Gundam 00 kicks off its second season with some fun revelations and scene-setting but also one of the worst cases of backtracking I’ve seen in any media that even though I knew it was coming it still made me shake my head. Thankfully once you get past that bit the series is once again really fun, with great character and mech designs, though the enemies are a bit more clear-cut this time, making for less political intrigue. Let’s take a look!
In the four years since the end of Season 1 the world has changed as the major powers of Earth have united and created a single “peace keeping force” called the A-Laws, who in true Gundam fashion are of course full of corrupt people who take it too far and punish the little people, especially in poor countries that aren’t part of the unified deal, like in the Middle East. This has led to a resistance group called Katharon to appear, though given their lack of equipment they aren’t getting very far. The first character we properly meet back up with is poor old Saji Crossroad, whose relationship with Louise did indeed end after her horrible injuries. Saji is in the wrong place at the wrong time when a Katharon agent is discovered and is arrested at the same time as a spy with zero evidence, soon ending up in a prison camp only to be saved by Setsuna, who is currently working on his own with his Gundam Exia. The two escape an A-Laws attack thanks to the help of Tieria, who informs Setsuna that Celestial Being is getting back together on a new Ptolemaios ship. Saji is of course outraged that his old neighbour is one of the Gundam Meisters he holds responsible for what happened to both Louise and his sister, but he is taken on board anyway. Setsuna is soon sent to recruit more members, including the returning tactical forecaster Sumeragi and… *sigh*, Lyle Dylandy, the twin brother of the original Lockon Stratos Neil Dylandy who looks, sounds and acts exactly like him and who readily agrees to pilot his brother’s old mobile suit. It completely craps all over Lockon’s amazing death sequence from the end of the last season and very little time is given to explain how he has the same skills. Terrible idea.
“What’s that? You want me to take my brother’s place as his near-exact double? …. Okay.” “Well, that was easy.”
Anyway, the last piece of the puzzle is Allelujah Haptism and they soon find him in a prison complex and Setsuna and Lockon [yes he even took the same bloody codename] free him, with Setsuna running into old flame / Princess Marina Ismail; Allelujah runs into Soma Peries and identifies her as Marie Parfacy, a fellow human soldier experiment; and Lockon is revealed [to the audience] to be a member of Katharon and had tipped them off to their raid on the Prison so they can rescue some of their captured comrades. From here the Ptolemaios II heads to Azadistan to drop the Princess off but comes under attack from the A-Laws so has to spend a couple of episodes with Katheron, during which Setsuna is attacked by both of his old adversaries in Ali Ali-Saachez [who burned most of Azadistan in his new Mobile Suit] and Graham Aker, who now goes by the name “Mr. Bushido” and hides behind a mask. Setsuna by this point is in the “experimental twin-drive” Gundam 00, which always looks great. We also see Saji try to escape from Celestial Being and get captured by the A-Laws leading to them finding out where the Katheron base is and massacring the majority of the people there, leading to Saji feeling a extremely guilty and agreeing to continue to travel with Celestial Being. At this point I have to mention that one of the A-Laws’ new pilots is none other than Louise Halevy, her rage against the Gundams sending her to military service and Saji very nearly unknowingly shoots her down from the Ptolemaios’ gun, only he doesn’t have the stomach to fire.
The 00 Gundam is still up-there with my favourite designs of the whole Gundam meta-series.
After a classic Gundam trope where Allelujah and Soma both get shot down in the same area and bond over a camp fire [Soma is restored to her old personality and is presumed dead when her surrogate father Sergei feels she’ll be happier with Allelujah and lies to his superiors] we have some movement in the series’ new major threat as throughout these episodes Ribbons Almark has been seen manipulating events while surrounded by other “Innovators” [pretty much androids that look like real people] all of whom has really weird names like “Regene Regetta”, “Revive Revival” and “Bring Stabity”, and Regene confronts Tieria and tells him Aeolia Schenberg’s Celestial Being plan included them being wiped out four years ago and the Innovators taking over and offers him a place in their ranks, but he declines and then later infiltrates a party as a women and confronts Ribbons personally, though his assassination attempt fails. Louise was also at the party [along with Sergei’s estranged son, who is beginning to like her] and finds out Setsuna is a Gundam Meister. Celestial Being soon escape back into space to resupply, while the A-Laws prepare the latest Gundam trope: a large orbital laser…
As I mentioned in the opening paragraph, the character and mech designs are still among the best in the series, in my eyes anyway, and that takes some of the edge off of the crap Lockon “twist” and the more straightforward Innovator and A-Laws threat.
Overall Thoughts:
“Hey, Mr. Bushido, Char Aznable much?” “…. What?”
Gundam 00’s Second Season is not as interesting as the first season thanks to its more straightforward antagonists and a really naff dramatic-scene-undoing with Lockon Stratos, but it does still provide some great scenes, fun character dynamics and some top class character and mobile suit designs, so it still ranks highly with me in the grand scheme of Gundam shows, it’s just not as good as Season 1 got by the end.
As Setsuna’s Gundam 00 becomes even more powerful by having the “00-Raiser” attached to it they try the Trans-Am system [which has been used throughout the season, for the record, it’s just old hat now] and find out that its so powerful that it starts to cause all sorts of odd brainwave-related issues. As some higher ups of Katheron meet with the leaders of the wealthy Middle Eastern nation of Sullie the country’s capital is destroyed by the A-Laws Memento Mori cannon, leading to both Katheron and Celestial Being heading to where the laser is to take it down. As Celestial Being heads out they get a new crewmember in Anew Returner, and as the name suggests she’s an Innovator spying on them for Ribbons, yet nobody twigs the crap name as being a dead giveaway. As Celestial Being and the A-Laws come to blows mid-space Setsuna activates the 00-Raiser Trans-Am and that causes Saji [who is in the extra pilot seat in the Raiser itself] to mentally communicate with Louise in her mobile suit, the two of them both asking why they’re out there on opposing sides to one another.
Two of our lead antagonists: the crazy killer and the inhuman mastermind. Two classic villain tropes in one picture!
As Saji and Louise comes to terms with what happened [which is the latter’s case means “assume Saji was always a member of Celestial Being and try to forget about him entirely”] the Katharon space force is nearly wiped out as the Memento Mori changes direction and fires at the incoming fleet. This hastens Celestial Being’s actions and soon Setsuna arrives with the 00-Raiser and starts taking out A-Laws’ suits all over the place while the combined effort of the Ptolemaios II, Tieria and Lockon expose and then shoot a small weakness in the megastructure while heading towards it via a long trench… so basically the Death Star scene from Star Wars. The Memento Mori explodes and takes out a few A-Law battleships along with it to end the episode and this half of the season.