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joiedecombatI finished watching Gundam 00 yesterday in a final marathon session. I have to say I'm fairly disappointed with season two; although there was a lot that was good, or could have been good, there were also a lot of shortcuts taken with characterization and relationships the development of which took place almost entirely offscreen, to the detriment of the story. I am looking at you, Lyle/Anew, although there were other instances as well.
Specifically on the subject of Lyle and Lyle/Anew, although Lyle did have some personality of his own, it would have served the series much better had time been taken back in season 1 to establish him as his own person before his brother's death and his recruitment into Celestial Being under his brother's alias. As for Anew... well. I'm easily emotionally manipulated by fiction; give me a reason to like the characters and I'll forgive any number of failings. Christina and Lichtendahl's deaths at the end of season one, gratuitous as they were, made me cry, and so did Sergei's death earlier in season two. Episode 20, with no changes to the episode itself, could have easily outdone both, but since Anew had gotten almost no development and her relationship with Lyle had, except for about three scenes, happened entirely offscreen, it lost most of its impact.
Seriously, when one of my first thoughts after the episode is "Weiss Kreuz did it better," YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG.
Now, that negativity aside, stuff I did like about the series as a whole:
Tieria. ♥
And of course Neil, and his interaction with basically everyone, especially Tieria.
Kati and Patrick. They're another example of a relationship happening mostly offscreen, but they're less important characters and the series doesn't ask us to care as much, with the result that I'm able to sit back and enjoy how cute they are. (And they still had more scenes than Lyle and Anew did.)
Soma and Sergei. (But not particularly Marie. Also, shut up, Allelujah.)
GRAHAM. (If only he'd gotten to show up to help in the final throw-down. Well, there's still the movie.)
Sumeragi, mostly.
The animation. Very pretty!
Oddly, I didn't really latch onto Setsuna as much as I expected to given that he is, as described by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
atrocity, essentially the secret love child of Sagara Sousuke and Squall Leonhart. I don't have any complaints about him (aside from his ridiculous dialogue, which is hardly an issue exclusive to Setsuna) but I think Tieria just tripped my moe switches better.
So, now that that's done, I will make another try at writing that Baccano! fanfic, and start watching Pumpkin Scissors - have only seen the first episode so far, but I already love Alice so much I want to hug her.
Also need to catch up with NCIS season 6, but I might wait for the DVDs on that since watching it online is a bit of a chore.
Do I need a Tieria icon, flist? Or perhaps a Patrick one.
Specifically on the subject of Lyle and Lyle/Anew, although Lyle did have some personality of his own, it would have served the series much better had time been taken back in season 1 to establish him as his own person before his brother's death and his recruitment into Celestial Being under his brother's alias. As for Anew... well. I'm easily emotionally manipulated by fiction; give me a reason to like the characters and I'll forgive any number of failings. Christina and Lichtendahl's deaths at the end of season one, gratuitous as they were, made me cry, and so did Sergei's death earlier in season two. Episode 20, with no changes to the episode itself, could have easily outdone both, but since Anew had gotten almost no development and her relationship with Lyle had, except for about three scenes, happened entirely offscreen, it lost most of its impact.
Seriously, when one of my first thoughts after the episode is "Weiss Kreuz did it better," YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG.
Now, that negativity aside, stuff I did like about the series as a whole:
Tieria. ♥
And of course Neil, and his interaction with basically everyone, especially Tieria.
Kati and Patrick. They're another example of a relationship happening mostly offscreen, but they're less important characters and the series doesn't ask us to care as much, with the result that I'm able to sit back and enjoy how cute they are. (And they still had more scenes than Lyle and Anew did.)
Soma and Sergei. (But not particularly Marie. Also, shut up, Allelujah.)
GRAHAM. (If only he'd gotten to show up to help in the final throw-down. Well, there's still the movie.)
Sumeragi, mostly.
The animation. Very pretty!
Oddly, I didn't really latch onto Setsuna as much as I expected to given that he is, as described by
atrocity, essentially the secret love child of Sagara Sousuke and Squall Leonhart. I don't have any complaints about him (aside from his ridiculous dialogue, which is hardly an issue exclusive to Setsuna) but I think Tieria just tripped my moe switches better.So, now that that's done, I will make another try at writing that Baccano! fanfic, and start watching Pumpkin Scissors - have only seen the first episode so far, but I already love Alice so much I want to hug her.
Also need to catch up with NCIS season 6, but I might wait for the DVDs on that since watching it online is a bit of a chore.
Do I need a Tieria icon, flist? Or perhaps a Patrick one.
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Date: 2009-05-11 05:12 pm (UTC)00 was fun; I think I liked the Innovators most out of everyone, in the end. They needed a few scenes of Ribbons and Revive recoiling from Anew's breasts and wearing decontamination suits around her girl. Anew was pretty awesome in all of five seconds she was a villain. :(
YOU WILL LOVE PUMPKIN SCISSORS. If you love Alice NOW, you're going to be in fangirl heaven by the end of the show. She honestly made like my top 5 fictional heroines up with Ripley and Elisa Maza. :(
also randel's creepy eyes ftw
no subject
Date: 2009-05-11 06:06 pm (UTC)"You know, I really attached to Mwu in SEED, and I loved that he kind of faked normal but maybe had the most lasting damage of any of the good guys, but I wish they'd explored that damage more."
"Our next Gundam has a mentor figure who fakes normal spectacularly while being indisputably the least fixable of them all, and we're actually explicit about this damage in the text!"
"Oh God, I love him."
"We're going to kill him off, though."
"Of course! He's the doomed mentor figure. It'll be great."
"It is great! But we're going to do it before the halfway point."
"Well...okay, I guess, I suffered through my favorite dying before the halfway point in FMA, I can do it here, and it is a really awesome death, so...well, I think you can do good stuff with the aftermath in season 2!"
"Now we're going to introduce his identical twin and give him the same name and essentially the same position."
"--hold the fuck up."
"Did we mention his character development will happen mostly offscreen, and his world-changing true love will get three scenes of development?"
"WHY DO YOU DO THIS TO ME, SUNRISE."
...and yet I still have so much fic to write. :( Including what will probably amount to something like twelve thousand words of totally gratuitous Lockon/Tieria interaction (and awkward, awkward sex). I blame great RP.