Episode 19 Discussion

[Fading_eternity]

Interesting episode. Pretty deep in my honest opinion. War is a money making business and this theme hits extremely close to home with regards to current events. That's one of the reasons why I love Gundam so much and especially Gundam Seed. They are not affraid to say things as they are. The series does a good job at conveying real life situations in a science fiction platform with fictional characters and an overall fictional world. this underscoring of deeper situations helps to both get a richly objective view of war in general as well as getting a chance to relate true personal feelings regarding situations that are identical to tragic events that are happening now.

As far as Rei is concerned... Wow, I really liked his character until now. Suffice to say, I am dissappointed. Sure his overly feminine reaction to seeing Gill was a pretty big eyesore for me. I liked seeing him as the quiet, studious soldier. I thought he was cool, not because he had virtually no personality. The reason why I liked him was because, of all the new characters, he was the only character on the ship who had a realistic military attitude. Shinn disobeyed orders. Luna was flaunting herself all over Asuran. I thought to myself, at least Rei was reserved enough to not just act any kind of way. He knew the reality of war and faced it with a silent resolve. The bit about him enjoying piano was an excellent touch in my honest opinion. it didnt take away from his militaristic attitude and added a bit of character development to him. However, his jumping up into Gill's arms and blushing pretty much ruined my impression that he was a soldier who knew about how serious war is. To me, what I got from that expression was that this was the true Rei. Some flighty child-like thing who wants to please and doesnt 'really' care about what he's doing so long as he pleases daddy/brother/lover/whatever, and that his whole serious demeanor was just an act put on to make Gill happy.

Understand, I am not displeased that his personality changed so much as I am displeased that his real personality is quite different from what I both assumed and was pleased with.

But, ultimately, it's still a great series and the message is strong enough and clear enough that I will continue to enjoy the series. BTW I hope they don't do a personality flip w/ Sting. He's another new character favorite of mine who I hope keeps his head out of the clouds and in the cockpit during this conflict.

[Optimaximal]

what I gathered from Seed was that the Natural/Earth Alliance OS was that it was basic, bloated and dumbed down for naturals (basically, the Windows 98/ME of mobile suit control) whilst the Zaft setups were much more powerful, responsive and complicated (think Windows Server 2k3/Linux) [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]