Gundam 00 S2 ep 18 Rant

[maple_rose]

Finally gotten around to write up the rant for this week's ep, it's a bit later than usual due to midterms and assignments X.x

Anyway. Setsuna says:



"Come with me"

Or is he planning on slapping someone? XD Either way, he has a huuuuge hand XD

• Capt'n Fatass is alive dammit! *grumbles and changes the Bingo card* Anyway, Federation army is assimilated into A-Laws, and they're looking for Kati, who's apparently missing. Yes! She finally decided to leave them! I hope Patrick is with her, since he's missing from this ep as well.... awwwww I wanted to see Patrick... Please don't kill either of them... Kati is too awesome, and Patrick is too adorable.. which of course, means their likelihood of death is raised DX
• CB destroys the final (?) Memento Mori. It would make sense for them to have 3, to cover the 1/3rds of the orbital ring. But now they're no more. Trans Am Raiser sword thing is cool and all, but it's a bit overkill XD Saji has to, once again, remind himself that he's fighting a machine and to destroy a weapon. Seems that he's still not over the Kataron incident.
• SOMA IS BACK!!!!!!!!!! YES!!!!!!!!! Awesome as ever. She recognizes Andre's unit and realises that he's the one who killed Sergei (oh right, for a moment, I forgot that Soma fought alongside Andre for a while XD). She's still sad over Sergei's death, I think she probably pushed Marie out of the way due to her grief and desire to avenge him.
• Of course, this leaves Alle in a very awkward position. On the one hand, he doesn't want to let her fight, since he promised Sergei; but on the other hand, Soma isn't gonna listen to him any time soon, and her will to fight is too strong for him to stop. It's okay Alle, just let her, you promised Sergei that Marie wouldn't fight, didn't say anything about Soma XD I love how she's totally cold to him, and he doesn't know what to do about it, in fact, he seems almost scared of her to me XD Poor Alle, he's totally like a kicked puppy... He needs Halle to come out and protect him =3 (I hope they don't cop out this time...)
• While Alle angsts over Marie, Saji angst over Louise. So what else is new. They have an angst bench! XD
• Kataron had to move again, to a cottage this time. Hey, just because you moved to a cottage that looked like something from Little House on the Prairie, doesn't mean you have to dress the part >__> Although, I do admit that I like the white blouse on Shirin (the black bodysuit gets old after a while..). And yay Shirin x Klaus. Too bad one of them's gonna die soon.. *sigh*
• Marina now cooks for the children. The scene totally reminds me of the After SEED OVA scene. Lacus transformation complete!
• Andrei's been promoted for killing the leaders of the coup, aka, his dad and Hercules. Hilling and Revive come in time to mock them, including telling Louise that he got promoted for killing his dad. Oh Hilling <3333 I love her comments, about how a guy who killed his dad, and the girl seeking revenge for her family are perfect for each other. Hilling and Revive make a great mocking team. Now that Devine's gone, their new target is Andrei and Louise XD Revive's slightly less sarcastic since the death of Bring, but he has a new friend in Hilling =3 Though... why do I get the feeling that either one of them's gonna die next? =(
• Andrei tries to BS his way to explain why he killed daddy to Louise (something about following orders. Uh Andrei, didn't you say that you didn't want to become like Sergei?!), I don't think Louise buys it. So to distract her, he asks her whether she could kill her family to follow ideals, and she thinks on whether she could shoot Saji. Andrei takes this chance to hug her and probably feel her up too
• Wang and Ribbonz have philosophical chat. Wang mentions something about ppl being turned into Innovators eventually, which Ribbonz told her at the end that you can't. I'm not sure if he meant ppl in general can't be turned into Innovators, or "you", as in, Wang. Regene comes in, and Ribbonz asks him if he's been close to Wang lately. Lol, this cannot be taken the wrong way at all! But seriously, Ribbonz seems to suspect something
• Bushido Crackers makes a brief appearance. He only put on the top half of his mask. I think it looks much better. Who cares about the scar, although the way he just stuck it on like a magnet made me laugh XD
• On the Ptolomy, who's in space, Feldt comments that in the past 4 months, A-Laws attacked them like 20 times. They wonder how A-Laws keeps on fighting them. Gee, I wonder... So they decided to capture an Innovator and make him talk, to find out where Veda is. Pfffttt like that's gonna work! First of all, even if you do capture an Innovator, how are you gonna make him/her talk? Secondly, I wonder if the Innovators other than Ribbons and Regene even know where Veda is... Regene knows 'cause he pokes around probably. It just doesn't seem to me that Revive or Hilling are all that interested in knowing about Veda...
• Oh look, Anew and Lyle are lying in bed together. Yeah they're clothed, but still, I have to say, I was slightly shocked to see them in the bedroom together before even seeing them touch (much less kiss) >__>... Yes it's been 4 months, but still....
  
  Okay, here's my problem with the couple: it's not really the pacing, but rather because it's... boring.
  
  I mean, it is believable taking the 4-month time skip into consideration, but because of it, it seems to me as if they're almost lazy with development. Kinda like they said "oh, it's been 4 months, use your imagination, we're too lazy to show it". And because I have a bad imagination, there's a void where development should've been ^^;; thus boring...
  
  I guess they're just running out of episodes. But, the drama from the spoilers did look interesting, so while I can't really appreciate this couple, I'm interested to see their drama =D
• Anyway, while they kiss, Revive pings Anew, her eyes glow Innovator-style. Well, there you go, it's confirmed. That's how A-Laws can find CB wherever they go. Anew doesn't seem to understand the reaction, so she's probably been brainwashed/given new memories. Lyle probably saw the glow (I hope he did, it was sooo bright), but he didn't ask her about it or anything. It's probably happened before, and he suspects something. But for some reason, he doesn't seem to do anything about it.
• The shot that injured Setsuna had GN Particles on it, which is damaging his cells. Oh noes! Not Set-chan! Deformation is not cool XD but because of it, he was able to sense the Revive-ping
• Regene gives Wang coordinates to Veda. I guess he doesn't need air? XD But evil shiny glasses ftw!!! Wang mentioned something about Nena, seems that Nena is off on her own, probably scheming something >D
• So A-Laws launches attack against CB. I have to say, love the background music during this scene =D
• CB decides to launch. Soma is cold as ever to Alle, who doesn't know what to do with her XD Saji decides to go, because Louise is fighting, and he wants to get her back. Maybe Saji is finally growing some balls?! XD
• Launch sequence. Usually would've been boring, but.. UNLIMITED SKY!!! =D =D
• Oh yeah, Lyle says over the intercom to the bridge "I love you" to Anew. Very bold of him. Love everyone's reactions XD Lasse seems to approve, Sumeragi seems surprised (same reaction as when Alle brought back Marie XD), Mileina is elated, Feldt is happy for them and congratulates them (although is that necessary? it's not like they're getting married XD). Well, I would say that Lyle just signed his own death warrant but saying that before he launched, however, Anew didn't tell him to come back safely/in one piece, so the trope isn't complete, therefore, Lyle may actually not die. XD
• Then comes the most hilarious part of the ep!! As everyone launches, they say the names of their beloved, or rather, their first love. We have:
  
  Saji: "Louise"
  Louise: "Saji"
  Andrei: "Kaa-san" (mom)
  Soma: "Taisa" (Sergei)
  Alle: "Marie"
  Lyle: "Anew"
  Tieria: "Veda"
  Setsuna: "GUNDAMU"
  
  YES!!!!!! Tieria still loves Veda, and Setsuna still loves Gundamu!! XDD Haha Marina. I kinda realised they were saying the names of the beloved by the time we got to Lyle, and I was faintly wondering what Tieria would say. I half-expected him to say "Lockon", but I guess that would confuse with the current Lockon (Lyle) XD
  
• After credits, Kataron is attacked in their cottage. A kid takes up a gun to shoot at the intruders outside, but Marina rushes and pushes the gun away, and puts herself between the kid and the intruders with her back to the intruders. Smart Marina, really smart. If you didn't want the kid to shoot/be shot at, you should've grabbed him or pushed him out of the way, not cover him with your body and face your back to the door, duh! This way, you can be shot (accidentally) by the kid from the front, and the intruders from the back...
• Anyway, I hope she got shot. Not fatally though, because the scriptwriters aren't getting out of developing her character that easily! I'm still waiting for her to be put to use you know... it's the only way she can be redeemed in my books (so far, she's been a pretty boring and useless character...). But my guess is, either Shirin or Klaus will move to take the shot, more likely Klaus. And then Marina will cry, asking "why? why? why?" But not before Shirin kicks some a$$, and hopefullly slaps some sense into Marina.
• Next ep, Saji tries to convince Louise not to shoot his hand off (by placing a hand in front of the nose of the gun), Regene gets Ribbonz-slapped (?), hopefully Soma kicks some Andrei a$$, hopefully Halle makes a reappearance, and Saji cries some more, to fill the angst pilot quota.

To make up for the humongous wall of text I produced, here are some pretty pictures =D




Did Saji steal Alle's S1 shirt?! Oh wait, or is that Shirin's shirt, which she doesn't wear anymore? Although, Anew and Lyle were wearing the skinsuit too, so maybe it's now part of the CB uniform Sumeragi liked Alle's S1 shirt, so she made everyone wear it under their uniforms XD



Still loving the quality of their profiles XD Louise always seems to suffer the most from this



Yup, definately need to learn how to draw her from the side, without making her look deformed/like a man XD

The 00-Raiser transformation sequence totally reminds me of magic girl, but with mecha. Parts being added on, check. Cool eye and above-eye ornament shot, check. Turn around sequence, check. Limbs being waved dramatically, check. Finall cool pose, check. Lots of shiny special effects, check. Yup, Magic Girl Transformation it is!

But that double-sword pull down pose at the end amuses me the most



Which goes to


Speaking of which, another feature of Magic Girl transformation squence is repetition, or rather, use of recycled footage. Look what I found from a screencap I took from ep... 11, I think (the very first transformation sequence)



Look familiar? XD

Okay, I'm done... wrote waaaaay too much XD