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「ファーデーンの光と影」 (Faadiin no Hikari to Kage)
“The Light and Shadow of Fardain”
I’ve seen some quick Gundam deliveries when they’re catapulted from a launch pad, but they pale in comparison to the instantaneous speed that Vargas can deliver a unit on the back of a truck. While I’d like to believe that more time passed than the thirty-odd seconds shown, there really wasn’t much to suggest that it did. If I had to nitpick about something, it would be that and the shortly-after-disembarking explosion of Fardain underground resident Iwark Bria’s (Nomura Kenji) construction mobile suit — two overly convenient developments in an otherwise good episode that continues to establish the Advanced Generation (A.G.) timeline.
More specifically, we finally learn some details about the Colony Nation Wars that took place prior to the Silver Chalice Treaty (Gin no Hai Jouyaku 「銀の杯条約」). At war with one another were the Zalam Union and Euba Alliance, which unlike the wars in the Universal Century timeline, doesn’t appear to be a conflict that stems from a division between Earthlings and Spacenoids. Decades of fighting before the start of the story were already mentioned in the official Gundam AGE synopsis — something I sort of alluded to in the Fall 2011 Preview — so it doesn’t come as too much of a surprise that it would come up at some point. What I do find noteworthy is how the Silver Chalice Treaty involved the disarmament of mobile suits and other weapons of war, which probably explains why there’s such a disparity between the Earth Federation’s technology and the UE’s. It could also explain why the military isn’t all that experienced compared to those seen in other Gundam series, as there hasn’t been an actual war for generations. The technology is dated and the military personnel are likely trained during times of peace — a combination that doesn’t bode well for “external” threats.
Incidentally, this revelation does continue to support the idea that the UE are attacking to force mankind to further their arms development. It’s been seven years since they first appeared and destroyed Colony Angel, so if the UE were really intent on annihilating mankind, it’s probably safe to assume that they could’ve easily done it by now. The fact that they haven’t and continue to only harass mankind in small numbers suggests that they have an ulterior motive in mind. Quite honestly, I like the idea that the UE are from the future to prepare mankind for an upcoming threat, because it borrows ideas from our own history, where some of the fastest technological advances happened during times of war. The need for them becomes the difference between life or death, much like we’ve seen already.
As for some concrete developments, the most significant was undoubtedly Grodek’s backstory. He never once gave off an antagonist-like vibe despite all his insubordination, but I’m still wary of his desire to rid the world of the UE by any means necessary for killing his wife and child. While there’s been plenty foreshadowing to suggest that he lost some loved ones to the UE, as well as further implication here that he joined the military just for the opportunity to fight the UE, I can’t shake the feeling that he’s banking most of the success of this operation on Flit’s Gundam. I’m not a huge fan of how the Diva is a renegade ship either, because it’s not packing the same mobile suit firepower as the Archangel, Eternal, or Ptolemaios, which instilled overpowered confidence to take to a battlefield alone. What’s more, Grodek is seeking out the help of a shady weapons dealer, Don Boyage (Miyake Kenta), and plans to take whatever warships and mobile suits he provides him in exchange for classified military information from the Colony Nation War, “Folder EZ7”. Woolf does a little better, using his own connections to get a new suit from Mukured Madorna (Shirokuma Hiroshi) and his wife Lalapearly Madorna (Nagasawa Miki), but it’s still only one extra mobile suit.
Frankly, I have a hard time understanding the rationale behind how this is supposed to take down the stronghold of an enemy who didn’t have a single unit destroyed until Flit’s Gundam was created seven years later. I say Grodek’s plan is suicidal at best, especially now that the UE have adapted to the DODS rifle. I expect the add-on to the Gundam will help turn the tides, transforming it into the bulky red form seen in the opening sequence (i.e. Gundam AGE-1 Titus), but I don’t see that being a part of Grodek’s plan. Anyway, I’ll wait and see how it pans out before I cast judgement on the Diva captain’s actions.
* Flit Asuno, already breaking the hearts of young girls by choosing his Gundam over Emily.
* Saitou Chiwa had a minor role as the voice of Riria.
* Full-length images: 02, 05, 09, 20, 30, 31.
Preview
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Omake
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I’ve got to say that this episode was disappointing. The story just felt forced on many levels. Wolf’s personal mechanic and apparently mobile suit designer is near the colony? He’s able to sortie for personal reasons in the military Genoace? Fardane has internal mobile suit fighting between factions? Fardane has an underground society? Iwark just happens to have a construction mobile suit? His adopted daughter Lilia, despite knowing the dangers of topside, gets trapped outside of the sheltered buildings? A previously unknown type of UE MS shows up that nobody else in the entire colony sees? Flit getting his Gundam that soon… on a truck? Flit loses sight of the UE without even jumping up over the buildings? The Gundam gets surrounded by a bunch of low rent colony MS? O RLY? WTF!
It…actually isn’t that hard to believe, considering how little of the colony we saw last episode. As for the kid…SHE’S A KID. KIDS WANDER OFF. The UE thing will likely be explained away soon.
Why are people so eager to look for reasons to rip on this series? It’s 0079 in 2011, people! Respect your roots!
What really bothered me about this episode was not that there were one or two indiscretions, but that they just… snowballed one after another. No sooner than I had come to terms and dismissed the last strange, convenient, or outright ludicrous thing than something else cropped up. Grodek un…furling from one set of clothes to his full uniform with one swish of his cape? Even his hat changed! There’s just no defending that or the instantaneous truck transport– it almost took longer to get it off the truck than it apparently took to load and transit the thing however far it had to go.
The situation with the girl primarily bothered me because not five minutes before she goes “missing,” her adopted father was proudly accepting her bounty of scrap metal, which she had clearly just autonomously gathered. From a writing standpoint, both the circumstances of her disappearance and her father’s reaction just don’t make any sense. Why establish how capable and independent she is and then immediately turn around and have her “foolishly” run off and endanger herself? Why would the father even be concerned, given that she lives every single day in exactly the same circumstances?
The reason, of course, is because her only purpose in the story is to establish how bad off everyone in the underground is and to give her adopted father a reason to spontaneously explode in suicidal rage at something he had apparently been previously dealing with with calm aplomb. Never mind the fact that the chosen method of introducing her also happens to establish her as competent, independent, and aware of the dangers and disadvantages of her situation (she’s what, 5 or 6 and knows that her scrap metal scavenging is needed to buy FOOD?).
I like watching this show, and most of the things people have complained about in regards to earlier episodes didn’t bother me. That said, this episode was just stuffed with indiscretions on the part of the writing staff, enough to rise past my threshold of tolerance until, after a certain point in the episode all my entertainment was derived not from the plot or action, but from the ridiculousness of one absurd development after another.
And to top it off, we weren’t even released by the end of the episode– next episode we’re right back in the same absurd scenario.
I agree with bertman4.
I’m generally very forgiving on bad writing, especially considering how my expectations for this series are rather low. I would sit back, relax and enjoy the show but it’s kind of hard to do that when the characters’ rationality suddenly flies out the window and random, illogical events just happen for the convenience of the show.
pretty much, at this point I’ve already relegated AGE to the “watch-for-the-lol-trainwreck” category.
Things really happen solely out of plot convenience in this episode. There is no logical rhyme or reason to any of it. I’m sorely tempted to drop this, even as a kiddie show it is an insult to other kiddie shows since it’s not even trying to be consistent and instead throws random nonsense out of left field at us. And my expectations were fairly low to begin with since we’re talking about Gundam.
awkward episode overall, and not that interesting. I’m more interested in this suit of armor than other things…
…well, maybe not the skinny versus fat comparisons…
another thing, now that Divine mentions all those other ships from the previous 3 series: WHERE’S MY MISSILE BARRAGE????
Okay, this episode was by far the stupidest yet. Shall we count the plot holes?
>War between colonies ends with treaty banning all mobile suits. Everybody has mobile suits anyway, including the Federation, random militia groups in the colonies, racing teams, the mafia and slum dwellers.
>Dude who has to collect scrap metal to afford his next meal somehow also has a fully functional mobile suit.
>Earth Federation seemingly doesn’t care when random militia groups casually battle in the middle of heavily populated colonies.
>The UE are once again able to break into a heavily populated colony for their contractually obligated sixty-second cameo, but nobody notices or raises the alarm except Flit.
It’s like the story was written by a mentally retarded manchild, or possibly George Lucas.
One would assume that sometime after the UE attacked seven years ago, the Earth Federation ramped up the use of mobile suits again.
Only not, since Grodek offers mafia-guy weapon blueprints in exchange for four(!) warships. He says that “all weapons data was discarded”, which is obviously false, since the colony MS are running around with weapons, mafia-guy deals in warships, and that EFF ships and units Genoace are armed. If there’s anything more potent than the useless beam spray guns in those blueprints, the EFF and everyone in any position of power are absolute idiots for not using them against the UE (and if the beam spray gun is at the top of the list of what’s in there, I question the value of the blueprints).
You might want to reread what I said because nothing you’ve said seems to disprove it. Grodek obviously can’t go to the Earth Federation for help because he stole the Diva, and there’s nothing that says the technology from the Colony Nation War would match up to what the UE has anyway. Disarmament doesn’t imply that the technology is lost either, especially from the black market. They were probably just removed from normal channels and retained as classified information. I presume there’s some stuff that the black market never had though, such as data on previous Gundams and advanced beam weaponry.
If the treaty had been repealed to deal with the UE, I would have expected that to have been part of the exposition dump. That doesn’t mean it hasn’t been, but there’s nothing to support the idea that it has.
“Disarmament doesn’t imply that the technology is lost either”
I never said it did. Grodek said (at least in the sub that I watched) that “all weapons data has been discarded” which suggests that all the blueprints and weapons (since they can be reverse engineered) had been destroyed, other than the classified files.
“data on previous Gundams and advanced beam weaponry.”
It would irritate me to no end if that ends up being true, because that would mean that the EFF is voluntarily handicapping itself against the UE. Unless, of course, something happens that shows that the Genoace, despite how ineffective it seems, surpasses the older tech (in which case, the blueprints shouldn’t be worth all that much…).
Dunno hardest thing I have accepting is how meh Earth Federation is when Alien Mobile Suits are coming in a blowing up colonies. Are the space colonies autonomous and earth federation not care about them? You would think we would have seen another battleship or Earth Federation mobilizing, but it seems they are content twiddling their thumbs while Grodek has mutinied and stole one of their state of the art battleship. Usually when humanity is on the verge of destruction, people start going out and doing things. Not letting 13 yo kids fight their battles for them.
“War between colonies ends with treaty banning all mobile suits. Everybody has mobile suits anyway, including the Federation, random militia groups in the colonies, racing teams, the mafia and slum dwellers.”
It wasn’t a mobile suit ban, it was a unilateral demilitarization. They got rid of their standing armies. That wouldn’t affect black market dealers, radicals, and construction units. Also, once the UE showed up years ago, people would have started building MSes again, duh.
“Dude who has to collect scrap metal to afford his next meal somehow also has a fully functional mobile suit.”
The Desperado is a work suit, he probably uses it to collect larger pieces of junk. Hell, it could even have just been a machine left over from construction. That’s not a plot hole at all.
“Earth Federation seemingly doesn’t care when random militia groups casually battle in the middle of heavily populated colonies.”
When the militia is made up of the citizens and have blast shields installed, there really isn’t a problem for infrastructure.
“The UE are once again able to break into a heavily populated colony for their contractually obligated sixty-second cameo, but nobody notices or raises the alarm except Flit.”
It was established the UE were in the colony from the previous episode, derp. The reason Flit and Emily weren’t out in the city beforehand was because they were on alert for another UE attack. That was stated. Also, stealth technology. They have it. Put two and two together, dude, you shouldn’t need to be spoonfed this much.
“It was a unilateral demilitarization that didn’t actually demilitarize anyone.”
Okay then.
“The Desperado is a work suit”
If you’re ever in a situation where you don’t know where your next meal comes from, you don’t hang on to a highly expensive piece of specialized construction equipment that’s easily worth dozens (if not hundreds) of times your annual wage. That’s like saying the homeless guy down the street owns his own private bulldozer. Even in our world construction equipment is insanely expensive to purchase and maintain, so it stands to reason a freaking mobile suit would be several orders of magnitude MORE expensive.
“Not a problem for infrastructure”
So the wreckage of eighteen meter tall metallic giants weighing forty tons clogging up the street isn’t a problem for infrastructure. Okay then.
“It was established the UE were in the colony from the previous episode”
And it made even less sense last episode, where they were flying through the center of the colony while completely visible and IN BROAD DAYLIGHT, and nobody noticed them.
The only thing being spoonfed her is Age apologist Kool-Aid.
Or, and this is just a stretch here, it may just be the UC purist Koolaid.
Would you people stop grasping at straws and just. Enjoy. THE MECHS.
Please, can there be no more fanboy wars on here, Divine?
@Da5id:
Hmm, I had some qualms with this episode too, but not to the degree that other people have expressed. I’ve gotten used to reading these type of comments every week, so it doesn’t bother me.
The mechs are ugly and poorly designed (with the exception of the Gundam) and the mech battles are soul-crushingly boring. For example, when the Not-Zakus were fighting in the streets in this episode, they did nothing but stand around motionless and shoot ineffectual pellet guns at each other. Boy, I was really on the edge of my seat there.
This guy explains pretty well exactly what’s wrong with Gundam Age’s lackluster action scenes. http://wp.me/plDL9-2ZL
@Divine: Yeah, I suppose this is something you see a lot…
@Jon: Even that guy said that the characters are starting to grow on him. What I’m saying is stop splitting hairs here and just enjoy it. If you’re gonna watch it, shut up and watch it. If there really are that many things that piss you off, why are you continuing to bother with it?
Allow me to quote another writer on this matter.
“Why do you review things you hate? If you don’t like it, ignore it.”
“Why do I review crap? Simple: for pleasure. For the sheer joy of it. Every piece of crap you like is an immense world of delight waiting to be explored. Crap is a driving force, crap is inspirational: nothing urges me to set things right more than seeing them done wrong. I’m especially pleased when the crap is so bad it makes me angry — for anger is a pleasant sensation. To feel your bile rise and your blood boil, to feel a rush of fury — why, it’s the pleasure of being alive, of feeling some actual emotion instead of the constant dull fuzz of the easily contented.
Why should I deny myself such pleasures? You preach abstinence, but that’s because you’re a Puritan. When you look at criticism, you see only whines and complaints; you fail to see the joy. Energy is eternal delight (as they say where I come from), and to damn something with energy is a more joyous and thrilling act than to ignore it, or say “it’s nice”, or fob it off with other half-hearted compliments.”
How the hell can a puritan be accepting of other things? And how do you plan to “make things right” by continuing to pick at details in a show that hasn’t made it even an eighth of the way through? There is a line between actual critique and trolling and you, sir, have crossed it. That’s a response you won’t find on your troll commandments.
Here, let me critique your critique, not because I want you to get better, but because I want to express how much you suck: It’s virtually baseless, exaggerated, and about as grounded as a space colony. You’re whining about a show about robots that you’re clearly not even paying attention too, based on all the things that have already been pointed out that you continue to dump on.
I feel the same way about the show Glee and how insanely popular it SHOULD NOT BE, but at least that show is relevant where I am since everyone I know watches it, and how it’s had 3 seasons to get better, yet has not. There’s no logical base to tear a show to pieces when it hasn’t even gotten to 3 hours of material.
“Uh-oh, somebody has an opinion I disagree with! Quick, I’ll accuse them of being a troll!”
And with that association fallacy, you’ve lost this argument. Have a nice day. 🙂
Thanks for proving my point. Have a good one.
For much the same reason people will look at a trainwreck, or a car accident. I’ve been a longtime Gundam fan… and for better or worse, I want to see where this one goes. If it does well, I’ll say so. If it does poorly, I’ll call it out. If, in my view, the negatives outshadow the positives… then you get very critical comments.
I still maintain that it’s too early to make such statements.
I will agree that it’s too early to write Gundam AGE off completely. However, it’s never too early to discuss the shortcomings of individual episodes, as long as critics are willing to retract and amend what they say as more information comes out.
@Da5id
fact: it IS too early to say whether Gundam AGE will be a success or failure
also fact: these early episodes, especially this latest one, have been so hilariously bad that one can’t help but keep watching what looks to be a developing train wreck
Fact: Opinion is not a fact
Well, we can’t forget that, even among UC fanatics, the ZZ series started out pretty badly among many fans for almost HALF the series before it started getting darker and more serious and ZZ is 47 episodes long. AGE is only SIX episodes in.
I’d likened to whole Silver Chalice Treaty fallout to be similar to a post-Cold War era. It paralleled to the real world with Warlords, Civil wars and Arms Dealing. Only in space.
Think about it, after the end of the Cold War there were huge stockpiles of weapons left around. With no reason to be used, they get bought by the highest bidder, to fund civil wars and hurt people. So in this episode we can see the results, as the higher officials supply weapons to support civil wars while civilians live in slums just trying to live their lives.
This is arguably the most interesting part of AGE so far, although it felt a little subdued amid all the stupid character drama. Whether the show will tackle the issue properly, is to be seen. I doubt it though, most Gundam shows don’t ever deliver their messages properly.
Except the end of the cold war era wasn’t met with a universal demilitarization treaty. Governments collapsed, weapon stockpiles were “lost”, etc. That’s vastly different than all of the armed factions agreeing to disarm and rid themselves of their weapons. Even if the EFF are just a peacekeeping force, like the Preventers in Wing, the Toria situation should never have been allowed to happen, especially with how open they are with the fighting.
My parallels have more to do with the actual fallout of having weapon stockpiles, and what shady people can do with them. Its already been established that the Federation, like every other Gundam universe so far, is stagnant and corrupt. So its quite easy for criminals to get away with dealing weapons.
I’m not so sure about “established”. The Diva’s original captain (whatever happened to him, anyway?) was a bit of a dick, but not corrupt. The investigation bureau seemed to be pretty legit, and although the guy from the Toria colony was blatantly corrupt, the other two guards seemed okay. Past that, all we have on the issue is what Grodek said, and considering his actions so far, I question using him as a reliable source on the issue.
You forgot one: Mafia-guy dealing in warships. That’s like going to the mob or a drug cartel and asking them to sell you a battleship or an aircraft carrier. Maybe slightly more reasonable, considering the long history of third-party warships throughout the history of Gundam (the Argama, for example), but those were all black projects done by major production powerhouses (e.g. Anaheim)… not some small-time mafia in a colony. And if there really weren’t any weapon blueprints (or production facilities), how did he arm those ships?
And not so much a plot hole as facepalm-inducing idiocy: three colony MS can’t scratch the Gundam, and one even wrecks itself with a reflected shot off of its armor… and then five run up and demand that Flit surrender. I know I won’t get it, but I want the next episode to just cut to Flit laughing and walking away while those MS can’t do anything to stop the Gundam.
Its arms dealing. You’d be surprised how perfectly plausible it is that weapon dealers can acquire some significant hardware, especially when its been established that the military have undergone some significant disarmament plan.
Have there really been times when someone would regularly move warships and fighters/tanks (real-world equivalent to MS), right under the nose of the military (the EFF has at least some presence at the colony), when such things are not even supposed to exist (Silver Chalice Treaty)?
Yes real life arms dealers actually have real tanks for sale. Fighters and ships aren’t though, because in real life they are incredibly expensive to use and maintain. But Gundam always takes place in THE FUTURE(!!) where everyone and their mother has an MS. So it basically has arms dealing IN SPACE!! as a standard disclaimer. Perfectly plausible as far as Sci-Fi shows go much less a Gundam show.
You really need to read this. Number 5 in particular is relevant.
http://plover.net/~bonds/stupidresponses.html
Very unconvincing ending, how is the Gundam in any way threathened by those outdated mobile suits? Those guns can’t possibly get through his armor and he could just jump/fly right over them…
He’s threatened by the fact that people are blaming him for something that he did while trying to save their lives. Dear lord, just wait for the next episode!
The bulky, red limb swap, is known as Gundam AGE-1 Titus form, while the blue, more agile form is known as the Gundam AGE-1 Spallow/Sparrow form. This episode in general, is very forced, but at the same time it did deliver the character development that AGE sadly lacks. Now I’m not even gonna bother comparing this to anything before SEED because it will boil down to most reminiscing about the good times of Gundam.
But honestly, AGE has really made die-hard Gundam fans turn away due to how unappealing it has been thus far. At least the Gundam AGE-2 Normal looks… okay…
I rather like the AGE-2 Normal. The problem is AGE-3 Normal. Like dude, Kio, what the fuck did you do to grandpa’s car?
How I see it is that AGE 1’s Rx-78-2, AGE 2 being the Zeta, and AGE 3 bein the ZZ…. I’m expecting to actually like the part with AGE 2 since Zeta > ZZ, IM SORRY ZZ FANBOYS.
Going to have to agree with what has been said so far about these series. This is actually a legitimate reason to dislike AGE.
I am sure Grodek’s plans is bulletproof. Probably gonna ram them into the fortress or some kind of thing that makes as much sense as what has been going on so far. Otherwise why would 3 god-knows-how-old warships be of any use?
And WTF is with that man’s proportions?
Big question. Who is going to pilot any warships that Grudech gets his hands on? Thats one of the big use of a military outfit. They get you a crew. Or maybe they are going for the fully automated AI driven method.
The Zaku wannabes really look bad. The brown ones on close up to the head, shows a look similar to having a helmet or cap pulled down towards the brows. Looks terrible. The original Zakus look dangerous. These look stupid. Even the previous zaku wannabe Hizacks look better. The new UE’s torso portion actually looks interesting. Maybe one of the future UE mechs will actually motivate me to get the gunpla
As for Liliya, her actions match the stupidity of Emily and Dique from the early episodes. Surely she knows the shortest way to the nearest manhole or even not to go topside when there is a fight going on. Collecting salvage is kind of risky when the combatants are still standing over it….
correction, should have been the ugly “Zaku Warrior” rather than the Hizack
Well this episode at least did well on world building at least. The Treaty pretty much explains why all the recent Mobile Suits suck compared to the UE. I also like the push on the theme of Arms Dealing and War Profiteering. Grodek still continues to be the best character in the show being shady and willing to sell out military technology to have some sort of fighting force. I also like how the UE is now adapting, making the DODS useless. It certainly confirms my suspicions of an arms race, as both the UE and the AGE will keep making technologies to one up each other.
On the other hand, I have no idea why that idiot dad just ran into gunfire(despite the awesome heat shovel). Its generally not a good idea to participate in gang battles, especially when you have a daughter waiting for him.
And Emily continues to fail spectacularly. “You can’t undetand my feelings!”. Yeah that’s because you haven’t told him, you stupid girl. How hard is it to just sit down and have a heart-to-heart with your love interest? It’s just so annoying and contrived.
Yikes, people. Stop with the hate! At least it’s not Gundam Seed Destiny!
Destiny had better OPs and EDs, also while I dislike GSD’s story, the Strike Freedom, Infinite Justice, and even Force and Sword Impulse looked pleasant.
Besides, Char was in GSD… even if it’s only his voice~
GSD had 5 OPs and 50 episodes. AGE is on it’s 1st OP and 6th episode. GIVE. IT. TIME.
Or stop watching. You know, whichever.
The main issues I had with Destiny were unlikable characters (Shin, Cagali’s stupid fiance), screwing over some of the characters (Asuran, Cagali), overuse of stock footage, and inconsistent portrayals of various units (Destroy being a monster originally, then just fodder). I don’t remember there being nearly as much apparent internal inconsistency.
…then something tells me you didn’t look as hard for them in that series as you are in this one.
No internal consistency? That’s hilarious. Destiny took a giant dump on its own built up universe which at that point had over 50 episodes worth of build up. From its themes of genetic tampering(the fact that the show forgot that Coordinator’s suffer from a low birth rate and are dying out), the fact that the EA is supposed to be a collection of several forces(and not just the puppy kicking racist Atlantic Federation), and even its own technology(lightwave barriers bending RAILGUN FIRE like it was a beam).
Its blatantly obvious you are looking for flaws in AGE, no matter how minor, then use it like some magic 8-ball to conclude what the show will be like. Especially egregious since all you have is 6 episodes of material.
@Da5id:
That’s quite possible, since I watched Destiny at a time when I was just starting to really get into anime. It’s been six years since then, and I’ve seen a lot more in that time. However, I really don’t recall facepalming like this in any other Gundam series.
@Frag:
Where was it said in SEED the coordinators were dying out? I mean, there were only entire colonies full of them. The EA was politically dominated by the Atlantic Federation, and instead of “lightwave barrier” (which was the tech used on the Umbrella of Artemis and Hyperion, and generally impervious to anything but running out of power), I think you’re talking about the positron reflector shields on the Destroy and other MA, which are described on the wiki as both anti-beam and as a powered up lightwave barrier. Depending on how you want to interpret that, deflecting a kinetic weapon might still be within its scope of use. That said, they did constantly forget that the Freedom’s railgun wasn’t a beam weapon (visually, at least).
Its been constantly referenced in SEED that 3rd generation coordinators suffer birth problems. It’s actually one of the interesting pieces of setting information since puts the Pro-coordinators in a different light. Then Destiny just forgot about it.
Looked it up on the wiki, and you’re right. Prior to just now, I had no idea that particular plot point even existed. 😛
Code Geass was the epitome of the mecha series. If only future gundam series would look up to it.
I’ll have to respectfully disagree. Knightmare Frames weren’t a crucial part of the plot, and Lelouch was a pretty poor pilot himself.
There are a lot of mecha series to consider, especially if you look at the super robot ones, plus there’s always Macross as well.
Code Geass? Really? No wonder your standards suck. If you want the definitive mecha series, watch VOTOMS.
Megaprops for bringing up VOTOMS. That show was awesome
Also Dougram. Great stuff
You mean the show that is completely inspired by Gundam? Specifically Gundam SEED?
If you want a series all about Mechs, go watch Super Robot Wars OG. It’s all about how awesome the mechs are and still some how still has a decent excuse plot.
Macross, yo.
There’s only one thing I’m interested in. Where is the Char of this series?
I think it’s that masked man from that mysterious organization that Desil is the so-called leader of. His name is Yark Dore.
That like that idea of the UE coming from the future sounds great! I thought about that to, maybe they are around to follow Flint’s progress? If they are from the future I can see them wanting to alter history or wanting to steal some Gundam tech. I know we all saw the UE scan Flint’s Gundam in the first episode, that might have a special connection somewhere.
LOL Yes! The AGE magically appeared it took two seconds Vargus to get truck and find a open road….And here I was waiting for some Big-O action like Flint “calling” his Gundam to appear and have it magically fly in or come up from the ground.
I get the feeling that Grodek’s plan really does involve some sort of suicide run on the UE’s base. Maybe he means to send the skeleton crewed warships he’s currently bargaining for as tactical missiles or sth. Anyway I do think that some ppl should stop searching for plotholes and at least try to enjoy the show. Not like complaining about it is going to make the next gundam show come by any quicker. Just my thoughts…
The mobile suit that Wolf’s going to get is the G-EXES in case most folks haven’t seen it already. It’s just a white version of the Gundam but faster and better. At some point, he’ll probably get it when the UE fortress attack commences which will probably be the start of the next generation of the series.
https://randomc.net/image/Gundam%20AGE/Gundam%20AGE%20-%2006%20-%20Large%2030.jpg Kind of thought of Exia when I saw this o.o
i’m just curious how gravity works in the ships and colonies.
The O’Neill colonies produce gravity by centrifugal force. The ships… are inconsistently shown to have gravity. Sometimes you see them walking or sitting around (eating in the lounge), other times they’re floating around (Dique bouncing around the bridge).
I think some Gundam series had shoes with magnetic soles, presumably so some parts of the ship didn’t need a gravity generator? I think it was mainly in Gundam OO, but I’m not quite sure ^^;
Maybe that’s how it is in this case…?
for gravity in ship, I think there is a gravity block inside it (shown when Woolf take bath and when Emily see Grodek come out from communication room) I don’t know where did it placed it inside Diva though… Maybe we can know the position when the game released ^^
i am only watching this for the 2 lolis, can we get the yune girl to hold flit’s hands again?
Having fun this week Divine. They seem especially aggressive this time around.
Has there been any rumors about when the timeskip will take place? If there’s three generations and this is ~50 episodes, it’s probably around episode 16-17, right?
This episode was so sad. This might be the one and only Gundam series I will turn away from… but I’m feeling ambivalent b/c I’m a hard core Gundam fan…
They did a good job setting up the background and partial history of this universe but other than that, this series is just going down the drain. Why are flit and emily pounding on a steel wall and trying to get help? Can someone on the other side lower the walls for them? It would have been a better transition if Iwark was already on the surface scavenging for people in need for shelter and coincidentally running into flit and emily. Also, there was a supposed 10 year gap between the appearance of UE and current events – what has the government been doing? 10 years to make those unsightly genoace? It took what, roughly 5 years for flit to build his toy? Why wasn’t the Gundam blueprint taken into custody by the federation?
This episode was just such a mess. These prepubescence kids are ruining the series. The only thing I like about Gundam AGE is the OP. Sadly there isn’t a lengthy version of the song as it was made only as an opening sequence.
Your name is clearly an oxymoron. Did you really expect everything to be explained away in 6 episodes?
Age is not good, it can take 6 episodes to realize that fact.
I’ll wait till the end of the series to make judgements. Until then, I’m enjoying myself.
Actually, the only thing I was expecting an explanation for was the technology part of the series. I don’t exactly know what you mean by “everything”. Read the post carefully.
I love gundam series from Wing and on, the main highlight being the action is always top notch and flashy, but gundam age has been hugely disappointing in this aspect. It’s also hardly believable that Flit can survive this long as he really is just a child at heart and looks it too. He’s a bad pilot with no fighting sense that he honestly should have died in his first encounter with U.E. (“haha my gundam can tank your beam fire, now stand there as I stab you multiple times)
If gundam age was shown during the past year where anime severely lacked any mature action animes, I’d probably think more of it, but this season is jam packed.
You did your best construction/worker mech, but Gunleon will always be the best of the best in that area. Giant Wrench > Spade. You did have an awesome moment though so good for you.
“I’ve upgraded your Genoace!” aaand in the preview it’s getting owned. We’re gonna need more upgrades. A single armor bar upgrade isn’t good enough apparently. Put mobility on that bad boy! It’s a real and not a super! Maybe a weapon upgrade bar or two and … okay, I’ll stop.
I didn’t mind the episode. Some good and some questionable stuff to it. I kind of liked the UE suit at the end. The bulky feel to it was just… kinda neat. Looking forward to the Titus next week.
What Woolf needs to know that white is reserved only for the main character. If you want to be badass and not the main character, you need to wear shades and paint your suit red. Woolf’s one step closer because his suit has horns but yeah…
BTW
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAox9opdjl8
Gun gun leon GUNLEON!
Gun gun leon GUNLEON!
Gun gun leon GUNLEON!
Gun gun land crasher!
Such an earworm.
Man I dont see why does Flit has to submit so 5 gundams if Flit is cleary is stronger than those five together, I sure had destroy those 5 five and run wild on city and escape later ………………….xD
You forget that Flit is a “good boy” and is not willing to kill anyone outside from the EU. Plus like Divine said, he’s probably more shocked that people are accusing him of destroying the city.
BTW judging how the EU disappeared as soon as the people showed up, I think there’s a conspiracy that the perpetrator for the colony wars is also behind the EU.
“Incidentally, this revelation does continue to support the idea that the UE are attacking to force mankind to further their arms development.”
Sounds pretty much like the goal of the Divine Crusaders in Super Robot Wars OG1.
WOW! This must have been the worst episode I have ever seen. xD
Hey Divine! You know that Gundam Unicorn episode 4 is out right? Are you gonna blog about it?
It’s out a week earlier than I originally thought, but yes, I’ll definitely say a few words about it. Why wouldn’t I? 🙂
Finally, some GOOD gundam 😀
Ya, it was previewed at AFA 2011.
Yes yes, Unicorn will wash away that taste in my mouth. Thank you, Unicorn, thank you.
Looks like 4Chan just paid RC a visit this week. :p
This episode has one of the most nonsensible, illogical plot I’ve ever seen. This is worse as Maya/Aztec space ninja village in Gundam ZZ.
Remnants of war factions decide to hold G Gundam style fights in a colony, so the colony said, “Ok, we’ll put up a wall for you guys, but we’ll have freight elevator big enough for a mobile suit to pop up in the middle of it from the ghetto below. We’ll have no evac warning or anything like that, and we won’t even arrest you guys for damage or hurting innocent bystander.”
Gundaman X
Thank you for the good writeup. It in reality used to be a leisure account it. Look advanced to far introduced agreeable from you! However, how can we communicate?