Mobile Suit Gundam 00 – 33

Short Synopsis: No fighting this time, instead: plot development. And a cross-dressing Tieria…
Highlights: Nice developments!
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7,5/10 (Good)
Ah, finally it’s time for this series to reveal what the final stage of Aeolia Shenberg’s plan was. He wasn’t just an overambitious Mother Teresa who simply hoped to achieve a world without war, but also one where humanity could make great leaps of advancements into space. Now Wan Lui Ming’s role in the whole series also becomes clear: she wants to see humanity enter space, and doesn’t care how it happens. Now that the Innovators are closer to achieving that goal, it obviously doesn’t come as much of a surprise to see her on their side now.

Meanwhile, I’m glad that this episode also introduced some of the small scale politics back into the series, with the plans to reorganize the Middle East. I wonder what kind of effect that will have with Marina Ismael. I can really see her being the Relena of this series, where at one point she’s going to take back the control over the region in an attempt to set right the mistakes she made.

And I must say, that more and more references to past Gundam series keep popping up, especially in the second season: Enhanced Soldiers vs. Newtypes, Setsuna F. Seiei starts to resemble Heero Yui more and more, there’s Mr Bushido of course, the deserted island, and Marina vs. Relena. Still, despite the references, I’m glad that this series manages to retain its own goals and identity. The things I’ve read about Gundam Seed seem to indicate that nearly everything inside it was ripped off past Gundam-series.

Tieria in a dress was an interesting piece of fanservice by the way. But I guess that if he didn’t dress up as a woman, people would start to recognize him, but that still makes me wonder why he used a purple wig, instead of a more neutral colour. That’s one thing that’s kept bugging me about this series: the ridiculous hair colours. I know it’s anime and all, but they remain annoying. It works much better if people just walk around in colours that actually exist. Especially since the only people who seem to be affected by these colours are the ones important to the plot…

In this episode we also learn that Louise’s father is a great financer of the A-Laws. That explains her high position, and likeliness of being involved at important places. It makes sense, although she ended up living next to Setsuna in the first episode of the first season a bit too conveniently. Still, I’m glad to see that she’s maturing really fast. The only thing I ask of her is not to go emo like Saji’s doing. There’s a fine line between genuine drama and downright emo, and Saji’s been continuing to hop over that line through the process of the series (thankfully though, he’s the only one so far, and I’d like to keep it that way).