First Impressions / Gundam

Short Short Summary:
Having brought Meer back to the ArchAngel, Lacus discovers a diary of sorts in her bag. The dairy mostly talks about how happy Meer is to be Lacus and how she’ll do her best. As they load up Meer’s body into a truck, Gilbert announces the Destiny Plan to the world. Needless to say, the people on the ArchAngel, particularly Lacus and Kira, are not happy.

Who would have thought that this close to the end (three more eps), we’d get another recap episode. Guess that’s something the SEED franchise is famous for. The final arc better be really really good, as I’ve been rather disappointed with the past few episodes. The high points of this episode are (for me) Meer’s song EMOTION, the piano version of Shizukana Yoruni, and the song that played during Gilbert’s speech, which gives quite a sense of urgency. So yea, the musical selection is good.
I think the big issue I’m having is that, recap aside, I didn’t really come out of this episode feeling like I understood Meer’s character all that much more. Yes, her death is sad (the most touching moment of the episode was definitely her thoughts while trying to cope with seeing the real Lacus, and Lacus’ subsequent tears), and we get to see her point of view, but so what? She isn’t really played up as a character that we love or love to hate. She is Gilbert’s doll, part of Athrun’s harem, and finally dies protecting Lacus. Sure she serves her role, but I didn’t really like her role to begin with. Guess I’m feeling like there was potential for more in her character (in a very Fllay sense)…*shakes head* Anyway, we did get to see plenty of new fanservicey shots of Meer, so it wasn’t a complete waste. They were rather high quality too, though mostly stills.
The only thing left to talk about is where we go from here. Since Gilbert has announced the Destiny Plan to the world, there’s bound to be resistance, if nothing else than in the form of the ArchAngel and/or Eternal. I’m hoping for a grand final battle, but the resistance (led by Cagalli and ORB I assume) is going to require a LOT of ships for it to match ZAFT. Freedom and Justice will probably steal the show as usual…not that there’s anything wrong with that since we haven’t seen them in action for a while now. The preview for next episode shows the Requiem being used again, by ZAFT this time. We really can’t end a gundam series without the threat of a castastrophic superweapon…

Closing Thought: I came to realize that I really don’t care what happens to the CE world as much as I care about what happens to the characters in it. I think I’ve said this before, but I’d be happy if Kira, Lacus, Athrun, Cagalli, Murrue, and Mwu/Neo all survive the end, preferably with their couple status. And maybe we can finally see Kira and Lacus kiss….actually I think I’d rather have a Murrue and Mwu/Neo kiss…

36 Comments

  12. Yeah, I agree. Shinn and the gang really took a backseat to the returning SEED characters in this series. I’m very dissapointed… I mean, you can see that they’re making a half-assed attempt at keeping them in focus, but all they really do anymore is blow stuff up… First Heaven’s Base and a bunch of Destroy Gundams… Orb… The EAF’s Moon Base thing, more Destroy Gundams, MAs, the Girty Lue, and Djibril… But none of that has done anything to contribute to the development of the characters themselves >>. I had somewhat high hopes for this sequel, but even though it had a promising start, it started to crap out on Phase-23, in my opinion, with the pointless death of poor Heine… There are so many stupid things that they could cut from this series, that if they ever decide to make a compilation movie, they can do it in just one film instead of the usual three >>. I can’t believe that they’d show yet ANOTHER clip show/recap type episode this close to the end of the series. The creators (including Fukuda) might as well just come out and say it… “Uh, we can’t do much more with the plot… Um…” lol. Anyway, after doing my usual spoiler search…

    ***SPOILER ALERT***

    Phase-48: We get to hear about Dullindal’s Destiny Plan AGAIN. And it’s doubtful that there will be any fighting or good moments of character development >>. Somehow or another, Gilbert craps a backup control system for Requiem, and prepares to fire it at the EAF Arzamas Base.

    Phase-49: And from what I read it hit it’s target. Go figure >>. The Archangel and the Eternal head to Requiem’s first relay point to destroy it, but the Minerva arrives to intercept them.

    Phase-50: Finally! The curtain on Rey’s past has finally been lifted. I think that he was created for his own pre-set role in Dullindal’s plan, but I don’t know all the details. Anyway, the final battles ensues… It’s Athrun VS Shinn, and Kira VS Rey…

    Phantom Pain
    Reply

  13. -_-” another depressing ep !!

    and seems the next eps will take the same route !! ..
    3 eps left .. and nothing interesting happened so far .. still have the hope of seeing AsuCaga in OVA or Movie or watever !! .. Some one has to tell us .. whether they are going to live happily ever after ! .. or just break up .. waiting and hoping if so frustrating !! -_-“

    Maya
    Reply

  16. This is crap. This series has lost all hope in my opinion. The Mwu crap lines was wtf!? Some guy says that to you and you don’t slap him in the face. He just wants some action, she’s as stupid as she is useless. Everyone who thought Meer would live raise your hand. What’s that? No one’s raising their hands. From the moment she was introduced I thought expendable character. Everythings so predictable. There were so many wasted opportunities. They could have concentrated on all the characters that were in the beginning who are now just in the background.

    EliteF22
    Reply

  17. Another recap??? Wat the hack??? Hasnt there been wat too much recaps?? I am getting more and more frustrated at the series. Its like wat 5 episodes or 10% of the show is on recaps. WAy too much i think.

    Too much crap things.

    shaun
    Reply

  24. @Craftage
    “vestige” by T.M.Revolution was in the previews in episode 38 to 42 and “Honoo no Tobira” is in the previews since episode 43. (This is also the insert song they used in episode 40 when Cagalli piloted Akatsuki.) And it’s obvious why they changed it: The vestige single is already on sale, but the honoo no tobira single will be released at the end of september…
    (no comment… XD)

    estella
    Reply

  27. Um… Why in the world would Lacus regret “not helping Dullindal”??? I mean, her whole reason for deciding to bear arms and fight once again was simply because Dullindal wanted to impose his “Destiny Plan” onto the world (and to stop Djibril too, of course, althought they no longer have to worry about him). And besides, he sent those assassin guys to have her KILLED at the beginning of the series! I don’t care how much she might’ve wanted to help Meer; there’s no way that she’d ever assist Gilbert in his plan for world domination.

    Phantom Pain
    Reply

  28. There’s actually no concrete proof of that, but it sounds likely, doesn’t it?

    [QUOTE: Meer dies, so what! Don’t need to give her a tribute. She’s worthless and I don’t even care if Lacus died.]
    If that’s how you feel about it, get the fuck out of here, and don’t come back.
    I happen to believe that Meer was one of the more interesting characters in this series…

    And for soem reason, the good characters tend to get killed off in this series…Heine, Stellar, Meer…I hope some of the not-so-good characters die too…two of them in particular…

    Shinn Asuka
    Reply

  29. the progress report thing had incorrect grammar. whoever wrote it for that scene sure need some ESL classes. as for the pretending to be lacus part, lacus usually doesn’t look like a porn star when she’s on the media. Lacus’s hair isn’t straight either.

    Lunar Maria
    Reply

  34. gundam seed love mai hime destiny shinn asuka love mayo kagura love happy good friend no more arika yumemiya get out arika no more mai otome love gundam seed destiny gundam and mai hime good guy thanks for JOEL PEREZ GUNDAM SEED DESTINY AND MAI HIME DESTINY BY SUNRISE 2008 THANKS YOU

    JOEL PEREZ
    Reply

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