Gundam Age ep 16 review

     You could call this the first ep of the second chapter in the series. We're now in Age 2 of course, and Flit and Emily are married with a son - Asemu, who shows the same talent for piloting a Gundam, much like his father. Nothing much happens in this ep, except to introduce new characters and grown up or aged ones, but there are a few things worth talking about:

    I like the look of Asemu more than I like Flit. At least he looks like a tougher kid than his father, and no more ridiculous green hair in Dragonball style. LOL.

   There're lotsa revelations in the opening sequence if you pay attention, the most obvious of which is the Age 2 Gundam of course. Showing its various combining abilities. We see some sorta armament extension on it's wings/ binders here that seem to come from a Genoace. Would be interesting to see how the concept is translated onto the MG kit!

   Turned out the earlier speculation about the UE being humans from a distant future are untrue. We finally know who the UE are - an abandoned colony based on Mars - the Vagan - with much superior mobile suit technology. I reckon that red suit's the badass of the fleet. Looks like a sleeker version of the Sinanju if ya ask me. I'm diggin' it!

    Once again in the opening sequence, we see that the Age 2 has a flight mode, much like the Zeta or Arios. The Gundam combines with its rifle:

    We're also offered a glimpse of the rivalry to come - that of Asemu versus undercover Vagan youth Zeheart. Does that mask remind you of someone else hmm?

 
 This scene reminds me of the epic battle in 00 between the Double 0 Raiser and Reborns. Remains to be seen if they can make the fight sequence as epic in Age..

    Of course, how can we forget Flit, who only a week ago, was a teenage green-haired boy who defeated an entire UE colony. Now he's a lean, mean battle-hardened moustached Fed commander..

While I'd put Flit's age down to his late 30s or early 40s, Emily seems to only have aged a couple of years. Call them sexists but old women don't seem to have a place in anime, lol.

    And now the best scene of the episode - Asemu has his first field encounter with the enemy. He dispatches two suits, albeit clumsily. His technique is highlighted here by characters witnessing the scene. Asemu likes to double-wield, apparently. Nice. Slash and bash is my style too in Gundam design. One gripe though, is that it's not really very likely that Asemu would suddenly know how to pilot a Gundam to such aplomb, since even Flit had problems in his first maiden fight. And this is 25 years later...so the Gundam from Flit's era is still able to whup the asses of two updated UE suits?? Hmmm..

    In the ending credits we get a load of clues once more of the ensuing rivalry and maybe friendship (?) between Asemu and Zeheart, and a probable love triangle brewing between the two young men and Rosmary.

    If you wished there was some form of continuity where we actually see Flit mature instead of going from child prodigy to severe war veteran, it's all in the ending credits where we see still shots of Asemu's childhood and Flit as a young father. I like the sans moustache look more. Too bad we can't have more in-between episodes of a 20-something Flit doing battle.

    So what do I make of it? I like where this is going and the momentum of the series, which is picking up much faster now. There's something about the father-son relationship between Flit and Asemu that tucks at my heart-strings...Kinda makes me think of my own dad. How Flit wants Asemu to carry on the family tradition, and entrusting the Gundam to his son...The whole concept of making our parents proud....it gets to me. I know my old man's proud of me no matter what I do, as any parent would, but sometimes, ya know, you just wished you had accomplished something more in life other than holding down a 9 to 5 job, or winning third place in a GBWC competition...Something that would really make your parents beam with joy. Once in a while, I think about it. Maybe that's one of the reasons why people have kids huh? Gosh...I'm really veering severely off track here LOL.

    Alright to cap it, I like Age 2, and I'd like to see more of the Gundam in action. It's obvious that we're not gonna get any more Gundams though. There's just this one fella. The G-Exes will still be around, piloted by a more mature Woolf with side-burns that'll make Elvis proud. The Diva is still the mothership, but it's a female captain this time. And I duno bout you but I have the nagging feeling that Flit will die somewhere towards the end of the series. It gets more emo this way. Then again this is a much lighter series than 00, so we'll see...Overall, I like the Age 2's design, but there's still something overly simplistic about it that I can't place. Also, it's not very fresh...it just seems like a mash-up of the Age 1 and the Arios, in my opinion. Oh well, guess it's up to us to mod and soup up the kits once they're released...