There are, it turns out, a few things more important than giant robots and stuff blowing up, <tired Michael Bay joke of your choice here>. Among these are college finals, employment, and making my computers do that "functioning" thing we humans like to prattle on about.
Within the world of giant robots and stuff blowing up, there has also been Eureka Seven AO (because holy shitballs did I love the first one) and Saisei-hen eating up my distractionary time. I have managed to steer clear of all AGE spoilers, so this remains a blind liveblog.
tl;dr: I am back and plan to stay that way, now let us make with episode 2.
We open on an enemy mech shooting the colony from the outside, prompting Flit to... ponder if it is an attack from the outside. Thank you Captain Obvious. We cut to the resident control room, where the terminal jockeys mention that the colony is more or less hosed. Nailed another Gundam tradition right there.
The guy I think I recall is Bruzar's Number Two, whose name I cannot remember but holy balls does he have some epic sideburns, asks the commander to launch the "Diva". What is this, you ask? A state-of-the-art battleship that, when coupled with the Gundam, supposedly gives their losing side a chance against the UE. ...I am probably going to spend like twenty entries calling this thing "White Base"...
Back to the action... Okay, Flit, hand over the Captain Obvious award to Bridge Bunny lady for "The explosions have produced abnormal vibrations within the colony." <Slow Clap> After a bit of Techno Babble*, she explains that the colony is... more or less hosed. In six hours, to be precise. Bruzar (and that is an _awesome_ name) points out that each escape craft can only hold 100 people, and orders the Diva to launch while carrying off the civilian population.
We cut to the Diva, which looks like the offspring of White Base and Ptolemaius, and then to the opening narration and song. Honestly? Not bad so far. More or less standard Gundam fare, as I said last time. From the title of the episode, it looks like we get our obligatory Title Drop.
Bruzar outlines the plan to move the residents into the centre of the colony faster than using the escape craft... which makes me question why this was not considered when designing the escape craft in the first place. Awesome Sideburns Dude heads off to talk to the captain of the Diva.
Vargas and Flit talk about moving the "AGE Builder" and the Gundam to a Federation ship, and Vargas sends Flit with the Gundam to the ship where it is being stored. Emily and Dique talk to Flit about him going onto the ship, and he tells them to go evacuate. Emily gets the obligatory headstrong Gundam childhood-friend-possible-love-interest moment where she violates common sense to chase after Flit.
We cut to Flit in the Gundam, who finds a purple-haired girl in the middle of a damaged street. After he shoots something right next to her, she runs off, to his surprise.
Cut back to our supporting cast, where Emily and Dique are meeting with a Federation officer about getting onto a ship. The officer has the common sense to tell them to get to the elevators like everyone else, but Emily succumbs to the Sunk Cost Fallacy and ducks under the hatch.
The Federation officer, revealed to be the captain of the Diva, turns out to be a huge dick and prioritizes the ship over the people. First sign of Grey-and-Gray Morality? ++.
Awesome Sideburns Dude shows up, and I am reminded and/or told his name is Grodek. He calls out the captain, shoots his aides, and smiles at him while calmly accepting any punishment for insubordination after the act. Clearly the guy is an ENORMOUS BADASS in addition to having awesome taste in facial hair, and now I have a favorite character.
Bruzar gets a pretty awesome moment when he decides to stay back in the colony to detach the core, even lying to one of the Bridge Bunnies about a secret escape route. Second episode, first Heroic Sacrifice? I approve.
Cut back to another part of the supporting cast, as Dique fanboys over the Diva. They run into Vargas by chance, who is surprised they are there, as anyone with three functioning neurons would be. She asks to board the ship and runs past before Vargas can respond, leading to an exasperated facepalm. Understandable reaction, really.
The Bridge Bunnies arrive on the bridge of the Diva, and are surprised not to find any crew data or the captain. They take over the Diva while Awesome Sideburns Dude hacks into the computers and takes over the Diva, leaving the original captain and his aides tied up. Holy shit I love this guy.
Cut back to Flit, where he meets up with the girl he found earlier. Second potential romantic interest acquired. Cut to a UE mech/entity/whatever aiming at the colony, and then back to Flit and new girl, whose name we learn is Yurin, having an awkward little puberty moment in the ever-too-small cockpit of the Gundam.
Cut to the Diva. The Bridge Bunny who stayed back to talk with Bruzar is unnerved by the pattern of the attack, informing the viewers that if the UE wanted to destroy the colony they could have just attacked the power plants. Grodek shows up and declares himself the captain of the ship, claiming to have got a message from Federation command. The computer checks out, but it was probably just too impressed with his facial hair to disagree. He orders to launch the Diva without the Gundam, and cut back to Flit and Yurin.
Flit informs Yurin and by extension the audience that they are in the bulkheads, and thus he needs to break out with brute force. Yurin suddenly starts giving him directions without an explanation.
Cut back to the Diva, where a UE mobile suit blocks the path of the evacuation.
Yurin keeps working out her psychic powers, which leads me to almost suspect that SHE IS A TIFFA. Which would actually be pretty awesome, since I love X to death and Sunrise seems convinced we should forget it ever happened. Conveniently, her psychic hoodo-woodo put Flit in position to body-check one of the UE mechs, leading the Diva to notice it in combat.
Vargas talks about the AGE System, so we evidently get our Title Drop after all. Vargas calls the Gundam and tells Flit they are going to use the system without testing. Vargas explains it is Flit's invention, a "mobile suit reconstruction system based on the principles of biological evolution". Not necessarily true, since that would require a large population of Gundams experiencing slight mutations that are passed on to future mechs depending on their effectiveness in combat (...that is going in my "writing ideas" folder...), while it really seems more like Mega Manning. Ah well.
The sequence of the system activating is actually pretty cool. Then again, I am not here for animation quality, but it looks pretty sweet. Vargas seems to know exactly what it is just by looking at it, explaining how it works, and subsequently launching the weapon to Flit... who catches it, happens to know the name (he could have overheard Vargas, I suppose) and how to use it... and strikes a needless pose in the middle of the battle. —fish->suspension_of_disbelief.
Of course, several more mobile suits show up to give us an end-of-episode cliffhanger.
Overall: though I might be a bit cynical, they have not committed any major fubars yet, and between an Awesome Moment, new favorite character, and an apparent X reference, things are looking up. Episode 3 will be up later tonight.
