Tuesday, May 25, 2010

“"Gundam 00 Second Season- Part One": Don't Call It a Comeback”

“"Gundam 00 Second Season- Part One": Don't Call It a Comeback”

"Gundam 00 Second Season- Part One": Don't Call It a Comeback

Posted: 24 May 2010 11:40 PM PDT

When Gundam 00 hit its midway finale, I have to admit, I was a bit lost as to where the second half would go. Okay, the Aeolia Plan had seemingly been ruined and heroes scattered to the winds, but the world had also seemingly united as one and was making moves toward eradicating war. Really, was a return for Celestial Being needed? As this first volume of the show's second season makes clear: Yes. Yes it was.

It's four years after the bulk of the events in season one, and it's clear in more ways than one that things have changed for the series. 00 never had bad animation, but within the first minute it is showing off a bigger budget with much more fluid and semi-theatrical quality animation. The opening scene itself concerns a team of red, fake GN Drive mobile suits slaughtering an opposing blue force made up of former antagonist grunts. Sadly, this isn't an extreme version of LARPing, but a fairly brutal intervention by the new government against rebel forces. The episode is quick to illustrate that this is only one of several such operations undertaken by A-LAWS, the Federation's new elite military branch. The officers of A-LAWS carry out their task with brutal zeal, arresting and torturing anyone who appears to oppose the Federation's policy of peace via unification. Very quickly it becomes apparent that the rebirth triggered by Celestial Being has not had a positive end. Luckily for the world, that organization of idealists is itself far from dead, and armed with new Gundams sets out to correct the distorted rebirth it helped to usher in.

Now, much as I said with the first volume of the previous season, there's more going on then I can do justice to in a summary. The most obvious factor is that the game board has been shaken up, with nearly everyone taking up a different position than the one they started the story with. That's partly good but also partly bad.

These initial episodes chiefly focus on Celestial Being attempting to regather their scattered surviving allies. Though this is treated as a generally triumphant return, they get a clearly mixed response from the assorted individuals. Setsuna is obviously quite glad to see the organization return to the public stage but there's definitely a different air about him, suggesting that the four years he spent away has helped him to get over some of his more fanatical tendencies. A particular treat is the response from Sumeragi. Likeable though she was, in season one she was pretty much a run of the mill, busty procrastinating adult woman character. (Sunbathing right after a terrorist threat, anyone?) Season two begins to treat her as a more human character, both in terms of writing and character design (she and many other female characters have lost their questionably 'generous' proportions). Feeling that the massive number of lives lost is her own fault and further embittered by the negative direction the new era has taken, Sumeragi is afraid to take any part in the organization's actions once again. This feels completely in character with what we've seen before in addition to feeling realistic. The ideals of Celestial Being were always something of a pipe dream and a massive gamble, so imagine trying to change the world on that scale at the cost of human lives and finding you only made things worse anyway.

One returning character who steps up their game is Saji Crossroad. I commented in my reviews of the previous volumes that I had no problem with both Saji and Louise initially but that, sadly, many others did. The new direction should please both parties, as it places him more in major events in a natural way. In attempting to defend a work colleague, Saji is accidentally branded a traitor and forced on the run with Celestial Being. The major thread here is his obvious shock and anger that his former neighbour Setsuna had been a Gundam Meister all along. Saji's conflict is one of cruel fate and just how far can we go in ignoring the troubles of the world before it becomes, as Tieria says, "an indirect malice." In exploring this dilemma, Saji embodies many of the opinions put out by past Gundam protagonists (he even has one encounter which plays fairly close to Amuro's greatest crisis of conscience from the original series) but rather than feeling lazy it serves as the perfect counterpart to Setsuna. Saji represents those of us who have had a generally comfortable life and lived without the threat of war right on our doorstep. Should we take refuge in that luxury or use our fortunate standing as a means to better reach out and help the wider reaches of humanity?

One of the more mixed elements is A-LAWS. Gundam 00 is described as being a speculative fiction based on our post-9/11 world and it's fair to say that the depiction of A-LAWS is built on responses to that event. Much like how there was outrage and calls for response to their terrorist attacks, A-LAWS are born out of the attacks led by Celestial Being. However, they're also pretty clearly drawing on the often seen Gundam clich of an arrogant secret police who seem to revel in the brutality and power they wield. A number of high-ranking officers are shown in a fairly negative light, welcoming the Gundam's return because it's sure to increase their funding and viewing the lives of any who oppose the Federation as forfeit. The result is that whilst there are suggestions of the shades of grey seen in season one (an early incident with them for instance calls to mind the sad cases of individuals such as Jean Charles de Menezes), they unfortunately seem more like giving Celestial Being a group of clear-cut 'baddies' to fight. There is at least some partially worthwhile conflict when the returning Kati Mannequin joins the unit with the intent on quelling rebels and terrorists, only to find herself at odds with the overriding strong handed approach of her leaders.

A particular factor I'd like to make note of: During their U.S. television airings, the final moments of these episodes were cut. In contrast to season one, season two uses a "Cold opening>OP>Part A>Part B>ED>Part C" format. Part C was always removed, often creating plot holes and confusion for those watching for the first time. The DVD run retains the full episode, thankfully.

Characters may be returning, but the majority of mecha designs are brand new. The Meisters can no longer claim sole ownership of GN technology, so they each have a new, more evolved Gundam that is designed to go toe to toe with machines that are their equals rather than against the less advanced units they slaughtered earlier. Sadly, despite the increased animation budget, these new Gundams feature simplified designs. I'm particularly sad at the loss of the circular lines and orbs that made the previous designs so unique. The sole exception is the starring mecha, Setsuna's 00 Gundam. It's not unusual for the protagonist to get a vastly powerful upgrade midway through a Gundam series, which makes the show's use of this unit all the more refreshing. The 00 is equipped with a theoretical power source termed a Twin Drive, in which a Gundam uses a pair of GN Drives in perfect sync to generate previously unseen power. Achieving this is no easy task and much time is spent on attempting to perfect the 00 and repairing it due to its current handicap. This is a well-thought-out way of not making battles as one-sided as previous upgrades have been, and of not overshadowing the other Meisters. Plus, it makes me all the more curious about what 00 will be capable of once complete. Gundam Exia also makes a fun cameo, in what might qualify for one of the most badass scenes in all of Gundam.

The Federation side is also fielding new designs, and thankfully they haven't completely done away with the popular grunts of the previous season. Whilst a refined GN-X line is present and the old designs prop up backwater bases, the focus is on the Ahead, a design combining the tech of the GN-X with the basics of a Tieren, and the results aren't pretty. Though it keeps the clear design evolution theme I liked from last time, the Ahead suffers from an awkward "Buddah belly" design and far too much blank space. There are thankfully a few custom units which improve on the look, including the samurai-styled close combat unit fielded by the masked "Mr Bushido". Yep, we finally have a masked man in the story, and though clearly portrayed as a potent threat, he's also treated as a semi-meta display of just how silly the "elite masked ace" trope has become. Even his apparent identity doesn't take too much work to figure out.

The packaging continues to come in the form a standard black two-disc case with Japanese cover art. The cover itself is of a shot of Setsuna, Marina and the 00; the Limited Edition sleeve uses the original teaser of Setsuna striding forward as the 00 hovers over him. Both are strong images, but I feel the former works better as a DVD volume cover. The back gives a rundown of the plot, episode count and extras. Those last two in particular deserve to be discussed. The first volume of season one gave us a generous nine episodes, enough to make you feel you were getting your money's worth. This time we only get seven. Whilst this does allow the disc a nice and tidy partial conclusion for the story so far, obviously I wonder why we're suddenly two episodes down.

Moving on to the other point: "Interactive menus" is always a dubious claim for extras/special features, no matter what DVD release it appears on. I make a point of highlighting it here because I'm really not liking how the menus look. Anime releases rarely have stand out menus, but the season one menus at least looked involved and echoed the motif seen on the packaging and official website. Season two instead gets a fairly lazy looking set, with multi-coloured text and stock character art pasted in. It would never be something to bring the release down too strongly but as the first thing you see after the disc loads it's pretty disappointing and doesn't encourage you to hang around and explore.

The extras are the standard for the 00 releases by this point. We get two commentaries, one for episode one (featuring Setsuna and Saji's VAs) and one for episode three (Sumeragi, Soma and Allelujah's VAs). These involve the same semi-fluffy dialogue heard in previous appearances. What makes this more annoying is that the first of the two actually mentions a more involved alternate commentary with the director and company. Before hopes get too raised, the subtitles inform us 'JAPANESE RELEASE ONLY'. Lovely. So instead of getting insight on the production, I get to hear the cast discuss fluff. Why was it not possible to offer both commentaries here? There seems to be no reason beyond Bandai Visual's increasingly patronizing fears of reverse importation. If they want to cultivate a wider market, making those who do give their products a chance feel excluded certainly won't help.

Slightly more interesting is "Trajectory of Angels," a clip show that aired briefly before the second season premiere. Setsuna narrates the key events of the first season, framed (with a small amount of new animation) as his thoughts and reflections on the changed world during the timeskip. Whilst it's clearly intended to get both new and returning viewers up to speed, the new content and narrative do a good job of setting up the change in Setsuna's character for the second season. It's not the greatest extra ever but feels like partial progress for having missed things like "Gundam Wing: Odds & Evens" and "Gundam SEED: After Phase". Both sets of extras are presented only with English-subtitled Japanese audio. Although this makes sense for the commentaries, I would have been curious to see how Brad Swaille handled a dub of the clip show. Not needing to match lip flaps might have addressed the majority complaint of Ocean's stilted dub performances.

Things are rounded up with the usual redundant Tactical Forecast video and Bandai trailers. If you put down the extra cash for the 'Special Edition', you'll also receive the first volume of the Second Season manga adaptation.

This is a bold return for Gundam 00 that doesn't miss a beat. The story naturally continues, pausing only slightly to allow us to take in the new status quo. Things continue from where we left off, with the unveiling of new characters and answers to our questions to further entice. The only negatives I can offer are, as stated, ones of general presentation.
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