WARNING: SPOILERS FOR ABOUT THE FIRST FOUR EPISODES OF GUNDAM 00 SEASON 2. DON'T READ THIS IF YOU HAVEN'T WATCHED ALL OF SEASON 1.
Recently, as Gundam 00 nears airing on US television, the second season of Gundam 00 has started in Japan. Luckily, so far it's shaping up pretty well. Four years have passed between the end of first season and the beginning of the second, and a lot has happened in that time. But the gang is steadily getting back together and things are rapidly coming together for even more interpersonal drama and mech battles.
By the end of first season, Celestial Being was able to sort of carry out their plans for global unification, albeit by failing epically. Of course, if Gundam in general and 00 in particular has taught us anything, it's that people are pretty messed up and nothing ever stays peaceful for long. So now we find ourselves in the midst of a Zeta Gundam-esque standoff. Though most of the world (except for a few nations like Azadistan apparently, which is now pretty much flailing around in its death throes) is united in the Earth Federation, it's only brought about corruption. An independent force called A-Laws is handling "peacekeeping" for the Federation but is really just engaging in oppression tactics and murder, similar to Zeta Gundams' Titans force. Opposite the A-Laws, similar to Zeta Gundam's AEUG, are two groups: the resistance group Cataron (or is it Catalan?) and a revived Celestial Being.
Tieria and Setsuna have been holding down the Celestial Being fort with Feldt, Ian and a few other new and old personnel. With the increasing need to rise up against A-Laws, they've located and retrieved Sumeragi and Allelujah, and recruited a new Lockon Stratos—Lyle Dylandy, Cataron member and twin brother of the previous Lockon. As you can imagine, having a double of their dead buddy is a bit hard on the CB crew, and it doesn't help that, frankly, Lyle is kind of a jerk. Though, man, it's kind of fun to see Tieria getting all tsun tsun again (dere dere in 3...2...). Oh, and he's also passing info about CB missions to Cataron, which I can only imagine is going to backfire horribly at some point and get everyone in trouble. Stupid sexy Lockon. It looks like Saji Crossroad managed to get himself accidentally arrested as a suspected Cataron member, only to be rescued by CB and at least temporarily turned into an engineering dog for them. Tearful confrontation with Setsuna get!
What's interesting is that knowing all these people were back, and even having a Lockon lookalike there made it seem almost like hitting the reset button, so I was a bit worried. But they haven't dropped the ball on it at all. The group may be mostly back together, but with the missing folks and all the stuff that's gone down over four years it's not really a happy family reunion. Sumeragi's been drinking herself into a coma and isn't really sure about rejoining CB, everybody is weirded out by the new Lockon, Setsuna is fighting because he has no other idea of what to do - basically everyone is pretty messed up.
Most of the folks not joining up with CB are over in A-Laws: Ribbons, Louise, Katie, Soma, Sergei's son, Billy...and of course Graham, acting as the obligatory mysterious masked blond. But really, Graham - Mr. Bushido? Points awarded for the horns and sexy red mech guaranteed to make you 3x faster than everyone else, though. As to Louise, I'm really glad they made her a pilot. Now they just need to accomplish the other half of what I want for her, which is to watch her murder Nena Trinity slowly and painfully. Please, Sunrise? Bonus points if she chokes her to death with her new hand. Overall my biggest complaint regarding A-Laws is not enough Patrick. Katie is there, so where's her boytoy? We could use at least a little comic relief right now, and I'm not sure that Haro is cutting it.
I'm not entirely sure where I stand on the new mechs. Overall the CB ones are fairly similar to the ones from last season, which is a bit disappointing in variety terms but none of them seem awful. So far we thankfully can't see much of that weird face on Seravee's back which is good. The A-Laws side shows a bit of promise with the Ahead units and the Trilobyte. Overall nothing's really made me sit up and say "I have to buy that model kit," though.
Final verdict? It's too early to really tell, but they've got me so far. Here's hoping for no train wreck further down the road.