gundam 00 7
Categories: anime, episodic review, gundam
Tagged: gundam 00
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It’s over. It’s finally over. Ms. Wang fails to change an outfit. It’s the beginning of the end. Let’s have a Jack and Coke to mourn this event.
Man, Kashim almost qualified for a Darwin Award when he stepped out of his mobile suit to confront Gauron (I’m going to use their Full Metal Panic names now, until the plot no longer reeks of Tess’ perfume). That has to be the worst move since Miya-Miya left 99 messages for Hirono-kun. I think one thing that the Union folks nailed this episode (if only Clannad‘s Graham Acre was fractionally as smart as this one) is that Celestial Being is one big implosion waiting to happen, but what’s not to say that’s not what Veda intended?
All of the Gundam Meisters are sparkplugs, and any rational (read: non-Sunrise, non-Haruhi Suzumiya) commander wouldn’t be entrusting uber-powerful weapons to such powder kegs. Kashim is obviously scared by Gauron, to the point that I think Gauron pissed on Kashim to mark his territory, and that piss is still fresh. Teiria acts like he has a constant stick up his ass. Allelujah had his breakdown earlier. Lockon talks with a bouncing pink ball. A sensible commander would have picked people more like the Major, Batou, and others from Section 6. Someone looking to purposely make a mess of things would have picked Kashim, Teiria, Allelujah, and Lockon. And, yes, if the most mentally stable guy in the group talks with a pink bouncing ball, I think there’s going to be issues.
One thing that I don’t like about Gundam 00 so far is the portrayal of the media. The media is what really controls the minds and hearts of the people, and they really haven’t played up the potential of the governments using the media to make Celestial Being look bad. This episode finally address some of that by adding this new terrorism dimension, but the media is treated to be weak and ineffectual and objective when I think it’s the opposite. The media should really be playing that up and making Celestial Being look like the bad guys and even compare body counts, ignoring facts like how one is staged as part of a military intervention that targeted military forces and the other is cowardly acts directed at civilians. Yes, it is regrettable that civilians died, but that is by-product of war. However, in terrorist bombings, they are the end-product. They really need to create a Fox News-equivalent for the Gundam Anno Domini world.
In other news, I am tragically devastated by the lack of a Ms. Wang outfit change. It ends the streak at seven. Also, is it just me, or do Sumeragi’s breasts seem to get larger and larger each episode? Egads. She looks like she could be part of the Eiken cast now.
Points of Interest
Ms. Wang’s pad looks really, really plush. It reminds me of Boogie Nights… it looks like one of the houses in Malibu where Dirk Diggler would be, uh, acting in.
(The more I think of it, the more it seems like it is Malibu or so other blush California coastal city. I mean, shopping. There’s a lot of shopping in Malibu. If it were Malibu, and the house was a former, or current, pr0n set, it would just make too much sense. Celestial Being would actually make sense. That scares me.)
Wait, let me get this straight. The one character who never changes her outfit is going clothes shopping? Only Sunrise can travel to China.
The smackdown that the Gundams laid was very reminiscent of Gundam Wing… but then again, the recent smackdowns in the Full Metal Panic universe have been just as one-sided. And, yeah, I’m blaming Kyoto for why we’re watching yet another Key visual novel turned anime and missing out on Arbalest vs. Belial… and of course, Bonta-kun Laevatein vs. Belial.
It’s something that has bothered me since Star Wars. How the hell do you dodge a beam laser? Lasers travel at the speed of light! One points a laser at an object, and if everything is calibrated just right, it’s going to hit that target, irregardless of how fast it is moving because the laser will travel at the speed of light. Am I to believe that somehow in the future the index of refraction for air suddenly increases 10,000 times? (Even this wouldn’t be enough to slow down light to be able to dodge it.) I can shallow certain plot points and deus ex machina as required by a script that bend reality, like the emergence of a thing from Sunao Moriyama’s fridge or how Tama-chan can beat up a grown man in kendo or somehow Gundams can fly around without having any aerodynamic attributes, but physical laws are physical laws. Dogding lasers isn’t bending physical laws; it’s breaking them.
When all the Gundam Meisters were fighting on the island, it reminded me a bit of Lost. Who would be Jack, Locke, and Mr. Eko? I’d say Lockon’s ore of a Jack, Setsuna’s more of a Locke, and Teiria is more of a Mr. Eko. I could be wrong. Christine could be a Nikki.
And, finally, from last episode…
IKnight: But originality is overvalued in this era! Medieval and Classical thinkers borrowed shamelessly from each other. Anyhow, I rather liked the ridiculousness of shopping before battle. This time with a financial-savvy reason (’commodity prices rise every time we make an intervention’).
Ever watched a modern sappy romantic comedy? After being dragged to my fair share, they’re all the same. If you think harem anime is repetitive, so is pretty much the modern romantic comedy genre. I just watched No Reservations, by no choice of my own, recently, and it followed the same exact pattern: improbably single hawt chix0r (Zeta-Jones) has flaws in her life (control freak; can’t maintain a relationship). Encounters life-changing event (inherits a nine-year-old girl). Has initial troubles, but manages with the help of mysterious improbably not-gay metrosexual male (Kevin Sorbo, but the credits say otherwise). We even get “an everyone is happy montage” followed by some fight and lastly some reconciliation that requires the resolution of the chix0r’s flaws and a happy ending. It’s a vicious pattern. It’s also much less watchable than ef just because no one is patently crazy.
Turambar: I have no idea who Balalaika is, but yeah, Soviet political jokes does give Sumeragi a run for her money…..
This is terrible! How can I let this happen!? Someone who doesn’t know who Balalaika is? I feel like a failure. Turambar, read this post, browse these entries, and then go pray at the Temple of Lolilaika.
Crusader: Natural? Perhaps, then again they don’t look nearly as big and slightly droopy in any other outfit. Better outfits in the future are needed, no more desperate barfly tops please.
Her breasts remind of train wreck Britney Spears. Sumeragi needs to stop getting fashion tips from her.
Yen: Sumeragi-neesan is amazing… wait, I think I saw this pattern somewhere else…
Only if she borrows Haruka’s bikini. Which, sadly, doesn’t look like it.
(I’m anticipating Gundam 00 8 too. I wonder if I’ll do the right thing and catch up with Shana and Minami-ke first or just toss Shana aside and just start writing about Gundam 00 8… mmm…)
Skribulous: Totally called the FMP comparison while everyone was making Wing jokes.
I’d feel much better if FMP wasn’t turning into Gundam. The Arbalest / Laevatein succession doesn’t really feel right and does feel like an “We need to sell more arm slave toys!” decision. It’s like if Takumi gave up his Hachi Roku. What we really need is a Gundam 00 Fumoffu! where the Gundam Meisters are students along with Christine, Felt, Graham Acre, and Anemone with Sumeragi-sensei. Ms. Wang would be the cosplaying nurse. Marina would be the transfer student that Setsuna has to protect. It’s a great setup. I would watch just for Sumeragi-sensei. We could even have a reduced-size Exia-tan much like Bonta-kun that’s really something more like Exia crossed with Shana-tan. It can’t fail. Screw it. What’s Sunrise’s phone number? They need to know.
Tetsuei: On my lunch break at home, so I’ll make this short. Sumeragi’s four different outfits in a single episode is freaking amazing. I don’t think this has ever been done before, so that in itself is groundbreaking. I will say that the melonpan seems to change sizes between outfits shows a striking similarity to… I’m gonna say it… Lindsay Lohan.
For my thin slicing post, I wrote “If you’re watching (or working on) the Gundam franchise, you’re dealing with a lot of history. It’s no different than dating Lindsey Lohan or Stephan Marbury.” It was fate. Fate!
(ANN put up a very lame thin slicing. They only did 16 series and needed 3+ writers. It has gems like for Majin Tantei Nogami Neuro, “The mystery presented in Episode 1 is some solid storytelling,” and “Bamboo Blade isn’t going to make anyone’s short list of ‘A’ titles for the season, that much is guaranteed.” I’m going to put that horrible, sucky, unwatchable Bamboo Blade on my “A” list just to prove them wrong… oh wait, it’s already there on my “A” list! I don’t need to do anything. Lion-chan 4tw!)
Drakron: Northernshadows, please do not try to apply logic to Sunrise plots … it does not work and it will only leave you with a headache.
Explains my headache that I got after I wrote the paragraph about dodging lasers. By the way, I think it also applies to George Lucas’ films as well.
Kendra Kirai: Well now, I stand corrected on the oxygen fusion thing. Still, you hardly need clean, fresh water if all you’re doing is extracting hydrogen from it for fusion material. You can extract hydrogen from water with little more than a battery and a bit of wire.
Where do you get the energy for the battery? The problem for fusion has always been how do you get more out than you put it. There’s really no research into this problem. Most universities in the US no longer teach nuclear engineering. I went to an university that did have a nuclear reactor, and the whole nuclear engineering department was only slightly larger than the SOS Brigade. If only 1/10th of the effort spent generic research could go into fusion research…
Crusader: By the way how come Christina gets off for not costume raping Felt? She had the outfits, Felt was not resisting. I think that this was a lost opportunity.
Yep… these are my readers.
21 Responses to “gundam 00 7”
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“…picked people more like the Major, Batou, and others from Section 6.”
Isn’t it Section 9? :)
Veda = Skynet, I just know it, its solution to end all wars is to kill all humans. Sad thing is that Veda is right…
So far JNN has not fallen to scrutiny, I guess FOX news has tendrils inside the Sunrise team too. That or they are but tools of the LDP.
Napoleon was resurrected and came to Tokyo on November 7, when a Gundam parade is held to sell more toys. Seiji Mizushima invited Napoleon to watch the parade. Napoleon, instead of watching the Gundams, read the JNN newspaper with a great interest. The Mizushima whispered, “Your Majesty, look at this military technique. If you had such weapons, you would’ve won at Waterloo.”
To that, Napoleon answered, “If I had such press as yours is, nobody would ever know I lost at Waterloo.”
>> I went to an university that did have a nuclear reactor, and the whole nuclear engineering department was only slightly larger than the SOS Brigade.
But presumably, unlike the SOS Brigade, the leader of the department was a separate entity from the nuclear reactor.
If you think Kashi…I mean Setsuna is retarded in this episode, wait until you watch the next one.
About the laser beam thing, the real question is: why the hell does he need to use a big ass aiming…machine inside the cockpit anyway?
Speaking of the cockpit, is it just me, or does cockpits of mobile suits from AEU and Union look much more advanced than that ugly crap they put on Gundams?
I hate to say this, but 00 is looking more and more like a typical Sunrise train wreck by the minute.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raygun
Jason, it’s not a laser… it’s a death ray gun! In other words, it’s traveling much slower than the speed of light because it’s firing an unspecified particle. Problem solved.
>>It’s something that has bothered me since Star Wars. How the hell do you dodge a beam laser? Lasers travel at the speed of light! One points a laser at an object, and if everything is calibrated just right, it’s going to hit that target, irregardless of how fast it is moving because the laser will travel at the speed of light. Am I to believe that somehow in the future the index of refraction for air suddenly increases 10,000 times?
Well. At least the First And Eldest Gundam didn’t ignore this tidbit of science-sense. Char Aznable once explained that you don’t actually dodge *lasers,* you predict where your opponent is going to aim and you get out of the way before he even pulls the trigger. Which isn’t quite as ridiculous a feat as you’d imagine, especially if you’re a psychic–er, Newtype. Or if the color of your paint job makes your Mobile Suit move three times as fast, which is always a plus.
Too bad G00 doesn’t seem to be following through when it comes to what we like to call “logic.”
Modern romantic comedies are less ‘borrowing shamelessly’ than relentlessly photocopying each other – there’s a line between borrowing and replication. (Yes, I’m Gundamjacking SM-01 Semantics. So what?)
You rightly point out the lack of media manipulation. Is the general attitude to the media in Japan as cynical as it is in the Western blogosphere? I wouldn’t know.
While watching this episode, I finally realized why there are so many women and gay men in the ranks of the Celestial Being. How the hell could a heterosexual man concentrate on the battle if his captain was waving her half-exposed breasts in front of him!
“Lieutenant! Evasive manoeuvres!”
“Boobs…”
*kaboom*
it’s alright that she didn’t change clothes
she already made up for it last episode by having two outfits
Orange ball, not pink. All the pink was devoted to Anemone’s MS.
I can see how you have the lock on the target but between the time you realize that and pull the trigger the target can get away. Happens to me alot in FPSes, especially when sniping when the target suddenly moves. I agree w/ Beowulf Lee that beam weapons are probably particle weapons and not directed energy (lasers) so it’s possible they’re not moving at the speed of light.
Now Star Wars actually used lasers and it’s silly to see the little laser bolts missing all of the time. In Jedi Knight 2, the stormtrooper blaster (laser rifle) was useless against moving targets b/c of how slow the laser traveled. Also, if you have today’s tech where radar can tell pilots how far to lead their targets and rangefinders that can compensate for an Abrams bouncing across the field, how can the stupid turbolaser batteries miss those X-Wings?
It’s about as possible as a universe that somehow completely lacks chemically-driven kinetic weapons (ie, gunpowerd and bullets). It’s an interesting thing to ponder: as far as we know, lightsabers melt metal, perhaps even vaporizing it. Still, that leaves you with a high-temp gas/plasma cloud of steel/lead/silver/unobtanium whose overall momentum is unchanged. Could you kill, or at least maim, a Jedi with a submachine gun?
…but they don’t spend that much money on the problem, which is really expensive, so it becomes an international effort at places like CERN. And then all the scientists get pissy about where the research facility should be, who gets to send how many researchers, who has to pay for how much, who gets to eat first at the cafeteria, etc. What we need is something like the IF, except for scientists. The other half of the equation is employment. I think I’m going to the university you talked about, and yes, the nukees are a very small contingent. But what do you do with a traditional nuclear engineering degree? Either you work for the military, work within the tiny civilian nuclear industry, or hope to land in a well-funded lab. Not great prospects by any means.
I WOULD attempt a guess, but I’m no good with physics, that’s why I majored in Economics. It’s the non-Psychology copout major. Plasma? Hell if I know. And yes, I defer to your prophetic visions. Lindsay Lohan it is.
Anyway, hope you had a good Thanksgiving, and if you ever want to get together and jam out on Rock Band, you know how to get a hold of me.
Lol, to think that I’ll come into this blog reading discussions on intertextuality.
CB must have raided psychiatric wards for their gundam meisters, surely it isn’t that hard to find 4 non-emo, non faggoty young men, wait…or is there a reverse trap there?
The only way they could justify their choices would be that they’re from let’s say…the 4 major religious parties of that pseudo era, Setsuna would be the neo-fundamentalist-islamist who interpret everything in the quaran as holy war, Lockon the Scientiologist, Allelujeah the neo-cristian who reintrepeted the bible by removing the first H in every word and found out that Judas was indeed bribed by nekomimi meidos and a stash of doujins, and Tieria would be of course the new movement which requires constant corporeal punishment by sticking a stick up your ass, and worships pink sweaters.
Andohbytheway, there’s meidos, beach fanservice, pink hovering automobiles and ground zero reenactment in ep8.
well, if u can dodge a wrench then u can dodge a ball…^^
my best theory is that they have a lot of practice “dodging” Ms. Sumeragi’s and Ms. Wang’s assets in their spare time which is why they can dodge those bloody lasers. It can also explains why they are raving trigger happy pilots because they aren’t getting any lovin from Ms. Sumeragi and Ms. Wang too. ^^
Hmm, the only ones that practices “nuclear” right now are those that emerge unscathed from the Cold War (US, Russia, France and others) and those who can afford it which are Israel and gasp, Iran and both Korea’s too. Which means that research and funding for it is directly propoprtional to who is desperate and greedy enough to harness the limited (for now) power of nuclear energy (either for bombs or for energy consumption).
In case of US right now, I guess your R&D funding are now in Iraq or at least the majority of it. In the Gundam 00 universe, the majority of funding goes to hte paint jobs of the gundams and to the budget shopping of the girls…so wait a minute…that’s it!!!! The reason that the socio-economic status of the world as they have in GOO ryt now is because they have overspent on clothes…leading to the rising prices on victoria’s secret…leading to the rising prices of oil leading to their use of solar panels…what a vicious cycle!!! ^^
applying logic to any gundam franchise these days leads to kyon-level of shocks and awe…
wait….is their solar panels in that G00 universe insured? Insurance companies must be making a killing over that time…hahahha…
ciao ^^
It’s mentioned in episode 5, ‘breakaway limit’ that Gundam beam weapons use GN particles, essentially making them a type of charged particle beam.
And as for dodging lasers, it takes time for a laser to heat up its target even when it connects, and although lasers move at the speed of light, their firing source doesn’t, so if you know the source, you can dodge it-and they’re reduced whenever particles are in the way (air, water, clouds, dust). In real-world applications, lasers are viewed as an excellent defense against missiles and aircraft because despite their speed, they have really bad lateral acceleration (they can’t strafe like a mech could). Just a thought.
And yes, Mr. Lucas is a bad offender against engineering, still, at least his work doesn’t try to describe the operations of everything using technobabble in-show like Star Trek (whose safety and ergonomics leave MUCH to be desired).
Lol, to think that I’ll come into this blog reading discussions on intertextuality.
I was wondering about this. Is there a film/anime theory word equivalent for intertextuality? Interanimality doesn’t really cut it.
The same word applies for film/TV series, did a paper on intertextuality present in Buffy a few weeks ago, so i guess it’ll be the same for anime.
Simply put it, the lasers need to be dodgeable in Gundam, no amount of scientific reasoning can justify how Kira dodged point blank laser shots by tilting Freedom’s head, or how Shinn managed to dodge lasers by detaching his mecha.
My whole problem with this show is that I don’t actually like any of the ‘good guys’ in this show. I’m rooting for Celestial Being to fail. None of the people in it are any likable aside from our 4 female beauties. But then that’s only cause they are cute, not because they are good characters.
The only people I actually like in this show are the hapless Saji and Louise, and MAYBE Graham Acre just cause he’s such a character.
The 4 main protagonists, Kashim, Kurtz Weber, “I am really a singer in L’arc en ciel” Allelujah, and ‘I wish I were Max Genius but I’m too constipated’ Teiria are really no fun at all. (take a look at the original Macross and you’ll know what I mean).
Wow Sumeragi’s tits are SO big =]
Is it just me or does anyone think that Setsuna is Iranian. I know they say he is Kurdish but technically isn’t that a Part of IRan?