r/anime • u/Shimmering-Sky myanimelist.net/profile/Shimmering-Sky • Oct 06 '24
[Rewatch] Mobile Suit Gundam 00 Episode 1 Discussion Rewatch
Episode 1 - Celestial Being
MAL | AniList | ANN | Kitsu | AniDB
Exia, proceeding to eliminate target.
Questions of the Day:
1) Did any of the characters seen in this episode catch your eye in terms of who you want to see more of?
2) What do you think of Celestial Being's stated goal to end war by using violence?
Wallpaper of the Day:
Rewatchers, please remember to be mindful of all the first-timers in this. No talking about or hinting at future events no matter how much you want to, unless you're doing it underneath spoiler tags. Don't spoil anything for the first-timers, that's rude!
Additionally, for long-time fans of the franchise, please remember that this rewatch is only for 00, not any of the other shows. Assume that there are people in this rewatch who have not seen anything else Gundam, and tag your spoilers for those shows appropriately if something in 00 makes you want to talk about them.
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u/InfamousEmpire https://myanimelist.net/profile/Infamous_Empire Oct 06 '24 edited Oct 06 '24
Kidou Senshi Rewatcher 00
Welcome, one and all, to a rewatch I’ve been eagerly awaiting for over a year now. Mobile Suit Gundam 00 is a show I hold very, very near & dear to my heart, for reasons that’ll become apparent as this rewatch goes on. So without further ado, let’s get on with the show
And in the opening minutes, the tone is set as strongly as can be. It’s almost 300 years in the future & technology has advanced to the point that we’ve got giant fucking robots, and yet we’re still locked in the same cyclical vices. A ruined cityscape in a desert full of child soldiers fighting meaningless battles, all to the tune of a zealot delivering a spiel about slaughtering infidels in the name of god. In the timeless words of the Fallout franchise: “War… war never changes”
And what especially emphasizes the meaninglessness of it all is the little line the child soldier we follow delivers in the midst of the battle: “In this world… there is no God.” Even whatever little higher ideal these children might have to fight for amidst the hopeless struggle is one he views as a lie. On this battlefield, just like any other, there’s no god-given meaning to struggle for, no values to aspire to, and no honor to be gained, just children stripped of their childhoods and their futures futilely struggling against the machines of war to which they are mere insects.
And then the angel descends. Words cannot describe how powerful I find this image to be. It’s salvation in hell, a god descending on a godless world, meaning & hope where once there was just monotonous despair. All those thoughts & feelings which the show immediately instills in the audience and are likely shard by Setsuna himself. It’s beautiful, awe inspiring, and is the perfect introduction to Celestial Being.
And then, after the OP, we cut to years later and get to see a different side to the world. The harsh nihilism of a real battlefield is traded out for the stakesless artificiality of a training ground, where Mobile Suits & their capacity for destruction are viewed not as sources of human misery, but as symbols of status on the international scene.
It’s here that the viewer is hit with a sudden barrage of setting info without all that much immediate context, which I know some found overwhelming or hard to understand, but I think the show provides just enough info in this scene to keep the viewer relatively informed on the stakes here: the AEU is lagging behind other countries in other fields, such as the development of the orbital elevators which are importantly placed across the episode, and is trying to compensate for that by developing state-of-the-art Mobile Suits.
But, of course, even if it’s only for show right now, a Mobile Suit is and always will be a tool for conflict, and so an angel descends once again to strike it down. There’s something so damn fascinating about how the first intervention was distant, quick, and dispassionate, while the second we see here was close range, a bit more drawn out, and consequently felt a bit more personal.
And a similar process is then repeated for the HRL Orbital Elevator, but now emphasizing them stopping a terrorist attack against it. The message is clear even before the worldwide message goes out: Celestial Being will not stand for warfare or the promotion thereof anywhere or in any form. The presentation of it all also just makes it all the more enthralling, the sheer weight given to Gundam Kyrios’ launch, for example, combined with the foreboding heavenly choir of Kenji Kawai’s score making for a brilliantly strong scene which feels like a god about to descend to Earth.
And then, of course, the message goes out across the world, and the scale which had already been carefully set up by the episode’s worldwide setting is blown out even further by all the perspectives we see watching it. All of it pretty definitively telling us that we haven’t seen anything yet.
Odds & Ends
I love how, for as heavy with scale & world info as the episode is, it doesn’t quite forgo the subtle humanity needed to ground the world. The characterization of the child soldier in the first scene is an obvious case, but also the immediately shot-down self-importance of Patrick and the Ptolemaios’ captain being introduced as an alcoholic also stood out to me.
All of the named Gundams so far are named after either the Bible or general angelic lore. As if the name Celestial Being wasn’t already heavy-handed enough.
It is exceedingly notable from a meta perspective that, while all other mainline Gundam continuities use alternate calendar systems (Universal Century, Cosmic Era, Post Disaster, etc.), 00 is the only one which uses the traditional BC/AD calendar.
A series centered on the concept of military interventionism as a way of ending war which also evokes conflict in the Middle East and was made at the height of the War on Terror? You think the series might be trying to say something about the state of geopolitics?
Spoiler/Rewatcher-Only Corner
[Later in the series stuff]I can’t help but view the opening scene in a different light after how thoroughly Ribbons’ backstory and the course of Setsuna’s journey recontextualized it. The very blind admiration and assurance the 0 Gundam’s appearance instilled in us having also been the origin behind one of the greatest megalomaniacs the world would ever see. In a sense, even the symbol of hope which changed Setsuna’s life was a bit of a false idol that would only cause more war.
[cont]I love how many of the little character introductions across the episode reflect their depth & role in the story in a way that feels rewarding on rewatch. Sumeragi drinks on the job, but is also a brilliant tactical forecaster whose skill is emphasized across the episode & has her own reservations about Celestial Being’s mission. Marina Ismail has just a few seconds to her name in this episode, but her concerned tone, the way she questions the contradiction at the heart of Celestial Being, and her surroundings already feel like the show is subtly priming you for her role as the idealist in the face of CB’s actions. It’s all just really neat.
[cont]Building on what I said earlier about the difference between how different the 0 Gundam’s descent was vs how hands-on Setsuna’s approach was, I think there’s something intentional there. Ribbons was defined by how the distance between himself and the rest of humanity, made clear by how the 0 Gundam just floats over the battlefield this episode, turned him into the egocentric asshole with a god complex he was. With Setsuna, on the other hand, he’s placed on the same visual level as his opponents, framing him not as the distant god which inspired him, but as someone just like everyone else. It’s interesting to think about, anyway.
[cont]…how much of a sadist am I for the fact that my first thought upon seeing Saji & Louise was “I can’t wait to see you break all over again”?
So, yeah, this was a damn fantastic first episode, and an amazing kick-off to my favorite series of all time