Anime: Kidou Senshi Gundam Double O (2008)

Note: Gundam 00 divided it's airing in two parts and forced the reviews and statistics to show them as two different types of show. I'll try to keep the review focused on what happens in the second part, but for most of the departments it's hard to separate things from the first part.

This second season follows the same steps as most second seasons of shows, it boosts the cast, throw some new characters, perhaps more than necessary and focus on flashiness mainly because it's base was already built on the previous season. This happens to Code Geass, to Gundam Seed Destiny, to Black Lagoon 2nd Barrage, etc. It's an issue common to sequels and is a main factor that makes it shallower. However, considering it as a necessary element to complete the Gundam 00 series, the show has its strengths.

Art & Animation
While the style, colors and sharpness are kept, the animation is even better and more used. Combats are plenty here and you can definetely see how powerful the show is in this department. The bishounens and bishoujos remain, but the fact that some of them aged contribute to deliver a more serious show in terms of character art. The bishounens become more abundant with the introduction of the Innovators, but that's not enough to detract from such a high-quality stuff.

Sound
As with the art and animation, sound direction remains the same. New great openings and endings, dramatic entrances, nice voice-acting and superb background music makes Gundam 00 2nd Season the same great stuff as the predecessor. There are, however, a bigger presence of girls here and the voice of two or three of them is really annoying with such a ridiculous picth as common to shows with young girls. Again, they are not protagonists and are not enough to detract from the excellence of the rest of this department.

Story
The first season took its time to show many of the Celestial Being interventions and slowly built a good solid point at the end. Gundam 00 2nd season starts four years later, allowing the Federation to create the abusive A-Laws to keep the world under control while Celestial Being rebuilt itself with some new machines. The Innovators presented by Ribbons in the first season take the leading antagonist role and everything starts to move again when Setsuna acts to stop one of the many massacres brought by the A-Laws. Overall, the plot becomes less complex than in the first season. The political intrigue is demoted to lesser importance and the villains are far more clear and evil than before. In fact, they commit such evil acts in order to "unify" the world that sometimes are hard to swallow.

1. More Fights! More Action!
   Compared to the first season, the plot allows for more fights, more flashy entrances and more nonsense technology. A very interesting thing to notice is that the Gundams are no longer uber-powerful compared to the rest of world, but brute-force wins more than strategy unlike the first season. The twists and turns of the show are still very nice and bring about some awesome moments, but overall the show loses some of its complexity over more simple things. Some plot holes of the first season are filled, but besides that no mystery or surprises truly happen to make shake things like before.
   

Character
Not much of a difference from the first season, and perhaps that is the main issue here. The characters were supposed to age four years, but their changes are only in the art department, not in depth, personalities, or anything like that. Setsuna remains with his I AM GUNDAM! personality (he surely has some kind of mental disorder, he's almost as nuts as the guys from Gundam Wing), Saji is the same coward, Sumeragi is the same sexualized captain, etc. They even bring a twin brother of a dead character to fill the empty sit. Also, Gundam 00 shows that it does not take death seriously and brings back many characters that were supposedly dead by the end of teh first season, a measure that seems more to avoid "fan sadness" than contributing to the plot. Bishounens are plenty, bishoujos as well, the more serious and less "flashy" character is left out of the spotlight most of the time (poor Smirnov), etc. Overall Gundam 00 presents the same weakness in character department as before, only changing their age and tossing more new characters than necessary.

Value
Considering it's a sequel and a necessary part of the first season, I don't think there's much to say here. The show is a good Gundam show and in this part it deviates more from the Gundam Wing. There are all elements that are common to Gundam endings: new mobile suits, mass destruction weapons, truly evil villains, etc. And in my opinion this part is always where Gundam is at its worst. Thus, reviewing only this season here forces me to give a worse score than the first season.

Enjoyment
Superb fights aided by top-quality animation, dramatic mergings of endings and nicely timed openings make the show addictive. The events here, however, are more predictable than before and overall the experience is failry standard compared to most Gundams. It brings about some good war encounters, but the feeling is not that strong mainly because the characters are not exactly charming and you know that the show fears losing even the secondary cast based on the end of the first season. Those who disliked how Mu La Flaga misteriously returned in Gundam Seed Destiny (like myself) will be a bit disappointed. Gundam 00, however, is a nice end to one of the shows with the biggest production value that I've watched.

Comments
A nice ending, but not exactly superb. Unlike Code Geass 2nd Season, Gundam 00 does not lose itself in endless spirals of fillers and the extreme abuse of new characters. However, the depth in almost everything exception action is lacking. The strategic warfare is far less important and the Gundams and mobile suits turn to be god-like weaponry with a few truly bizarre functions.

For those wondering, I find fitting to compare Gundam 00 and Code Geass because they were both released in the same format, in sequence, and by the Sunrise. In fact they share many similarities in procution, with Code Geass using a more alternative style and Gundam 00 using top-notch quality in animation.

Gundam fans will be pleased, especially Gundam Wing fans. Overall, the show deliver some of the greatest moments in Gundam shows, but not enough to make it comparable to Gundam Z, Gundam Seed, and other classic stuff. I personally like Gundam 00 a lot, but it has a reverse effect than most of the other franchises. Generally Gundam shows starts slow and weak and becomes strong and addicting by the end, while Gundam 00 starts with a bang and slowly becomes more generic and less addictive.

By no means you should pass this if you are a Gundam fan. If you like mecha and warfare, you'll also find a nice show, especially in the first season. If you have a problem with shounen shows and is especially annoyed by flashy characters, bishounens, etc, you may try it anyway, it can be good or bad for those.

The producers definitely listened to the complaints in the first 00 and responded in style. The second season to 00 is non-stop action with cliffhangers and omg moments in almost every episode. While it is true that the first season is a definite must to get up to speed, this second season definitely did not disappoint.

There are a few remaining complaints about a few story aspects and some character plot holes, but the other aspects of this season are right on the mark. A great watch indeed.

Animation:
Absolutely crisp, mech action goodness. Everything is very fluid and the animation sure doesn't give ones eyes a rest. The characters are more mature in their look (esp. Setsuna) and the new Gundams look good, we finally see 00 Gundam in it's true glory. There are few mech shows that match the animation quality here.

Sound:
The new OPs 1 and 2 are great, ED1 is peculiar and I don't particularly like the second one. Overall, the sound and BGM fit very well. There are many recycled tracks from the first season in addition to a few new ones. Character voices are the same but I personally think that Setsuna finally got a bit more of a personality.

Sound: 4/5, VA: 4/5

Story:
This season goes at a very fast pace. Every single episode brings a lot of plot and character development and often ends on a large cliffhanger. I would recommend finding a block to chain it in a few sittings.

The story leaves off at the end of the first season, which means that Celestial Being just got schooled by the earth forces and are licking their wounds. As the last episode in the first season alluded to, gundam 00 is finally ready to see action.

There is a sense of desperate hope as the gundams are now fighting a much-better equipped earth alliance as well as other unnamed opponents. This only increases the need for chaining.

Much of the plot line is fairly unique but some portions, especially in the latter episodes, seemed to repeat familiar patterns from Seed and Seed Destiny. There were also portions near the end that just didn't seem to make sense (you'll probably notice when you get there). I can't help but think that certain mech battles occurred just so Bandai could sell another model... Despite these flaws, the development is very solid and the conclusion is well done.

Character:
There is a lot of character development, some expected from the first season but most were unexpected. If you read my earlier review of the first season, I mentioned that a lot of characters seemed to be introduced there without a real need. Well, expect those characters to play an important role now. In addition, there are some more romantic relationships that actually gives the show a bit more personality. Which was greatly necessary as I didn't really care for the meisters that much in the first series.

A lot of relationships are explored in this season but I felt it strange that even though it has been publicly stated that Setsuna-Marina were a destined pair, there was little development between them. I guess they're saving it for the upcoming movie? In any case, the design and development were well done, much more so than the first season.

Value:
This season made up for most of the shortcomings of the first season. It was a very entertaining watch and my only complaint is that Saji is still too much of a cry baby.

Gundam 00, the latest show in the never-ending Gundam franchise finally reached it's conclusion. The show tried a lot of things, it succeeded at some and failed at others. Let's take a closer look.

Animation:

For a TV series this show really has wonderful animations. Battles are fast paced, unique and nicely choreographed. It's really a joy to watch the Gundams fight. Fortunately it is, because we're going to see so much of it that it would have been a dead sentence for the series if that hadn't been the case. So, why not a top score? While the heavily computer edited mechas and environments look clean and slick, thanks to the cell shading that has been applied everywhere, things also look a bit sterile. Especially the interior of buildings look very bland and rarely have more detail than 4 grey walls. This is were computer animation has a big disadvantage to the beautifully handdrawn art of Turn A Gundam for example.

Sound:

The sound department of the series was handled competently, but not greatly. The soundtrack does it's job, but there aren't any tunes that will stick in your head for months to come. Gundam SEED was much superior in this regard. The show even introduced a song directly in the story and set it up as if it would have a serious impact on the plot, but then they kind of dropped it (like so many other things, more on that in a moment), which was a bit disappointing.
The voice acting was good, there weren't any special performances but nothing bad either. Overall the sound was pretty average. I guess they didn't even want to compete with more music oriented shows like Macross F so they didn't bother investing a lot into this.

Story:

This part is propably the hardest to write. The series has a ton of interesting situations and relationships that provide a ground for a thoroughly engrossing story. But in the end they only made the bare minimum out of it. Many great ideas were only hinted at and not pursued further, others were introduced and then totally underdeveloped or even dropped. In general this series has the highest ratio of dropped plot threads I've seen in quite a while. It's the first 50 episode series where I actually wished for another season. Not because the stuff was so great that I wanted to see more, but because there was so much stuff that had to be dropped it would have needed this time to fully develop it's content. As it is, many aspects feel rushed.

Character:

The character designs were visually very pleasing, with all girls looking absolutely gorgeous of course. Maybe a bit too perfect, it was a bit hard for anyone to stand out in between the bunch of Aphrodite incarnations. The male characters had slightly more variety to them, and overall I liked the character designs a lot. The problem comes with their personalities.
There are a ton of characters, dozens of them. And most of them are even interesting and not just filler. Which makes it all the more frustrating that so many of them had to fight for bits and pieces of screentime and ultimately couldn't develop. In the end entire subplots involving certain characters were just literally terminated just like that without an explanation. Many characters repeatedly stated how they were preparing special plans in secret - and none of them get revealed! In the end those characters are just killed and quickly taken out of the picture to save screentime for more battles. Very very frustrating.
Also, I'm kind of sad there isn't a strong love story in this show. With so many super hot female characters it would be a no-brainer, and the relationship dynamics really worked superbly in Gundam SEED.

To evoke a emotional response you need to get to know the characters, in the time lapse manner in which the series races through the characters it's just not happening.

Value:

Since the series focuses more on the action than on the story it's more re-watchable than most Gundam shows. Personally I prefer a very strong first impression over repeated mellow ones, but I don't doubt there are people out there who'll get a kick out of watching some of the battles more than once.

Enjoyment:

Despite the obvious flaws I still enjoyed all episodes and the anime on the whole. This series is like a Gundam-Best-Of. They tried to take all the best ideas of all the Gundam shows and condense them into one series. The result unfortunately isn't greater than the sum of it's parts because of the aforementioned reasons. Still, for the action alone you'll have a great time if you enjoy epic battles.

Gundam 00 is a "re-telling" of Gundam Wing to a more "modern" audience (If you don't believe me, just look at the spoilers at the bottom of this review. That should be all the proof you need). With souped-up graphics, a great soundtrack, the director of Full Metal Alchemist (2005), and of course the legend of the Gundam Franchise, nothing could go wrong, right?

This review reviews (wow that grammar sucks lol) both seasons of Gundam 00. Too much typing can hurt you, and I don't want arthritis!

*DISCLAIMER* I do not consider myself to be an otaku, and I consider anime to be a hobby in my life. Thus, this review and others I write in the future are intended to help "regular people" in their search for something good to watch.

PLEASE LEAVE HELPFUL COMMENTS (to not just me, either)! CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM/ADVICE IS AWESOME!

Gundam 00 is the first and only Gundam series to take place in OUR time line, not an alternate reality as with every other Gundam series. That means that events in the series actually have a little bit of relevance to today's society, and this works quite well in the first season of the series, adding very real political intrigue that someone who keeps up with events in the world (such as myself) can relate to. However, this strength of the series takes a back seat to the action in the second season of the series, and while the action of the second season is quite good at times, the lack of a believable "world" really hurts the overall story and characters of 00 in the end.

ANIMATION: 8
I really enjoyed the animation of the mechs, characters, and outfits. All of these are very noticeable and bright through the entire series. However, this animation does not work when the series should be taking a very dark turn.



In terms of backgrounds, they were often quite bland, but they did their job well enough. Lastly, the animation used for the action sequences were usually very good (sword slashes and beam weaponry looked absolutely excellent in 00), but explosions could've looked better a couple times, and less computer graphics would've been cool (I'm prejudiced against computer graphics in anime... Which is why I'm such a huge fan of Ghibli stuff).

Character designs were pretty cool, with every character, including secondary characters, having their own unique look, even though they all followed some sort of Japanese pretty fashion model of some sort (except for fat Blondie of season two... lol).

SOUND: 10
I was VERY impressed with Gundam 00's soundtrack, from the OP/EDs to in-episode music to the background music... All of it.

To start, the OPs really fit the series quite well, from the slightly somber "Daybreak's Bell", to the poppy-action filled "Hakanaku mo Towa no Kanashi (Fleeting and Everlasting Sorrow)" and my personal favorite, the freakin' awesome bad-ass "Ash Like Snow". The last OP, "Namida no Mukou (Across from the Tears)" isn't as memorable as the other OPs, but does its job despite being at the end of the series (where 00 gets messy).

The EDs of 00 are easily the best collection of EDs I've heard from an anime, starting with the poppy "Wana", going to the somber "Friends", and the powerful and epic "Prototype". For most every other anime I watch, I’m one to skip the ED and go straight to the next episode preview. But with 00, it’s actually worth listening to and waiting.
Lastly, the in-show music is also very, very well done. With a soundtrack by Kenji Kawai (he did the soundtrack for the Ghost in the Shell Movies) that really adds to the show, sometimes moreso than the characters can (especially in the second season). In addition to the BG music, there's great in-show songs such as “Unlimited Sky” and "love today", which help when they decide to do montages. In conclusion, 00’s music makes me want to listen to it even when I’m not watching 00, which is a hard and awesome feat for any television show to accomplish. Ten.
(I know ya’ll are used to the Seiyuu being in the Sound Section, but it really belongs in the “Character” section (they are voice ACTORS, after all), thinking about it. Look there if you want to read about them)

STORY: 6
I almost feel as if I'm being too generous with a 6, because the second season's story sucked butt. However, I AM reviewing both seasons after all.

The first season of 00 takes place on OUR Earth, 400 (?) years in the future. Looking at the future of Earth, it actually makes a good deal of sense, unlike many other shows that put shows in the future/alternate realities *Cough*GEASS*Cough*. Instead of countries, there are 3 power blocks, The Union (dominated by the US), The A.E.U. (basically the European Union), and The human Reform League (China, Russia, and India... though we don't see much of the Indians). From a historical perspective (I wouldn't say I'm a buff, but I tend know a bit more than your average joe), I can certainly see the world turning out like this in 400 years, except for the HRL, because the Russians and Chinese are too paranoid and India is democratic for the most part, not communist (though there is at least one communist province), and Russia isn't communist either (though it could be again, who knows?) Anyyyways, everyone's hunky dory stockpiling their weapons stocks (which are now mechs), when Celestial Being shows up with the Gundams, with the goal of "ending war", fully knowing they're a bunch of hypocrites. Throughout season one, the political intrigue between the 3 power blocks, the gundams, and other countries/regions being manipulated by both really add a great deal to the story. There's a mission in a screwed up Sri Lanka (2 Tamil Tiger Planes had a Kamikase attack about a month ago), The IRL and regular government are still fighting (A renegade IRL group killed 2(?) british soldiers in Northern Ireland a couple weeks ago), there's still a bunch of drugs in Central/South America (The current death toll of the drug wars going on in Mexico is over 7,000), The middle east is still a hotbed of tribal warfare (It's been like that for a VERY long time), all these very real problems of war today (and in the past) in the future, which I found absolutely fascinating in the world of 00, not often done in other shows.

This, of course, is the good part of the story, which occurs through most of season 1 until the beginning of Season 2, when we forget all the cool politics and replace them with just the bad-ass mechs. Now, mechs are very good for animation, but for story, it's a bad thing every time. And so, 00 has to deal with the oft-cheesyness of the character's stories, which would work if they acted realistic, instead of ohhhh do this ohhhh do that as is the norm of many bad TV shows and anime. Introduction of useless and forgettable secondary characters (who the hell was running A-laws/Arrows again?), doing stuff without much reason (see Lockon have ANGST! OMG!), and an over-emphasis on action (no matter HOW cool it is, not a good thing unless your show isn’t supposed to be serious) does a major disgrace to what was really a good story in the first season.

And now, a memo to Sunrise:

You’ve now made the same mistake in an anime TWO SHOWS IN A ROW (00 and Geass), with both having pretty good first seasons and really screwing up in the second season. Please, PLEASE stop doing this. I respect my mechs and Gundams too much to see this happen again : /.

CHARACTER: 5
Oh Gundam, why must you repeat your mistakes? Wing’s characters were very flat, WHY USE THEM OVER AGAIN!? (see spoilers at bottom of review to compare if you really need to). I found most of the cast of 00 to be fairly cool in the first season, making decisions that made sense to their characters rather than just doing things for the sake of the plot, which did some things that I found to be really, really good and interesting for the overall story (I cite episode 23 of the first season for this, that was a really good episode and fine piece of writing for that time, even though it didn’t turn out well in the end.) Again though, as with the story, the characters lost their focus and ideas for the most part come season 2, falling into long patterns of uselessness and confusion. Characters like Feldt and Marina who were slightly interesting the first season turn absolutely useless (let’s sing songs for world peace and get shot at!), characters with cool backstories/connections forgot about them because they’ve got bad-ass mechs now (Lockon, Setsuna), and the two characters I really didn’t like from first season get most of the screentime in the second(I don’t care about you Louise and Saji, your use in the first season was to provide an “ordinary person’s point of view”, and now that you both aren’t, I really don’t care about you AT ALL). Lastly, the two characters I found to be really interesting in the first season, Ali Al-Saachez and Allelujah/Hallelujah got the SHAFT in the second season. Ali got the equivilant of a cameo in the second season, while Allelujah had but one thing in his mind, “Marie”. Being a psycho killer like Hallelujah is soooo much more interesting, and yet the series forgot almost entirely about him.

To comment on the voice acting of 00, I found it to be very average for the most part, the only voice acting that stood out being that of Ali Al-Saachez by Keiji Fujiwara, who really did a good job making Ali into a psychotic awesome person (no wonder he got to be the dub for the joker in The Dark Knight!). But then again, Keiji Fujiwara stands out in EVERY anime he’s in, and he’s been in like over half of the ones I’ve seen (crazy bastard). Other than Mr. Fujiwara, most of the other voice acting was average to poor. I thought that Noboru Sōgetsu’s voice acting of Ribbons was quite poor, making him sound like an annoying smartass rather than diabolical manipulator, and certainly on the fault of the casting director for choosing fanservice (Noboru Sōgetsu is otherwise known as Tohru Furuya, voice actor for Amuro Ray, the main character in the original Gundam series) over quality.

VALUE: 8
While the problems of the second season are certainly large and common problems, the good writing and plot of the first season is certainly worth a good deal of value in terms of the overall anime/TV industry, and can and should be applied to other anime/TV series. I cared and respected the characters and plot in the first season, and would certainly love to see another TV show/anime recreate that in scripts in the future. Plus all this, it’s very much like a classic Gundam series (it IS a remake of Wing, the most classic other than the original), which is an automatic HUGE boost in value overall regardless.

ENJOYMENT: 7
I enjoyed 00 a lot, because even with its shortcomings in the second season, the action was still really freakin’ cool, and I’m all for that. I subtract 2 points for the faults of the second season, and another 1 point for having a sloppy conclusion leading up to a conclusive movie next year (I’m against conclusive movies for TV and anime… just finish it during the season.)

FINAL VERDICT: Definitely worth watching if you’re a mech/action fan like I am, but if you despise the action genre, you might want to skip it.

Recommendations for shows like Gundam 00-
Gundam Wing- Gundam 00 IS a “re-telling” of this, you might as well see the original too if you haven’t already.
Gundam the 08th MS team – If you really enjoyed the Saji and Louise storyline, you would probably really like 08th MS team. Still my favorite gundam show ever, now that 00 screwed up its second season…

Battlestar Galactica – Now that it’s ended and permanently holds the spot of “best TV show ever (including anime)” in my book, I kinda have to recommend it to everyone and anyone.

Tenga Toppa Gurren Lagann – If you still haven’t seen this fantastic series, go see it now. Go, GO! Why are you still reading? Ohhhh you want an explanation. It’s the bad-ass action of Gundam with no limits on seriousness… or anything for that matter.

Star wars (a new hope) – This is here only because episode 14 of season two is basically an homage to this movie. (Memento Mori = The Death Star)

LIST OF WHY GUNDAM 00 IS A “RE-TELLING” OF WING (While these comparisons may not be EXACT, they’re certainly VERY CLOSE)

Notice: This review covers both seasons and movie finale of the anime.

On an aesthetic level, Gundam 00 reuses the best elements of previous series and creates an up-to-date version of them.
- People in the finale start to read other peoples’ minds and the dead begin to talk like in Universal Century.
- The Innovators are the Newtypes of UC or the Coordinators of Seed.
- The A-Laws are the Titans of Zeta.
- The Meisters have the same goals as the rebels in Wing.

Gundam 00 is also a failure. Financially, it didn’t make nearly as much money as the previous god awful Gundam Seed. In comparison to other iterations, it wasn’t as good of an alternative universe as Turn A. And as a standalone series, it stops making sense from the very first episode. What kind of a plan is to bring peace by stopping war with more war? Only five year old could buy this nonsense.

Not like many were questioning the ridiculous premise when it began airing, since the production values were impressive for their time, the character designs didn’t look like shit, and the soundtrack wasn’t pop garbage. As far as pretty colors and nice sounds go, even I was amazed, while the nonsensical plot could be excused as if everybody being insane and not knowing what the hell they are doing.

And that’s where the positives stop, since the writing is garbage. Starting with the characters who have tragic backdrops, like any decent war drama should have, but they otherwise look too sexy for this body. It’s like they belong in some otome game or a dating simulation; they have a subtle erotism about them which was taking me out of the experience. I mean, they are not terrible like in Seed, or cutsy like in Age, but they definitely feel out of place in a war drama we are supposed to take seriously and yet it’s full of girls with high-pitched voices and emo dudes repeating cheesy one-liners about paper-thin logic where you stop war with more war. Only the Universal Century has proper designs.

The same can be said about the mobile suits. They overdid with the rule of cool in a series we are supposed to take seriously. This is not G Gundam, or Gundam Wing, it’s not supposed to be mindless action. So what the hell do they have beam sabers at their feet, second heads popping out of their backs, going Super Saiyan in battles, and firing energy beams 100 times their size? It’s too sexy for this robot and once again proof of why the Universal Century did it right. How are you supposed to be invested in the drama when the mecha battles remind you of the Power Rangers?

There are not even some sort of tactics used in battles, despite wasting half an episode in explaining the plan in following wars, when in practice it is just firing a million lasers and blowing apart the enemy forces. The only thing that defines the victor is who is using the latest power up, so both parties are constantly one-uping each other with constant upgrades, new transformations, and even more broken Super Saiyan robots.

The story had the potential to be mature when it began with shady politics and grey political agendas of global superpowers, but fell apart after a dozen episodes, or more specifically when the Throne team was introduced. After that it became angsty teenagers kicking the crap out of armies of mook soldiers with their overpowered mecha. The mystery behind the founder of the Celestial Being, the hidden agendas of the Innovators, the ideal world of eternal peace, and the encounter with aliens, were all bullshit. They constantly throw in concepts like public indifference about wars, religious exploitation, political propaganda, and forget them completely after a couple of episodes.



There are many side stories that are building up for dozens of episodes and are resolved in anticlimactic ways. And by resolved, I mean killing most of the characters, thus ending their plots in the laziest way possible during the final episodes. Such as a princess preparing a world-shaking event for 47 episodes, with an air of certainty written all over her face, and then some chick goes crazy and kills her in 5 seconds. Special mention to characters that survived a dozen exploding robots, just to be killed by an exploding robot and are never be mentioned again.

The writers really didn’t know what they were doing in the finale, as the scenes change frenetically, and long monologues try to explain with words everything they forgot to resolve for 50 episodes. Too lazy for this mecha. The movie sequel became notorious for its bad pacing, pointless action, boring characters, and the addition of aliens, that had no reason to exist in any Gundam, that had no characterization, and that were defeated with an asspull.

There is also some really bad writing when it comes to characters:
- Setsuna F. Seiei has such a memorable name because he repeats it every 5 minutes to the point it makes you wish he was mute.
- There is a pacifist princess AGAIN which is always out of place and why Universal Century is amazing for not having such bullshit.
- There is that Throne pink-haired girl siding with the guy who killed her brothers for no reason.
- There is the Innovator leader revealing to his allies that they are no longer useful to him; thus almost begging them to betray him.
- There is Saji and Louise, two civilians that are taking up way too much screen time without offering much to the plot. The idea behind them was to show the devastation of war through the eyes of civilians, but it was so cheesy and overblown to the point it was ruining the drama. Just how many times did the two of them accidentally meet the Gundam pilots, and why all the misfortunes in the world befell specifically on their families, in the exact same time?
- Some have split personality which makes them like good Jekyll and evil Hide. Others have convenient memory loses or are controlled like mindless puppets. Others pay no attention to vital events for a dozen episodes or are too stupid to see an obvious traitor right before their eyes. Some of them get killed and give you hopes the rest will need to adjust but nah, they are conveniently replaced by similar people in the sequel.

So yeah, Gundam 00 is full of insulting-to-your-intelligence convenient events and idiocy. Very pleasing as a dumb action mecha series and a complete failure as a war drama that keeps trying to take itself seriously. If there is something I understood from this show, it would be:
War is a bad thing… so I will enter my super-awesome-special robot that makes me look so cool and will start blowing shit in order to prove my thesis.
If it’s not Universal Century, it’s too bullshit for this Gundam.

This review may contain some spoilers be warned...

Animation: 9/10
Not much to talk about here the animation was great and the character models were nice.

Sound: 8/10
Again the opening music was bad but the rest was pretty good.

Story: 5/10
I liked the 1st season of Gundam00 the story was nice and the setup for once was not in a colony or in a fictional era,the characters were older then other Gundam's they were all 18+ except for Setsuna and that was good cause i was sick of 14 year old's saving the world, any way the 2nd season was setup to be a great one it was 5 years after the 1st season and it seems the sides are matched and the gundams were missing one member, the 1st 3 episodes were good but the story began to go down hill from there starting with the cheesy story of Mary and Hal(whatever his name is) which contained some action but all of it seemed to follow the same pattern with Hal keeps on fighting Soma and no one else for around 3-4 episodes and using the same line: "Marrrrrrrrry" every time while Setsuna and the rest fight some guys it keeps this uninteresting pattern till around episode 12 then things begin to look interesting but then again it became boring so the plan ulia or whatever his name was for humans to become innovators ? then what?ofcours sunrise will not let u know with thee lame ending...so how will u know don't be sad there was a announcement after the credit roll saying there will be a Gundam00 movie coming on 2010! what else left for them to fight? another secret son/daughter like Gundam Wing??

Character: 5/10
here we have Setsuna who has a habit of always calling people with they're full names!!? he has the same personality as the 1st season, and then there's Tieria who looks like a chick and should have been a chick still has a crush on the dead Lock-on but he switched the tsundere act for a more friendly one, also we have Lock-on Mk-II who is the brother of the dead one but surprisingly looks and sounds AND acts like his older brother...last but not least the annoying Hal who 3/4 of his lines in the show is...yes u guessed it "MAAAAAAAAARY" the rest of the characters are the same and only look older also there's Ribbons who is the most uninteresting villain I've ever seen.

Value: 5/10
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Enjoyment: 5/10
i didn't enjoy this as much as i thought i would after the a while i started to watch the show in 3-5 minuets it was getting boring but if your a Gundam fan u may enjoy it....
Lastly sunrise u should change the Gundam formula or just put it to rest we don't need a Gundam every 1 or 2 years ...
1st season 8.5/10
2nd season 5/10