Now, season 1 wasn’t exactly amazing but it was an interesting first step into a new AU. The universe of Ad Stella is still one with plenty of potential and intrigue. A corporate hellscape where Earth is consumed by proxy wars, poverty and rampant human rights violations while the elite that live comfortably in space control basically everything with their monopolies on mobile suit development. While the first cour might have dragged its heels here and there, it also set up a lot of cool and interesting concepts and plot threads. Transhumanism, human experimentation, corporate backstabbing, proxy conflicts, etc, that were ripe to expand upon in the second act. But no, WFM drops the ball hardcore and what remains is a rushed, poorly paced mess with more hanging threads than a Goodwill sweater.
First off, the pacing. Season 1 was slow, almost to a fault. Nothing wrong with letting the story breathe and naturally going about things but this is no Turn A Gundam. Instead the story dragged as the lower stakes and constant back and forth between the factions quickly kept things at a standstill. While there were some good episodes here and there (Guel’s Pride, A Gloomy Song, Their Choice), It wasn’t until episode 12 that things really kicked into high gear, the stakes were dramatically raised and we ended on a classic Okouchi cliffhanger that left basically everyone desperate to see what happens next.
And then… this. Season 2 starts off strong if a bit messy. A franchise wide high (What They Wish For) is followed by an entire episode dedicated to bringing Guel back home and establishing the Dawn of Fold, their motives and the people working with them. Surely this will be useful later right? After that we get one more solid episode in Cycle of Sin before the ball is dropped and it is dropped hard. Presumably having realised that it’s been 17 episodes and they haven’t meaningfully developed their lead or really the story as a whole, the plot rushes into overdrive crashes from one plot point to the next. We get our SECOND fake-out breakup of the show, a bunch of poorly explained exposition dumps, several characters get locked together in a room as the plot doesn’t know what to do with them, Shaddiq’s plan fails and he gets owned to death by Guel because a child mentioned his nickname to the space police before it all smashes into a wall at mach 10 as a super powerful Gundam that had never been mentioned or even hinted at before in the plot is pulled out of thin air. After that, everyone rushes to the final destination, a space laser gets pulled out of thin air to raise the stakes, there’s a random and utterly pointless side fight between Guel and his eternally seething brother Lauda in the much hyped Schwarzette Gundam which ultimately does nothing whatsoever except job and then the whole thing hastily wraps things up as fast as humanly possible in a big glittery bow, using as much space magic and shallow writing as possible. The end, thanks for watching.
The main critical issue with the show lies entirely in its pacing (and by extension its writing). After a slow as molasses first cour, the writers realised that they had spent so long pussyfooting around that they need to get back on track pronto. This ends up damaging the show significantly as any further character development from the leads is sidelined or hastily ran over, plot twists happen but ultimately serve little purpose (the reveal that the Space Assembly League, an organisation we still don’t know much about, is allied with the remnants of Ochs Earth from the Prologue is meant to be a shocking turn of events but that goes nowhere and is quickly dealt with the exact same scene it’s introduced), etc etc. They clearly wanted to make the finale a big thing even though that itself is filled with out-of-nowhere reveals, pointless and frankly stupid detours and a last episode that devolves into complete nonsense before coming to an abrupt close. Peil’s human experimentation? Never mentioned again. The Dawn of Fold? Ultimately pointless. Elan Ceres’ motivation and reason for being in the story (and by extent the histories of Enhanced Person 4 and 5?) Who cares. Instead Suletta goes EVEN FURTHER BEYOND, erases all the Gundams and then we get a brief three year time skip that is over and done with in a few minutes where everything is hunky dory even though the world is still on the brink of social collapse. But hey, at least the leads are happy right?
The biggest issue here is regarding Prospera. After spending the whole show pulling strings, murdering people, manipulating those around her, launching a false flag attack on Earth and building what is essentially a giant EMP space station that will let her control all technology in the Earth Sphere, her plan crumbles after a group of teenagers back into her Death Star using biometric data of a tomato (yes I’m serious) and then she is instantly forgiven for her sins and dodges any form of punishment whatsoever, as Suletta just really wants a mom. Instead, Shaddiq decides to take the blame for it because reasons. The worst part is that this directly goes against the very themes the show was establishing in the previous episodes. Take responsibility for your actions, children shouldn’t suffer because of what their parents do, etc. Well fuck that I guess because none of the adults take responsibility for their actions and their crimes are either ignored or forgotten about as Shaddiq bares the brunt of the law himself, smiling away as he’s carted off to his trial. Additionally the 4 CEOs of Peil, who the show seemed to be setting up as the final villains alongside the Space Assembly League get off completely scott-free for their crimes (minus losing their assets) and get to spend their days in a senior citizen’s home, their human trafficking and experimentation projects conveniently forgotten about.
Another glaring issue is the main relationship between Suletta and Miroine, or lack thereof. Sure the show will tell you that they’ve fallen in love and deeply care about one another but it certainly doesn’t show it. They shared maybe one genuinely romantic scene in the entire show and that was back in season 1. Take a look at their scenes together and pick out any actual romantic parts you see. Not vague or ambiguous stuff. Genuine romance. Try and also pick out a romantic scene that isn’t layered in exposition or lore dumps. Go on, try it. You’ll get… absolutely nothing. Season 2 doesn’t make things any better considering they barely interact at all, bar maybe a grand total of 3 times altogether throughout these 12 episodes. Now I know the people who are only watching this for the girls and don’t care about anything else will eat up whatever slop is dropped on their plate but if you’re looking for a genuinely well written romance story, you’re not going to find it here. Similarly you’re not going to find much mecha action here, any good political drama or much character development outside of the main pair either, meaning this show has failed on the base level and appeals to basically no one. Good job there, Sunrise
Now what did I like? Well there’s some cool mech designs (even if some are disgustingly underused), I like the overall setting and the world, Miorine is a solid character as is Guel and the Elan trio were definitely entertaining to watch, as was Kenanji and Martin. Suletta also gets some solid development; even if it takes nearly the whole run to start it. Everything else? I couldn’t tell you even if I tried. The music is bland and forgettable outside of the two excellent opening themes, character designs are iffy and the quality animation varies dramatically.
I’m not mad, I’m not even disappointed, I’m just tired. It’s been nearly 20 years since 00 came out and since then, most of the high quality Gundam we’ve been getting has been from movies and OVAs (mainly Hathaway and Thunderbolt) with the inbetween shows ranging from fun but flawed (G-Reco), boring as sin (AGE) or entire trainwrecks of their own (IBO). In the end it’s my fault for getting excited as I probably should’ve seen the warning signs going in (Okouchi writing, aimed at a wider audience, newbie director). But c’est la vie I guess, there’s always next time.
