Mobile Suit Gundam AGE – 49 (End) and Series Review

Uncategorized, , ,
[sage]_Mobile_Suit_Gundam_AGE_-_49_[720p][10bit][698AF321].mkv_snapshot_06.51_[2012.09.24_17.15.12] [sage]_Mobile_Suit_Gundam_AGE_-_49_[720p][10bit][698AF321].mkv_snapshot_11.08_[2012.09.24_17.19.28] Kitten6

There were definitely times over the last year where I felt that Gundam AGE was finding its stride, and attacking some serious and interesting moral questions in a worthwhile fashion.  Sadly, today isn’t one of those times.

[sage]_Mobile_Suit_Gundam_AGE_-_49_[720p][10bit][698AF321].mkv_snapshot_00.26_[2012.09.24_17.08.47]Here’s the thing: I don’t hate Gundam AGE.  There are shows I hate that I watched through to the end for whatever reason, and even very rarely blog to the end (Blood-C comes to mind) where I really almost hope the end is as terrible as the series deserves.  I never felt that with AGE – I never stopped hoping it would turn out to be a good show, and there were quite a few very good eps scattered along the way.  I actually found some of the questions the Kio arc posed to be genuinely interesting.  And I was genuinely curious to see how the series managed to extract an ending out of the loosely structured mess it had laid out over four cours. 

[sage]_Mobile_Suit_Gundam_AGE_-_49_[720p][10bit][698AF321].mkv_snapshot_00.44_[2012.09.24_17.09.05]Sadly, that’s why this mess of an ending saddens me – AGE still has the capacity to disappoint because I never disliked it and completely stopped caring.  But make no mistake, this ending was a mess.  And the thing is, I feel as if I’ve spent so much more time writing about the show already that I don’t especially want to spent a lot of time hammering out a summation of all the things that were wrong with it.  I’ve made 48 posts on this show already (give or take) so you all should have a pretty good idea what I think about it by now.  And I don’t think you’ll be struggling to figure out what went wrong with the finale – it’s pretty clear-cut.

[sage]_Mobile_Suit_Gundam_AGE_-_49_[720p][10bit][698AF321].mkv_snapshot_05.14_[2012.09.24_17.13.35]So I’m not going to.  You all saw it – it was an anti-climax, with all of the top figures in the Vagan dead or dying (we only had Takeda Shingen Falk Ocramud left, and he’s had no development whatsoever.  It was predictable – exactly as expected the Federation was winning the battle, and Kio stepped in to stop Flit from pushing the genocide button and redeemed him.  Flit’s turnaround was whiplash-abrupt and arbitrary (though it’s nice to see a formal admission that Yurin was the one he truly loved) and Asemu was vestigial as usual.  The three-way Gundam team-up against Zera was over in about 5 seconds before everyone split up.  The whole thing was set up by a Deux ex Sid.   And sadly, there were no answers to the difficult questions Kio’s character arc raised – they were pretty much kicked to the curb in the rush to wrap things up with a happy ending.  I wasn’t expecting anything too profound, but they had a good story there, if they’d just pursued it.  It’s a shame, but it is what it is.

So that’s really all I have to say.  At least we have kittens – and here’s a pic from Mashiro-iro Symphony to help put you in mind of better anime.

[sage]_Mobile_Suit_Gundam_AGE_-_49_[720p][10bit][698AF321].mkv_snapshot_06.52_[2012.09.24_17.15.13] [sage]_Mobile_Suit_Gundam_AGE_-_49_[720p][10bit][698AF321].mkv_snapshot_06.59_[2012.09.24_17.15.20] [sage]_Mobile_Suit_Gundam_AGE_-_49_[720p][10bit][698AF321].mkv_snapshot_08.48_[2012.09.24_17.17.08]
Kitten5 [sage]_Mobile_Suit_Gundam_AGE_-_49_[720p][10bit][698AF321].mkv_snapshot_11.02_[2012.09.24_17.19.23] [sage]_Mobile_Suit_Gundam_AGE_-_49_[720p][10bit][698AF321].mkv_snapshot_11.59_[2012.09.24_17.20.40]
[sage]_Mobile_Suit_Gundam_AGE_-_49_[720p][10bit][698AF321].mkv_snapshot_13.21_[2012.09.24_17.22.03] [sage]_Mobile_Suit_Gundam_AGE_-_49_[720p][10bit][698AF321].mkv_snapshot_17.05_[2012.09.24_17.26.02] [sage]_Mobile_Suit_Gundam_AGE_-_49_[720p][10bit][698AF321].mkv_snapshot_17.32_[2012.09.24_17.26.29]
[sage]_Mobile_Suit_Gundam_AGE_-_49_[720p][10bit][698AF321].mkv_snapshot_18.36_[2012.09.24_17.27.34] [sage]_Mobile_Suit_Gundam_AGE_-_49_[720p][10bit][698AF321].mkv_snapshot_19.29_[2012.09.24_17.28.26] [sage]_Mobile_Suit_Gundam_AGE_-_49_[720p][10bit][698AF321].mkv_snapshot_19.52_[2012.09.24_17.29.20]
[sage]_Mobile_Suit_Gundam_AGE_-_49_[720p][10bit][698AF321].mkv_snapshot_20.16_[2012.09.24_17.29.44] [sage]_Mobile_Suit_Gundam_AGE_-_49_[720p][10bit][698AF321].mkv_snapshot_20.34_[2012.09.24_17.30.02] [sage]_Mobile_Suit_Gundam_AGE_-_49_[720p][10bit][698AF321].mkv_snapshot_23.19_[2012.09.24_17.33.04]
[sage]_Mobile_Suit_Gundam_AGE_-_49_[720p][10bit][698AF321].mkv_snapshot_23.21_[2012.09.24_17.33.05] [sage]_Mobile_Suit_Gundam_AGE_-_49_[720p][10bit][698AF321].mkv_snapshot_23.32_[2012.09.24_17.33.32] [sage]_Mobile_Suit_Gundam_AGE_-_49_[720p][10bit][698AF321].mkv_snapshot_23.39_[2012.09.24_17.33.39]
Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail

Guardian Enzo

Related posts

11 comments

  1. A
    Anonymous
    September 25, 2012 at 2:26 am
    Reply

    Man- I wasn't expecting quite an evisceration but I can definitely understand why you feel the way you do about it, even if I disagree.

  2. A
    Anonymous
    September 25, 2012 at 3:38 am
    Reply

    Wow, I didn't expect the prediction I made on ep.47's blog to be so…correct………

  3. A
    Anonymous
    September 25, 2012 at 3:39 am
    Reply

    Regarding ending that is

  4. A
    Arabesque
    September 25, 2012 at 4:09 am
    Reply

    Not going to lie, pics 2 & 3 had me smiling and gave me a warm fuzzy feeling inside … till I saw the ''other kitty'' and I just lost it and started laughing like a maniac. Cod damnit man, couldn't you have more cute kitties in baskets instead?

    ''It was predictable – exactly as expected the Federation was winning the battle, and Kio stepped in to stop Flit from pushing the genocide button''

    It made Tari Tari's conclusion look subtle, that's for sure. Hell, even the scene where the Evil Rich Dude getting pantsed in public doesn't hold a candle to Flit literally holding a gigantic nuclear bazooka, literally a button press away from killing every Vagan and Kio standing in his was literally telling him to stop.

    ''though it’s nice to see a formal admission that Yurin was the one he truly loved''

    Not to Emily it ain't! But to everyone else, yeah, it was a pretty nice scene wasn't it? Certainly the best in the entire episode I thought.

    ''So that’s really all I have to say''

    Um … what about the next Gundam series? Will you end up covering it as well? How are your thoughts on the Gundam franchise now that you had covered your first show? In the case the series has a continuation, will you watch it/ Blog it?

    ''Mashiro-iro Symphony to help put you in mind of better anime''

    Yeah that was a nice anime wasn't it? Still not sure if it's the most apt compression here …

  5. admin
    September 25, 2012 at 4:14 am
    Reply

    Yeah that was a nice anime wasn't it? Still not sure if it's the most apt compression here …

    But it had kittens.

    I can't say I'd blog a sequel to AGE (which will never happen anyway) but I'd certainly like to cover more of the back catalog when I have some time (hah).

  6. F
    Fencedude
    September 26, 2012 at 12:18 am
    Reply

    Its all uphill from here!

  7. h
    hoiut
    September 28, 2012 at 10:11 pm
    Reply

    Because those kittens are still fresh in my mind from Mashifoni, I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw them again here. A completely unrelated anime featuring two identical kitties? WORTH A CLICK!

    A shame I haven't kept up with AGE. The last mecha anime I watched with the word AGE in its title (and something about heroism) was a beautiful series filled with potential left woefully unrealized. It is with a heavy heart that I now read this seemingly promising series has met with a similar (?) fate.

  8. F
    Fencedude
    September 29, 2012 at 6:18 am
    Reply

    Heroic Age was glorious. Flawed, deeply flawed, but glorious. It shot for the moon, and while it didn't quite make it, it damn well tried, and tried hard.

    Gundam AGE does not deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as Heroic Age.

  9. A
    Anonymous
    September 25, 2012 at 5:05 am
    Reply

    Funny how I find your review to be similar to MAHQ's review.

    http://www.mahq.net/animation/gundam/age/gaep49.htm

  10. （　´_ゝ`）
    September 25, 2012 at 11:12 am
    Reply

    >Mashiro-iro Symphony to help put you in mind of better anime.
    >better anime

  11. M
    Margot
    September 25, 2012 at 10:01 pm
    Reply

    See, this is what happens when Sunrise gets ahead of themselves and greenlights an anime adaptation of a videogame nobody even played yet. I guess the success of their other adaptation Unicorn made them overconfident.

    This really should have stayed as just a PSP Game, because it actually works there. Having completed said, and seeing how much more story and time they crammed in and how it just flows better, I can at least say I did enjoy the anime as well.

    It was flawed, but at least it was enjoyable.

    Just leave it as a videogame next time!

Leave a Comment