Don O'DNA ("🦖🧬")
@badfengshui
Econ geek. General nerd. Angry about politics. He/him
We remain in bleak territory. Humans executing human hostages. A brief discussion about neither side choosing this, before Gije mercy-kills an administrator trying to save a planet's worth of people. Cosmo jetting after retreating Buff ships to annihilate them all in revenge.
The Ide won't let them leave. Really like the shot of the Ide looking over Cosmo's shoulder in the end; reminds me of HAL 9000.
This ep feels both more Gundam-y than most of the series so far, but also like the story of a ghost ship. The crew tried and failed to abandon ship, tried and failed to sink it. A bleak opening; Cosmo confronts the void of space while rescuing a cabin-feverish crewman about to kill himself.
I gave my ~6 month old nephew a knife, when he was at that stage where babies just like to grab onto things. Good fun. (I watched him closely! No harm done! He turned 4 today, actually.)
I think "Are the Solo Ship's captain and Ideon's pilot correct about the nature of the Ide?" is the most interesting question right now.
Defeating the grappling hook team by splitting in half is maybe the coolest maneuver yet. ... Maybe that was premature in an ep where the baddies bomb a moon to drop it from orbit onto the hero mech, which awakens and autonomously laser-swords the falling moon to pieces. It... It's a cool episode.
It will personally fight to preserve the lives of children, but won't directly interfere in the conflicts of adults. It doesn't have the power to shape minds. I think an image is becoming clearer.
Meanwhile, Bes communes with the Ide itself. Here I've gotta be careful. The two translations I'm jumping between are 1) not the clearest English, vs 2) deliberately rewritten to be 'funny'. I *think* I can trust the second to be serious and accurate here, but trust was definitely lost early on.
We return to the show's roots: mercilessly destroying native alien life as a consequence of battle. The slaughter of the giant worms' young sets off the Ideon like never before, and it crashes through the docking procedure to combine and autonomously attack the Buff ships.
Hannibal Gen My new favorite villain of the series. He's always snacking at his desk, feels less entitled than other Buff officers, allies with humans, and willingly goes to his death to achieve a larger goal. He even learns and raises a white flag to communicate with humans. He's a fun antagonist!
Pardon the pun but I can't make heads nor tails of this scene. Divining whether Gije is a traitor based on a coin flip... Was it a trick? The influence of Ide? What is Cosmo doing and why is anyone accepting this?
If I had a nickle every time Tomino gave us mech-pilot space-hippies I'd have two nickles etc, etc.
Back at it, planning to finish the Ideon series this weekend. I'll watch Be Invoked after that. RIP Rukuku, you were too catty for this world. You were taken from us before your time (which would have been literally seconds later, when the entire ship exploded).
Many years ago I learned about 'Fuchiko on the Cup' (コップのフチ子) figures and stumbled upon an image of a really goofy one sorta spooning a giant salamander. I searched for *years* to find one, until a friend finally sent me a listing. Now it's one of my favorite little decorations!
Probably Suicide Squad; I only stayed because I was there with friends and would have sat alone in the lobby, otherwise. But! It was only worse than the AI-upscaled Interstella 5555 because in that case I could at least close my eyes and listen to a Daft Punk album.
Official JSDF catboy mascot, complete with birthing hips and camo naked-apron.
Rukuku Kil is a recent favorite character design on this show. She vacillates between looking great/intimidating to looking like a 'Hark! A Vagrant' character.
The Buff Clan turncoats Karala and (later) Gije are maybe the most interesting characters. But Gije. My man. who is dressing you That spacesuit adds 100lbs. Those pants make you look like you're bottomless on a Roman bench-style toilet. Animators are showing him no respect.
So that's a distillation of my thoughts thus far. I have higher hopes for the final stretch of the show, plus very high hopes for the movie. However I end up feeling, I've got to say: the visuals and concepts sometimes make for great sci-fi.
Haro spotted. (I'm gonna use the extra characters afforded by this skeet to say I hate that Ideon is now the name of some tech companies, making googling things more difficult.)
I've only seen the movie versions of original Gundam, so I'm only partially apprised of how Tomino wrote women prior to Ideon. I suspect how he writes women and men-reacting-to-women has something to do with why both are often hard to like. Most other characters *have* grown on me, though.
I had hoped (and expected) to eventually like Cosmo, but it still hasn't happened yet. He starts off an edgy teen (and the majority of that edge seems to be plain misogyny), and while he has improved on all counts, I just haven't gotten to the point where I find him terribly interesting or likable.
The episode-by-episode writing hasn't been the best. There are coincidences and motivation changes that feel like the writers are banking on the children watching not to notice. There's a lot of repetition, and maybe a bit of idiot ball going around.