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Only characters who wear sunglasses deserve gold mobile suits, not fabulous characters!

Now that half the cast is dead, it’s probably a good time to call it a wrap and wait until next fall for even more shit to hit the fan. If Sunrise starts making a habit of these season long cliff hangers I’m going to have to kill someone over there. Right, back to Gundam 00. Overall, I feel G00 has done a pretty good job for a gundam series; it’s not the best or most serious, but it’s proved very entertaining and fresh while still paying homage to Gundam. The first half was pretty slow, but after Trinity was introduced things really got rolling. The characters *gasp* actually matured in tiny increments throughout the show, to the point where I now find Setsuna an admirable protagonist and Tieria just misguided and not a complete bastard. The action was always cool and I absolutely love every single design in the show, even that Hyaku Shiki-wannabe Alvatore. I’m torn between wanting to conclude Code Geass and wanting more G00 right now. Once again, goddamn Sunrise. Now for some more specific thoughts on the final episode:

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Merged Allelujah looks like more of a villain than any of the actual villains.

Allelujah finally gets his epic final battle, after being mostly shafted for the second half of the series. Seriously, I feel like he disappeared a lot. The idea of Allelujah just needing to flip his hair out of his face to merge his personalities and become a badass pilot is just ludicrously awesome. Sadly Hallelujah does die, taking the funner part of the personality with him. Allelujah may be dead, too, but hopefully not.

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Thank god the Wild Bear lives.

Sergei x Soma ftw! There’s never been a better slightly creepy father/daughter relationship out there. There’s also the stunning revelation that Soma is actually named Marie and is somehow even more connected to Allelujah. Shocker there. We’ll probably have to wait all the way to episode 49 just to figure this one out.

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RIBBONS!/RIBONZE!/LIBBONZE!/WHATEVER YOUR NAME IS!

Damn you Ribbons and your JUST AS PLANNED! I do enjoy Alejandro actually being dead but I just can’t take Ribbons seriously as a villain. He still feels too shota. With that harem of clones and new couch he may be going down the Alejandro FABULOUS route anyways. I’m really starting to think my earlier prediction of G00 becoming a conflict between androids and humans might actually come true. I, Robot, with Setsuna as Will Smith, anyone?

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And as this episode makes clear, Graham loves Setsuna, because Graham loves Gundam.

FUCK YEAH GN-FLAG! FUCK NO TWO MINUTES OF SCREEN TIME! That basically sums up my feelings on that. Seeing GN-Flag and Exia completely trash each other is still good fun. As awesome as Graham is I really think now he’s not supposed to be another Char clone. If anything, he’s more similar to Anavel Gato: both obsessively loyal to their nation/military and driven to revenge. As the season has gone on Graham has actually become more and more obsessive, losing here whatever logic he had at the beginning where he freely admits all that matters is fighting. Of course, he still gets the mask four years later, which is one ugly mask. So hope they don’t keep that.

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This is no Knightmare MAI BOY!

Finally, there’s the obligatory time skip with all the old favorites returning (why hello there Patrick) except for the main cast. I don’t think G00 has actually killed off all its main characters. Probably just Sunrise keeping us in suspense. Tieria coming back as a girl is a kind of want, though. And what better way to end the first season with a shot of the legendary mid-season upgrade Gundam 00. I think I know just how that suit will change the world. Two words: DG cells. Believe it.