Gundam 00 – The Beginning
7 October 2007
Simply put, I’m impressed, very impressed. The animation is solid, the mecha designs look even better than the in the promos and I’m loving the cast. Every word Tieria speaks reminds me of Itoshiki, even the character design, with those glasses and that strange, purple sweater they put him in during the ending reminds me of Itoshiki. And Lockon reminds so much of Mullin Shetland from Last Exile, it’s silly. Setsuna sort of reminds me of Raito, but I’m having a hard time hearing the similarities and I haven’t seen enough of Firo in Baccano! to recognize his voice in Hallelujah. Yet.
And, and, the best part is, every single frickin’ person in double O looks good. Even that AEU ace, Patrick what’s his name who got pwned in two seconds flat by Setsuna, looks good. Wikipedia has him down as a “Hot-blooded guy”, which made me laugh. When you say hot-blooded the only two people that come to mind are Simon and Kamina. Even minor characters, like blond ace, who looks slightly like November 11, are beautiful. In the words of Huang, they’d all be GQ models. The character designs are gorgeous enough that I’ll watch double O just to get my weekly bishonen fix, with Hei gone and all. (I’m really suffering emotional detachment problems, I’ve made four references in five sentences. Oh, DtB and GL, how I miss thou…)
At first, the mecha designs didn’t really appeal to me, but after seeing them in action, I’m ready to change my mind. Think Code Geass mecha designs, but better, much better because I’m still a sucker for gundam. Exia, in a word, is beautiful. The sleek and minimal design gives it such a nimble and agile quality, armed with that blade, it’s like some twisted angel of death. Dynames is the sniper of unit, armed with a large, beam rifle picking mobile suits out of the sky like birds. (I still can’t get over the fact that they named the sniper Lockon, lock on? Heh…) Kyrios has the ability to transform into flight mode, which is pretty self explanatory, a cross between some jet aircraft and a gundam. Last but not least, Virtue is the heavy weapons one, even the design itself reflects the elephantine power of that cannon it touts around. Unlike Gundam Wing, the mobile suits in double O are more practical, no scythes or wings here. I’m still hell bent on calling this Gundam Wing minus one, though.
The actual story itself is nothing to write home about. After all, it’s still the generic anti-war sentimental that plagues almost every single gundam series. Waring organizations exploiting smaller countries, enter the peace keepers, Celestial Beings, paradoxically fighting for peace. Not a lot is revealed about the characters, expect for the small prologue about Setsuna and his first encounter with, what I’m assuming to be, Exia. Lockon is probably the most verbose and lax of the four, while Tieria gives off the usual cold and menacing quality. Hallelujah is acting his part as the somewhat depressed one with nothing to say. The creepy, old guy with the monocle, the spokesperson and leader of the Celestial Beings doesn’t even have a name and there’s a bunch of other random, possibly important characters running around.
All in all, I’m quite pleased with the first episode. I was both anticipating and dreading this new gundam series, but from the looks of it Sunrise scored another hit.
lol, you thought of November 11 too? So did I when I saw that Union guy. It’s probably the hair and him having that unshakeable confidence thing that reminded me.