Summary: Gundam 00 takes place some centuries into the future on the A.D. calender. It takes place within our solar system, but mainly on Earth until the latter episodes of the series kicks in which are all set in space. The world has split into three main powers: the Union (consisting of North and South American countries), the AEU (consisting of Europe, the Middle East, I think Africa is part of it too) and HRL (consisting of Asia and Russia). The world exists in a delicate balance as these powers play a zero-sum game where all of their armaments must to limited to ensure that they have no advantage over the other two powers. However, as mentioned before, this is a very delicate balance and if it was broken in anyway, it would cause the entire world to go into a state of chaos (well, eventually anyway). A mysterious group called Celestial Being step in and make a stand by saying that they will intervene in conflict situations and resolve them through violent means to ensure that they don't drag out for long periods of time (since prolonged periods of conflict end up causing more casualties and loss of resources). They use a type of advanced weapon by the name of GUNDAM, which are large humanoid robots that are equipped with various types of armaments and generally cause way more destruction than those of the world currently has. The question is, how will the world react to this? Is it a miracle from the heavens? Or is it a threat to the peace and stability mankind has accomplished so far?
Now for the review,
Story (8/10):
I thought the story had its fair points. Many of the conflict situations are similar to the ones in the world today showing that these things will take time to resolve or get worse if we just leave it as it is. The question that the story first poses is, How should peace be approached? Diplomatically (a slow and generally unsuccessful process that is deemed right in this world) or through 3rd party intervention (fast, generally destructive, but in the long term it saves a good deal of casualties and resources?
The story took many different viewpoints to convey the tale. It generally took the view of the protagonists, the Gundam Meisters, but occasionally it took the view of the antagonists, the soldiers from the different powers and even of how it affected the civilians.
The story, however, suffered from unrealistic aspects such as recurring villains, weird foreign policies from some of the nations, and lack of emphasis on certain groups or characters (yeah, I understand this is war with thousands of people, but there were too many characters).
Art (9/10):
This, I believe, was the first High Definition Video Gundam show produced and I believe that this is one of the best animation and art I've ever seen. Fight scenes are fast, but often done in meticulous detail. There isn't much cutting or skipping involved. You can see Exia's blade grinding through the mobile suits as though it is receiving some realistic resistance, while in most anime it would be depicted as cutting straight through with the slash appearing before the blade. The character design wasn't excellent, but it didn't affect the viewing drastically. Emotions were extremely well portrayed during battles. Facial features contorting in rage was a pretty common one and a well done one too.
There were only minor problems with the animation, such as the beams from the false solar furnaces, which looked like they were one ugly solid color, but in general it was excellent.
Sound (8/10):
I don't really give too much stock to voice acting, but in general it wasn't bad. The opening and ending songs chosen for this show were very good, especially the second opening and ending. The soundtrack was mainly varied, having a good combination of energetic, battle music to the quiet themes of the certain characters. Sound effects weren't too shabby either. Explosions and metal clashes sounded almost frighteningly realistic.
Character (7/10):
Possibly the weakest aspect of the show, I'll start with the bad parts of this aspect.
To begin with, there were too many characters and only 26 episodes to do the job. Yeah, I understand there is a second season, but at least some part of the personality and development should go into this. The ending (a bit of a spoiler here) involved a good deal of minor characters for potentially dramatic scenes, however we could not sympathize for their statement or actions all that much because a very meager about of development had occurred. And finally, a lot of personalities were too similar or just too predictable, but that could be excused since this is anime, after all.
The good side was that the emphasis was wrought down almost entirely upon the four main characters. They form a sort of dysfunctional family and each of them goes through phases of doubt and distrust before usually emerging becoming closer to each other. They all have their rights and beliefs and no, they aren't pure, altruistic heroes. They are human, even the annoying bishonen dude with purple hair. Our main characters develops immensely and most importantly, asks questions and make statements that are kind of true, despite how much we wish to deny it. This is what makes this anime sort of different from the usual action anime we see. And yeah, someone pulls off a Shinji Ikari style depression before the end, but it isn't as significant as in Evangelion or Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.
Enjoyment factor (10/10):
I'll say this, you won't be bored. The action, the occasional drama and even the politics will help you enjoy this anime a lot. However, a few of my friends commented upon the fact that this show recycles a lot of elements from previous Gundam shows and in the end, there isn't a terrible lot of concepts or ideas that are new, so it kind of ruins a surprise element for the veteran Gundam viewer.
Phew, that's about it for now. I'm looking forward to next season, but that's only if Code Geass won't capture my heart once again. Thank you for reading.
