Well, well. Celestial Being took the first step from being a terrorist organization to a meddlesome private army of no boundaries. Tieria, of course, didn't seem too delighted. I have a suspicion he's afraid that if CB becomes something else people expect him to also do something else than slaughter as many enemies and bystanders as he can within the mission time limits.
The previous preview gave me an impression Setsuna would somehow crack in this episode but that certainly didn't happen. It looked more like an instant motivation and spirit boost.
Other than that, the deus ex gundams certainly ruled the battlefields again. Setsuna fared a lot better against his archenemy in his indestructible mecha (I wonder why the meisters ever bother to evade any enemy fire since nothing can penetrate their armor, obviously). That fight was a bit disappointing, for sure. I have a feeling AEU let Al-Sarches steal the mecha so that they could with impunity see how it fares in wars. But I wonder if that under the table deal could possible give him spare parts like hands...
When Setsuna took the shots from those big guns at the palace there were at least blemishes on his armor, but those shots were fired from traditional guns with an explosion propelling the shells. I think the armor level of the Gundams is set where only shells fired by rail guns can do any potentially serious damage, and even then it has to be concentrated and sustained.
Trust me it's better than the armor system in SEED where a physical weapon simply had no effect on a Gundam (explained by the tech) but an energy weapon would instantly cause either the suit or whatever sub section of it that was pierced by the laser to spontaneously explode.
I still can't figure out what these guys are all about in the grand scheme of things other than making people not want to fight, but Hong Long's mask made me lol and that's enough for one episode.
Last edited by Yukimura; Mon, 01-07-2008 at 03:51 PM.
Well after this episode, we've got two Meisters who's identity is pretty much blown to at least one outsider. I think Sergei will get hold of Allelujah's data somehow anyway. Lockon was a pro sniper? The first thing I thought of was he's a former IRA dude, but since he hates terrorism, that's probably out the window. Explains why he's a god with that aiming system though.
edit: Sumeragi shows off next episode.
Would you expect anything less from a girl who has every conceivable mode of transportation in bright pink? So she's got a Tuxedo Mask fetish when it comes to her bodyguards...
It comes back to me how retarded Setsuna was at telling Marina his name (not to mention his real one). Anyone with a directional mic which I imagine is standard equipment for both high tech news media and mobile suits (to hear the screams of those they stomp upon) would have heard what she kept yelling.
Doesn't take too long to track down this mysterious "Setsuna F. Seiei" to his apartment in Japan, coincidentally right next a news anchor/reporter. From there you've got a lead to the entire organization.
I didn't really have much problem with the rest of the episode. Terrorists trying to kill Marina, Marina being overwhelmed with helplessness, and of course, after all that, and the message urging peace between the Reformists and Conservatives, the sectarian violence continued.
I can't help it, but I'll have to compare this series to Final Fantasy XII. The predecessors of XII had a pretty clearcut, good versus evil, with a clear protagonist of sorts. Gundam 00 like XII, seems to be just a political global jog with no real purpose, or goal in sight except to end conflict.
i wasn't too wowed. I was shocked how cooly Setsuna played the confrontation with Graham, not to mention the insane balls of going into the palace unarmed. But he was fucking stupid for actually getting out of the Gundam. That'd have been easy sniper city to capturing a Gundam...
I'm glad his cover is blown. Hopefully it'll somehow make shit tough for the immortal CBs...
Ali and Graham. Are there two better characters in this show?
I lol'd at Chinese Zorro / Tuxedo Mask. That moment sharply contrasts with the gritty scene of the woman and her baby getting shot to death in the war. (and not in the good way contrast is supposed to be). At least five men had automatic weapons. He had his Chinese slippers and nightie on. That kind of stuff makes a show seem dumb lame. The exact same problem occurred in Gundam Wing. How has this show yet to kill someone off?
Seriously though, was anyone else absurdly surprised that Setsuna played 'the local war victim' role so perfectly with Graham? I mean, the last two times he even came into contact with people, he was practically giving away secrets...
Humans are different from animals. We must die for a reason. Now is the time for us to regulate ourselves and reclaim our dignity. The one who holds endless potential and displays his strength and kindness to the world. Only mankind has God, a power that allows us to go above and beyond what we are now, a God that we call "possibility".
Perfectly? I don't think he was perfect at all. And I didn't get the feeling Graham bought it either. He didn't sound like a local war victim kid, anyway. He sounded like somebody who has resided for a long time outside of the country and thus was able to coolly if bitterly analyse the situation - OR like a terrorist who tries so hard not to say anything alarming so that he could surprise his victim.Originally Posted by masamuneehs
I think Graham kind of suspected something wasn't the same about Setsuna. Ok ep...nothing wowed me, but nothing offended me either. Well, the tuxedo mask was a bit much, but other than that it was so-so.
Kraco, granted, Graham saw through it... and, Setsuna was way too composed and smart to be a local kid (not to mention he was speaking whatever language everyone in this series speaks, rather than any local dialect... Can't imagine the Muslims have given up on the holy language of Arabic, even 300 years in the future...)... but I really felt it was one of those things that, no matter how well Setsuna played it, Graham would just Nate River know something was amiss...
I was just surprised because Setsuna had been pretty miserable at acting normally up until that point. His interactions with Saji and Marina reeked of sketchy business...
Well, yeah, aside from that scene, I thought it was a pretty weak episode. We got to see a bit more of Marina not being totally useless (although her calling out to Setsuna was incredibly Relena-esque...), and Setsuna acted like the kind of person you'd want to entrust a state of the art mobile suit to...
Still, nothing in this episode really wowed me. The part where that woman and her kid were killed was good because it had some emotional impact (even if her terribly stupid dying lines were horrendous). The duels (Graham and Setsuna matching wits, Setsuna and Ali in actual combat) were nice to watch... but most of my excitement there comes from wanting to see the Gundams lose (which is like getting hard from a cock tease... a series like this is going to leave anyone hoping for major character death or fuckups with blue balls).
Aside from that random woman getting gunned down, my biggest emotional reaction came when Louise got all mad and yelled at her mom for being all clingy to Saji again...
Humans are different from animals. We must die for a reason. Now is the time for us to regulate ourselves and reclaim our dignity. The one who holds endless potential and displays his strength and kindness to the world. Only mankind has God, a power that allows us to go above and beyond what we are now, a God that we call "possibility".
About Setsuna's acting, if he was going to pull it off as a local kid, why would he draw his gun? That was the stupid thing he did. But then again, he pulled it off as a civil war fighter instead of a CB pilot. I'm willing to say that Ali's in it only for money, even that Kurdish War incident, and Setsuna probably knows it.
Yeah. That's actually one of the best sides of Ali's character. He's in it only for money, yet he could act in such a way even back then, even riling and coaxing children to kill their parents in the name of a holy war. He's evil, yet I still find him far more sympathetic character than the other utterly evil one: Tieria. I guess the difference of being in it for money and being in it just to get a chance to slaughter people is a distinct one...
Well, in the end we won't likely see Ali unless someone's paying him to do something so lets hope people with deep pockets find their way to him so that he won't be disappearing anywhere from the series (and lets hope he will find an arm to replace the one he lost).
One other thing: How can the Union didn't spot the Chinese spy girl's shuttle? If they were patrolling the skies and looking for Gundams, I'm pretty sure they sweeped and combed every millimeter of the country with satellites. And considering what a miserable country it was, something like that sitting in the middle of nowhere would have ringed several alarms. Seriously, the intelligence services, both civilian and military, of the major powers in this series are several orders of magnitude worse than during our times. I wonder what happened...
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