Gundam 00 S2 – 11: The Death of Captain Ginin, mentor to Louise, and slayer of Exia

Captain Ginin has defended the Fatherland until death! May he at last find the peace he sought with his fiance that he was denied in life. So passed the Legend of Grunt Captain Ginin, the Faithful, the Slayer of Exia, The Mentor of Louise. We salute this most rare of Gundam Grunts, who’s glory has long since faded since the days of Gundam 0083. He joins South Burning in the halls of the honored dead.

Miss Halevy, many forms of government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that the Federation is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that our democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time. I cannot accept your resignation or give you the discharge you have requested.

For you see, Miss Halevy, I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to Katarton of Azadistan or the terrible minions of Celestial Being. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger majority of the Federation, a higher-grade majority of the Federation, a more worldly wise majority of the Federation to put it that way, has united and denied them their desired place in the halls of power which they have sought to take by force of arms.

It is impossible for me, your commander up to now, to allow your promising skills to possibly fall into the power of the enemy you call Saji. I am determined to fight on until the end, and if we win, as I think we shall, I shall never forget that you, Miss Louise Halevy, were my Ally, that our interests and those of my comrades are the same as hers, and that our common enemy is Celestial Being and their Kataron lackeys. Should we conquer I solemnly declare that we shall restore to you the sense of purpose, dignity, and justice that you have lost since our failure to fight off the Gundam menace four years ago. For this purpose I must make sure that the best suits of the Federation are piloted by promising candidates. In these circumstances, Oberst Katie has instructed me to demand that you, Miss Louise Halevy, shall act in accordance with one of the following alternatives;

(a) Sail with us once again and continue the fight until victory against Celestial Being.

(b) Sail with us as a member of our medical support staff.

If either of these courses is adopted by you we will restore to you the funds, plus interest, you have already given at the conclusion of the war and pay full compensation for medical care if you are injured meanwhile.

(c) Alternatively if you feel bound to stipulate that your skills should not be used against the Celestial Being unless they break the Armistice they have with you, then sail with us with to some isolated place — Martinique for instance — where you can be cared for to our satisfaction, or perhaps entrust yourself to Prince Ali and remain safe until the end of the war.

If you refuse these fair offers, I must with profound regret, require you to enter the brig within 6 hours for desertion.

Finally, failing the above, I have a Presidential Order from the Federation Government to use whatever force may be necessary to prevent you from falling into Saji’s hands. – Captain Barack Ginin

Note: Calawain’s eyes were blinded by Jihad-kun and Saji’s nakkidness and bad memories of GSD, though please wish the poor guy luck on his last round of Law School Finals.

Sure Fat Seelian Kid is so sympathetic for wanting to stuff his fat face while his friends are but skin and bone…

Umm…weren’t the Feddies in the middle of nowhere, or did Memento Mori move the whole capital?

Whew, the Wild Bear Kick sure kicked the crap out of that shock wave…

After the obliteration of the Seelian regime Kataron laments how the Feddies did not break out the nukes to get the job done. The crater, it seems, had been able to discriminate between friend and foe and stopped right smack in front of Sergei. Quite how the comparatively small column of light was able to destroy some thing in the radius of 150 or more km is astounding and strange, unless of course, Seel rejected the value of strategic depth and allowed a small Federation battalion to sit on the outskirts of their capital without sending out a blocking force to glare at them. Memento Mori has sent shockwaves throughout the terrorist world as Kataron musters their entire fleet of 23 battlecruisers and 43 suits to assault the ion cannon. Once again Kataron shows just how much they care about the Seelians and the poor in general as they have spent most of their money on space forces to invade colonies and raid the orbital elevators which they do not own. How very nice of them to not even bother with a humanitarian effort or help Seelian refuges flee the country…indeed Kataron is the most just force of terrorists in the universe right next to CB, who have not asked a single question with regard to how Ms. Wang had missed it.

…

…

Indeed, WTF?!

Prince Ali is delighted to see that the Seelians who had orchestrated the Great Betrayal of Kurdistan decades ago was leveled in an instant. Nena who was beaten to pulp by Prince Ali was also delighted at the turn of events. Ms. Wang seemed to have some problems, but now is a little too late to be developing a conscience. Tieria develops one as well as CB finally figures out that they have been played for chumps since the beginning, believing that they are indeed infallible they decide to exterminate the Innovators, sadly they did not start with the one in front of them… Haptism being the dumb ass that he is says that a terrorist graveyard is not peaceful, and insists that the A-Laws have massacred anti-government forces (aka terrorists) oddly enough these same massacred people seem to be hell bent on building weapons instead of feeding their kiddie meatshield which looks more anemic than ever. Shirin bitches and moans some more about Azadistan not changing, blaming the Federation instead of herself she prepares to weep crocodile tears but Princess Poverty’s terrible piano playing nourishes her hatred.

I see Prince Ali did give this bitch a beating, though I wish we could have seen instead…

Peace through superior firepower.

Let’s see if CB and Kataron were all put in their graves that would make for one peaceful graveyard…

Katie is now without that hard ass Lindt to be her chief of staff so it falls upon Revival to help Katie form a search plan. Revival is impressed with Katie, but Revival’s counter part is getting hit on by that sleaze ball Leacherous Lyle may be “surprised” when he dares to trespass into Anew’s sleeping quarters. Captain Ginin asks Louise how she’s doing, but he inadvertently raises his death flag when he talks about his dead fiancé who was killed two months ago by Kataron Terrorists. Nena and Ms. Wang have a bit of falling out after Nena gets beaten by Prince Ali. Ali decided to let Louise have a go at beating up that fifth rate pilot Nena, while he contents himself with knocking out a few of Nena’s teeth and possibly some other things as well…

I am not expecting an even slug out in the next fleet battle, unless Louise gets a Dendrobium…still I like these Dauntlesses.

Better watch out Patrick Revival seems to have taken a liking to Katie…

The world has never known peace, since civilization started.

Sumeragi is overconfident in her predictions and instead of having Haro slaves load Ptolemy II she insists on using the under utilized labor force to load it for her. Keeping the full complement on base instead of evacuating all nonessential personnel, Sumeragi is caught with a bottle up her ass while her pants are down by Katie who arrives sooner than expected. Marie felt something odd but like an idiot she never brought it up as quantum brainwave users are so common, and she quickly forgot how her newtype flash foretold of the annihilation of the hated Seelians. The ambush begins and CB is quickly sent into a panic as they make a hasty evacuation under fire. As all of them were needed to set up some bombs though it was in the end wholly unnecessary as the A-Laws blew it apart any way. Ginin leads Louise and Andrei into battle as Jihad-kun gets outmatched by Patrick who stuns him in the vaunted Gundam 00 for a fair bit. Teiria has trouble with GARzzo and its pilot Bring Stabity as the later beats the shit out of Tieria while hardly breaking a sweat. Revival scores a clean hit though Ptolemy but because decompression is not in play despite the shot going clean through for a hull breach in any other Sci-Fi GN pixie dust prevents that and Ian convinces Saji to pilot O-Raiser instead of having marie the experienced pilot, nay the only other pilot. Once Gundam 00 is freed Ginin and his platoon take on Gundam 00 fairly well before Saji shows up in his new O-Raiser and Ginin dies after putting up a brave fight in his inferior Ahead. Louise weeps over the death of the man who did kept her on his team, but soon the sadness passes after much nakkidness from Saji and Setsuna who have SEED sex as Louise watches in horror, the sight had left Louise mentally scarred for life.

I can’t believe their sensors were fooled by blankets!

Haha guess who Jihad-kun?

Pranked by Patrick, and the thing is he did not blast off this time…

Impression:

Overall it could have been a decent episode, but there were some nagging issues I had with this one. Despite the kick the dog moment I didn’t feel anything but laughter at their attempt to make the WMD seem terrible. Mostly because I have little to like the token Seelian fat kid and the new girl introduced this time, and it made the alleged tragedy seem distant and boring. Maybe it’s because I have seen one too many colony drops or have been watching Char’s Counterattack one too many times has made me rather thick skinned to this ploy. There was no emotional investment to want Seel to come better off after it and it was sort of botched as well as the blast in the last ep seemed so far away from Sergei’s position, but had the blast been something then the crater would not have been as close to Sergei as it was unless his manliness stopped the shock wave cold. Another thing that bothers me is that settlement that kind of popped out of nowhere last time the capital seemed a bit more distant or at least the there was not much to see when Sergei saw the blast there was nary a silhouette of a major settlement. Perhaps it was some other settlement otherwise it seems that Sergei and his merry band of Feddies were camped outside of the Seelian Capital, when not a single shot had been fired yet. Either way it’s hard to bond with the Seelian kid who looks like he’s been stealing food from the rest to make me want to sympathize with what happened.

Louise never imagined Ginin as the romantic kind.

Ginin felt if prudent not to complain about it to Louise, who has plenty of problems herself.

They took from him his wife to be, now Ginin will take from Kataron that and more… Watch carefully Louise this is how a real mecha pilot handles a great loss, not with an endless streams of tears, but with stoicism.

More over it seems that the kiddie meatshield not only grew in strength, but they were damn QUALITY this time too, I know they blew the budget else where on Gundam 00, but since Seel kids were animated with little care I did feel like caring about Seel either. Well Kataron shows again how wonderful blokes they are for killing Ginin’s wife to be, launching terror attacks, and spending money to amass 23 battlecruisers and 43 space suits instead of coming to the aid of the Seelian refugees. Like I said it was rather a botched ploy, no one seemed to want to do anything for the civilians in the wake of the Ion Cannon, and it seemed the only thing worth discussing was taking out Memento Mori with nary a word mentioned about what to do on the ground. It will take a while to mobilize on such short notice anyway, why not spare a few men and women for the task? It’s not like Kataron is swimming in suits or that CB is suffering from man power problems. It didn’t seem like they cared much about those poor ionized Seelians… considering how Sergei survived it’s not like every one died that instant. Again, nobody cared so I really can’t say I cared much for Seel. Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Seelians? (the quote is more apt if you know that context, not that most people where would)

I have a rendezvous with Death
At some disputed barricade,
When Spring comes back with rustling shade
And apple-blossoms fill the air—
I have a rendezvous with Death
When Spring brings back blue days and fair.

It may be he shall take my hand
And lead me into his dark land
And close my eyes and quench my breath—
It may be I shall pass him still.
I have a rendezvous with Death
On some scarred slope of battered hill
When Spring comes round again this year
And the first meadow-flowers appear.

God knows ’twere better to be deep
Pillowed in silk and scented down,
Where Love throbs out in blissful sleep,
Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath,
Where hushed awakenings are dear…
But I’ve a rendezvous with Death
At midnight in some flaming town,
When Spring trips north again this year,
And I to my pledged word am true,
I shall not fail that rendezvous. – Alan Seeger

Katie’s plan was great and overall it seemed to highlight how infantile Sumeragi was since she relied on Gundam 00 Raiser to bail her beer butt out of the fire. Tieria was pwned by GARzzo and Lyle couldn’t hit a damn thing. Hell for once Patrick was not shot down and even scored a hit on Jihad-kun and the Gundam 00. Even before the attack given the huge man power reserve that seemingly came out of no where Sumergai could have started the evacuation much sooner once any hope they had in secrecy was lost. It’s not like they needed every one to sit around at their desks, hence all the mooks in black and red were did not need to be there and should have been sent off much sooner than they were. None of them were setting up bombs or anything, and do you need all of them to back up data you intend to destroy? Heck, don’t they back up their data on a regular basis? Such gross incompetence saps any sympathy I might have had for them. Furthermore who builds a base that stores a bunch of weapons and holds a treasure trove of data with out some defense, secrecy was lost early on and no defensive measures were taken, no mines were laid, or any non-essentials sent away. If nothing else at least the A-Laws didn’t suffer too badly against Gundam 00 given how Patrick was able to score a clean hit, Louise blocked off Jihad-kun’s knife toss, and Andrei just got a kick.

Before Katie never had many suitors…

Now she’s got one Innovator admirer…

and one Patrick.

Ginin was laid low this time, but it took Gundam 00 Raiser to do it, and he was piloting a standard Ahead no less. With any luck even Trans-Am Gundam 00 Raiser will have a hard time killing much else considering how much power was needed to overcome a grunt captain like Ginin. I honestly felt more for poor Ginin that for Seelian fat kid, mostly because he wasn’t being an asshole to Louise and seemed to have accepted her as a member of his team despite her bouts of recklessness. While the dead fiancé thing was a death flag at least Ginin kept it professional and didn’t lay on his problems to every one else, and certainly not to subordinates like Louise. Unlike Andrei, Ginin wasn’t going to pry into Louise’s personal affairs and let her pop pills without giving her shit. It would have been more powerful had we actually seen more of our grunt captain training Louise. At least we know that he had been trying to make her a better pilot given how she has improved greatly over the course of the series despite having so little experience in fighting a Gundam. Last time she made a b-line for Ptolemy this time she was actually obeying orders and doing very well. Besides if Louise was willing to shed tears for the man, he was at least some one that tried to help Louise be a better pilot. Again I wish we could have seen more of the man before he died. If nothing else it at least verifies that Kataron has been targeting Feddie civilians too, so in hindsight going Total War on Seel for having Kataron over for tea is at least understandable. This is probably and ugly war and hence a total war where both sides treat opposing civilians as fair game. No point in moralizing Memento Mori now, since Kataron seems to be attacking civilians too as such there will be no quarter asked and no quarter given. Seel sided with Kataron and they felt Feddie Total War as well. It’s just a shame we never see Kataron doing bad things, though they seem to do plenty of dumb and callous things too, like setting up Seel for the bomb while they run off with all the info. Well Ginin died a hero and that will have to do I suppose.

QUALITY animation with QUALITY Piano playing…

Says the man who sexually assaulted Feldt.

And not, Lyle she ain’t doing it for you…also don’t try to sneak a peek you pervert…

Innovators were all round better and delicious as well, Revival seems to have decided to work with Katie while Lindt was off prepping for the primary ignition. Stabity really did a number on Tieria considering that GARzzo had a GN Tau drive compared to Tieria’s superior GN Drive. Anew was alright this time though I am starting to hate Lyle for daring to make a pass at her. I wish lecherous Lyle would keep his lecherous hands to himself and leave Returner alone. As I said before Marie was stupid for not sounding the alarm once her quantam brain waves felt funny, its not like Haptism was giving them off or that there are friendly super soldiers around any more either.  Revival in Gadessa was kick ass as Revival shot straight through the hull, but alas it did nothing which leads me to…

I fucking hated SEED and this bout of nakkidness was very VERY unwelcome and did burn mein eyes, thankfully I was not blind once I realized that neither Jihad-kun nor Saji had balls of any sort… I really hate how quantum brain waves are becoming souped up newtype powers and even more so now that GN Pixie dust can grant them to Saji and Jihad-kun. It just seems like a cover for SEED mode, which I loathe, and brought back bad memories of GSD. I don’t want to be reminded and of all people to copy why fucking Fukuda and his propensity for nakkid conversation through mecha. GN particles are really starting to edge on to such bullshit that Minovsky particles seem tame in comparison, but really there was no need to have Saji and Louise communicate like that, and no, I did not need to see Saji or Jihad-kun nakkid. That pretty much broke the episode for me more than anything else. At this point I think we might need to prepare for another GN Pixie dust miracle during every battle, I still have no idea why Saji and Jihad-kun would all of a sudden gain powers while pointedly not having any history of being super soldiers or related to quantum brainwaves.

I hope you stay like this forever Louise.

Right idea, but Ginin’s right you’re not an ace like Norris Packard yet Louise. Your application to the School of the Undefeated of the East is still under evaluation though…

Tears of the Maiden. If only we could have seen more of Captain Ginin.

I find it galling that Saji is now the pilot of O-Raiser not only was it too good for the bastard, Saji has never shown any piloting skill at all got nary a scratch while being a total newb at this piloting thing. I was just a blatant toy commercial since by all rights an inexperienced pilot like Saji should have been trashed, but instea not even a scratch while he flew straight and level. Hell a barrel roll might have made it better, but meh, Saji doesn’t get his ass kicked. It was simply terrible that Saji was sortied out instead of having Lasse do it. It was inevitable that Saji and Louise would meet again, but damn Mizushima to hell if we have to endure yet more Saji and Louise wangsting. Louise was doing so well in not laying all of her bullshit on us, Saji was always a lost cause, but now it might well get worse. Louise was doing so well too, she had decided to do something with her life, worked hard, made sacrifices, found a yuri friend, and was so dedicated to being a better pilot that even Ginin felt it worthwhile to try and train her. I hope Louise recovers from this even if Andrei has to do something drastic to snap her out of it. Sad to see that the only real hope I have for saving Louise from crying about Saji is that creepy captain obvious Andrei. Here’s hoping Saji wrecks Gundam 00 Raiser and Andrei saves us from the return of old weepy Louise. I am going to miss Ginin as grunts don’t benefit from the resurrection policy.

No she won’t go back into the kitchen Saji…

Saji has betrayed you…after all he did know who it was that killed your family and your left arm…

Andrei I am giving you a Permit to make sure Louise doesn’t cry over Saji, do whatever you deem neccessary. I want results not excuses…