Sea Slugs! Anime Blog

The second episode continues to impress. The cinematography is oodles better than anything GS/GSD had to offer, and this episode is full of neat angle shots, zoom tricks, and tight action scenes. The action scenes in Seed/Destiny felt very generic and mass-produced for the most part, as if the producers went to the local McAction fast food joint and ordered a 50-pack of cheap sequences.

The atmosphere is noticeably grittier overall - the more mature art style and dearth of joking around bring the series a bit closer to its roots (Anakin and Obi-Wan from the new trilogy could learn a few things from the meisters…no one-liners in battle, please). Although the overly-serious tone could evolve into silly melodrama down the line, for the time being the writers strike a nice balance between the preachy anti-war overtones and burning-spirit vibes (I AM GUNDAM!).

While the action sequences were once again spectacular, I couldn’t help but notice that there were still some frame-saving tricks being employed. In some animation-intensive scenes, frames were allowed to overlap and then fade into one another, creating a minor shadow-step effect that acts as a simple anti-aliasing scheme. The effect is not too unpleasant, but it does make clear screenshot captures a bit difficult at times.

The soundtrack hasn’t yet made its mark on my mind yet; the intro has definitely grown on me (minus the random engrish phrases…), but the background music will probably take more time to soak in. Kenji Kawai has always done an excellent work, but his style is definitely more subtle than most of his contemporaries. The bombastic overtures and battle hymns of Toshihiko Sahashi’s GS/GSD soundtrack were well-suited to the brash nature of that show, but this new Gundam appears to be a different breed.

Two last thoughts;

1. I loved the battle scene featuring the lumbering mechwarriors. I actually prefer the slower-paced, combined-arms action, akin to playing Battlefield 2 rather than Unreal Tournament 2004.
2. After watching that Haro manage the Gundam dodge routines, I wonder if the meisters will soon become obsolete. Lockon should let the Haro give sniping a shot (ha!) except that he’d probably be out of a job as a result. Perhaps Celestial Being should just unleash an army of Haro-piloted mechs upon the world; surely this will cause the squabbling nations to unite, if only to shut those damn balls up.