Well, I am not going to lie, I was actually
entertained. AGE may not be perfect or comprehensible in certain areas, its still leagues away from godawful. I also don't agree with the notion that AGE is a children's show. Its not. While there may be a disconnect between the character artwork and the plot, the latter is serious enough and certainly violent enough to have overprotective parents covering the eyes & ears of their children.
I enjoyed the first gen, I really did. The Vagans were mysterious enemies, and despite being
slightly disappointed after they were revealed to be human (ok ok, I have to remind myself, this is Gundam...), I still wanted to learn more about them. Then came Yurin. For some odd reason, she had a big deathflag ever since her first appearance. Unfortunately, I was right. I wish I wasn't, but I was. The singular most innocent character in the series died one of the most gruesome deaths. In retrospect, this was necessary to setup the plot. After all, she became the driving force of Flit and the Federation's military development. Lets not kid ourselves, the Federation under Flit's leadership fared much better against the Vagan.
And I still wanted to learn more about the Vagan.
Then came gen 2. Asemu and Zehart's interaction obviously became the focal point of gen 2, and how Asemu wanted to surpass his best
worst friend
. With mixed results, of course. But gen 2 introduced a very different perspective of the Vagan, a mostly positive one, and naturally, I wanted to learn more about the Vagan and their reasons to fight.
Finally, came the third generation. The opening of the 3rd AGE was hilarious as heck. Mecha Godzillas stomping cities? Seriously? They went there man, they did.
Between then and now, many interesting females were harmed during this show's progression
Finally, Kio ended up in Vagan hands. He was obviously going to be
the key to peace between Earth and Mars. Then we started to learn the tragedy of the Martian immigration program and the woes of the Vagan. All very interesting and very convincing, but that should have been the end of it.
But that wasn't enough, Lord E introduced his
ultimate plan to Kio, while making Zehart his bitch. Aside from Zehart being the most spineless antagonist ever, Lord E's plan made
zero sense. I kept on wondering to myself until the show's end,
how exactly is he going to carry it out? What programs do you have in mind? If
humanity is to be selected from this war, then
when will you call it quits and complete your actual selection?
While all this is going on, we were introduced to a hidden-powerful technology of long past. There is not much to be said about the technology because the show didn't reveal much, except both sides thought it was the ultimate magic "
I WIN" button. I predicted the last battle would be against this technology, but I wasn't happy being right, because the appearance of SID was absolutely and completely random. It added nothing to the story except more pointless agony.
And suddenly, in the few last moments of the epilogue, the said technology made life all better.
NYUH!!??
So my beef with the show. Its not because they were doing too little, its because they were doing too much and had trouble deciding which foot to stand on. The characters are a series of homages of previous Gundams and not overly original. Except Flit, I somehow saw him as an older Kamille, except the latter never had the former's ambition. OTOH, the plot was too complicated for its own good, and its treatment of female characters was abhorrent. Ultimately the story was entertaining enough
but unsatisfactory, and the ending left much to be desired. I also feel sorry for all the women who became or will eventually become the three protagonists' wives.
- Tak