Alternative Character Interpretation: Zeheart Galette. While an antagonistic character, one must wonder just how much Asemu matters to him in proportion to his mission. On the one hand, he's determined to bring his people to the paradise called Earth no matter what. On the other hand, he risks his mission, rank, and life multiple times to try and get Asemu to stop fighting him so he won't die, and from the looks of it, the methods Zeheart's used to do so are obviously things he shouldn't normally be able to get away with without some sort of punishment, meaning that he's got to be very good at covering his tracks. He's called out for this in his visions in Memory of Eden, especially since he extends it to Kio, too.
There's also the matter of the way in which Zeheart's personality changes beginning in Episode 44. It doesn't seem to make much sense at first...but some people believe that learning the true nature of Project Eden ultimately broke him, and left his faith in everything he had originally believed in in shattered remains. So, with nothing left, he pledged himself to the person who reached out to and needed him—Ezelcant, again.
His Memory of Eden version leaves even more debate, as it shows that the spirits of everyone who has died under his command constantly talking to him, driving him insane. Especially since his last words are different from the TV Show
Americans Hate Tingle: In a Fuji TV special, Asemu Asuno surpassed popular characters such as Madoka Kaname to finish fourth on a list of the Top 5 Up-and-Coming Heroes/Heroines in anime in general. Western and Filipino AGE fans, on the other hand, loathed Asemu at the time for being unhealthily obsessed with surpassing his father and for having a personality that's not unlike Kou Uraki. Fortunately for the guy, it wasn't long after that before he got Rescued from the Scrappy Heap.
For all the Defurse looked intimidatingly like a Big Zam Expy, Flit destroyed it rather easily.
Asemu's final fight against Zeheart and the Gundam Legilis lasted for all of 50 seconds. Those who'd had high hopes for the climactic showdown were quite disappointed. This is, fortunately, remedied in the Memory of Eden movie, giving the two a battle appropriate to the climax of their respective character arcs.
Grodek's murder at the end of Episode 24. By Arabel who had five minutes of screen time in Generation 1 where Grodek tells him that he will live for revenge, and the five minutes in 24, where he gets Grodek in the kidneys. No explanation of what else he's been doing in the intervening years or how he even metanyone in the Federation's State Sec. That's not important. What is important is that it was revenge and that is bad and destructive revenge will destroy you.
Episode 37's depiction of the misery in the Mars colonies lays it on thick, complete with a Littlest Mars Rays Patient to drive home the point that Vagan really does have a sympathetic cause and even have a motivation for all the dog-kicking their soldiers have engaged in. Some people think it works, some people think it's hamfisted, and some people think it's both.
Kio's commitment to Technical Pacifism has also caused a great deal of controversy, provoking unfavorable comparisons to SEED. Others see it as a natural progression of the plot of the series, going from a warmonger (Flit) to a neutral party (Asemu) to a pacifist in order to end the war. Some think he's a parody of AU "understanding" heavy main characters.
Cargo Ship: Woolf is very fond of his suits. In Episode 13, he even half-jokingly refers to the G-Exes as his 'girlfriend'.
Complete Monster: Desil Galette, a seven-year old Vagan Ace Pilot when first introduced, sees war as a game, and his victims as nothing more than expendable toys. As the pilot of the Zedas, he spearheads genocidal attacks on colonies, and is implied to be the one who orphaned Yurin L'Ciel. He subsequently hijacks the AGE-1, and tests out its capabilities by butchering his own allies. He later captures Yurin, puts her inside of a remote-controlled mobile suit, and forces her to attack her Love Interest, Flit. When Yurin tries to fight off his control, Desil kills her, while laughing about how she was "just a plaything". That's all in the First Generation. By the Second Generation, he's thirty-three years old and has, if anything, gotten worse. Deeply resentful of his younger brother Zeheart for having been promoted past him, he takes more and more insane risks. This ultimately leads to his getting most of the Magicians Eight killed as a part of a grudge match against Flit and murdering Flit's friend, and Flit's son Asemu's mentor, Woolf. It gets to the point where Zeheart, realizing what his brother has become, leaves Desil to die at Asemu's hands in the aftermath of a losing battle.
Yurin. She topped the official series character poll by a huge margin (in the Female Characters category, she got 60.5% of the votes), and at that time she only appeared in a single episode.
Arisa Gunhale became quite popular with fans for her fun-loving, boisterous personality and amusing way of getting Asemu out of a funk.
Woolf. Even viewers who otherwise dislike the series enjoy this guy for his unforced comic relief, major badassery, and well-executed balance of Testosterone Poisoning and Bishōnen good looks.
Natora Einus has become a Fountain of Memes during the Third Generation. Her name and her quirks as a captain learning the ropes makes her quite popular even among those who loathe this installment of Gundam.
And on the Vagan side, Fram Nara. Her rejection of Kio's pleas to understand one another won over loads of fans, especially those who felt short-changed by 00's second season and movie. Having a unique hairstyle never hurts as well.
Seric Abis has little backstory and is basically a Nice GuyAce Pilot, but he won a lot of respect from fans after proving himself to be a dab hand at the Guile Hero trope when the need arises, by talking Luna Base's commander into surrendering when the ground battle is going completely against the Feddies, mainly by informing them that Algreus is planning to nuke them if the ground battle fails.
Even Better Sequel: It is generally agreed upon that its second season is its highest and strongest point.
Fanfic Fuel: Early in the show's run, there was a rumor that claimed that a disgruntled ex-Level-5 employee had leaked the overall plot as "a final act of revenge"; according to the "leak", the UE were entirely automated enemies (like Mobile Dolls), created by the Federation itself during the third generation and sent back in time. Why? Because when a real enemy appeared, they were incapable of fighting it off, and thus sent the UE back in order to jump-start their own mobile suit development. The fact that Flit was able to discern a deliberate attack pattern was pointed to as proof of this claim. Of course, said rumor turned out to be 100% false, but it did get fans thinking.
The Vagan pilot suits would be bad enough without the massive, weirdly-shaped codpieces. With them...dear lord. In particular, Desil's suit in Generation 1 has one that could plausibly function as a third leg.
A Vagan commander from the end of the third generation has bright red, curly, long '80s Hair, a headband, and Perma-Stubble. He wouldn't look out of place in a hair metal band.
Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Wootbit was added after positive international attention towards Dique, because fans liked his rotund, non-pretty design.
Growing the Beard: Episodes 13-15, shedding the perceived "kiddy"-ness with several deaths and turning Flit into a Dark Messiah, quite raising the stakes in the battles.
Harsher in Hindsight: After Woolf saw Khoronos and Zeydra, he mocks their "lame" black-and-red color scheme. Fast forward to Kio's Arc, where Captain Ash and Bisidian have MS and pilot suits in those colors. That is, Captain Asemu, Woolf's protege.
Jerkass Woobie: Episode 37 reveals that most Vagans become these as they get older, as an inevitable consequence of losing the people they love to the Mars Ray illness.
His joining the Bisidian pirates in Generation 3 has turned this into Asemu Asuno: SUPER PIRATE!
Kio isn't a Supah Pairotto. He's a super X-Rounder pilot!
Fanartists and photoshoppers have substituted a number of characters in place of Romary when Asemu does the Princess Carry during their wedding—such as Arisa, or Zeheart.
At this point, Flit has all but become a Memetic Bad Grandpa.
Kio is confirmed to be the second coming of Jesus Yamato.
No he's not, he's the coming of the Prophet of Truth, Kio is Great!
Misaimed Fandom: Flit's desire to exterminate the Vagans is meant to illustrate how terrible the cycle of hate can be. It's also garnered him a number of fans who actually cheer for him to succeed, given how irredeemable the Vagan were in the first two generations. It doesn't help that despite The Reveal that the Vagans do have a good reason to be mad at the Feddies, there are very few of them who are likable in any way.
Moe: With its unique art style, it was inevitable that some characters would be this. The most notable examples are Yurin L'Ciel, Remi Ruth, Natora Einus and Lu Anon.
What Desil says after killing Yurin puts his status as a irredeemable monster beyond all doubt.
Flit: "Desil... Why did you... Why did Yurin have to die?"
Desil: "There was no reason! It just means I've lost one of my playthings!"
In Episode 39, Ezelcant throughly crosses it with the reveal that he deliberately culled his own people for the sake of his deranged plan for a superior race, showing he doesn't give damn about the Vagan and is simply using them for his insane schemes.
In Episode 47, Zanald kills Deen, who was on his own side, in the hopes of forcing the Gundam to "move a little faster." Even Kio seems to view it as one of these moments.
My Real Daddy: The handling of the Kio and Three Generations arcs in Super Robot Wars BX are considered better than the original. How good was it received? Kio's haters actually reversed their opinion of him in BX, to the extent that they want that adaptation to replace the source material.
Narm: The show is trying to tell a sprawling multi-generational saga in roughly fifty episodes, cobbling together stories inspired by the hundred-and-fifty episodes (plus a Grand Finale movie) of the original UC saga. As a result, a lot of plots and sideplots just don't have the time and space to gather emotional impact, meaning that they end up almost seeming like abridged series parodies of the originals. Nowhere is this more true than with Obright and Remi's romance in Generation 2, which speedruns through the basic plot beats of a standard Gundam Star-Crossed Lovers story with such adherence to cliche and unearned intensity that its tragic conclusion ended up as the butt of a string of off-colour social media jokes when it aired instead.
Woolf encouraging Asemu to become a SUPER PILOT. Its simultaneously silly, endearing, and totally awesome.
Fram Nara's way of dealing with Aaron Simmons when he reveals himself to be a worthless Dirty Coward. Rather than executing him with her funnels or shooting him, she just clonks his shuttle with the butt of the Farsia Stick in a completely ignominious fashion—but it fits, considering what a loathsome little man he is.
In the Episode 48 duel with Kio, she utters this memorable line: "Get into your cage... the cage of death!" On the one hand, she is actually pretty close to killing him. On the other? The Cage of Death's bars are being formed with her flower funnels.
Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Asemu avenges Woolf's death by showing no mercy to Desil and finally embracing his mentor's advice on becoming a Super Pilot instead of living up to his father. He then becomes the best pilot in the series, kicking the asses of even those with Psychic Powersthrough skill alone. The reactions from the foreign fan base were obvious.
It's interesting to note that supporters of the martian colonists see Flit Asuno as a Feddie version of Gihren Zabi. Source.
Heck, some of the Federation supporters among the fans still think Flit is taking things way too far. Its even now that way in canon: Asemu joined Bisadan so there won't be the total destruction of both sides, keeping the balance between the two powers. Kio is now going out of his way to protect Vagan lives in battle, just destroying their suits and allowing them to eject. Flit hates both actions and is taking actions into his own hands using an illegal weapon.
Some fans who consider Kio The Scrappy are actually hoping that one of the Vagans or Flit kicks his ass.
And on the other side, there are fans who fully support the Federation and more specifically Flit in their desire to completely exterminate the Vagans, since most of the show gave little reason to actually sympathize them. Out of the entire Vagan cast, only about two or three of them could be considered truly sympathetic. The rest are just jerks. Some of these fans also think that the Federation should acknowledge all the hard work that Flit has been trying to put in their favor.
Emily was rapidly heading in this direction. It would help if 70% of her dialogue wasn't simply "Flit!" And certainly it'd help that her "love rival" isn't...well, Yurin of all people.
Romary seems to have become a worse Scrappy than Emily for a number of fans, especially after Episode 24's reunion with Zeheart.
Kio is probably the least-liked Asuno due to expressing his pacifistic desires in a way that many people find whiny, carrying the Idiot Ball a few too many times—really kid, what did you think Ezelcant was going to do with the AGE-3's specs—and his poor piloting skills, which everyone seems to mistake for good piloting skills. Not to mention that he tells Fram and Girard that they should stop fighting and understand each other way too often. In addition, even though he spouts his desire to save lives on both sides, when he seems to care more about Vagan casualties than his own friends and wingmen getting killed. This was extremely blatant in Episodes 46 and 47 when Kio lost two of his wingmen, including Seric, and he doesn't even seem to be visibly affected by it, yet when Deen dies, that's the one factor that pushes him into using Gundam FX's Burst Mode.
Seasonal Rot: For many fans, it was Generation 3. Many fans disliked Kio because his brand of pacifism was merely yelling at enemy pilots to stop fighting and "understand" and seemed to care more about Vagan casualties than his own wingmates. In addition, the many deaths of side characters seemed to be done just for the sake of it, without any real meaning, and the series finale did not help at all.
There seems to be a bit of this developing between Flit/Emily shippers and Flit/Yurin shippers. While it's agreed that both pairings would be good and have their own high points, the fact that Asemu, Flit's son, resembles Emily in concept and promotional art has some shippers going at it.
Strangled by the Red String: Asemu and Romary. After joining the military, they very rarely interact on-screen and neither of them seem to get past the point of "I like you but what are words" for the whole series, plus Romary has feelings for both him and Zeheart. To resolve this, there is a flashback to one conversation between them in Episode 28 and then the generation ends with the wedding. You can apply this to Emily with Flit and Wendy with Kio pretty well, too. It took a drama CD which gave some insight on how Romary got together with Asemu.
Strawman Has a Point: Flit's hatred of the Vagans is meant to show he has become no better then them, but it's not completely unfounded. He's seen a group commit countless atrocities against the Earth over the span of decades, with targeting civilian population centers and having psychotic commanders the norm. The Vagans also have absolutely no reason to bother fighting in the first place too since Second Moon was able of travel back to the Earth Sphere, thus invalidating any claims the Vagans might have about life around Mars being unfair and insufferable. And lastly, prior to the final episode of the series, the only Vagans in the Earth Sphere -and thus those he fights against- are irredeemable monsters following the will of a madman. Even his attack on Second Moon itself has some pragmatic justification, on account of the stupidly powerful La Gramis deathray wrapped around its form.
Tainted by the Preview: It's...staggering how many people declared AGE the worst thing to ever happen to Gundam after seeing the very first preview.
Or in this case, an MS. The Orbital, what looked like the most impressive of the AGE-3's forms, is involved in only two battles... both of which it lost, horribly.
And for actual characters, Shanalua Mullen. She was set up as Kio's mentor and Cool Big Sis who scolded him for still treating battles like his Gundam flight sim and ignoring that his kills were, well, actual killing.And then she was a traitor and died. The rest of the MS squad has since consisted of a generic Nice Guy, The Stoic from G2, and a couple of other guys who aren't even significant enough to qualify for Those Two Guys.
After every generation skip, literally all of the non-Asunos basically disappear without a trace. The lucky ones get a descendant who shows up in the next generation, but even they aren't immune from another generation skip.
The UE capturing Yurin and forcing her to work for them was not a surprise. In fact, converting a powerful X-Rounder to their cause and training her as a pilot would be a great idea, and it would be heartwrenching if she and Flit became enemies in the next gener—oh, they let the seven-year-old psychopath decide what to do with her. Because in Gundam, the only thing you are allowed to do with the Newtype love interest is kill her, no matter how many more interesting alternatives there are.
The series could probably have been vastly improved if the writers had spent more time developing the Vagan characters and making them more sympathetic. Such as including the visit to Second Moon as early as the Second Generation. It would certainly have made Kio's insistence of saving both sides seem much more well-founded.
Given the outcome of the first generation, the generational thing could have been a more interesting plot if they pitted the Asunos against the Galettes and Zois.
The Tear Jerker moment when Woolf encounters a dying Vagan soldier who gives him an amulet is never brought up in G2, even though Asemu has doubts that would easily lead to a discussion or acknowledgement of the event. Instead, Woolf's reintroduction is him calling the Vagan alien jerks.
The series avoided some potentially interesting character interactions in the last generation, specifically interactions like Kio and Zeheart. When the former got captured by Vagan, it could have been a perfect time for it to happen, with Kio being the child of Zeheart's friend with this revelation helping Kio realize that people from Earth and Vagan are similar after all since his parents had one as a friend. Instead, they had Kio interact with practically two undeveloped characters as a way for his conversion to technical pacifism. Also, a Flit vs. Ezelcant face-off would have been huge to the plot, but the writers probably didn't even consider it.
Wow, a Love Triangle in both season 1 and season 2? Too bad we already know who's going to win because the hair colors of Asemu and Kio is the same as Emily's and Romary's respectivelynote Romary's case is a particularly bad case, since she was the only female in the triangle, and Zeheart wasn't shown having any kids; they could've hinted that Arisa and Flit might have had feelings for each other at the very least. If they had kept the same hair color throughout all 3 generations, or have the Asunos cover their hair in promotional material prior to their on-screen debut, it could've added a guessing game for who Flit and Asemu would end up with, but nope!
Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: Although most fans were pleasantly surprised when the story took a darker and more Gundam-like turn, there was much dissatisfaction with the final arc—characters seemed to fatally cling to the Idiot Ball, the deaths seemed predictable and cliched, and every antagonist the audience actually gave a damn about was killed in the penultimate episode, leaving many to cry "meh" at the finale.
Uncertain Audience: This was the main reason why this series underperformed, as it couldn't decide whether or not Gundam Age should cater towards its intended younger demographic, or veteran Gundam fans. For older fans, they were turned off by the more 'kiddie' art style, and the simplistic, unsubtle writing. For its intended audience, they were alienated by the increasingly dark tone, the constant changing of the main cast each arc, and a simple lack of dedicated advertising and promotion outside Bandai's comfort zone for the franchise.
The Vagan: We are supposed to feel sorry for them because they live in disastrous conditions, infant mortality is high, and they were abandoned by the rest of the Earth Federation following the botched Mars colonization. However, nothing justifies their brutal attacks on civilians and slaughter of innocent people who had nothing to do with their plight.
Lord Ezelcant: He's a Visionary Villain who lost his son to the Mars Rays Disease and only has a few months left to live. He wants to create a new humanity that will be free of war and violence, but his methods are both so brutal and nonsensical that it's impossible to think he has a point.
WTH, Costuming Department?: Froi Olfenoa's hair antennae don't exactly convey the gravitas one would expect from the leader of a nation. Neither does Lord Ezelcant's hair...corkscrewy thing. Asemu's hair looks like a hedgehog combined with a mullet, one of the Magicians Eight has his bangs combed over both eyes...the list goes on.
The Woobie: Given the cutesey art style, it's inevitable that some characters are going to inspire this reaction. For example...
Yurin, an orphan girl who is conscripted into Vagan's ranks, forced to be an enemy unit against the boy she likes, and dies on the battlefield at age fourteen.
Kio, who is all of thirteen when he becomes a Gundam pilot and has no idea of the realities of war, having spent his childhood playing battle simulators where he's never had to consider that the enemy pilots are humans or that traitors might have sympathetic motivations, which is resulting in many painful lessons.
Lu, a girl Kio's age living in the Second Moon colony of Mars and afflicted by the Mars Ray disease. With three more months to live, she wants nothing more than to try and have some semblance of normality in her life, like having a friend or just going outside.
Dorene Ezelcant, the wife of the Big Bad. She's lost a child, pretty much the worst thing a parent can endure, and finds that the Federation's new Gundam pilot reminds her greatly of him in both appearance and personality. And her husband, whom she genuinely loves, will be dead in six months of the same disease that killed their son. The look on her face in all her scenes is just heartbreaking.
Surprisingly in Memory of Eden, Zeheart Galette. He only followed Ezelcant's plan because he did not want his allies' deaths to be in vain.
Asemu Asuno surpassed popular characters such as Madoka Kaname to finish fourth on a list of the Top 5 Up-and-Coming Heroes/Heroines in anime in general. Western and Filipino AGE fans, on the other hand, loathed Asemu at the time for being unhealthily obsessed with surpassing his father and for having a personality that's not unlike Kou Uraki. Fortunately for the guy, it wasn't long after that before he got Rescued from the Scrappy Heap.
