MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM 00 SECOND SEASON

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ANIME ActionMobile Suit Gundam 00
MOVIE ActionMobile Suit Gundam 00 the Movie: A Wakening of the Trailblazer
OVA ActionMobile Suit Gundam 00 Special Edition
MANGA ActionMobile Suit Gundam 00 Second Season
MANGA ActionMobile Suit Gundam 00 2nd Season
NOVEL ActionKidou Senshi Gundam 00 Second Season
ONA ActionMobile Suit Gundam 00: Revealed Chronicle
MANGA ActionMobile Suit Gundam 00I

REVIEWS

• 

  CodeBlazeFate

  31/100
  It may look clean and shiny, but this pile of junk was plagued with critical malfunctions throughout.

  Let the inspection begin.

  At this point, it’s fair to say that if nothing else, the second season of Gundam 00 doesn't surpass the first. It is a mangled piece of machinery from beginning to end. The only salvageable aspect would be the fairly decent audiovisuals that got carried over from the first season. The animation is fairly nice, particularly with the flashy fight scenes. The new designs aren't quite as good as in season one, but are still serviceable as well. There's little to no noticeable CGI, and there is a notable improvement in the mecha designs. Additionally, the few new tracks they added in for the OST are pretty decent, notably, the episode preview theme, though it isn’t up to Kenji Kawai’s standard when compared to say, Ghost in The Shell or Musekinin Kanchou Tylor.

  Unfortunately, this is where the positive reports end.

  This virus-infected scrap heap wages a war against nearly every surviving character from season 1. Thankfully, there are a few that come out relatively unscathed. We have Col. Smirnov, who managed to stay likable across both seasons. There's Ribbons Almark, who remains static and boring despite his role as the main antagonist. Wait, shit, we're running out of positive examples. Lastly, there's Setsuna, the main protagonist who is as static as ever. That is quite literally it. 3 characters...out of around 20. Christ. Everyone else gets their personalities and/or relevance hampered with to varying degrees. Let's take it from the top.

  Now that he's relevant, Saji becomes an intolerable Kira Yamato knockoff for half the season ( as if that invincible beam spam machine wasn't dreadful enough). Thankfully we only have to put up with this for half the show, as he's later reduced to a standard Gundam protagonist when he and his arc take a backseat. His girlfriend, Louise, undergoes a drastic personality change from what was once a sulking mess to now a person that borders on complete lunacy. While there's a plausible connection between "I lost my family to a Gundam" and "I'm insane and I want revenge", neither of the two seasons tried to connect these two states of mind. I get that people change over time, but this season doesn't show us any of that change when even a small flashback montage could have sufficed. On top of that, the personality change is so extreme it's impossible to take seriously. As it stands, Louise is an annoying lunatic that doesn't even suffer any repercussions for her actions. Somehow, she isn't even the worst case of personality switching, as Soma Pierez, goes all over the place at the drop of a hat.

  As mentioned earlier, important characters often saw their relevance dwindle. No character represents this more than Allelujah, one of the main protagonists of both seasons. He gets sidelined so hard he barely even exists after his arc ends in the 6th episode out of the 25 that exist. Keep in mind, he and the characters mentioned previously were some of the most notable characters across both seasons. Even Gundam SEED Destiny, the same show that downright ruined one of the best characters in SEED, solidified Kira Yamato’s Gary Stu status, and made his friend and rival Athrun repeat his arc from season 1, didn't go this far. This speaks volumes, especially when I still haven't discussed everyone this season fucked up. Would anyone actually refer to this as a good sequel?

  The new cast is catastrophic as well. The only remotely decent new character was a disposable snake name Regene, who accomplishes absolutely nothing and means little outside of a small alliance arc that goes nowhere. Given that this is one of the best characters in the show, it really speaks volumes of how awful and often disposable these characters are. On the subject of more relevant characters, we have Andrei Smirnov, who is probably the worst new character introduced in the show. He is insufferable from beginning to end, and he gets no real punishment for his actions. His quest for revenge against his father is as ill-conceived as his character afterwards is irrelevant, as it's only there for a cheap backstory and another character having her personality arbitrarily shift once again. Yes, one of the more noteworthy characters exists for one idiotic arc before being reduced to yet another nobody halfway into the season. The only important character left is the new Lockon Stratos, who comes with his own host of issues. For example, despite him wanting to be as far removed from his brother as possible (not even touching on how much of an asspull this character is), he pilots a borderline identical mech, and assumes the exact same role as him! It is almost laughable how stupid he is! If only this was an intentional showcase of how war can bring about the worst in people. Instead, it's a preachy, empty spectacle of intolerable husks in human shells, obliterating each other while shouting cheesy platitudes. The worst part is that I'm not even covering everyone here, not by a long shot.

  The Gundam franchise has generally been about using epic war machines piloted by unstable people to illustrate the terrors of war on a physical, societal, and psychological level. 00 goes about this as bluntly and pathetically as possible. Everyone constantly shouts about how “violence is bad”, “killing is wrong”, and that “people just need to understand each other better”. Somehow the worst way the series integrates this is by ripping off Zeta Gundam, one of the most irconic entries in the franchise, twice. The most mind-numbing instance is towards the end when the show takes from Zeta Gundam's final episodes, which show newtype abilities become as absurd as being able to interact with the dead for the sake of "understanding people better". At least SEED Destiny has the courtesy of only ripping off an iconic storyline of Zeta Gundam with the Four Murasame plot. This series apes from that particular set of blueprints with Anew --the lifeless Four clone of this series-- on top of the aforementioned "understanding dead people" voodoo. This is unforgivable!

  What a scrap pile this heap of a season turned out to be. Even with the major errors present within the first season, there was room for this second season to a newer model that worked off of what came before for a well-built conclusion. It may look clean and shiny, but this pile of junk was plagued with critical malfunctions throughout. To think they kept this line of defective machinery going with a sequel. It isn’t the worst product the Studio Sunrise factory assembly line cobbled together, not with defective equipment such as Gundam ZZ having being broadcast years prior. Regardless, a product that short-circuits out of the box is of no use here.

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• 

  IsNotAChar

  84/100
  A show that tries to do too much, but still ends up impressing.

  Gundam 00 season 2 is much like the first season when it comes to trying to do a lot of different things at once. When compared to the first season, I think that they were just slightly too ambitious and the show suffered because of it.

  I have a few points of praise where this season improved over the first, and a few issues ranging from minor to quite major. If I don't mention anything, you can just assume that its at least on par with the first season. I won't bother tagging spoilers for the 1st season as I'm assuming anyone reading this has already watched that.

  The Good

  The antagonist

  Season 1 of 00 didn't really have an antagonist for most of the show. You had the 3 power block, but their casts of characters were basically protagonists in their own right and I often found myself rooting for them. Saachez was there as someone to root against, but he was more of a rival type character than a real main threat. Alejandro, the eventual final boss, was just kinda underwhelming.

  Season 2 dramatically improves upon this by actually having an antagonist who is a constant looming source of threat and antagonism. I found myself surprisingly enjoying Ribbons Almark, despite his silly name, and I'd consider him to be a good antagonist.

  
  Ribbons' egotism and superiority complex ended up making him a pretty good foil for Tieria. Whereas Tieria connected with and learnt to understand humanity, Ribbons actively rejected understanding humanity (or even his innovator subordinates) out of his feelings of superiority. He was fun to watch and I like how his ego constantly came back to bite him.
  

  As for the supporting antagonists, they were ok. The innovators were fun and had stupid names (which kinda ended up charming after a while). A certain returning character was a bit underused though.

  
  It's Saachez. I think he just didn't really have enough to do this season. A certain other character I'll get into later is probably responsible for this.
  

  Action and animation

  It was good last season and it was possibly slightly better this season.

  Music

  The music was better this season and felt a bit less repetitive.

  Payoffs to some of last seasons time sinks

  A few of the plot threads that consumed a lot (or a little) time last season, but didn't really get a payoff there, get payoffs in this season. I pretty much expected that they would, but it's still a point in this shows favour.

  
  Primarily, the Saji/Louise plotline ends up justifying the amount of screentime it garnered last season.
  

  The mixed

  There are some elements of the show that I'm less positive of. Not all of them are bad per say, but they're all areas where I think the season didn't fully succeed.

  Mr Bushido

  He’s the funniest character in any Gundam show ever. The issue is, I'm not sure if that's entirely intentional.
  
  "Graham, why are you like this?" That was mostly what I was thinking whenever he was on screen. He was a mostly normal rival character last season, I'm not sure why they decided to turn him into this. Every time he was on screen was pure comedy, I genuinely lost it when he got his little backstory/training flashback scene meditating under a waterfall.

  I don't understand why he was indulged by the A-laws, or anyone really. I get that he's a good pilot, but he basically refused to actually do any fighting unless he could get an honorable 1 on 1 with Setsuna (who had no interest in fighting him).

  I also think he's perhaps responsible for Saachez's lack of screentime/stuff to do. They honestly could've combined the characters. Have either Saachez or Graham die permanently last season and have Mr Bushido be whichever doesn't die.
  

  Lockon Stratos
  
  Killing off a character only to substitute them with their previously unseen nearly identical brother who uses the same voice actor was certainly a choice. It's not a terrible decision, it's just strange. It really feels like they wanted to eat their cake and have it, as in they wanted to kill of Lockon while still having lockon. I don't think it undermines original Lockon's death, but it does confuse matters. It's hard to miss a character when you occasionally forget they're dead. (It doesn't help that Lyle and Neil are both single syllable names ending in an L sound.)
  

  A tale of too many relationships and too many characters

  There are sooo many relationships that the show tries to balance. There are at least 4 full romances and a plethora of implied or one sided or background romances. There are rivalries, parent child relationships, and of course the relationships between all of our main cast. Quite plainly, 00 season 2 just doesn't have enough time for all of this. There are a few relationships, and some characters that just don't get enough time.

  
  The biggest example is Anew Returner and her doomed relationship with Lockon. It feels like you could cut two scenes and practically remove all of their relationship development before Lockons confession of love, it's that abrupt. This is a problem when it's a relationship we're supposed to be engaged with and a character we're supposed to care about. Anew just doesn't get enough screentime prior to her (forced) betrayal and death for any of it to really feel meaningful.

  Basically every one relationship and character also suffer from this, but Anew and her relationship suffer the most. I won't go into the others as it would just be me repeating myself for each one.
  

  Story and themes

  Peace. 00, especially its second season, effectively provides a much more nuanced exploration of world peace than Gundam Wing (which this show shares a number of elements with). That said, is it anything particularly profound or unexpected for a gundam series? not really. It is, however, very well executed and manages to land most of the right emotional notes. It definitely hit me in the feels a little bit near the end.

  Overall, it was a fairly satisfying continuation, and conclusion of, the story and themes started by season 1. (Technically not the conclusion, because there is a movie after this. However, I think this was a prety satisfying ending even without that.)

  Conclusion

  00 season 2 is a worthwile follow up on the first season that I would recommend to anyone who enjoyed season 1. It's a bit messier and has some flaws, but on the whole it was a really engaging and entertaining experience.

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COMMENTS

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