Gundam 00: "Escape Limit Zone" Review

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This episode took a small departure from the politics and focused more on developing the characters, which is good since we were hastily introduced to them and haven't yet learned a whole lot about their pasts and personalities. There are some intriguing new concepts introduced in this one, but there are still some annoying parts.

The episode begins with a recap of last episode's events between America and Taribia, which is looking like it was all cooked up as a ploy to use Celestial Being for political gain. That's about as much politics as we get in this installment; the rest of the show focuses on space action and mysterious revelations about the characters.

Louise and Saji take a prominent role in this one, and we're also introduced to Saji's sister in a scene that seems like an awkward effort to get some comedy relief. Much of Louise and Saji's interactions seem like an effort to provide a kindler, gentler side to a series that's mostly about politics and military action.

We learned a bit more about the mysterious, Soma Peries, Colonel Smirnov's young new associate. She was a test-tube baby created to excel at military operations. She's given a prototype mobile suit to test out, and it just happens to be…pink (maybe it's mauve, if you want to be technical). The series seems to be entrenched in some rather silly conventions when it comes to handling its female characters. It started with the plethora of tiny-waisted, big boobed, young members of the cast (which, could be reasonably explained away as the typical fan-service required in a show like this). But now we've got the only female mobile suit pilot doing her job in Malibu Barbie armor.

Soma has some sort of freakout and starts shooting up the orbital station, which causes some populated parts of it to drift off into space. Allelujah just happens to have a mental incident of his own at the exact same time which implies some strange relationship between these two characters, and it seems like Allelujah might have some weird, split personality thing going on. But Allelujah recovers, and sets out to help Colonel Smirnov in the task of rescuing the adrift civilians before they enter the Earth's gravity and burn to a crisp on re-entry. It's all directed fairly well, and the "tender moments" between Saji and Louise as they face their possible doom are okay, but the episode all of a sudden gets cool as hell when Lockon starts shooting off pieces of the orbital block from the Earth's surface, using his big motherf#$ing gun. The high-altitude firing scene is a great bit of teamwork from the Gundam pilots (Setsuna getting rid of the clouds was a clever bit), and we even get a little bit of dissension in the ranks with Tieria disapproving of Allelujah's actions.

The animation was good, as usual, and the soundtrack actually stood out with a couple notable tunes that really added a lot of atmosphere to the action. But the dub still leaves a lot to be desired. Richard Ian Cox does an adequate job as Allelujah, but his voice in the scenes where Allelujah freaks out is kind of grating. If you didn't like his work as [Only Registered users can see links . Click Here To Register...], you may not find much to like here either. But in general, this was a fun episode that showed glimpses of what the series could be with just a little bit more polish.