Well, I wouldn’t say people are getting “worked up,” mostly those not-entirely positive accounts of the show are mostly people who stop, think, and say “Wait, that doesn’t make that much sense.” Or “Hmm, that was a bit disappointing.”

And when they write out why they think that way, sometimes angry fans drop by and yell at them for having opinions.

Note that Crusader likes the show enough to blog it. And I like the show enough to watch it.

But every so often, I see a sloppily-handled emotional scene or a missed opportunity for dramatic tension (I’m speaking of the Trans-Am system in particular), and I can’t help but point it out.

And if you read the past entries on THAT concerning G00, you’d note that Crusader’s been writing through a “Feddie” character partly to rankle fanboys’ feathers, partly because from S1 onwards Celestial Being was probably the least sympathetic protagonist ensemble to grace a Gundam series since those hosers in 0083.

Because if you stop and think about it, their actions in the first season were only mildly less deplorable than those of the Thrones. All of the sympathetic characters were the underdogs fighting for the AEU, Union, and HRL militaries.

And in the second season, the writers haven’t made the A-Laws deplorable enough. Zeta-era Titans they ain’t. The use of unmanned automatons as weapons isn’t inherently immoral (one might complain that the use of any weapon is equally immoral), the killing of innocents is. The show, however, tried to portray the former as the real “evil” part. Which, when you think about it, is kind of backwards.

On the subject of the “Chargin’ Mah Lazer” business, it was truly despicable that they’d wipe out an entire city. But when they targeted a military base that happened to have a refugee camp adjacent to it, I couldn’t help but wonder “Why is there a refugee camp next to a place that is a high priority strategic target?” The only logical answers were “The refugees were foolish enough to think the base there could keep them safe” or “The military personnel decided to lure refugees there as human shields to dissuade the Federation from attacking them.”

And the only reason these points of Fridge Logic even come up is because the writers on the G00 team don’t spend enough time ironing out the logic wrinkles. I’m not talking about in-text, in-show logic, (for example: “Oh, it’s easy to explain away this particular inconsistency by inferring based on technical capabilities within the show itself.”) I’m referring to the thought processes of the writers themselves and why they made the decisions they did. (Another example: “Well, that explains the ‘how’ of what happened, but it was a pretty dissatisfying result because the script’s over-reliance on gimmicky technology over pilot skill or determination makes for weak drama, viewer connection, and ultimately emotional significance of the scene.”)

The reason I regularly read Crusader’s articles is because he’s one of the few people who step back and point these things out. Sometimes he nitpicks, sometimes Kaioshin will start harassing him. (These aren’t always connected phenomena.)

But it’s nice to know that someone’s clear-headed enough to step back, take but a minute to think about what he just saw, and was opinionated enough to blog about his conclusions.

And I’m pretty sure the most textwall-worthy critics aren’t getting “worked up” over anything. Sometimes, we just feel the need to explain why the show came off differently to us than it might more enthusiastic fans.

2.If it isnt obvious by every time sergei has appeared in 00 s2, that obviously he is going to start going against the A laws and most likely the fed because he unlike the a laws and inovators is a human being, and has things like a heart, a brain, morals, and a conscious. Obviously new guy is going to tell sergei there are some people who are against the fed in the fed…

3. the Arios had an enhancement and had the GN archer developed for it when they were at their base, we just havent seen what it does. The weird teleport thing may have had something to do with that…but i dont think it teleported I think it just moved out of the way that quickly. Obviously that was part of the plan cause they needed the cannon to fire so they had to let lindt think his plan was working.

anyways good episode, good season, its been pretty solid so far… I dont know what exactly a lot of people are getting so worked up over.

It was fun seeing a carrier ship get into the action, but you’ve gotta admit that it’d be nice to see Kataron actually make a difference in a battle other than to die in large numbers. (The writers just use them to make the A-Laws seem more of a threat. Poor red shirts.)

There’s a lot of ways to introduce tension in a battle scene, but the Gundam’s over-reliance on Trans-Am isn’t one of them. I’ll admit that, the way the scenario’s played out, it’s practically the only way CB can fight and win against the A-Laws at this point. It doesn’t help with tension much, though, because it’s limited entirely by how much “time” in a scene is written to have passed. The end result is that it feels more than a little arbitrary. And when it works, it sort of feels like CB didn’t win the battle, Trans-Am won it for them.

At least it makes a spectacle. That always works.

And in scanning the comments, I was troubled by something:

I always thought Crusader liked to wax philosophical much more than the recently bowed-out Jason. And I still don’t know why Kaioshin likes to pick on him so much. He’s not the only one who’s noticed how G00’s conflict seems to be less, well, stirring than it could be. It’s good fun to watch, but sometimes you notice a bit of missed potential in some episodes or characters. Setsuna’s relative non-development and Marina’s lack of plot importance, for starters. (Sunrise is willing to give them screentime but not quite ready to actually make that screentime meaningful to the action other than in a mostly physical way–for Setsuna, anyway.)

Most of Kaioshin’s arguments seem to be from within the text of the show itself (basing arguments from information taken from the show), while Crusader’s perspective is mostly from that of the choices made by the writers in writing said text. Since the writers can basically set up (or contrive) any scenarios they wish within the text and even change it if they wanted, it’s more meaningful to discuss a show from the angle of its whole production and not merely on information within the show.

@Mechabao
Maybe bad karma finally caught up with him. Sad really Zhejiang had a better death.

You’d think that Kataron would at least have one squadron of good pilots, but it appears that no aces wanted to defect and their pilot program is worse the the kamikaze program. Even if an Ahead was as good the previous generation of Gundams, it wasn’t impossible to use an Enact, Tierien, or Flag against them. It’s a far cry from the Kataron air cavalry that saw off Bob when he last fought Gundam 00. At this rate Kataron is shaping up worse than the Shrike Team (and not nearly as good looking), that’s not a good thing and it hardly adds to tension if we know that they can’t do jack shit on their own.

I think there were other ways to have added some tension to the mix, but alas it was not to be. You’d think that with their numerical advantage they’d at least get a GN-XIII or two, but they could hardly shoot straight.

As for Kataron, can you really blame them for sucking when they were using 4 year old none GN mobile suits. That era of suits were never very effective against the previous generation of CB MS such as the Exia, and those suits are matched or exceeded in perfomance by the GN-XIII’s and especially the Aheads who probably have better and more professionally trained pilots then Kataron’s in them to boot. I would have been more surprised if they had easily matched them.

@Lawl
Considering the average speed of a Feddie Dauntless I don’t think he could have taken evasive action. Kataron was too dumb to do that, CB only needs hax not brains…

Arche is still the most badass suit out there, mostly because Prince Ali knows how to pimp his gear. The A-Laws are still spec ops they can’t go around fighting CB in battles of attrition, the Regular Feddie Army could, but as to why that hasn’t happened yet is another matter entirely…

Jihad-kun plot armor prevents his license from being revoked it is hardly fair to Gundam 00…

@Eldar
Perhaps, I suppose Midi-chlorians are now responsible for the flashes…

@Kabitzin
The Force is weak with that one…

Yeah Klaus looked like a blow hard with that little statement, so far Kataron hasn’t helped any one but themselves. Well they lost over 50% of their fleet so that CB could get the job done for them.

@bobofet
Like 00bama said they are stupid.

@Zentari
Indeed comrade, indeed…

@blind_dead_mcjones
Some sniper feats are just insane, but given how Lyle needed the easiest shot possible doesn’t make him out to be that great of a sniper, but neither was Neil…

@Kaioshin
Again with Jason…you know it might well be none of my business, but gee the guy took a break and you still can’t let go. Your obsession is rather unsettling.

I said it was standard, it wasn’t badly animated, but honestly I was hardly surprised with the way it unfolded, you have to admit it was a bit cliche. Moreover Klaus saying that Kataron did something when all they could do was get shot to pieces was simply laughable. I don’t know about you but at this point given how useless Kataron is I can’t say they contributed much to make the battle exciting. Sumeragi vs Lindt was underwhelming, Sumeragi did not outsmart Lindt, she merely teleported her way out of the beam. Maybe it just lacked the Katie magic or perhaps the Trans-Am finish is getting rather stale. The question is not longer what can Trans-Am do, but what can’t it do. As battles go given Kataron’s pathetic showing and the expected Trans-Am finish it was pretty standard fare barring Hilling Care putting up a good fight. I wouldn’t rank this as one of the better Gundam battles I have seen, not great, not bad, but standard. I think Trans-Am is becoming too much of a convenient crutch for the writers, certainly there were other ways for Sumeragi to outsmart Lindt, but in the end teleportation won out.

Besides lack of named characters other than Lindt made the outcome certain, the exhaust port deal just sealed his fate.

@rollchan
They certainly have a way with names…

@blind_dead_mcjones
Your right Katie wasn’t going to put her men into a meat grinder just to stop CB, though at this point nothing short of Prince Ali, Bushido Bob, Louise, and every Innovator being pulled together in one battlegroup could even put a dent into CB. Trans-Am makes it damn near impossible for grunts under Katie to pull off even a upset or even force a draw.

Part of me wished that the rail would have been damaged after that, at least CB would have had to deal with some of the consequences same with Kataron. Still I suppose if CB is to look good they can’t be the ones to cause collateral damage. Perhaps that would have been too grimdark for a Gundam eh?

@ghostlightning
Considering how Gadessa is a long range shooty suit, Jihad-kun should have had no trouble at all in Gundam 00 Raiser. The fact that Nena had to help out is sorry ass tells me that Jihad-kun simply sucks as a pilot. If it had been Prince Ali in Gundam 00 Raiser the opposition would have been annihilated in lest than five minutes. It’s not like the Feddies can’t get better though, after all Prince Ali and Bushido Bob were warming the bench again. That’s like telling Focker and Ozma that they can’t sortie because they are too awesome…it’s just not kosher with me is all.

Your standards are low shooting up Kataron was like shooting fish in a barrel. Besides where is singing?

@lilu
Oh it was pretty, but it was also meh because Kataron was just utterly useless. With a name like Hercules who wouldn’t vote for the guy?

@Lowlife
I say Jihad-kun is about Ranka level in terms of good judgment.

@ghostlightning: It’s not that the people here have high expectations it’s just that few are ever willing to give the impression the show ever did anything good by them, which gives normally gives the commentary a really one-sided tone. I never really take much of what gets said here at face value anymore though since at least one person isn’t even following the show on his own.

You still haven’t told me what the show normally does so wrong by your standards though. You seem to like almost everything so it’s surprising. Though perhaps you’ve found your gateway in the battles or as the internet calls it now, the “pew pew pew”. You know ignoring the fact that sounds more like a cheesy Star Wars sound effect then a Gundam one, but memes is memes I guess.