anime: Gundam 00 - episode 1

So... there's giant robots...fighting...in space.

There's too many characters for me to keep track...

There's a silent and broody one with dark brown hair...

The philosophy "Let's attack everyone to show them that pacifism is the only true way of life!"

The first episode jumps all over the place.

I have no idea what's going on.



Ah, I must be watching a Gundam series again. I remember this feeling.

I think "G00" makes a rather amusing short-hand for "Gundam 00" ... ep 2

G00 - 02

There's a lot of elements here that remind me of Gundam Wing, one of my first anime experiences.

( Read more... )

"We are the pain that's required to bring about change." Aahhhh, I see they're going for a Zechs Marquis approach to peace: kill everyone who doesn't think pacificism is a neat idea. Become the monster to save the others... it's a stupid philosophy, but one with a long history in the giant robot anime.

So many anime series take this extremely negative approach to wartime conflict and the consensus approach to the idea of a perfect peace. I wonder if it's a holdover from WWII? In a lot of anime I've seen, the solution is the same: total pacifism is achieved when everyone realizes how foolish and pointless war is. That's an extension of the Mutually Assured Destruction philosophy of the Cold War Era. In fact, the "gundams" appear to be basically just really big guns; in effect, they are the "nuclear missiles" or weapons of mass destruction of this futuristic society. But societies change, and the last 20 years have shown that the M.A.D. approach only works with dueling superpowers and can't work with a more complex world with smaller but sharper enemies and little revolutions aided by weapons proliferation.

So what the Gundam 00 series has done is set up a three-superpower world design, and proposes to use the gundams for Mutually Assured Destruction as a deterrent. Just like GWing used the dual superpower set-up of Earth v. Colonies.

Hmmm... it's a bad idea.

G00- episode 3 ... in which the mecha still sparkles

1. Zoom Player seems able to handle these extra-large mkv files without the playback hiccups I was experiencing with VLC and MediaPlayer.

2. Is it really necessary for a 24 minute episode to be 344 MB? I mean, I like a good picture, but that's honestly way bigger than necessary. I happened to like a standard of about 170 MB, very much thank you.

3. Ah... this is so... Gundam. I mean, I haven't really watched very many Gundam shows, but this one is already so... it. I'm in a perpetual state of confusion and I expect that will continue for another 4 or 5 episodes until I memorize the names of all the countries and all the people and all the significant giant robots. The funny thing, and this was true for GWing as well, is that the plot isn't really that complicated, it's just the delivery and execution makes it really hard to follow if you're out of practice, and I suspect especially if you're not able to understand Japanese and forced to rely on subtitles.


Other observations:

( Read more, very vague spoilers )

I will continue forward. Next time I'll watch several and condense the posts, I promise.