Gundam 00 was the first long Gundam series that was split into two halves of about 25 episodes, rather than continuing for a full run of 50. In te end, it turned out into a decent series: it does the job it’s supposed to do, but it wasn’t anything really outstanding. The second season unfortunately was a bit weaker than the first.
While the first series had some interesting politics in the beginning, the second season drops the politics aspect completely and instead focuses much more on delivering solid action and the story becomes much more character-focused. Central to the story are various different conflicts between opposing sides, and these really range from utterly abysmal (Saji and Louise whine way too much throughout the series) to engaging and pretty good (Allelujahh and Marie). Especially Setsuna deserves credit, as he grows into a solid and capable male lead.
This approach has its good and bad sides. As I said: whenever the good characters take up the spotlight, the series becomes pretty enjoyable, but in the end the second season is just too formulaic. There are too many random battles that don’t stand apart from each other; they hardly ever resolve something and usually end up with both parties simply retreating. Most of the major villains lack development (especially the innovators, who apart from Regetta have as much personality as a paper bag), and all in all, this second season could have also been done in 13 episodes without losing much of the content or impact.
So in the end, this really is a series for those who want lots of solid action. If you’re not into that, then there really isn’t a lot left to watch in this series. The animation pretty good overall, but for me it was hardly ever really aestetically pleasing; the soundtrack is excellent, though. It’s not a bad series by far, and it has some pretty enjoyable parts (my personal favourite being the fall of the elevator), but there are lots of better mecha-series out there.
| Storytelling: | 8/10 |
| Characters: | 8/10 |
| Production-Values: | 8/10 |
| Setting: | 7/10 |
This was SO anti-climactic. This is one of the worst and lamest endings to a Gundam show I’ve seen. The final battle was a joke, the Aeolia plan was a bigger joke, and Ribbons himself was THE joke. I had to wash this foul taste with the final episodes of Gundam SEED. THAT was a great final battle. Not 10 idiots fighting, with 2 idiots fighting in the end, but two worlds, nuclear powered attacks, spamming beams for 20 minutes, death, revenge, and an enemy with real depth and motivation. Sunrise, you failed me with Destiny, you fail me with this.
the final battle would have been okay IF they didn’t bring out the 0 and Exia again. Just end it with the two strongest Gundams in the series and be done with it.
I agree the soundtrack/OP/ED are excellent. Ash Like Snow/Friends remains the best anime OP and ED combo I’ve ever heard.
The last episode due to the editing allows for time to go by to explain the scenes we see. It is not a Disney ending. Aeolia’s plan lead to the concentration of power and once the corrupted head was removed the new people in charge over time started mending things.
The change shown is implied to have taken time and not happen overtime. Mr Bushido was there as an homage to the original Gundam and also to show man’s limits and the innovator’s power. In the original Gundam you had Naturals and Newtypes. Aolia’s plan will be further covered in the movie next year. Setsuna as an Innovator and Bushido as a human will face again. It will cover the whole dilemma of wether innovators are better or not. Wait for the movie in 2010 to complete the story.
I swear to god some of you people are entirely unpleasable when it comes to mecha anime. The impression I’m getting is that you are all saying “I don’t know what kind of ending I would have wanted, but it wasn’t this”, as it probably would have been for any ending they came up with or frankly anything they tried to do with the show period. I mean no wonder some people have a wishy washy impression of the show when they are like that the whole way through.
Whatever…..at least I’m satisfied……
“So in the end, this really is a series for those who want lots of solid action. If you’re not into that, then there really isn’t a lot left to watch in this series.”
I agree. Being someone who doesn’t care about action and battles, there was not anything to look forward to.
I agree that the first season was a bit better than the second, although I still throughly enjoyed both seasons. The problem with season 2 is that it bites off more than it can chew. In the first season the characters did not receive much attention, but in season 2 focus shifts dramatically to the characters. The problem is that there were just way too many characters to focus on and not enough time to develop them all properly, yet sunrise still tries to give everyone their fair share of time, but in the end some characters do not receive adequate development or time (Graham Acre).
At the same time the plot is also neglected, resulting in a slightly disappointing plot, but I’ll wait until the movie to pass final judgment on the story. Maybe this could have been avoided if a little more focused was directed towards the characters in Season 2. Overall season 2 was decent at the very least and was enjoyable to watch.
Both seasons were enjoyable but i too think the 1st had more impact, idk but i think they tried to hard to go for a boom with the 2nd season
00 is a strange beast, because it has some solid foundations and the whole Celestial Being intervention idea is pretty intriguing and apparently it will still go on. The second half of the second season had too much melodrama for melodrama’s sakes and yeah, the actions sorta didn’t connect to one another at times.
That said, it helps that is had some of the most epic Gundam fights in Gundam history while they were at it. IMO, out of like top 10 best Gundam fights, this show might have had like 7 out of my top 10. At least.
i will say this, i also liked the first season as a whole better than the second, not by much, but the first half or maybe first ten episodes of season 2 were great. i do agree that there was a few too many characters to be able to flesh out everyone, and the problem with stuff like this is that when you introduce us to someone and make it seem they are important in some aspect, you expect them to get more in depth with that character at some point, but they couldnt do that with everyone. it probably would have been better if they just trimmed the cast in the second season by offing some people for reals at the end of the first.
Im sick of people bad-mouthing the ending.
You want a horrible ending? Go watch BOTH Seed Series. They sucked so bad it made SD Gundam look way more appealing. Seriously, WTH was the ending supposed to be like? The final battle was epic. IDC what anyone says, you can’t tell me that Neil didn’t own that innovator with two pinkys and that Ribbons classic RX-78 did not look badass with just a beam sword.
The story is for this generation of Gundam fans, not for those who saw Gundam Wing on Toonami or are into mecha genre as a whole. Although I Defenatly agree there are better series of MSG, this is on my top five of all time.
The character buildup was great. Most characters that seemed insufficiant
got their shine. 9/10
Plot was ok. A little on the far out there scale. 8/10
Mecha design, psh no comment. 9.5/10
Overall 9.2/10
At least there was no gay shouting in this one like in seed/seed destiny
Well,it’s hard to make a movie when you have an ending that solves everything and most of the goals of the plans has already been explained if you bother to look at certain scenes scattered through the series even if it hasnt been solved yet.
Still the thing is,00 is a multimedia project,it’s not an anime that has spinoffs,the anime is only one piece;the main piece but still one piece nonetheless,the background onformation plays a vital role for those who want to know the full story behind the scenes like why are they so many Innvedas in the word is explained in 00P and of course how was Kyrios’s Drive saved.Among other sources are the instruction manuals,00P,00F,00V,S2 Official Files and others.
I may not be entirely happy with the setup,but I guess if you take the time to read through,it’s alot more satisfying than what the anime gives.
If this ending was the true ending of the series then I will be really pissed of,but it seems to be a smart move in my opnion if they wanted to make a movie out of it.
I am not 100% confident the movie will be good,but I look forward to it anyway.
At least the battles are way better in S2.
You know what I think the real purpose of Gundam 00 was, especially the 2nd season? A money-making scheme to advertise their gunpla models. That’s it pretty much to the second season. I mean, how many different suits did Mr Bushido pilot? What was the whole point of switching the Masurao for the Susanowo?? And my biggest gripe is what they did with 00-raiser. Sure, it looks pretty cool with Trans-am on, but surely they can do better than slap a plane onto the back of a gundam? I reckon even a primary kid could have come up with something like that.
“At least there was no gay shouting in this one like in seed/seed destiny”
That’s it. 😀 The reason why SEED get higher rating is mainly because their bishonen character. They sucks, but girls like it that way. WTF…
I think Gundam 00 is a success. At least with characters design.
I don’t know if it was because it was the first Gundam series I watched, but I enjoyed all 50 episodes of Gundam 00 a lot! I don’t think at all that this series only has something to offer to those who want action though. I think the plot throughout the whole run was solid and well developed, the mystery of Aeolia’s plan was kept well concealed until the last episodes, and then it was not a disappointing revelation. And not having watched other Gundam series before, the ideas of Innovators and Solar Elevators felt very fresh and provided for awesome science fiction.
True, there were glaring flaws, the most annoying is Saji and Louise, and also Marina in my opinion. And the annoying deus ex machina at episode 49 ruined some of the ending. But still, there was much more here than brainless action, even at the second season
Also, in my opinion the Innovators were very nice villains. Most of them lacked personalities, but at least they had to be killed in order to be stopped, unlike most of the ends of villains, who end up giving in to the stupid speech of the protagonist.
All in all, I think the reason this anime made an impact on me was the solid plot much more than the action. It moved slow, but it built up well, keeping fresh most of the time. It lacked also in many anime cliches, and the romance between Saji and Louise could have been tons worse.
Gundam seed >> Gundam 00
I agree with the folks who say SEED is better. I wasn’t the biggest fan of Destiny, though. It was just more… magical, and colorful, and immersing. The soundtrack was more theatrical with all its orchestration. And I _loved_ the melodramatic character focus of SEED–the stuff here just sacrifices too much of the story.
Like, I’d even have dreams about SEED. The characters especially. That’s something I would never do with this (or most other series in the world). I’ve been hoping for another series like SEED for a long, long time, but this isn’t it. It doesn’t have the amazing absorbing power (HIGHLY ABSORBENT, HOLDS 20 TIMES ITS WEIGHT), nor its endearing flaws (instead it has other, ickier flaws).
The dub is the only thing I could really stand of SEED, but here it looks like the voice-acting cast is not half bad.
There’s still a bit of politics involved in the story, like how the media is heavily controlled by military instead by the government
To say that the action in this series was just “good” is an understatement. I don’t know, maybe it’s because I was watching this on blue-ray but the action and animation was very well done.
While I believe there’s some recycling of Gundam Wing in this series, I think the story is at par, if not a little better, in comparison with the rest of the Gundam franchise. Like someone said, I found it had a solid plot and an intriguing story.
I think 77.5 is a fair mark to give, but if left to me it’d be a least an 80.
The reason I liked Gundam 00 so much was because it was set in our world, 300 years in the future. I am one to watch the science channel and the news, and I can say that they did a very good job to bring in eerie parallels into Gundam 00. Things like the military being controlled by the media sounds a lot like whats starting to happen now. I remember watching something once that even talked about building orbital elevators for solar energy with the exact concept that they used in Gundam 00.
When it comes to the plot, it can be get really corny, but I just expect that from any main stream anime. However, if you are one that pays attention to what is happening politically everyday, I dont care where you stand on the views spectrum, you would come to feel a sense of respect for the people that created this anime. Sure it might not have Athrun Zala or Kira Yamato (both whom are so corny and lame and unrealistic idc how bishonen they are) this anime may not have the crazy multiple weapons like GSEED had but I tend to like that way. The fact that each these Gundams have depend on each others skills and plan out there battles beats the one person army Gundams that literally go into battle with not much thought on how they are going to win the battle.
The bad thing about Gundam 00 is that it has a lot of elements in it that you are just supposed to assume to know and figure out for yourself, you know connect the dots. Like how poverty stricken these other countries are that are not part of the three major factions. I really wish that they would have put in a scene where it showed like a whole village dies from plague or something, much like how on GSEED or even Destiny showed coordinators get brutally slaughtered. To me it should had shown more brutality. It was a more mature Gundam show, much more than GSEED, yet it didn’t take the opportunity to show its audience the bitter cruel world that REALLY comes from war. Sure the show wasnt exactly sunshine and rainbows, but Setsuna and the others might as well have been taking their gundams to go see the lollipop king when it came to showing grit.
I know that people complained about how great and grand GSEEDs and omg Destiny’s soundtrack was. However I do not detest 00’s music. (cept that l’arc en ciel song) I think they did a great job matching their story plot line with its unique soundtrack. I just dont see mozart sounding music that both seed and destiny had fitting in well with 00. Music tells a story too, that is why when flipping through youtube you will see fans trading music from other animes fail or not make it anywhere as good.
Overall I am content in ways with 00 that I wasn’t content with GSEED. However there are some elements I think was more satisfied with GSEED then 00. But that doesn’t make it a bad anime, even though it made me feel a tad empty. It also doesnt make a perfect anime much like Code Geass was. To me they should have added more but didn’t so this anime gets about an 8. (barely)
I really enjoyed Gundam 00. To be honest I liked GSEED but hated Destiny. 00 just seemed more honest with its portrayal of war. SEED had its “ATHRUUUUUN” “KIIIIIIIRAAAA” moments but nothing really showing the collateral damage or unassuming victims of the war. I was annoyed at Louise and Saji’s whining but I liked how they showed Saji’s movement to a complete selfish pacifist into someone who was willing to fight for his ideals.
I think in the end this is what all Gundam series are about, fighting for your ideals, and how not all ideals are evil, such as Lt. Sergei’s loyalty to A-Laws even after being confronted with its brutality.