Mobile Suit Gundam 00 Second Season Review

story 6.5/10

Pay attention, all you slavering mecha junkies - there’s a new Gundam in town, and it just smashed down the door, did your mum, and plundered the deepest recesses of your intellect without so much as a smirk. Gundam 00 S2 means mecha bigger than ever, careening across the screen in angled close-ups, swerving, whirling, dazzling acrobatics, and an eye-boggling, mind-melting style that would make even Van Damme break out in a sweat. Indeed, the show’s entrance is explosively potent and, with more ‘bang bang’ per minute than a machine gun, the action hits home again and again – constantly, persistently, awesomely.

Well, that’s the good news.

The bad news is that Gundam 00 S2 struggles to matter in almost every other sense. Despite the mighty promise of the first season, the plot here turns out to be the lowest common denominator, solely constructed to facilitate the battles and comprising the default menu of political mecha ingredients. It offers genetically superior human beings (tick!); a couple of tragic deaths (tick! tick!); and I vaguely remember some cobbled-together stuff about everyone fighting for world peace (tick!). On the other hand, delicate dilemmas regarding the effects of war and terrorism are manhandled or quickly bundled out of the way before they can raise eyebrows, and the character developments are, frankly, as thin as Setsuna’s spandex.

Luckily, Gundam 00 S2 seeps eye candy out of its very pores. While such insubstantiality would cripple an average-looking show from the onset, Gundam 00 S2’s action manages to excite for a remarkable length of time. Inevitably, however, just when Gundam 00 S2 should escalate the political conflicts in the last handful of episodes to bring events to a satisfying climax, the narrative wheezes and strains instead. The clichés become distractingly evident, the highfalutin speeches do not stand up to scrutiny, and there are simply no big surprises to make up for the hours of ‘wait for it’ build-up. Gundam 00 S2 may set the standard for raw machismo, but its action still lacks the stamina to entertain solidly across twenty-five episodes.

Nevertheless, the main conflict remains coherent and tackles a recognisable sci-fi question about the evolution of the human race. After the debacle present in other Gundam shows, where ignorant teenagers preach contradictory philosophies, Gundam 00 S2’s barefaced approach feels refreshingly unpretentious. For example, instead of stammering the usual drivel about war being wrong all the time, Setsuna learns to embrace fighting as a valuable tool when nothing else is left. While hardly a profound position to take, it’s still believable and respectable enough.

And on that note, so is the story.

animation 8.5/10

Gundam 00 S2’s visuals set the benchmark for 2009 – in sheer loudness, if not in style. The Gundams are in-your-face, garish, bulky, have immense accessories that weigh more than a house, and in a real fight would be about as helpful as teaching an Elephant to carry out brain surgery. But this is not real life. This is Gundam. While everything may be inflated beyond believable proportions, it just looks so damn cool. For instance, I’m confused about the engineering behind the Exia’s potato sack cape in the first episode (doesn’t go with the blue), but in that notoriously windy outer space environment, it makes for a spectacular entrance.

sound 8/10

Following Gundam 00’s superb opening theme ‘Ash Like Snow’, there come a host of brand new, and equally excellent themes to bookend the episodes. From the rocky first OP ‘Hakanaku mo Towa no Kanashi’ by UVERworld to the r’n’b-styled ‘Trust You’ by Yuna Itou, each one is suitably rousing and worth owning as a single.

The score doesn’t disappointing either. Imbuing the events with that all-important punchy atmosphere, it predominantly consists of riffs, drums, and DISTORTION. With the right sound system, picking out a few luxuriant choral pieces and instrumentals should also be no effort.

characters 6/10

On the other hand, there’s little to laud about the characters, which have disappointing conclusions considering their initial potential. Offering bland dialogue and commonplace motivations, their performances here are barely convincing and universally underwhelming. The first problem is that there are too many of them. At a quick count, the cast includes four Gundam pilots, seven or more Innovators (superhuman evildoers intent on taking over the world, and distinguishable by their gaudy hair colours), the Ptolemy’s crew of ten or so, twice that number of military actors, and a handful of deadwood characters from the old season which have no meaningful role except to pop up and surprise everyone.

The next problem is the minimal plot space in which they can develop. Hemmed in by a simplistic plot and outstanding action, they end up following predictably static or one-dimensional paths. For example, Graham Aker blindly hunts for vengeance (irrespective of developments, revelations etc) due to the losses he suffered in the first season. He seems to have little other interest in the central battle except to emerge at random points in the plot and demand Setsuna drop everything to fight him. His single plus point is a new bushido persona, which grants him a mildly amusing fanatical edge. Similarly, the Innovators are particularly odious as their contrary behaviour has no convincing basis. Their leader Ribbons Almark’s megalomania wears thin after a while – his argument for wanting to rule everything runs along corny tautological lines: ‘I am better, so I am better!’

A minority of characters do stand out for undergoing personal journeys, and demonstrate at least a modicum of depth. Setsuna F. Seiei, the central hero, has matured in the interim years and evinces a calm conviction in stead of his dead stoicism of the first season. Key to his sympathetic development are his harrowing beginnings as a fanatical boy soldier; Gundam 00 S2 proficiently fleshes out his psychology in regards to this, transforming him into one of the most admirable Gundam protagonists in recent years. He shows the most potential for unique growth, and the series would have benefited much from dedicating more time to him than it actually does. In a lesser sense, Saji and Louise, despite their nondescript romance, have an interesting ‘caught in the middle’ role; their more proactive approach here leads to some of the meatier developments in the story.

overall 7/10

If possible, watch Gundam 00 S2 in HD with the biggest LCD and the most obscene surround sound system available. It deserves nothing less. This testosterone-fuelled light display comes blasting onto the scene like few mecha shows in recent years, delivering a grunting, fist-pumping performance to leave any action fan thoroughly shaken and stirred. If you like your anime sexy, hard, and rip-roaringly marvellous, then feast your eyes on this. Just don’t expect much else.