Mobile Suit Gundam 00

Information of Anime

In the year 2307, the supply of fossil fuel has depleted to nothing.  Mankind now turns to solar energy for its main source of power.  Three orbital elevators are built on Earth & are controlled by the Union of Solar Energy and Free Nations (formerly known as USA), the Human Reform League (Russia, China, & India), & the Advanced European Union.  Because of solar energy being new & limited, this causes war in many countries.  An organization called Celestial Being plans to end all warfare using powerful mobile suits called Gundams.  Four Gundam pilots or Gundam Meisters codenamed Setsuna F. Seiei, Lockon Stratos, Allelujah Haptism, & Tiera Erde go out to end these wars.

Storyline (CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Below is a summary of the storyline I've seen so far.  If you haven't seen the series yet & don't want to be spoiled, skip this section.  If you want to know the story & want to see how I viewed it, read on.

As the show progress, we see Celestial Beings starting to struggle as the three Earth forces come up with heavy attacks.  From there, the number of Gundams increases from three to seven with Gundam Thrones.  Thus, creating more problems with the big three nations.  However, these Gundam Thrones are unknown to Celestial Being team we are observing as they aren't in Veda, a massive computer database.  Plus, they ruin the image of Celestial Beings with their senseless attacks on civilians.  As a result, Setsuna attacks the Gundam Thrones.  Others follow.  Despite what the Thrones did, the big three nations team up to together & create an alliance.

The creation of the world being one is from someone that sold the fake G.N. Drive technology that are used in the Thrones to the military for profit.  The military would have a large number of mobile suits that are at the same level or better than the Gundams.  The traitor which would give away the locations of the Celestial Being.  Also, the database of Veda would be cause the original four Gundams to go down without backup data.  This is due to Alejandro Corner's takeover of the system.  However, a backup database of their own would get them back on track.  Also, the hacking of Veda & attempted murdering of Celestial Being founder Aeolia Schenberg by Alejandro would trigger the original four Gundam's G.N. Drives to run at full capacity using the Trans AM system. 

The battle starts to intense up again as the Thrones are wiped out with only one survivor & Lockon losing his life.  From that point, Celestial Beings start falling one by one as the U.N. start to rain attacks on them with Alejandro leading the pack with a False G.N. Drive powered mobile armour.  Both sides occur heavily losses & all four original Gundams are destroyed

The show ends during the credit roll with the time frame moving up four years.  The world is at peace & the alliance is broken apart to form a large number of countries.  During this time, Celestial Beings are rebuilding new Gundams named 0 Gundam & 00 Gundam.  This would lead to the second season.

My Personal Review

Gundam 00 was something I decided to pick up even though the past Gundam shows was flopped.  Although I'm not a huge Gundam fan, I decided to watch this anyways.

Animation

The character designs are similar to the ones from Seed's even though a different person is in charge now.  The eyes & face shape are too similar to me.  But do notice some minor differences a bit.  As for the fashion sense, it's kind of dull & plain.  Nothing fancy as I would think.

The colours are pretty bold & bright here.  Something that seems to be common in newer Gundam shows as those dull appearances are gone.  The colours on the mechas are nice & balanced though as it has some dull appearance on them.  But they are still overall bright.

The backgrounds are okay.  Not much details in them as most of the attention seems to go to the mechanical stuff. 

In terms of the animation movement, it's heavily on the realistic side.  The movements are pretty smooth & watching the Gundams in action is pretty sweet as no missing or choppy frames can be found.

Sound

The sound effects are pretty nice.  In terms of how real they sound, it's not too great.  The firing sounds & the swinging of blades seems a bit off.  It's like they came from an American sci-fi TV show.  Nevertheless, they are played pretty clean & on cue.

The seiyuus here are ok.  The cast lineup is pretty good & strong.  They perform their roles well to fit the image of their characters.  However, none of them seem to be likable for me.

The music is on the pop & rock side.  None of the songs seems to stick in my head as they seem to be either out of place or lacking.  Of course, there are some orchestra style of music as well.

Story

The show is striking similar to Gundam Wing at the start.  The politics involved, the cold killing main character, the lost princess of a country, etc.  There are so many of those common traits that makes me think I'm watching Gundam Wing instead.  One difference is how some of the powerful nations are trying to capture a Gundam for research & how the Gundam team has a strategic person planning & organizing the attacks.

Speaking of strategy, I found that the Celestial Beings' attack plans to be too powerful.  It's like they see all the attacks & traps set by the opposing army in most of their fights.  It can be a bit frustrating to see this happen a lot as the suspense is taken out of it a bit.  But it was great to actually see the Gundams struggling as the action got very exciting until three new Gundams appeared.  From there, it gets ugly & somewhat interesting to see all the hard work in looking good to the civilians go down the drain.  From this, we get to see how one civilian named Saji Crossroad get affected by this by losing people close to him & following the actions of his sister investigating Aeolia.

As for the show itself, it seems to be a bit fast.  The reason for it is how the show is set for 25 episodes which is very short for a Gundam TV show.  I was very surprised to see this & interested to see how the storyline will go.  Since it's not related to the UC or AC worlds, this Gundam show got my interest in seeing how it would be turn out.  However, that second season announcement ruined it a bit.

For the final arc & ending, it remained me a lot like the Seed series.  A lot of insane carnage & many characters dying.  Plus, the introduction of new suits & armours.  As for the ending, it's open as it is intended.  With the introduction of two new Gundams, people will be on their toes to seen what 00 Gundam looks like.  That will have to wait just before the start of the second season.

Overall Conclusion

Gundam 00 is something that too similar to Gundam Wing.  If the newer Gundam shows were homage to old Gundam shows, I would say that 00 is homage to Wing.  There are differences here & there & the show doesn't seem to target a large female audience like how Wing did.  However, it started to look like Seed at the end.

Gundam 00 gets a seven out of ten.  The show gave me too much an impression of watching Wing, but it's still exciting to watch with all the Gundam fighting action.  Although it has some heavy dialogues than action, the show is well balanced out to keep a descent interest level.  The ending is insane as too many things & elements were taken out that almost made it look like a second season was just a rumour.  It was well written to keep the suspense up & I'm eager to see what the second season will bring.

Last updated on April 23, 2008