After finishing Gundam 00 a month ago, the above comic sums up about what I think of the writers for Gundam 00. Onto the muses of a gundam fan.
Legend:
E – Entertainment level
Ep – Episode
The chart sums up how I felt as the series progressed onwards. First of all, I have to say I love mecha action so no matter how shitty certain series were eg. dragonaut, kurogane linebarrel(turns out PRETTY OK in a warp sense), I was compelled to finish watching them because they have mecha.
Inital thoughts
I had high hopes for Gundam 00 when they revealed the backdrop of the story to be of a energy starved world with 3 major factions controlling solar energy intake. It causes one to give pause to thoughts of the possibility of the current world ending up into the exact situation one day with europe aka NATO, the chinese with the russians and finally America. It’s illuminating in a sense since our current energy resources are running pretty low and will deplete toally in oh, the next half century or so, hence the growing global call for reducing consumerism. Is there a Celestial Being alike organisation in existant right now or would there be one in the future? Brushing aside the series’s explanation for their actions as ‘conflict to resolve conflict so as to unite the world into one big happy family’, what can push private organisations into bypassing the world’s (United Nations) authority and act on their own authority? The backdrop really reflects the real world future possible scenario and it is pretty scary in my opinion.
A brief recap
From episode 1 to episode 10+, the series focused on Celestial Being getting out of sticky situations aka political situations(gives the favour of gundam wing) instead of just decimating foes along their galaxy trip(think gundam seed) which was ok but not that enjoyable since it gets boring after a while. Celestial Being was being tested and probed by the world’s nations with various military and political exercises which culminated in episode 14 when the world decided they were not going to let Celestial being do what they pleased by eliminating their 4 gundams and what a ride that was! For once, we see sound tactics being employed by the foes. Not powerful enough? Instead of sending hordes of hordes of mecha to get destroyed, suppress them with artillery fire after deceiving them into the middle of nowhere with misinformation (which was seen through by Celestial being but still, good attempt by the world). Alternate the artillery teams to give the Celestial Being Meisters no rest while consolidating own forces. It was a epic battlefield with the meisters on the losing end.
Then things went downhill
A few things went badly from episode 15 and I’m talking about the plot, not the action which is awesome in its HD view. Graham got developed into some kind of I don’t know, weird busindo whatever samurai with ‘free’ rein in the A-Laws. The lawless of the law more like it. Princess Marina shivels up into nothing more than princess who lost her kingdom, sang and got free airtime on radio and eventually, somehow, ended up back with her kingdom. I had thought they might have developed Graham into opposing celestial being by championing the cause for changing the world within the world’s system instead of outside the world’s system while Princess Marina slowly works her non-violent ideals coupled with Graham efforts to coax Celestial Being into working with the world instead of causing further death and destruction everywhere. (The 3 gundams were pretty crap too. What the hell are they in the series for again? Oh yea, sell more model kits for bandai. )If Bandai had taken this direction for the plot, the ultimate ‘enemy’ or ‘foe’ would most likely be tada ‘Aeolia Schenberg’ who had been immortalised into a innovator under the guise of assisting the Celestial Being to achieve his own personal goal of dominating the whole world!
Alas, certain less worthy characters were brought to the front such as psycho killer Ali (what a disappointment for a 1 dimensional character) and emo lousie and loverboy, Bandai’s excuse for putting in romance into the show, the pairings within Celestial Being is overkill, OVERKILL, I would have much preferred Marina + Setsuna, oh wait, they did that in Gundam Wing so perhaps the writers wanted a change. Oh screw you people, if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it!
Admittedly, certain side stories were done pretty well such as the part where the nosy reporter who wanted to get to the truth of the matter gets killed by Ali. The background stories of the meisters were not that bad as well EXCLUDING Tiera still mysterious origins, why was he or she the only rebellious innovator not controlled by ribbons on Celestial Being? I still can’t get over the fact that the last boss was ribbons, a product of Celestial Being. Don’t even get me started on the ending. What I really want now is to do the review of my newly acquired Cowon S9. So did you love Gundam 00 or dislike Gundam 00? What do you think could have made Gundam 00 a better show?
Pardon me for the lack of caps but my first series are currently in the possession of another friend. Hope you readers didn’t mind the wall of text if anyone is even bothering to read this after Gundam 00 has ended for a month.
blindability
Brian
Poro
jGLZA
Loba
TeamZer0
thaivuN
Bokutachi no BLOG 
I thought it was great, but then again I went in with the attitude that I wanted to enjoy the show and had no desire to nitpick it to death over everything it might have done imperfectly and to bust out memes like “bad writing” at every turn. I think by the end a lot of people were trying to dislike the show and say the writing was “bad” and that’s why they ended up thinking it was “bwaaah downhill” (meme). Also just looking at what you’ve wrote you obviously had a lot of expectations about what you wanted it to be. I had none, I just expected it to tell it’s story and then when it was done to evaluate it on what it attempted to do instead of what I wanted it to do. For whatever it’s flaws were (And I really don’t care all that much, because I chose not to single them out and bring them to the surface to exaggerate them), it’s strengths far FAR outweighed them in my eyes and I had fun the whole way through. I don’t see how it could be otherwise unless I had went in trying to dislike the show or find the writing “bad”.
Again I really don’t get what you are so upset over here unless you are just using the famed stock response of “bad writing”. A lot of your apparent complaints really do just seem to come down to you expecting something to happen and them doing something else because they did. Never mind if what happened isn’t actually a problem with the show itself. This just looks like another attempt to call “poor writing” (meme) and then support it with ideas that are just the show not doing what YOU wanted instead of with ideas that actually prove it. How many times have I been through this with people? More then I can possibly count.
By the standards of the Gundam franchise of great explosions, mecha action, yes, it has no doubt fulfilled its primary goal of mecha entertainment. I have not found out from any other people what they felt about the show except perhaps Brian and another but generally, we agreed that the plot was quite shitty JUST LIKE ANY OTHER GUNDAM SHOWS(except gems like Gundam ms igloo and ms 08 etc.).
So by this definition, IF I had gone in with the attitude of enjoying the show just like I enjoyed Gundam Seed and destiny, I wouldn’t have cussed 00 as much as I did. People cuss Destiny for not matching up to Seed’s entertainment status or whatever it is, I have no idea really, I just liked the explosions and the laughable invincible Gundams in the end, yea warp sense of getting entertained. So the people who watched Gundam Seed had their expectations raised because they wanted destiny to be ‘better’ in whatever they envisioned just as I did for 00. I would like to further clarify by drawing a line here. Upon what basis did they expect it to be ‘better’? None I say.
So upon what basis did I have my expectations raised AFTER I started watching episode 1? I would say the possibility of utilising the backdrop of the whole Gundam 00 to explore certain ideas could have been further expanded coupled with what Bandai wanted us to expect (marina+setsuna?) and then did not deliver. They just took the characters in one direction and then suddenly decided to drastically zwitch directions in the plot. That’s incoherent writing and you choose to ignore it for the sake of its action scenes or whatever, fine by me. I decided to swing this post in the direction of ‘poor writing’ because it just SCREAMs just that in the context of how the whole series began.
Yes, the plot is bonus but while there was no chance for the last 2 major Gundam Series Seed and Destiny to expand their plot, I personally felt that 00 could have done a better job but they blew it. I don’t care what you or anyone feels about it, all of you can love the show for whatever reasons you have and disregard its incoherent plot for all I care. Welcome to the world where opinions differs. I stated my own personal thoughts on this and so did you.
@Loba: Okay, so then why did you ask people to share their thoughts on Gundam 00 (May 1st: “So did you love Gundam 00 or dislike Gundam 00? What do you think could have made Gundam 00 a better show?) if you apparently don’t care what people could have to say about it or to discuss it with them (May 2nd: “I don’t care what you or anyone feels about it, all of you can love the show for whatever reasons you have and disregard its incoherent plot for all I care.)? One day is a very short time to do an about face such as this and almost comes across as a bait and switch.
Now, you think they drastically switched directions in the plot and took the characters in another direction. Who, what, where and why with regard to 00 caused you to make such a statement? Specific examples, that’s what I’m looking for here, not just that you think it’s the case, but why you think it’s the case. Also why watch a Gundam show if you think all of their plots are shitty and you had no intention of enjoying it (“So by this definition, IF I had gone in with the attitude of enjoying the show just like I enjoyed Gundam Seed and destiny, I wouldn’t have cussed 00 as much as I did.”)? Why do you find 08th MS Team and MS Igloo to be “gems”? Could you not have perceived that anybody might have asked you for a follow up on your thoughts regarding the series? Heck you even invited talk about it the first time around?
None of this is adding up to me here, will you at least answer these questions even though apparently don’t seem to want to talk with people about the show anymore like you initially appeared to want to? With some in series examples if possible? That’s the best way towards me and others understanding why you are saying all of these things. Because right now you have done nothing to convince me that the show has an incoherent plot other then to just state that you think it does.
So did you love Gundam 00 or dislike Gundam 00? What do you think could have made Gundam 00 a better show?
<= I asked for your views, hence the comments section here, you share it with the other readers as well, not just me.
I don’t care what you or anyone feels about it, all of you can love the show for whatever reasons you have and disregard its incoherent plot for all I care.
<= This is just my take on yours and any other similar comments.
I think you are deriving something from nothing here. Asking for comments doesn’t mean I have to give a regard to your views about my post or gundam 00 in general. Other people who commented after you may further discuss base on your comment and isn’t that part of the purpose of the comments section or did you really think it’s just to comment on this particular post? I shared my view in the post and you did in the comments. If we disagree fine, no harm done. We agree, that’s cool, then we are buddies.
I do not wish to debate or argue over the plot direction, each person can perceive the plot differently. If you really want to know why,in short, my personal take is that the characters, in particular Marina and Graham were presented and led me in such a way to believe that they will take on certain crucial roles (as imagined by me) later on in the show which didn’t materialise. Does that constitute bad writing? Nope, it doesn’t, it’s just that coupled with the progression of the plot which left me with a bad taste in the mouth.
Ask a MOE fan why he watches MOE show and ask him what he likes about MOE shows and he will most likely reply ‘The moe-ness of course. Plot? What plot?’. Plot generally comes secondary to them. Well, in my case, I’m a mecha fan so I watch gundam. Does that answer your question? For the gundam seed and destiny series, the plot comes secondary to me because the plot is, how do I put it? Too fake to be real whereas gundam 00 was leaning towards realism(the back story of 3 major govts and the usage of real conflicts in the world) after which a leap of 4 years allows for some really drastic change in the world which led me to take the plot seriously.
The action entertained me, the plot didn’t, yes, it didn’t meet part of my expectations, one of which is realism as what I, personally, was led to believe from the first few episodes. Maybe you will just laugh here thinking ‘what? Someone expected realism from a super robot series, gundam?’ but yea, it’s just me.
If you checked, I did blog about gundam 00 season 2 initally but stopped due to a variety of reasons, laziness, school and I wasn’t really my thoughts on the series but admittedly, just summarising each episode except for episode 3 where one of the two predictions actually came true.
You are right, it doesn’t add up to you because you are not me. Perhaps you can convince me otherwise with your Part II analysis? Maybe I was wrong about the bad plot, maybe I just missed the whole point of the plot, maybe the flaws which didn’t affect you badly blinded me from seeing its good point and in overall effect made me sum it up as negative instead of positive. I just don’t feel motivated to screen through all 50 episodes or start reading reviews on it since I’m feeling all negative about it. It may sound like I’m trying to escape from you here but I got certain other priorities and defending my view of an anime through a blog isn’t one of them. Afterall, we don’t get paid to blog and writing a long article takes time which you should know very well. If you feel positive about it, then do blog about gundam 00 and make us negative ones feel positive once more about gundam 00. I know you announced in your blog that you will and I await your carefully written post.
For me, the plot was done when Setsuna suddenly became God. But thankfully I was mostly watching for mechanical designs and the action and Gundam 00 did deliver those.
i didnt think it was that bad, i mean sure Graham became i dunno useless?? and Allelujah got the short end of the stick this season then again Tieria got the short end of the stick in Season 1 kinda. The story wasnt bad but there were parts in S2 where it went slow then went suddenly fast again when you least expect it.
Tieria wasnt the only one that was rebellious against Ribbons, Regene Regetta seemed like he was following Aeolia’s true vision to the end since he helped Tieria get access to VEDA again in the end.
Overall it was a good run, tho the ending leaves something desired i guess the announcement of the movie in the end probably puts u at ease just a bit so you know its not the final conclusion. This show was certainly better than CG R2, and was definitely wayy wayy better than the overly hyped Gundam Wing which ppl think 00 ripped off of completely -__-.
why do you even have it as your banner then??