a lot between the first and second season. It would have been nice to be able to actually see that progress rather than just accepting that development had happened, but it's still refreshing to see characters that actually grow and change, and Tieria does continue to mature. Throughout the second season Tieria struggles with the fact that he's an Innovator and his role in both Celestial Being's and the other Innovators' goals. On the most basic level, it's probably the most interesting of the Meisters' conflicts, usurping even Setsuna, but poor execution, lack of attention, and being constantly thrown back by a dozen other subplots kept it from really succeeding, especially at the end.

As previously mentioned, there are probably two dozen other characters all with subplots of varying degrees of depth and relevance. Saji and Louise's is especially prominent, but the themes of their relationship cover very little that one of the others doesn't already, especially now that they're both directly involved in the fighting and are no longer bystanders. Neither of them are particularly strong or interesting characters, and I still think that 00 would have been better off without them. It would have probably saved us about ten episodes of drama. There are also still an assload of characters aside from those listed above that make appearances at random, but aren't actually relevant to anything anymore. Ali Al-Saachez will pop up again every seven or eight episodes. As will Nena Trinity, who really should have just died in the first season with her brothers. And as will Liu Mei Wang and Hong Long, who really do anything at all the entire season. All of the Innovators aside from Ribbons are pretty much interchangeable, and even Regene didn't seem to mean much in the end.

ARTSTYLE & ANIMATION - The animation in the second season remains slick, and the battles are all relatively fun to watch. I really missed the Gundam Exia's design, though the 0, 00, 0-Riser, and 00-Riser are all pretty interesting as well. I didn't think the Arios was much of an improvement over the Kyrios, though honestly, you don't see Allelujah in action enough this season for his suit to really leave an impression on you. The GN Archer, which actually had a neat design, could have also been featured a lot more. Seravee and Seraphim also had a nice concept, but like the others, was ever over-shadowed by the 00 and 00-Riser. And the Cherudim? As with the Dynames, the prominence of the gigantic rifle made the rest of the suit less important, but even visually, the Cherudim was less to look at than the Dynames.

The updated character and costume designs did a lot of good, I think, and I'm fond of Setsuna's older appearance. The only new characters that are introduced in the second season are the score of Innovators. They come in pairs with hilariously punny names like "Revive Revival," "Anew Returner," and "Bring Stabity." They also come in a variety of colorful flavors! Way to make it easy to spot the plot devices hiding out in the army and in Celestial Being, guys. There had to have been a better way to illustrate the concept of a race superior to humans without making it ridiculously obvious, right? The ease at which it is to spot these characters also makes the montage at the end of the series open to a lot of debate, but I really just think Sunrise is trolling us at that point.

MUSIC - The music is probably what I ended up enjoying the most in this entire series. I didn't much care for the second season's first opening and ending themes, but chalk that up to my general indifference to UVERworld and Chiaki Ishikawa. Neither are terrible songs or particularly annoying -- just not my thing, I suppose. The second opening and ending, on the other hand, are probably why I even bothered to sit through some of the later episodes since neither of the singles had released at the time. "Namida no Mukou" by stereophony actually took a while to warm up to me because I found the timing awkward in many parts, but I loved the vocalist's voice and the energy in the song is just fantastic.

Meanwhile, I loved "trust you" by Yuna Ito pretty much immediately. I'd only listened to a few of Ito's songs prior to that, but "trust you" just blew me away. The melody is beautiful and the steady tempo really carries it through. Furthermore, the accompanying animation was gorgeous and well-timed to fit with the music, and it left a wonderful contemplative feeling at the end of each episode -- more than most of the episodes deserved. It was also a great follow-up the animation for the second ending of the first season, "Friends" by Stephanie. There are a few episodes that end with a brief a capella version of "trust you" that I found really unnecessary and awkward, but the song itself is great.Oddly enough though, I like the TV Cut much better than the full single.

Tommy heavenly6's "Unlimited Sky" is used as an insert song for some of the later episodes, which was also pretty awesome. I adore Tomoko Kawase's voice in general, but I always find her anime songs much more energetic and upbeat than her other work, and "Unlimited Sky" is no exception. It always made the battle scenes that much more exciting -- a very needed extra when you're having a hard time caring about the characters involved or the storyline at the time.

Lastly, the instrumental soundtrack for 00 seemed markedly improved in the second season. The leitmotifs are a bit more prominent and the music in general seemed to compliment the mood and feeling of each scene a lot better. It was really refreshing to see/hear something actually improve between the seasons.

VOICE ACTING - Average for the most part, though I suppose Shinichiro Miki gets special mention for some excellent acting involving a very emotional Lyle, and Noboru Sougetsu (Ribbons), for managing to not remind everyone of Amuro Ray, at least most of the time.

The dub is still pretty awful. The best of the dub cast is Brad Swaile as Setsuna and maybe Alex Zahara as Lyle; both are pretty average. The rest of the cast either sound painfully uninspired or just... the same. Half of the female characters in this series sound the same in the dub. It's must be pretty bad when I'm offended at how poorly done the voices are for even characters I don't care about (which, in 00, is most of them).

OVERALL - When I reviewed the first season of Gundam 00, my main complaints included the fact that they had more details than structure, that they didn't bother to explain a lot of what I would consider to be important backstory, and that there were far, far too many characters, all of whom were trying too hard to be the focus. The lackluster ending to the first season didn't lead me to have a lot of expectations for the second season, but I'm still rather disappointed that they managed to let all of their problems get worse rather than better. In the end, I only saw 00 through to the end for the sake of having seen it to the end, which is never a really good reason at all. Then again, maybe I only saw it through so I could eventually bitch about it here... which really isn't that great of a reason either.
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Now, I thoroughly enjoyed Gundam 00 Season 1. Great characters, great action, and best of all, a wonderful complex plot. Throw in a good dosage of how it relates the present day world and great voice acting, and you’ve got a recipe for one of the most popular series now.

Now, Season 2 started out with a lot of potential. The main characters were reintroduced very well, preserving the characteristics they were known for and refining them, along with offering a slightly different side of their personality. Some characters did change for the worse, but this is necessary to create the strife needed for the story to build. And it did build. A new faction came into play here, and some of the old characters on the antagonistic side in Season 1 are not happy with the new world order. New characters are introduced very well and immediately create a third side to the previous two-sided strife in Season 1. There are many characters that are struggling to find themselves in the new world order, so the series has a bit of a depressive feeling to it. Not even Lockon’s lighthearted comments helped much here.

However, as well as the introductions to the new characters were, the development of many of these characters had something to be desired. It falls into the same trap that swallowed Code Geass R2, which is to let new characters languish in development. However, while R2 introduces too many characters and has to shift back and forth awkwardly between the factions, Gundam 00 introduces fewer new characters and makes the shifts amongst them much more fluidly, going for "Let’s integrate all the factions into the episode" rather than Geass R2’s "focus here for one episode, focus there for another." 00 also focuses on the protagonists much better. The antagonists (that fat blonde guy), along with Bushido, along with the Innovators, could have used more development, but at least I got a better idea of their true personalities better than the Knights from Geass R2. If there was one glaring complaint about 00 S2’s characterization, it would come in the form of antagonistic development in the form of the true mastermind, Ribbons Almark. An antagonist is supposed to create a feeling of hatred in your heart, or you fall for the antagonist’s plot and cheer on the protagonists’ failure. But the main feeling I get from Ribbons is ambivalence. "Your comrade just got killed." *no emotion* "You just got betrayed." *no emotion* "Your test subject just wrecked your newest Mobile Suit." *no emotion* "Your plan to take over the world has caught a HUGE snare." *Whatever* All he does is sit on a MAGENTA couch and twiddle on his thumbs, no matter if his plans succeed or fail. For someone who’s the mastermind, he doesn’t like to get involved much, like he’s a puppetmaster with really long strings on his puppets. Problem is, he feels disconnected from the plot and action, and well, let’s just say that 00 S2’s biggest fault after this is plot management.

Now, the first… 2/3 of the series was developed very well. We get to see the main characters discover a different side to themselves and we are able to supplement the change with what we know about the characters in season 1. But after that, the series starts to stumble. The audience is waiting for a return of aspects that distinguished the characters from season 1. In creating a different dimension for the characters, they gave up the platform built up for the characters in season 1. Like Hallelujah, whose reintroduction was too sudden. Welcome, but not well done. Thus, after about the 2/3 mark, the series starts to wander and lose its footing. The focus is on little plot elements that need time to develop, but the producers only had so many episodes of plot to work with. Thus, the big plot elements were placed on the back burner and left to overcook. The series has to rush to resolve these big issues, but didn’t get to do so until the last 3 episodes or so, so it was a miracle that episodes 23 and 24 didn’t feel too rushed. What would have been nice is if they started focusing on these big plot elements around… episode 20 or so? But it’s no big surprise that episode 25 felt like you were landing an airplane but hadn’t slowed down enough. You do stop, but all your passengers are thrown 2 rows forward in your attempt. The series was haphazardly wrapped up as a result.

But don’t get me wrong: Gundam 00 S2 is still worth your time to watch if you enjoyed S1. There’s still a lot to like, such as the more complex story, matured characters, and many characters just finding their true selves during their personal struggles. I’m not sure if I just expected too much, though. It’s still a likable series, but it just tossed away its potential for becoming a masterpiece about 2/3 of the way in. read more

" Eradiction of War through force." ~ the return of chaos

I really like season 1. It has a good dosage of action, realistic characters, mech vs mech fights, and of course, a nice complex plot. Season 1 left us with many mysteries as well as many possibilities on the conclusion of the story, and that's why I'm looking forward to the second season with high expectations, but I think my expectations were a bit crushed since it was a letdown.

With a sequel comes new characters and new mobile suits balancing mecha actions with the plot development. The STORY starts out with a lot of potential. It's still jam-packed with actions and climactic scenes that will glue you onto your seats. It still manages to present multiple view points not just the protagonists’ – Celestial Beings and the antagonists’ – Federation, A-laws and Innovators but also the civilians’ through Saji and Marina as well as the children.

As the series progresses, it slowly starts to crumble. 2/3 of the series will still let you ask for more, but the succeeding episodes will slowly tire you out.
First, there’s too many flashbacks. They even presented the pasts of minor/ supporting characters resulting to redundancy of some scenes. Thus the story progresses slowly.
Second, the series somewhat takes a new turn. Their reason for armed intervention is now different from the first season. Their mission now deviates from fighting for eradication of war to just fighting the real main antagonist.
Third, some of the battle scenes are a bit unrealistic. Like a gundam that has lost an arm and both legs can still defeat a gundam with just light scratches( something to that effect) . Also the first season will always let you doubt if they can finish the mission but now, the moment 00 arrives, it’s a sure win.
It’s true that the content of the story is not the most original ( Gundam Wing and Zeta Gundam, anyone?) Even way back in the 90s, stories of gundam end rather predictably. But this second season manages to surprise us by ending up somewhere that we did not expect. I think that’s a plus ( or maybe not).It's more of an aburupt ending rather than a wonderful closure.

The ARTWORK remains cool. The mobile suits still gives a futuristic feel and can be commended for those intricate parts and structures. One minor quirk is that Gundam 00 is a bit similar to Gundam Wing’s Wing Zero when coupled with 0 Raiser which makes it not innovative in design. Kyrios and Ariois didn't seem different at all but Arios was a bit neat compared to its predesesor. Cherudim was just like Dyanames(period).The only notable factor was the big gun that's all. Seravee and Seraphim has a nice vibe although over shadowed by 00 and 0 Raiser.

CHARACTER DESIGNS improved. I really liked Setsuna's matured appearance. The costumes are cool. The appearance of the other characters gives a feeling of maturity. Animation again is smooth and top notch! From the movement of the gundams down to the dispersion of the GN particles, it’s very detailed.

The MUSIC for the second season is good but nothing special. The 1st OP theme “ Hakanaku mo Towa no Kanashi” by UVERworld gives a pop rock feel – proper for a gundam series. The 2nd OP theme “ Namida no Mukou” by stereopony on the other hand is more proper to be placed on a shoujo anime instead of this one, but it still gives an upbeat tone. The 2 ED themes range from moderate JPOP to mellow which sets the mood for the closing sequence. The BGM suits the scenes and the sound effects are very detailed (such as movements of the grass…).

The CHARACTERS somewhat made a wrong turn. They gave too much emphasis on Setsuna thus there’s little room for character development on the other 3 Meisters as well as other characters. Setsuna still is gundam here gundam there in his head. but he was somewhat interesting for being able to mature so much as things unfold. His perception and his purpose starts to change. Good thing there's Marina to made him realize those things and to balance out, but I think Sunrise could have improved more on Setsuna's character if Marina's character wasn't poorly executed and made a twist on Marina's existence. I think it also wouldn't hurt to place a touch of romance on Setsuna.

Next there’s Lockon Stratos. He still has the same personality as that of the first season, and it’s like nothing has changed. He sopmewhat has a contradiction. He doesn't want to be compared to his older brother but assumes his brothers position and code name. It would be better if they made it similar to Seed’s Mu La Flaga and Rau Le Creuset or Seed Destiny’s Lacus Clyne and Meer Campbell – same face but different point of views and personality. That would have a much better twist. His relation with Anew has a great potential but summing everything up about him made him an uninteresting character.

Alleluja became a boring character simply because Halleluja, his alter ego , is not there to argue with Alleluja’s view. He became your ordinary kind-hearted protagonist without a twist or whatsoever in his personality. It will make you wonder whether he really should be placed under the "main characters" list. He spends most of the episodes chasing after Marie and his interactions with the other Meisters became redundant and dull.

Tieria Erde stays true to his character. Most of the mysteries around him are answered in the 2nd season. His character development is way better than that of Setsuna's. It would have been nice to see the developments rather than just accepting them. It's refreshing to see him mature but he was being overshadowed by other factors thus it kept him from improving further.

There's probably another dozen of characters with varying relevance. Like Saji and Louise's develpment didn't cover much of the main plot and would be better off without them. There are still actually loads of characters that pop up once in a while that holds little relevance. There's way too many extras that should have saved us a dozen or so episodes without them.

The antagonists could have used more character development. They should have created a feeling of dislike or hatred in your heart but some antagonist didn’t have this kind of feel. Well, Bushido, the fat Blonde and Ali-Al Sachees did kinda show their antagonistic vibe, but the main mastermind Ribbons Almark didn’t. He doesn’t care at all what happens, just domination in his head. Like a puppeteer with very very long strings not wanting to get involved.

Hmm... I think they are trying to make a complex and exciting series by creating more characters, more antagonists for it to have more twists and turns but because it was poorly executed, it lead to the wrong turn of events.

I still prefer the first season because it’s fast paced and more realistic compared to the 2nd season, but Gundam 00 2nd Season is still worth the watch. I think that I just have too high expectations on this anime, though. All in all Gundam 00 Second season is a fine addition to the ever growing and popular gundam saga. Despite the predictable plot , it still has its own charm and originality at some point. It shows us a different façade of an idealistic human truth, contrasting views about war and personal reasons for fighting. It’s already a few steps close to perfection too bad it’s potential just slipped away.
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This review will focus on both seasons of Gundam 00.
Mobile Suit Gundam 00 is the latest installment in the incredibly massive Gundam franchise produced by Sunrise. This is also the first Gundam series I watched so I will not go into differences to other Gundam series that I see so many of the older fans do.

Story: Most of the story on Gundam 00 is based heavily on war, the countries who suffer from oppresion, the people who want the war to stop, and the corrupt goverments who control the people. To be quite honest I wasnt crazy with the story but I also didn't dislike it, i thought it showed a pretty realistic view on how a corrupted goverment and military organizations can cause the murder of millions for their own benefits and yet still keep their citizens unaware and/or on their side while they do so. I wouldnt lie if I said I saw a little bit of parallels with what is happening in the world today, but thats for another time.

Animation: The animation stayed constantly solid the entire series and it had some really cool and flashy effects during battles which made the show a real graphical beauty. Also watching this on HD 720p really makes you appreciate the effort put on the animation. I have nothing bad to say this. Although I will admit some gundam designs on the second season were getting a bit weird....

Sound: One of the great aspects of the series was its very varied and good soundtrack. It made a lot of the battle scenes very exciting to watch. The voice acting was also very well done, and i really enjoyed it. A lot of "pew pew" also made me XD

Characters: Gundam 00 has an incredibly huge cast of characters which some I never even managed to remember their names, there is a large variety of characters that you learn to love or hate in this show. I personally was able to enjoy the characters and being able to see them mature while adapting to the changes in the world was very enjoyable. Even though the show gave the short end of the stick to some of what I thought were very interesting side character with a lot of potential, and gave us some character that I just absolutely detest and hate, Gundam 00 did a good job on giving us interesting characters.

Enjoyment: I loved this series mainly because of the battles, the battles are definitely the best part of the anime and there is plenty of them so I always went into every episode looking for some great action and Gundam was able to deliver that every time.

Overall: There really isnt a reason to not like this show, it is a solid mecha action anime with some solid plot and characters and features some great animation to boot. If you have never watched a Gundam anime before i think this one is a good one to start watching, I had never watched a Gundam anime before but I for one am now a fan of the series and will definitely be watching the upcoming gundams from now on.
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Gundam 00 is a solid anime series with a lot to like. The pacing was fine, fights were exciting and you couldn't wait to see more. Since most of it is good for this review I will try something different, and state what was really good and could have been done better to elevate this series to Masterpiece status.

Story and Characters

Gundam 00 Season 2 takes place after Gundam 00 S1. Celestial Being comes together again to fight against the A-Laws although the process of "reforming" was not an easy one.

Here's what was great:-
* There are 4 Gundam Meisters, 3 from Gundam 00 S1 and a new one Lyle Dylandy taking over from his brother as Lockon Stratus. All 4 gundam meisters are likeable and interesting. Thumbs up.
* Noreiga the strategist had to be rescued from her "lover" and her tendency to drown her sorrows in a bottle to resume her strategic battle for supremacy against Kati Manneqin
* Sergei Smirnov and Soma Peries ... aaah :)
* Cataron, Federation, Celestial Being, A-Laws, Innovators, Awesome!
* Lots of fights, characters evolve and the powers that be were not afraid to show death in the battlefield. Kudos!

What was not so good:-
* Saji takes on a bigger role. Louise joins A-Laws, love is hard. I liked the whole how does this happen to a normal couple angle, but at parts I'm sure I'm not the only one who found Saji intensely annoying.
* Adding in many innovators but failing to develop the character, motivation or personalities of any of them. FAIL! Other than Ribbons I couldn't really distinguish between all the innovators and there were quite a few of them. Might as well have painted a "cannon fodder" sign on them and left it at that. Now, personally I believe if they cut out every scene with Marina Ismail and used the time to develop ALL the villians (including Mr. Bushido) this anime would have been a 10.

Art and Sound

Art was fantastic except when suits go into Trans Am they turn red and it becomes very difficult to distinguish who is fighting who and who is winning. Why can't they do Red Trans Am and Pink Trans Am so we can tell who is who? Sound Effects in general were fantastic too. Marina's song is kind of so so, the ED was good but the entire soundtrack lacked a cohesiveness that was evident in SEED.

Plot Pet Peeve (not unique to Gundam 00)

Why is it when they have any type of combining units (like 00 and Raiser, or Zeta and Zeta 2 to make double zeta) why can't they launch it already combined instead of separately launching then wasting 38 seconds on the mega-exciting-combine "Gattai" sequence not to mention giving the enemy a chance to shoot down both units which are in the process of combining? Also when they return to the ship do they have to separate to go in, or can the combined unit go in then dock and then separate? They never show this. In any of the gundam series! It makes no sense whatsoever! Stuff like this drives me nuts, really and kind of kills my enjoyment of the show. Somebody please explain this to me, there must be a logical reason.

Enjoyment

Overall I thought this was very good. I couldn't wait to watch it and see what happened next. Parts felt rushed and bits were a waste of time. But it was pretty and the plot and characters kept me interested. I never felt like I "HAD" to finish this, instead I looked forward to it. I'd recommend every gundam fan watch this series as it is solid entertainment. read more

This series is sure to have received a very high expectation from the viewers, and that includes me. The first season left a huge mass of mysteries and many possibilities for the conclusion of the story. With just some little improvements from the first season, this sequel will be close to perfection; but it becomes utterly disappointing in almost every aspect.

Story (6/10)

The conflict the new direction of the story is intriguing and interesting in the start. Now we see the outcome of the protagonists', the Celestial Beings or the Gundam Meisters, idealistic military interventions. Even with all their efforts, the world is at a bad, or even worse state as before.

With this backdrop, secrets are finally revealed one by one. But though the revelations are in tandem with excellent gundam battles, the character involvement makes it very bland. The tactics, teamwork and science involve are as excellent (but later on, replaced with godlike gundams) as before but character "developments" are too rushed, unrealistic and insignificant in general. Gone are the deep connection to the root of mankind's actions, the radical characters that show it, and the tackling of current societal issue such as religion, energy crisis, ethnic differences, terrorism and others.

They were replaced by the repetitive portrayal "the antagonists have a logical and probably good intention for the world but in reality they're evil." What happens is that each episode or arc we see the same themes over and over again and the build-up to the climax is poor.

Art (10/10)

The best in the series: high definition animation. And the gundams are in the peak of our current mecha designs. Each part of the frame are detailed: hair, eyes, clothing and especially, the mechanical parts. the colors are beautiful and bright and the light of the GN Drive is very memorable.

The endings of the anime must be praised for their symbolism and artistry.

Sound (8/10)

I must say that the music in this series features the same genre as the first season: modern pop ballads and alternative rock. Because the setting is Anno Domini, I think the moods they give is appropriate.

The background music has improved and they are not repetitive. However, though they are appropriate, they don't give a lasting impression.

Character (5/10)

I say the character of the series and the characters themselves have become mediocre.

The main characters were developed greatly in the first season but the second season is supposed to be the room for their interaction: And we get a very big mess.

Setsuna and Marina's bond is unique and in a way beautiful but their interaction in the second season are insignificant and offers no substance. The potential result of their differences of beliefs are sublimated. Setsuna is still a almost emotionless badass, but his interaction with the many mediocre characters dimmed his remaining good quality

Allelujah/Hallelujah is one of the most interesting characters because of his psychology but in the second season he screams "Marie!" 50% or more of the time and the other dialogues he's involve in does not add to the overall drama. Soma screams "Colonel!" And it's the same as Saji, who also screams "Louise!" most of the time, and Louise, who psychotically screams "Celestial Being!" In short, these characters, and others too, long for another in different ways yet their internal conflicts are cliche or lacks screen time.

We expect something different from the new Lockon Stratos with his connections but we get little. His role, aside from being a Meister,is to add drama which slapped on and poorly developed. Tieria involvement are crucial, but somehow his fanservice moments are more memorable to me.

The new characters with spotlights in the series does not leave impacts at all, and I find them insignificant in general. Beside from adding angst, evil or action, their purpose is to pilot the new gundam models that is of course, advertisement. The main antagonist is well...bland. He lacks badassery.

The character is the greatest weakness of the show. Also an interesting note, this show has abused binary pairs the most- too many characters has pairs, look-alikes, clones, alter egos that are explored little.

Enjoyment:

I enjoyed it because of the action and suspense. But the story makes me cry in disappointment. The characters have great potential in them but 25 episodes as too short for them. If they were only explored more and interacted in a slower, more cinematic manner with lots of meaningful dialogues this series will have definitely improved.

OVERALL: 6 read more

(Phase one)
I am not into Mecha anime, truth be told this is the 1st time that I've tried to watch a series on the Gundam franchise that is produced by Sunrise-Bandai™...
I expected it to be the same as the other Gundam series but I was proven wrong...
After seeing the 1st season, I was so surprised at how this series turned out. I expected myself to drop this after watching a couple of episodes but instead I was drawn in to watch it up to the end, it has all the elements needed to create a precise and successful series...

(Phase two)
Interesting plot, complex storyline, excellent character development, and outstanding visualization... The animation itself is clear and very detailed...
I tried to watch some Gundam series before but after 2-5 episodes I find my interest draining away, one thing that I've observed is that compared to other Gundam titles this series so far is the easiest to understand...

(Phase three)
I mean when I watched other Gundam titles in the 1st or 2nd episode, they introduce many Gundams with their corresponding models like Gundam Zeta, Gundam ZZ, Gundam Type Z-0, etc. etc..
Somehow it seems like instead of becoming interesting, it became a show-off for Gundam models and sometimes it will become confusing while you watch it, I mean it's like, "What's this Gundam, why does it look the same as that Gundam?"
So in the end it is not interesting at all...

(Final Phase)
But Gundam 00 is really great, I must admit that they did a good job on this series. For someone like me who is not into mecha anime I was definitely surprised, at the ending of the 1st season it left me an impression that the good part is yet to come. After seeing the 1st 3 episodes of the second season I could say that this is definitely going to be much more interesting, much more complex, and much more developed than the 1st...
So brace yourself on the second season, from the look of things this is going to be another epic...
This season is a promising one... And I guess it's worth the wait! Tee hee~ :3

(Operation Review - Mission Complete)
:p read more

This is a review not just of the second season but both 1st and 2nd seasons together. The reason I do this is because I consider many Gundam series like these to have 50 episodes like many of them do. So if you read my first review of Gundam 00, this is a modified/continuation. It's been a long run since Gundam SEED but this series was far better. Though I wouldn't say it was great, it didn't really disappoint me. The story of this series follows the same formula as Gundam Wing, bunch of girly looking guys piloting overly powerful mechs for a rebellious cause. So lets break it down shall we?

The Story of this series was decent. Political intrigue was great since that's what most Gundam series should have. Many of the Characters had okay back stories, but I'll explain them later, and the story didn't go off course. The problem I noticed is that though it had these redeeming features it still felt like I was watching Gundam SEED. It was excessively flashy. The Gundam concepts with Trans-AM and super beam sabers that can take down a fleet of ships just didn't make sense. They are never explained and seem so surreal. Any Gundam fan would agree that many of these elements were really unneeded, and the series would continue to flow even without those..."things". When the series began, the GN drives (the energy source of the Gundams) were rarely explained and just lead to more questions. The same goes for the whole purpose of the Celestial Being cause. We know they were a secret military force made by a man, Aeolia Schenberg, that was to fight off and prevent Wars. Whoopty doo... but it was nothing but plot holes that make you think what the hells going on, but if you have ADD you become distracted with the Flashy battle scenes instead of noticing it.

The Characters of the series is another topic I want to explain as well. Many of their personalities switch back and forth making your wonder what the hell is going on. Character development in this series isn't one of it's strongest points. Some characters never have any development at all, i.e. Allelujah Haptism. As the series progresses to it's final battle, their importance to the series becomes less apparent and all the focus changes to Setsuna. Yes, I understand that he is the main character but if I do recall this series is about 4 Gundam pilots, not one. And how is it that only Setsuna reaches the next step in human evolution but not the others, dam I just gave a spoiler. As I continued to watch this series, there was barely any serious interactions between characters. Oh, there was that one time that Anew...blah blah blah, that doesn't count. It's a formulated Gundam storyline, that's what it is. Yes I say this because I've seen it happen over and over again.

Art and Sound, pretty well done. I like the designs of many of the mobile suits, and I can't wait to see the MSVs (Mobile Suit Variations) of them. I am totally digging the intros and end themes as well. I like UVERworld, and L'arc~en~Ceil. I always find myself putting them on my MP3 every time I turn it on. I would be a better music critic if I could but I'm just not that kind of person. Anyways, back to Art. Character concepts for all the characters were decent. Of course, after Gundam Wing, all of our Gundam pilots have to look like girls, just because to create a larger female interest in the series. I can totally see many of them end up in some Hentai or Yaoi magazine (pretty sure they already are), like those from Gundam SEED Destiny. Like I said of the Mechs, they are pretty cool, but like Gundam SEED they are really flash and seem to have so many unneeded attributes attached to their bodies.

In the end of all this epic sword swingin', trash talkin', and totally confused adolescence screaming, I was able to sigh in relief that the series was over. I knew if it continued any further, It'd probably change into it's own kind of monster. I did enjoy it, don't get me wrong. I would prefer this series over Gundam SEED any day. I wouldn't count on it as the best or greatest of the Gundam anthology. As far as New Gundam series it should bring in a lot of new comers for the franchise and probably have more people to talk about it, and I like that. I'm looking forward to the new Gundam 00 installment that's coming out next year if you hadn't herd, that's another spoiler I guess. What I am really wishing for is that they would reanimate the original series and air it on TV, calling it Mobile Suit Gundam HD Remix (Like Street Fighter II HD Remix Turbo, lol), like that will ever happen. My ending conclusion is, it's worth watching, but you'll know it's not something to die over, figuratively speaking.

Yours Truly
Otakufreak

P.S. Don't be messin' with Zakus... read more

If you saw Gundam 00 season 1 and you liked it, you probably wanna see season 2 as well.
But Gundam 00 S2 is crappy as hell (aside from the good looks.. the production value was top notch).

I have to admit that I liked Gundam 00 S1 (except for the ending).
Gundam 00 S1 focused a lot on the plot/action and because of that, the character development got neglected.
But that didn't matter, because even with the 1-dimensional characters, it was still an interesting and exciting mecha anime.

However in Gundam 00 S2, 'they' tried to 'spice up' the character development a bit.
They totally froze the storytelling and decided to focus (a lot more) on the characters.
But they failed miserably!!! The characters didn't come 'alive' one bit!!!!
The result = crap.

Hell.. what annoyed me the most were the things that just didn't make sense.
For example the 'couple': Louise and Saji.
Saji discovers something (very) important about Louise's tragedy (spoiler?) and 'every' viewer knows Louise should know about this.
But for some reason whenever Saji meets Louise, he NEVER discloses this important information to Louise.

What we get instead is a lot of shit dialogue like: "Saji.." "Louise!" "Saji!!" "Louise!!"
The same with Setsuna.. awww .. I'm not even going to start with his "Orewah Gundammmuhhh" dialogues/monologues...

In short.. Gundam 00 S2.. was bad.. very bad.. compared to season 1..
The story became predictable, the (romantic) character development was crap, some unimportant characters died,
bad guys didn't actually die in season 1, you get spammed with loads of new characters,
Ribbons 'bitch-slaps' female characters and they 'endure' it *cough*.. and so on...

But anyways .. loads of you brainwashed *Gundam-lovers* will probably love this show anyways..
So... enjoy the sequel you guys.. :|
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