File # 21: Return of the Armed Intervention in Thirty

This is hands down my favorite one-sided fight.
Ali, you're magnificent. I just wanted you to know that.

Thirty Days.

After a very long wait In Thirty short days, the Second Season premier of Mobile Suit Gundam 00 will hit the airwaves (in Japan, anyways)* on Sunday October 5, at 5:00.

While I've been gladly enjoying Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion R2 (and Macross Frontier, now that its finally starting not to suck), I'm in a fever pitch for my V-Fin Fix and I need it now.

It's time for the return of the armed intervention.

It's time for more Gundam.

While I'm generally a big fan of the franchise (the UC series, in particular), I've been pretty fond of 00 not because its the New Kid on the Block, but for the way 00 has been able to deconstruct many of the tropes established in the Gundam Franchise while telling a more seinen style story that fits in our post 911 culture. While the protagonists are presented as well intentioned and heroic, they're still terrorists.

To elucidate, Celestial Being's goal are not to destroy the world (really, they're not), but to influence the political landscape to bring peace to the world under one big frikkin' gun... dam. However their goal, though altruistic, actually bring terror to the world, instead of peace.

While this type of "Lawful evil" has been presented before (See New Mobile Report Gundam Wing or Mobile Suit Gundam SEED DESTINY for similarities) it's the way this story is handled that makes me quite fond of it. Setsuna and company are quite aware what they are doing is hypocritical, yet they believe in they're own will that they are doing the right thing. To compare it to Geass, its kind of like Lelouch's original intentions for destroying Britannia, without the heaping amounts of FABULOUS.

Another point of interest is the civilian aspect. While many of the fanbase have their own opinions about Saji Crossroad, I'm glad his role was included. So many series that focus on war usually cast their perspective from the solider and/or the civilian turned pilot. When non combatants who aren't interacting with the cast are featured, its usually a three second reaction shot to some event on screen. With Saji, you get to see his life and experiences pre and post destruction from the conflict of Celestial Being vs. The World. Best of all, he doesn't even know his neighbor is a Gundam Meister! His scenes, while brief, were snapshots of how life is affected by events out its reach. Its going to be interesting to see where Season 2's conflict takes him and how that will affect Setsuna. Will he be influenced to see the good in Celestial Being and possibly aid them in their cause? Or will he let his hate consume him and try to lend a hand to destroy it?

Okay, I'm rambling, but I'm excited.

So yeah, Thirty more days. WHO'S READY?

*For you viewers who refuse to look at subs or don't speak Moon, Season one of Gundam 00 will air on Sci-Fi Channel, Monday, November 17.

File #20: The Dub of The Rebellion

LOVE IT!

While Johnny Yong Bosch (the second Black Ranger!) doesn't have Jun Fukuyama's range of FABULOUS, he still does a hell of a job as Lelouch. His interpretation plays up the mischief of the role while making him sound more... manly. Thankfully Lloyd's VA makes up for it with TWICE THE FABULOUS!

Yuri Lowenthal does a great job retaining Suzaku's lovable dopiness from Season 1.

C.C. doesn't sound quite so right, Kallen's dere dere is good, but verdict is the waiting on the Tsun Tsun part. Plus she gets some of the clunkiest lines I've heard ("I'll show you what this badass mother can do!") this side of a newer anime.

Mao, Clovis, Lloyd and Rivalz are pure win. And Christian Freeman is wonderfully smooth and pompous as jerkass Jeremiah a.k.a. "Orange-Kun" Gottwald.

The only one who really sounded a little "off" was Steven Blum as Touhdo. A rare miss for him.

When I first saw the trailer, I was a little put off by the voices. But now I'm glad the actors are doing this entertaining series with justice.

JIBUN WOOOO!

File #1: Forced Transfer

By Setsuna F. Darkness

Long Story Short, I ended up here because MySpace sucks.

For a company that makes a crapload of money off of stupid web adverts, you would think that Tom Anderson and his cronies would invest into reliable software that doesn't shit the bed or even worse, crash the users web browser when they're trying to log onto their money-making social-network-site. But that's what happened.

I was going to edit another one of my craptastic blogs on Crapspace when the Home Page crashed both the Mozilla and Internet Explorer browsers repeatedly.

Naturally, I said screw it and decided to pack my "bags" and make the switch to Blogger.

So while I'm raging, for those of you who are into reading crap, I shovel it in spades.

Long Story Short (again), I'm a guy from Philly, so every once and a while, you'll get a story about the happenings in the Kill-A-Delph, or a rant about how "wonderful" it is.. But I'm also a anime nerd, /M/echa anime to be exact, so expect a lot of that stuff too, and some music and vids from time to time.

Keep reading if you're interested...