PROLOGUE This review covers both seasons of the anime, as I see no reason to write two reviews about the same story. I reuse some text from my Code Geass review, as many parts in this series reminded me of the other series.
ANIMATION SECTION: 9 [Plamo everywhere!] Very impressive. The mecha are awesome, the battles are spectacular, and the environments are crisp and detailed. The characters, the uniforms and the mecha do look imposing, cool, sexy and eye catchy in general, something that a seasoned viewer like me hardly finds positive. I have seen hundreds of mecha series and thousands of anime casts and these folks and their gismos easily become likable, thanks to the vividness of their body language and the perkiness of their personality.
The changes in the second season are just minor aesthetic details. Everyone got himself a new set of cloths, mecha upgrades, and the battles got more grand-scaled. Otherwise, the two seasons are identical in animation.
Going deeper into details, all the characters look like eroge material. I mean, all males are emo hunks and most girls are perky bimbos, so the only thing missing is a text box with multiple choices. I almost disliked all that subtle erotism, just for the sake of pleasing the fans. The characters had enough to be imposing or interesting and this element gave a shallow carnal-fan side to them that damaged the seriousness of their presence. It not like boobs and underwear fill the screen every 5 minutes. It’s more like the characters tease you with romantic in-jokes all the time. Yes, that does spice things and raises enjoyment but it also ruins any serious aspect they may try to portrait.
And now for the mobile suits. They overdid it. They do have a million details, dozens of gismos, move with the speed of light and throw 200 laser beams per second. That’s all very cool to watch. Yet, they are non-realistic for the same reason. Not that any other Gundam series had that much realism (08th MS Team is an exception) but Gundams with beam sabers at their feet, second heads popping out of their backs, going Super Saiyan in battles and ejecting energy beams 100 times their size is way off from the initial, more simple and understandable UC series. I almost felt I was watching Transformers or Power Rangers with all those transformations and whacky special effects. The Gundam franchise began as a serious mecha series and as time goes by, it reverts back to some kiddies’ series, like Voltron. Anyway, this is just my personal way of saying that Gundam used to focus on personal drama and not so much on colorful buckets, kicking the shit out of each other while explosions fill the screen. If you feel otherwise, this is not a problem.
The above reasons were not serious enough to deduct points. The animation section is not a 10, just because there are some repeated scenes, some static cells and rather confusing action scenes because of the Super Saiyan speed in battles.
SOUND SECTION: 8 [I will stop wars by killing everyone who wants to fight…] The characters sound imposing or cute but turn really lame in moments of tension. Freaking girls with high-pinched voices and emo heavy-dudes repeating cheesy one-liners about paper-thin logic always gets to my nerves. They do sound funny or interesting for the most part but when the drama part kicks in, they look out of place and order. Ok, it is a common fact that cute-sounding children being tortured and going amok is a cheap way to increase the interest of the viewers. Still, it is not serious and destroys any drama and binding with the characters the series tries to depict Music themes and sound effects were very good. I generally remember the opening and ending themes; something that means they are good. In fact, music themes are the best part in this series. You may not like the show but you will love those elegiac / chorus / instrumental pieces.
STORY SECTION [Nag, cry, blow things apart and die.] General Scenario 1/2: It began in a serious and interesting way. Trying to stop violence through force and dealing with the gray political interests of global superpowers gave the feeling that the series would delve deep into social-political issues, while leaving aside the usual silliness of good versus evil… Within 12 episodes, it fell apart…
Once again, it was just teenagers, full of angst, kicking the shit out of armies of mook soldiers with uber/combining/Super Saiyan robots. All the rest of the mystery, the hidden agendas, the politics and the ideal world of eternal peace were bull. There is nothing to pay attention in the series, other than the robots fighting and the characters yelling for paper-thin logic matters. Politicians were just there to order armies to attack the Gundams, hidden agendas were nothing more than taking advantage of idealistic zealots and the whole anti-war drama… wasn’t even an anti-war drama. Who would watch this series if there were no explosions every 5 minutes? And anyway, how can a war stop by begging another war? Duh! If you want to enjoy the series, pay no attention to the scenario. It is just an excuse for teenagers piloting cool robots and blowing things apart.
It does raise some interesting issues, such as public indifference about wars, religious exploitism and political propaganda. All these are unfortunately just scratching the surface and become forgotten immediately.
Pace of Plot & Side Stories 1/4: Ok, the plot is rather simple and repetitive. Angst teenagers find some excuse to blow things up. World peace, protection of the civilians, revenge, whatever. They board super-special-awesome robots and start blowing things apart. Then, somebody betrays them and the enemy gets their special technology, levels-up and blows thing apart. The heroes are about to lose but in the nick of time, they gain another level-up, which saves them and they continue to blow things apart. Then, the enemy levels-up again and blows things apart again. And so on, and so on… There is not strategy at all in battles, despite the great efforts of trying to fool the viewer that there is. Half an episode is spent on explaining strategies and battle plans when in practice it is just throwing a million lasers and missiles and blowing the enemy forces apart. It is just the mecha with the latest power-up that wins. Even when the enemy catches up to the heroes, they grow stronger out of the blue, thus they never lose. So, no real suspense or surprises here. The heroes are undefeatable, unless they are betrayed. Something that happens every 15 episodes but they are too stupid to see it coming.
Then it’s the plot holes in the story. The first season ends while leaving open about two dozen side-stories and a mystery as huge as the planet itself. The scriptwriters half-excuse this as
“to be resolved in the sequel”. Then the sequel comes and nothing is resolved again until the last three episodes. Try to imagine 24 side stories, escalating for 47 episodes and then ending in 10 seconds of anti-climactic ways. Not to mention the way they are resolved. Death is the solution to all the problems in the world. Although the plot moves smoothly for most of the episodes, it completely fails to wrap things right and in the last 3 episodes logic ceases to exist, scenes change, characters teleport and loooong monologues try to explain with words things the scriptwriters were too dumb to show in the entire series.
Believability/Reasoning/Realism 1/2: The flow of the story is easy to follow but gets more and more erratic as episodes go by and events are pilling up. Characters switch sides as easy as changing shirts and events perform a U turn for no real reason. Important events get forgotten by the characters for several episodes, while many less-important that are escalating for many episodes are resolved in a few seconds and are never mentioned again. Also, the characters seem to move around the world too easily, as if they can teleport anywhere they want.
Several characters meet in the most impossible ways and force upon the viewer situations that are simply too dumb to accept. I mean, how many times did Saji and Louise bump all accidentally on the Gundam pilots? And how come all the misfortunes in the world befell specifically on their families, in the exact same time? Even death makes no sense in the series, as several characters survive a dozen times from exploding robots just to be killed the same way in the last episodes in 0.5 seconds and never seen or mentioned again.
Of course, the majority of the fans won’t care about all that. They will watch this series so that they will be entertained with cool robots and lots of explosions. The above statement will not feel like a problem to most.
Conclusion 1/2: If you have watched other Gundam series, do not look for story continuity. Yet, you may find dozens of parallels from the other series. People in the finale start to read other peoples’ minds and the dead begin to talk like in the first series. The Innovators are in fact the Newtypes of UC or the Coordinators of Seed. The A-Laws are in fact the Titans of Zeta. The Meisters have the same goals as the rebels in Wing. And many more. So, on an aesthetic level, Gundam 00 seems to encompass the best elements of previous series and creates an up-to-date version of all of them. It is not that great as a planned through series, but at least it has all the nice ideas you have encountered over the years in the franchise. TOTAL FOR STORY: 4/10 CHARACTER SECTION [-I am Setsuna F. Seiei –I know; you repeat your full name every 5 minutes!] Presence 2/2: Yeah, I loved the way they acted big and mighty and moved around, and made silly remarks and yelled at the drop of a pin. It doesn’t take much to pay notice of them by their acting alone. They are all either cute or cool or hateful in a positive way.
Personality & Backdrop 2/4: Initially, all of the characters have interesting personalities. Although most have the same goal, each one has a personal issue with another, so almost every character offers an interesting side-story to the plot. Revenge, honor and struggle for a better world feel better than the average shonen or mecha series out there, where the lead simply wants to become the best in the world or save his friends by some archevil. All the characters are in fact not that easily divided into good and bad. They are all selfish, make mistakes, have fun and care only for the sake of their own side, as real people do.
On the bad side, most of them get too emotional and act too stupid very easily. I mean, the world is supposed to change by a bunch of psyched teenagers who cry, yell and go amok at every chance they get. How can you feel a connection to them or actually beliece that all their success isn’t just convinient events? Even their personalities are quite blunt for most, as each on of them is stuck to a spesific idea and seems to pay no attension to anything else. So, they are easily seen as 2 dimensional archetypes. The uptight bookworm, the emo fighter, the hunk sniper, the kawai operator and the like… Also, the main lead and his love interest seem to act like 10 year olds, despite experiansing a lot of drama in their lives and refuse to accept certain cosmic truths. The same is evident to the main lead and his girlfriend of Wing and Seed, where the boy has a sad past and fights for a better future and the girl is a pacifist who tries to stop the war in a non-violent way. It is too simple and silly and doesn’t escape this formula.
Anyway, emotional characters means unstable reactions to almost everything. The characters change sides, behaviors and act in ways that have no sense, as is the case with most shonen and mecha characters. This makes them plot elements in the hands of the scriptwrittes and not believable characters with specific reactions to specific situations. I mean, duh, why was that Throne pink-haired girl siding with the guy who killed her brothers? Or why did the Innovator leader act so cruel and revealed to his allies that they are no longer useful to jim; thus almost begging them to betray him? Makes no sense.
Development & Catharsis 1/4: What a mess! Some have the usual dark split personality which makes them like good Jekyl and evil Hide. Others have convinient memory loses or are controlled like midless puppets. Others pay no attension to vital events for a dozen episodes or are to stupid to see an obvious traitor right before their eyes. The first season ends without resolving anything for anyone. Some get killed but, how convinient, they are replaced by similar people in the sequel.
In the second season, even more secondary characters enter the frame and even more side stories need a resolusion. Nothing of the sort happens for the most part… Finally, in the 3 last episodes, the scripwritters have no other option but to kill most of them in a few seconds and declaring death as the solusion to all of the world’s problems. I mean, here you are watching a kawai princess preparing a world-shaking event for 47 episodes, with an air of certainty written all over her face. Then, some chick goes crazy and kills her in 5 seconds… What a disappointment! As for those who remain alive, their catharsis comes so rushed that you are given no time to enjoy it.
TOTAL FOR CHARACTERS: 5/10 VALUE SECTION [Personal agendas move the world.] Historical Value 3/3: It’s Gundam, so it is famous by default.
Rewatchability 1/3: Personally, I will scroll through most of it, as I said, it has a lot of nonsense in it.
Memorability 3/4: Sure! The best of what half-serious mecha are all about is present.
TOTAL FOR VALUE: 7/10 ENJOYMENT SECTION: 6 [War is a bad thing… so I will enter my super-awesome-special robot that makes me look so cool and will start blowing things apart in order to prove my thesis.] It is full of insulting-to-your-intelligence convenient events and idiocy. Yet it is very pleasing for a mecha series. The story could be presented a lot better and the characters could be a lot less stupid. It will sure please the masses but then there is the minority who will bitch at it. I mean, will anyone really care that the ending is open? Will he even care about the story at all? Gundam 00 is practically fan pleasing with some serious overtones and not a serious anime with fan pleasing overtones. It has several serious themes in it but are all ridiculed by lukewarm humor and erratic pace. So, all its messages are easily forgotten in the name of superficial enjoyment in the form of pretty chicks piloting super-slick robots and leveling armies in the name of peace. If the political issues and the character interactions were better planned out, the series would be much more believable and creditable. Maybe less famous and enjoyable, since the masses seem to be fond of stupidity and nude.
VERDICT Love the fighting buckets, switch off your logic and just stare at the cool explosions if you really want to enjoy this one.
SUGGESTION LIST Code Geass
Tengen Toppa Guren Lagann
Legend of the Galactic Heroes
kewl factor 123.26% 
