Felt Grace is awesome

You think she’s this unemotional, passive, quiet girl, and then this scene. And her supporting a panicking Christina during the HRL attack was incredible, too.

This episode really showcases the strengths of 00 over other Gundam series. We’re given a frantic battle to protect the Ptolemy from destruction (or are we?) and the focus isn’t on the action.

Holy God, I died and went to heaven.

In fact, I think I just realized that this series isn’t as much about the action as it is about the characters; a wonderful departure from SEED, certainly, and from the other Gundam series as far as I can tell. That’s not saying Gundam focuses too much on the action and mecha; far from it. It’s just that 00 feels exceptionally focused on characters. The pacing is kind of slow, I think, but I never get upset at slow pacing in my anime, so it’s not a problem. The show has already passed the Destiny litmus test (seven episodes of awesome followed by “what are we going to do NOW?” for the remaining 43) and I’m pretty sure that my rather nondescript enthusiasm for the show before it started airing is being lived up to. Best Gundam ever? Maybe not, it doesn’t have Master Asia in it. But I think it’ll be a classic in the making, and it’s certainly up there with G and Turn A in my opinion thus far.

Witness the power of Mizushima Seiji. And watch more 00.

P.S. Lockon is the best Gundam Meister. I’d kick back and relax with him, for sure.

EDIT: Since apparently it needs clarification, yes, SEED had a lot of focus on the characters–to some extent, every Gundam focuses on characters. What I meant was, in 00, it seems like the mecha are being totally pushed to the sidelines to give the characters more focus, kind of like Turn A. And that, I think, is what makes 00 such a great show.

Coming Soon to a Theater Near You

EPIC THRILLS!

FRIGHTENING CHILLS!

POINTY STARFISH!

Yes, I am watching the widescreen releases of CLANNAD, so I’m three episodes behind, so therefore I have just now seen 6.

It was pretty good, really. We’re starting to get out of the “silly wacky” part of Fuko’s arc and into the more “serious” part. :( What I like about this series above Kanon are the silly moments like FINAL HITODE TSUKAI FUKO and the hilarious RPG-esque popups whenever Tomoya tortures Fuko in a new way. Kanon had its own share of brilliant comedic moments, but since both the anime are dramas with “light” humor, they shouldn’t be the focus of the show. Although, you have to admit, part of what makes Kanon and CLANNAD more fun to watch than AIR is simply that they had a longer run, enabling them to leave in more of the lighthearted moments. And the better character designs adaptations. AIR’s adapted designs weren’t the greatest, but over the course of these three series Kyoto Animation has really done a better and better job of adapting Key designs–CLANNAD looks a far sight better than Kanon, although not as much as the gap between Kanon and AIR.

As I mentioned earlier, what I really like about this anime is that it feels much more like a simple love story (between Tomoya and Nagisa) than it is a “Tomoya trying to mack on all the ladies at school” anime. Of course, we won’t get any actual progress on the relationship between the two, but little things like Nagisa saying “We sound like Fuko’s mother and father” and then getting all embarrassed and trying to play it down are the kinds of romantic gems I like. This probably makes me sentimental, but I don’t care. I’m a sucker for cute romantic things (and more sophisticated romantic things) so, eh.

Future Fuko/Nonaka Ai greatness to come. I should have benn a Nonaka Ai fan back when she was still kind of new. I only kind of realized that I really liked her voice when I watched Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei and went “wow, she’s awesome” and now she’s up on my seiyuu lists.

Enough blather. I want a Fuko starfish carving.