I think it sucks in a lot of ways. I'm not gonna really apologize for it. It's not a brave statement, but it just do be like that1. There is also a certain type of 'hater' exists who is no different from a certain type of 'fan'. The really obsessive ones who get indignant that people dare like a thing, as opposed to someone who gets indignant people hate a thing. I don't want to do that. I want to hate Gundam 00 like I hate salad, a vile culinary invention that mocks the idea that you can do anything interesting with vegetables, especially green leafs, and says sticking them all on a plate is fine. Oh you say dressing fixes it? So you agree salad is fundamentally boring and needs gross ass ranch dressing to make it good. Fuck off.
Despite my provocation, it's fine that salad exists. It's not a crime people like it or serve it in restaurants. My feelings for it are weird and passionate, and often crosses a line. But if I just hate it blindly that does no good (both croutons and kale rock). And I need to! Just hating a piece of media or art passionately without being curious why people like it shuts down conversation2 and personal growth. But I digress, I hate not to shut down conversation but to progress it. For the discourse that is too come3.
(Oh yeah, I am going to spoiling the entire show--this essay assumes one having seen the show).
##Goals and History lesson
I didn't really used to think this way--it was one of the first gundam shows I finished and it stuck with me a while. Then again, I recently took the line of "I think
its an entertaining show but not necessarily a good one" (a line that is meaningless if the first quality is all you need for something to be good), so maybe not as much. I've certainly never been shy that I loved IBO and First Gundam more. With a decade passed, and boyhood long gone, I decided to rewatch it this past spring. And for the first good chunk of season 1, I was quite enjoying the show. It took a hit when Team Trinity showed up, but it was fine. And then season 2 hit.
To be clear, it isn't right out bad. The show continued to be revolving around pretty good, meh, sometimes great, only to crash and burn with the second memento-mori. Worse the show fell off in a way that made me like
Season 1 a bit less.
Much of the general discourse around Gundam 00, and Gundam in general, in parts of the sub fandom (twitter, left leaning, English speaking, etc.) is about how Gundam portrays or approaches violence--particularly revolutionary violence. This is in particular importance for Gundam 00 because one side asserts that the show is anti-revolutionary violence while the fans assert that the show is fine with revolutionary violence. These fans assert the misunderstanding comes from the shows belief in understanding. That it wants to solve things by communication and understanding, yet humans sometimes have to do violence. This question...
Is something I am not interested in this essay. In general, I think Gundam ends up in a position where it has to comment on revolutionary violence regardless of the shows own interest in it. Usually the shows are more interested in other things. Gundam 00 is no exception, and I don't think is all that interested in 'is revolutionary violence needed for a better world'. For the record, I do think the show is willing to portray violent insurrection as heroic. But waffles on revolutionary violence and ends up more pro-reform4. Even if it did align with my own political beliefs, that tells me very little about if the show is good or not (Celestial Being is famously "without ideology" in season 2).
I do bring it up because that discourse is parallel to this essay. Particularly critiquing the themes of Gundam 00, and how it approaches them. I think the show clearly has things to say, and is invested in saying them.
It just sucks at doing it.
What's a Gundam 00?
Gundam 00 is very very interested in "how do you maintain peace"? Ribbons offers one solution, rule above everyone as a god and use force to subjugate people into submission. Ya know, fascism!! Setsuna counters, peace can be maintained through understanding and human connections. This particular debate flairs up in both Setsuna and Ribbons, but also Saiji and Louise. In time, Saiji sides with Setsuna and convinces Louise of the same.
But Ribbons refuses. He's a god! An Innovator! He shouldn't have to understand humanity! He is above it! Ultimately, Setsuna becomes a true innovator and is forced to kill Ribbons. He is able to connect with others, and in the movie even makes peace between
aliens and humanity, ascending as he fuses with the ELS and becomes as far as I know immortal??? The movie is weird.
All these disparate ideas about God, violence, and understanding runs is embodied in the Gundam. Sticking to a personal belief of haterism5, I think it cleanly runs these interests in through said robots6. The Gundam is Setsuna's angel--descending from heaven to save his life (this is reinforced through many of the Gundam's being named after types of angels and even Celestial Being's own title). The Gundam is Setsuna's tool to communicate--the light of it's twin drives touching the hearts and minds of those who embrace it's life. The Gundam--conversely--is also Setsuna's weapon--count the swords he wields and watch as he bloodies his hands foe after foe. The last two are a contradiction, and admittedly an effective one at that. These are what up for debate here today7.
Both the Gundam as a tool for violence and communication are very easy to defend. Much of the show's run time is the Gundams doing a ton of fucking violence, initially to unite the world and create a true peace. But that doesn't fully work. Once the characters learn more about Aeolia Schenberg's true goal, they choose to fight for a world where people can communicate. In the very last scene of the movie, Setsuna's final gundam (the QUAN-T) is consumed by flowers, the other reoccurring imagery through 00. So on a plot level this all makes sense, and it seems supported on a thematic level. Characters discuss their position on how to maintain peace, and the show even acknowledges it's own contradictions. All is right in the world, and Ribbons in heaven.
So what about the violence?
You know what this essay discussing an anime completely lacks? Discussion about the visuals or animation. A plague upon internet critique is focusing primarily on the themes and message as the end product. As if they are the universal goals for stories or art, instead of tools used to make good art. They can be goals! But also more often then not, overly fixating on getting a message across just feels trite most of the time. Not saying this can't work, nor that stories shouldn't engage with hefty things (they should), but its not the end all be all.
And discussing the visuals of a TV show is important, this is how we interface with the story and characters. Discussing what the theme of the show is only step one, now it's time to discuss the show itself and man--fuck it.
The show's approach to violence sucks. I hate it so fucking much.
The show seems to loosely borrow from Super Sentai and Tokusatsu shows. Extremely color coded pilots and Gundams, very strongly themed Gundams around specific tasks, all doing basically super hero interventionist terrorist violence. The Gundam weapons are dramatic and quite excessive. One Gundam has four arms and four beam sabers, another drops a million carpet bombs, and Setsuna's has all the blades in the world. This isn't a bad thing! I quite like it in the first half! Cool Robot is very important for my enjoyment of Gundam, to the point one of my own personal definition of Gundam is "cool robot and war is bad making out"8. Gundam is both a toy commercial for medium sized to large children, and also trying to engage with things. The end result is a loving messy mixture of the two. It doesn't always work though, including here.
Gundam 00, approach to 'war is bad' or violence rings hollow to me. Setsuna sort of works with engaging the violence he causes, but most of the time (mainly the back half) it doesn't work. The show in particular only sometimes cares about violence the characters do. Allelujah murders a hundred people with his million carpet bombs and it doesn't matter! The camera and animation is focused on 'cool bombing' and Allelujah's resolve for Celestial Being's goals. Setsuna chops a million people down, but only sometimes get caught in the violence. There is barely any part of the show that I feel successfully utilizes its animation to make the emotional or physical impact of these supposedly violent robots tangible. I'm not saying 'oh this show should be grim, dark, moving' we got IBO for that9. That makes for a not so engaging watch (and 00 isn't deep enough to make that grimness work imo). But, I think 00 fails to negotiate the violence of the protagonists for the conflict it posits to portray.
There was a particularly egregious example towards the end in episode 47. The heroes about to embark on their final mission, get a bunch of upgrades, and then proceed to slaughter a bunch of A-Laws. As the characters tear through the A-Laws, they make a bunch of cool superhero poses and the head commander gets unceremoniously blown to smithereens. It's murder without murder! A ton of people die but its a cool robot light show! I forget even the commander's name. It doesn't fucking matter. There should be something more here, but there isn't.
"So what? The aesthetic is cool and fascists deserve it". All true! My issue lies in trying to make a theme about the tragic necessity of violence, and not using the violentless aesthetic to any end. In fact, I say it prevents the theme from working because what does it matter if only the main protagonist sometimes engages with the violence he does and basically no one else (except to decry it). By contrast, something like Zeta Gundam introduces a character in an episode, gives her a name, an identity, a relationship, and then has Kamille kill her in the same episode10. There is barely any characters like that in Gundam 00, most minor antagonists are the most unlikable guys or faceless mooks in robots. Even if I understand in lore there is someone piloting the robot, there is no fucking difference if the audience isn't forced to care about it outside of 'I guess I became a mass murderer'.
The other issue is the over focus on the understanding bit. The giant space flower, the power of the innovator, and several monologues all dedicated to "understanding is really important". Why we sadly have to resort to violence, how we process, and manage it is mostly explored through Saiji and Setsuna in season 2 and feels like an afterthought in the final six episodes of 00 compared to understanding. No wonder people approach the show as "understanding solves everything". The 'need for violence' is asphyxiated under the power of understanding. Hell even in the first half 'understanding' gets teed up as a sort of end all be all11.
Where we at?
Ugh. I dunno. I used to like Gundam 00, but now I kind of hate it. Hell, I forgot how much I hated it until I wrote this essay out. Last spread of issues that don't fit into this essay.
- Understanding vs force doesn't work for me cause I think the answer is "clear obvious good vs. kicking puppies". Very difficult to argue force is needed to maintain peace without going bad places.
- I think the last few episodes are badly structured and poorly paced. The last three episodes are basically all fighting and many parts could've been worked into earlier episodes.
- Does the Middle East matter? It sure doesn't in the last 6 episodes. Only getting focus in the epilogue for two minutes. Normally when a Gundam fumbles a political topic its at least in the context of metaphors, but how the US and other countries fuck over the middle east is like--an actual real world conflict going on. It means bigger wins but also bigger losses.
- Show doesn't know what to do with half the characters in season 1. Then makes them awkwardly matter far too late (Ali-Al Sanchez, Billy, Nena Trinity).
- For a show praised for its themes, it is weirdly unconfident in doing anything other than just telling them to you.
- Fuck it. This show is very sexist. Particularly in the second half. It doesn't have the weird gender stuff12 of prior Gundam, but most of the women exist to be emotional touchstones for their guys and it just fucking sucks. I hate it hate it so much.
Alright. I think its the way this show gets loved baffles me, but not all the ways. I spoke with an online friend right after finishing, completely despondent why he loved it. Mostly he loved it for its soap operaish style, high highs, and an engaging setup. Which, all fair I think. Granted I feel like it unfortunately reinforces what I don't like, but oh well. Not every reason to approach an art piece has to be deep and meaningfultm. It's fine to like a show for that. And there is probably some way to like 00 that feels much more honest to the show then how I've seen people lay down. If nothing else, if you're a 00 lover and got to the end of this ramble and it's only reinforced why you deeply love 00 then fuck yes. This did something.
But mostly I want to approach themes not as static things, but stuff stories actively engage or do not engage with at times. Stances that are sometimes contradictory, and not fixed beliefs. Not just as end messages that we debate, and instead as tools used to make stories better. I think 00 themes make it worse frankly. Not because the plot betrays them, or
it doesn't believe in itself. But because it can't make the theme work in the first place.
1Maybe then again it is bold to hate things people broadly like, a number of professional reviewers get loathed for hating something more than loving something. I am just including this because of an excellent write up about Metroid Dread, a game I love, where the poster felt they had to apologize.
2A lot of this is also due to the structure of twitter and the internet. Actually had a pretty funny experience about this with Seed on twitter. Can't really engage someone if all you perceive about them is one tweet, and aren't forced to engage in anything more than 150 characters at a time.
3That's how it goes right?
4I mostly have this here to say my peace.
5A hater must acknowledge the good elements. Lest a hater becomes a coward.
6You can generally gauge how good a Gundam show is by if its able to use the Gundam's themselves as vehicles for not only emotional drama, but broader high concept ideas.
7Most people don't seem to be too interested in how 00 approaches religion, and tbf neither is the show.
8Asterisk reductive on themes, and not my only personal definition of Gundam.
9jk I love IBO (sweats in fear of it too being degraded upon a rewatch).
10I've been trying to avoid making comparisons to other media, particularly within the same franchise for critiques as I think the best critiques stand upon their own two feet without need for comparison. This is a concession for a concrete example.
11I think this also ties into my own thoughts about themes and messages. If the message is important how much of it is the shows fault for badly communicating it!
12And I feel lacking the weird gender focus robs it of potential fun upswings or reads other Gundams (Zeta) have even if they are equally misogynistic. All loss and no gain!
