Gundam 00 Second Season Final Analysis (Part 1: The Characters)

The Events Of Gundam 00 Second Season Are All Said And Done, And It Is Now The Time For Making Speeches And Reflecting

So let me start by saying this…..”what a ride this one was”.  I doubt anybody who really followed the show (I mean REALLY followed it), the forum and blog discussions (with fights that got almost as intense as the ones in show itself) on it, and the spoiler crunch from sites such as 19.04 seconds can really say otherwise.  Gundam 00 Second Season is what I have come to expect from second halves of Sunrise shows where the world has been established, the characters introduced and developed (though many would debate this I am sure), the line between factions and idealogies drawn, the goals set (mostly), and now all that’s left to do is finish the job and show how things play out, with all of the mecha skirmishes, character deaths, betrayals, changes of heart, plot twists and big battles that we have come to expect from the Gundam franchise.

How did it go about doing all of that and how well did it succeed?  That’s what I am here to look at, and I plan to do it in four sections that will deal with Character, Story, Music And Animation, and finally Mecha. This is going to be a long read (even split into seperate parts) since I am going to try and go in depth on each topic and subtopic as much as possible.  For this reason people may want to read this one in sub-installments.

Random Musing Of The Day (On K-On And Popularity)

I wonder if it’s not that K-On is extremely incomparably popular in the western hemisphere based on it’s own merits, so much as people like writing low content posts (especially of the “moe moe kyun” variety) about how popular it is at an accelerated rate and in such a manner that makes it seem like it’s the case.  There’s no easy way of denying that it’s content is a popular and controversial topic of conversation at it’s inception, but it’s starting to seem like it hit it’s peak in terms of self-generated popularity a little while before what we have gotten in the last couple of weeks and has instead been feeding into itself in terms of perception of popularity in a way that makes it seem like it’s getting moreso.  Is intense and constant mention of a single event in one episode really a sign of growing and overwhelming popularity, or just a sign that people feel the need to talk about it because it’s perceived as popular and relevant, thus creating a substantial portion of the popularity in the process?  How much does K-On owe to itself in terms of popularity, and how much does it owe to it’s fans conversational quirks?  But one of many questions to ponder.

Moegar (It Exists And I Will Attempt To Prove It)

Kaioshin:

What about those characters that don’t fit specifically into the category of Gar or Moe, but are a bit of both.

 ghostlightning:

I don’t think it’s impossible to be both, despite how characters are almost always portrayed and interpreted one way or the other.

Oh yeah?  Well I big to differ, and plain to object via the use of another poorly edited WMM Video.

1,000,000th milestone hit!

Tacos, tacos, tacos…oh wait!

Okay Can Somebody Explain To Me What The Big Deal About Mio Is?

Seen One Flashy Shiny Sparkly Rainbow Over The Top Moe Character, Seen Em’ All, Mio Can Stand With The Rest Of Them For All I Care

I don’t get it, I really don’t get it.  What is it that has practically everybody on the blogosphere slobbering all over this extremely par for the course moe-centric character and rushing to make formulaic and derivative worship posts about her “moe moe kyun” sequences?  I know this IS the blogosphere and all, but I mean it’s like nobody has ever seen a pseudo-tsundere character before.  Is this really what character popularity has come down to now?  How over the top a sequence you can make to exploit every last bit of moe potential a character design has and then some?  Is it really that simple?  Well not in my book.  Call me when Mio get’s some actual solid character development and a backstory.  Maybe then I’ll bother to care a greater deal about this latest trendy moe character over the next that has the blogosphere joined in a monotonous chorus yet again.  All of these moe characters are starting to run together now anyway…….can hardly tell them apart anymore……

That said Mio is almost certainly the best character that K-On has to offer at the moment in that unlike Yui, Ritsu, and Mugi she doesn’t have an annoying character trait that all but cancels out anything one could find that is likeable about either of them.  Can one tolerable character really carry an entire 4-Girl-Koma anime series through it’s whole run though?  The question is of course rhetorical.

Revival from the land of the rising sun

Waiiii, banzaiiii!

So I am finally back from my holiday (well, I have been back for the past few days already but as expected there was a lot to catch up on not to mention still feeling a bit jet lagged) and I can honestly say that the title for this entry isn’t a mistake with utter delight.

It’s Over…..(Shin Mazinger Episode 3 And Because Of Ghostlightning I Try My Hand At A Low Content Blog Post)

Just Give Zeus The Garrest Character Of 2009 Award Already

Now I just await the return of our overlord Deathkillz so that he might partake and preach of the awesomeness that is Zeus Mazinger.  Incidentally, this episode had the best score of any anime I’ve seen this week.  Even including Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood.  Need to find out more about this series score composer.

K-On Episode 4 (Attempting To Prove A Theory)

Previously I had theorized that K-On was entirely watchable while half concious, thus tonight I attempted to prove it while watching episode 04 while totally hammered.  Here’s how my major reactions all went down:

Teeheeheehee Teeheeheehee it’s meat in the fridge. It’s liek Oh Ma God!  Why does it sparkle though….. O_0

And Now….The REAL Gundam 30th Anniversary Project

So Gundam 0081 turned out to be a video game and then more announcements made it seem unlikely that there would be one, but Chris of MAHQ said it first, that just because Sunrise President Uchida said there were “no new Gundam works planned for the anniversary” didn’t make it true (and really why would they come out and admit it instead of making it at least a bit of a surprise like corporations always do) and that there was definitely something on the way.  Well of course he was right, and it looks like the 30th Anniversary Project is the one almost everybody wanted after all.

Final Fantasy XIII Demo (Is Masashi Hamauzu Square’s Next Nobuo Uematsu? Has Tetsuya Nomura Finally Evolved?)

I was wondering why ghostlightning had suddenly brought FFX:III up to me the other day.  His question was whether FF:XIII was going to be coming out on 360 too.  Yes…..yes it is.  Then I found out that the demo had been released in Japan on the PS3 yesterday and went to look at some clips.  Truthfully I hadn’t been that psyched about FFX:III until I saw that they were going to be going with the whole cyberpunk theme for it’s characters and part of it’s setting.  IMO FF: VIII had the most fascinating settings in the history of the franchise and I had been waiting a long long time for them to go back to that.  Lightning’s Gunsword helps in getting back to that level of awesomeness too, because if I haven’t already been clear, my policy when it comes to games is “to hell with realism, do what you have to do to maximize the fun factor, then if you have to worry about realism”.  I guess that means I’ve grown accustomed to Square’s late tendencies towards zazz factor (not so much cutscene porn, which they admittedly not quite as bad for as Konami’s Metal Gear Solid franchise) as long as it doesn’t interfere with gameplay.  Of course if the realism is tied to the fun factor like it with such game franchises as Infinity Ward’s Call of Duty then by all means……

Anyway, I digress.  What I am really here to talk about was the music during one of the early sequences in the Demo.  Specifically this masterpiece in the waiting:

Final Fantasy XIII Boss Theme – By Masashi Hamauzu

Holy mother…..maybe it’s just me, but this is probably the best Final Fantasy song I’ve heard since FF: X, though maybe that’s because Masashi Hamauzu was one of the FFX composers.  Nevertheless I didn’t expect to get completely blown away by one of the first tracks I heard from the demo and I swear to god it actually brought a tear to my eye because it sounded so much like the FF music I remember getting into back in my high school days and not the solid but merely passable stuff we’ve been getting since FF: X-2.  I just love how it builds the tension in the early bits only to slam you full force with the piano player going all Elton John on us (that’s how I picture him anyway, slamming down on the keys like Elton John once he really gets going in a concert) as well as those lovely violins.  Music to fight bosses by…..this is what I want.  And yeah come to think of it the boss music in FF: XII was pretty good too, but I wouldn’t put it on this level and I certainly hope this doesn’t just mean that the boss music will be the highlight piece for all of FF:XIII as now that I know Hamauzu is the FF: X guy I expect great things from this games score.