First Impressions / Gundam

Summary:

Long before any combat occurs, military forces dot the desert with a communication network, and Sergei is still a little surprised that the Human Reform League is joining forces with Union and the AEU. All together, they have 832 mobile suits comprising 52 units to combat the Gundams. Saji and Louise meanwhile are unaware of what’s going on and are out shopping. Louise has her eye on an extremely expensive ring, but that price doesn’t stop her from insisting that Saji buy it for her. Back in the Human Reform League, there are now three mobile suits and three trucks headed for the enriched uranium site in the desert. Having not been informed of what’s really going on, Sergei quickly figures out that this was all planned after he gets an order to capture the Gundams. He knows now that, to lure out those Gundams, the government is intentionally neglecting terrorist movements. And just as they had planned, two Gundams – the Dynames and the Kyrios – arrive on the scene to take out the terrorists.

Shortly after the Dynames and the Kyrios finish their job though, they come under a heavy missile attack. A large force of Union Realdos then appear, and the Gundam pilots quickly have their hands full. Lockon is unable to stop a pair of Realdos from attaching themselves to the Dynames before self-destructing, and though this doesn’t damage the Dynames too heavily, it forces Lockon to land. The Gundams are then bombarded from all side by artillery and by bombs dropped from aircraft. Back at Wang Liu-Mei’s home, Christina reports that they’ve passed the scheduled finish time of the first phase. Sumeragi thinks that they should go to plan B2 – the one that has the Exia and the Virtue getting involved too. At the AEU command center, Kathy sends out an AEU mobile suit squad, but she keeps Patrick on standby. When he protests, she promises to make him a man. Elsewhere in the desert, Setsuna and Tieria go to plan B2 by removing their camouflage and taking out the two Union mobile suits that saw them. Tieria then activates the GN Bazooka’s Burst Mode and fires off a massive blast that completely vaporizes a large group of mobile suits and creates a way for the Dynames and the Kyrios to escape. However, the Exia and the Virtue soon find themselves to be the targets of another missile barrage.

It has now been two hours after this all started, and Sumeragi is worried about the shift to plan E5 that involves a certain mobile suit. She’s thinking about Allelujah in particular, and indeed at this moment, he suddenly gets that painful feeling in his head again. The reason for this is Soma who is rapidly approaching in her Tieren Taozi, accompanied by a Human Reform League force. She ignores the Dynames and goes straight for the Kyrios, and, unfortunately, Lockon can’t help because the other mobile suits are keeping him occupied. Having tackled the Kyrios, the Taozi repeatedly fires at it from point-blank range, but Allelujah then changes into Hallelujah and asks for Soma’s name over the broadcast channel. After hearing what it is, Hallelujah aims the blade hidden in the Kyrios’ claw at the Taozi’s head. Soma avoids it just in time, and at Sergei’s urging, she temporarily backs off to let the other Human Reform League forces to keep the Kyrios suppressed under fire. Without Soma around to fight him, Hallelujah decides to leave things to Allelujah and changes back.

As day becomes night and the battle enters its fifteenth hour, the united forces of the world’s superpowers continue to shell the Gundams. Each of the Gundam pilots is now feeling a significant amount of fatigue and mental strain, and it’s at this point that both Patrick and Graham’s Over-Flags get to join the fight. Patrick’s unit in particular is going after the Virtue, but before they show up, the bombardment on the Exia and the Virtue suddenly stops. Setsuna and Tieria use this opportunity to escape, however them heading in different directions allows Patrick’s unit to attack the Virtue without interference from the Exia. Four specially equipped Hellions then surround the Virtue and encase it in a force field. Soma meanwhile has successfully defeated and captured the Kyrios for the Human Reform League. As for the Over-Flags, they are approaching the Dynames’ position when Joshua suddenly breaks from formation to take on the Gundam by himself. Lockon, however, catches Joshua off-guard and destroys Joshua’s Flag in one shot. This leads to Graham personally using his Flag to tackle the Dynames, and as the dust clears, Graham’s Flag grabs the Dynames’ head to show that he’s in control of the fight.

In the end, the only Gundam that successfully escapes is the Exia, but even that is short-lived because it soon gets attacked by a mobile armor. Setsuna recognizes the custom Enact sitting on top of the mobile armor to be that of Ali Al Sarshes, but he can’t react quickly enough to avoid it knocking him into the ground. Ali Al Sarshes then positions the mobile armor over the Exia and unleashes its plasma field, causing Setsuna great pain. Meanwhile, word of what’s going on reaches Marina, and after Shirin describes how outnumbered the Gundams are, Marina thinks back to how Setsuna had come into her room the previous night. At this moment, in the midst of all the pain the plasma field is causing him, Setsuna recalls his past and wonders if he’s going to die in this warped world without becoming anything. Right as Setsuna remembers the Gundam that saved him back then, several red beams pierce through the mobile armor. Ali Al Sarshes is able to pull his Enact out before the armor explodes, and he and Setsuna both see that a new Gundam has appeared.

Preview:

Other than episode ten, I think this might be the most action-heavy episode so far. It wasn’t short on excitement anyway, with the hundreds of enemy units and the Gundams pretty much all getting defeated (even Patrick seemed competent in this battle). The superpowers’ plan relied on the fact that the Gundam pilots would have gotten exhausted after hours upon hours of being bombarded, and it would have worked too, but the tides turn with the appearance of the new Gundam that saved Setsuna. As the end of the episode showed though, I don’t think being saved by a Gundam a second time is going to do anything to help Setsuna’s psyche after he tried so hard to become like that Gundam.

And if it wasn’t evident before, this episode appears to set in stone the conflict pairings: Lockon vs. Graham, Allelujah vs. Soma, Tieria vs. Patrick, and Setsuna vs. Ali Al Sarshes. Actually, I’m not so sure about the Tieria one, but all the others have gotten some development in previous episodes. What remains to be seen is what role in the overall conflict that the three new Gundams and their pilots will play. For now, they look to be on Celestial Being’s side, and at least one of them uses funnels. I point that out because I’ve always thought of those as being way too overpowered, but you could probably say that about Gundams in general (of course, this episode goes a long way in refuting that notion). Anyway, I look forward to seeing next week’s episode and to hearing what voice Kugimiya Rie uses for her new character (even though it’s probably the same one she uses for Shana, Nagi, Louise, etc).

86 Comments

  4. Cant wait until i watch this episode, its gonna be so great anyway I seriously thought that the thrones were like a rival force to the gundam meisters. Well working together is goo too…

    Full Metal Otaku
    Reply

  6. Tieria vs Patrick? LOL

    I haven’t watched the ep yet, but if Patrick becomes competent after getting punched last ep, then we might have just found our Female Captain Bright! Hooray!

    ggthx
    Reply

  13. Don’t know whether to feel bad for the antagonist side or not. Just Gundam is enough for them and now this new gundam appears. i do hope thrones will turn into a third party in the future or it won’t be any fun hehe. Well , looking forward to this episode XD.

    saris
    Reply

  14. hum, it’s not astraea so there is more than 5 gundam 😐
    awesome episode, action max 😀

    About the GNdrive and gundam I still don’t understand, the gundam are invincible and the power they can produce depend on the pilot mood ?

    Algent
    Reply

  20. The 3 new gundams are celestial being as well, hence the upcoming episode called Trinity. They are known as the Thrones. Pretty much there’s this red one, one with a crap load of swords attached to it, and another with a big ass gun. So most likely close-mid-long range gundams.

    spoiler tags incase you do not want to know the gundam names and what they look like.
    Show Spoiler ▼

    However, as most gundam series go, you can probably bet that 3/4 at least will break off of celestial being maybe and fight the Trinity (Tieria not included). What I think from watching pretty much every gundam series.

    balgas
    Reply

  26. The new Gundams’ pilots are all siblings. Chances of them operating alone are pretty slim I think. Still, its pretty bad news for the 3 Gundams to get captured. The Gundam 00 world is still not ready to accept the GN Drive. All the different factions are still at war, and for them to discover the power of the GN Drive is equivalent to unleashing nuclear bombs at each other. It’ll be nice if the different factions managed to develop MS that’ll rival the Gundams but I’ll rather they not discover the secret behind the GN Drives.

    Second thought, I still don’t think Celestial Beings will be that stupid to let their secrets be revealed that easily. In this sort of situation, its best to call in Heero (Gundam W) and press the self-destruct mechanism! Muahahaha~

    dward
    Reply

  28. @dward
    I don’t think the new gundam pilots are siblings. They don’t even look like they are the same race o_O. And If you were talking about gundams being captured in response to mine, I meant that Setsuna, Lockon, and Allelujah will separate from celestial being.

    balgas
    Reply

  35. Some rumors about Throne Gundam, maybe right or wrong
    Show Spoiler ▼

    Black cat
    Reply

  38. Wow the episode is great this is my first time seeing gundams losing to only normal MS well almost so wont really consider and here we got that more gundam introduce and appearing wonder if there is an 8th one

    setsuke
    Reply

  43. From the pic linked by Balgas, these 3 Gundams have exactly the SAME BODY!!! @_@
    Exclude their heads and backpack….Zwei and Drei even have the same handgun. except it is right-left reverse.
    Red wings = Evil-looking, finally another evil-looking gundam appear after Epyon…XD

    HellorHeaven
    Reply

  45. haha! Yes! they ALMOST got away with 3 gumdams, but I knew that Celestial being had to have some secret weapon up their sleeves, but I didn’t expect them to come with three new Gundam. There you guy superpowers, you plan is gone and I hope you have a big budget to replace all the Mobiles suits you going to lose and come out empty handed.

    golthin
    Reply

  46. OMGOSH~! I really enjoy this series, at least it’s realistic in the sense that the Gundams can actually be defeated and not get trashed for hours and then suddenly BOOM~ THey suddenly win out of nowhere~! xD
    Haha, but I do wonder what will happen to them….so anxious.

    Kannie
    Reply

  48. If it’s true that one of the new Gundams can use funnels, then it’s possibly true that the original four will be fighting against them later in the series. If you watch the opening, you’ll see the Kyrios shooting down what looks to be funnels.

    Gar
    Reply

  51. I think the Thrones will bail Kyrios, Virtue, and Dynames out of the clutches of the Union, AEU, and the HRL. Then tides will start changing.

    “More Gundams?! Shit!!!,” says one of the Custom Flag pilot who gets shot by one of the Thrones right after saying this.

    “Full Retreat!” says Graham Acre

    console65
    Reply

  52. A bit disappointed… from watching the OP, I was expecting an epic duel between the Meisters and the Aces, while Virtue fighting the grunts. But there’s no interesting duel fights between the pilots – just the Meisters getting pawned too quickly. Hmm, I guess the producers are a bit rushed to get the Gundam Thrones in…

    wesfalcon
    Reply

  53. What’s even scarier is that one of the new gundams can apparently use its funnels on earth, something that no other series before did.

    Example in GSD, the Strike Freedom and Legend couldn’t use their Dragoons in ep 42 and 43 during the battle in Orb. Also in the old series (AC? I forgot what the original series’ timeline was called) only Newtypes could use funnels…

    CooKie
    Reply

  55. Just watch the raw. I REALLY LOVE how Graham violently charge toward Dynames screaming Dakishimetai na! = I want to embrace you! sentence XD. Haha, I like how he said “At last , my sleeping princess” when he grabbed Dynames ‘s head after knock Lockon off. That’s too cool. I hope he did get something back from the gundams since he came this far, if the throne can help every Meisters out, it would be such a waste of effort. Even Patrick is cool in this one hehe.

    saris
    Reply

  58. I dont think Patrick is Tieria’s rival…. based from the new opening video it seems like his rival/conflict pairing is one of the thrones pilot – The reddish gundam which I believe is the one piloted by a girl.
    In the opening video you can see Setsuna, Allelujah & Lockon shown while fighting their respective “rivals” at the desert, while Tieria was shown later after the gundam thrones were shown hence my speculation that his rival is from the thrones.

    sai
    Reply

  59. More people will be infected by Kugimiya disease soon, in a giant robot anime…
    Urusaix3 Gundam…
    Anyway, seems like things repeat, Gundams will become godlike again with those seemingly invincible new models.

    Viperper
    Reply

  60. In case some people didn’t know, in Gundam shows, there are always more Gundams introduced along the way and it usually involves the main characters getting new ones themselves.

    The new information about the Throne Gundams have been available for some time, including confirmation that they are Meisters. I added the info to my high quality YouTube video of the OP2/ED2 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBf5eYmd5Wc), but I’ve also included it below. There is also a link to a picture from Newtype Magazine showing the three new Meisters and Nena’s evil looking Haro.

    Newtype Magazine (ニュータイプマガジン) info on new Gundams (新ガンダム) and new Meisters (新マイスター).
    http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/5818/newgundammeisters3hk2.jpg

    Gundam Throne Drei (ガンダムスローネドライ)
    – pilot (パイロット): Nena Trinity (ネーナ・トリニティ)
    – seiyuu (声優): Kugimiya Rie (釘宮 理恵)

    Gundam Throne Zwei (ガンダムスローネツヴァイ)
    – pilot (パイロット): Michael Trinity (ミハエル・トリニティ)
    – seiyuu (声優): Namikawa Daisuke (浪川 大輔)

    Gundam Throne Ein (ガンダムスローネアイン)
    – pilot (パイロット): Johann Trinity (ヨハン・トリニティ)
    – seiyuu (声優): Konishi Katsuyuki (小西 克幸)

    divine
    Reply

  61. To wesfalcon,

    You got to remember that the meisters were being pounded with shells and missles for hours. They couldn’t maneuver under those conditions. Not to mention they started the operation in the middle of the day and lasted till dawn.

    console65
    Reply

  62. Wow… blood red wings. Definitely the sign of evil. Can’t wait to watch. By the way did anyone else get the feeling that Setsuna’s going to die by the end of the series? Ever since I saw the new OP, i kept getting this feeling that Setsuna’s going to die. Too bad the ending is going to be more than a year away from now.

    Kagekyuubi
    Reply

  63. Yousuke Kuroda is a brilliant script writer , and this is the first time that military strategy appears in Gundam. His other work include Onegai Twins, Madlax, GunGrave, Bottle Fairy, Kokoro Library and Trigun.

    My take of the storyline : the new Gundam is the backup plan. As the world has rejected the peace which the Celestial Beings were offering them, the next stage is to wipe everyone from the face of the Earth, and replace them with “superior beings”. I would also expect a love triangle to develop between the new female pilot, Setsuna and the Princess.

    Ronin8317
    Reply

  64. Looks like the show’s having an up-beat now. New gundams, and new pilots galore! So from where did these new gundams come from? UNION? HRL? AEU? or these three came from Celestial Being and have been secreted from the Ptolemy crew?

    raimaru2880
    Reply

  71. It’s not that often that you actually see Gundams getting beaten down so much. Sure there’s a handful of scenes where gundams in the different series are overpowered. But that’s only a few of them. Unlike this series where it’s ALL of them.

    balgas
    Reply

  72. LOL this was definetely an action packed episode.

    I lol’ed so much. The script is ridicolous. Sumeragi’s development must all have gone to the breast and none to the brain.

    The Gundam are totally overpowered. In 15 hours 1000 mobile suits are not good enough to capture them. ha ha ha

    This is going to directly challenge Gundam Wing as one of the worst Gundam series ever.

    Characters, plot and fights are ridicolous.
    Good animation though.

    I LOL'ED
    Reply

  77. I watched the episode and some thoughts started to rise in my head, I’m hoping maybe someone with a good insight could help me out.

    -It has been hinted that Celestial Being has a hidden agenda, aside from the obvious that they want to stop wars.

    -In this episode, the crew beside the Meisters KNEW the Meisters are losing and dying. However, the crew didn’t seem nervous. They’re rather sad, as if they knew Meisters dying is part of the this battle plan. If you may recall. First Dynames and Kyrios are sent in for plan B5 (or something), then they sent in Exia and Virtue then created an escape route, thus moving into plan E2 (or something like that). Does anyone find it awkward? Celestial Being probably knew it was a trap with nearly 1,000 MS waiting for them, why did they still send the Meisters in for a suicide? There must be a reason and I can’t figure out why. This whole battle in this episode is planned out, not just going in a battle and losing, it was done on purpose.

    -Summing those two ideas up, the organization of Celestial Being probably has the intention to send the Meisters in for a suicide mission, which has a direct relation to its hidden agenda.

    -Remember when Meisters revealed that they showed the ultra-long range sniping ability of Dynames, and the strength of Gundam Natiulee too early in the planning? This leads me to think maybe this episode’s suicide attempt to fight the three factions may not be intentional as well, as Dynames and Virtue’s hidden abilities will come into play later in the plan.

    -An idea I have is that the 4 Meisters are sent out to near death experience to give the three Meisters a chance to enter the stage of war. Maybe CB wants the three Earth factions to unite to fight the 4 Gundams and use the 3 new Gundams for an overwhelming come back?

    Comments please =)

    SeaZn
    Reply

  79. Hey LOL’d if you accualy watched the episode you’d see that they WOULD have captured the gundams if the Thrones didn’t mess things up, and that the 800+ mobile suits didn’t really take many casulties.

    FlameStrike
    Reply

  83. @SeaZn
    I agree that Sumeragi is letting all this happen on purpose, since she knows all about the big plan to capture the Gundams, since Graham’s scientist showed her all the data in the Ep 13. Last time the Gundams were nearly captured by mistake, she was much more upset about it.

    Also I find it strange that the 4 Gundams didn’t come together and cooperate in order to escape. I’m sure they could have, if they had tried. And they had like 15 hours to come up with a plan too. I can’t believe all the meisters didn’t do anything and kept on withstanding all the attacks until they became exhausted. And 3 actually ended up captured without much resistance… which is also weird since if they did all swear to protect the Gundam’s identity with their lives (as Teiria said), nobody thought of self-destructing before they got captured. Even Setsuna, who actually had time to think before losing consciousness.

    So, yeah, it’s gotta be a plan to create a spectacular introduction for the Thrones.

    Yukiruchan
    Reply

  84. ^
    Umm that’s Sunrise’s plan.

    Sumeragi’s plan is probably: use all four Gundams as bait, have them look like they’ve put up a good fight and take out as much of the forces as possible, make the HLR+Union+AEU think everything is according to plan until the Gundams almost get captured; then BOOM! Have the Thrones come in, save the 4 and squash most of the enemy forces of the 3 most powerful factions. Equals great victory
    for Celestial Being!!

    Next it will probably turn out that Red-Celestial Being has plans of its own, such as take over the world or something drastic like let’s modify everyone’s genes so they can’t create war; and then Green-CB will end up fighting Red-CB. Or probably not ^^.

    Yukiruchan
    Reply

  86. ^ haha

    these gundams are all weaklings…cant provide the excitement of Gundam W!…only setsuna’s exia has the potential, where’s nadleeh?! a secret weapon they say…this was so planned man.

    ...
    Reply

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