I saw many forums giving away 'awards' to Gundam Double O after the end of Season One, so I'm hoping to do so on my blog as well. ^^ After a few days of editing, Part 1 of the 'ceremony' today is about the characters of the anime.
Best Meister: Lockon Stratos
Among the seven (including Team Trinity), Lockon was the coolest of them all. Apart from his strong sense of responsibility towards his job and team members, I always think Lockon was the most humane and likable Meisters. Setsuna, Allelujah and Tieria all shared their moment of being emotional, which in turn put their lives in jeopardy, but not for Lockon. His performance as Dynames's pilot was very outstanding, as he not only managed to defeat his opponents in all fights, but was able to protect his friends too.
So, Gundam fans who didn't shed their tears for the scene when Haro repeatedly calling out to Lockon who wasn't coming back anymore deserved to be shot ^^;
Worst Meister: Neena Trinity
Seriously, what did she accomplished as a Gundam Meister anyway? ^^;
Killing civilians seriously cut down a lot on her level of cuteness, and doing nothing when both her brothers were killed cut down a lot on her performance as a Meister.
Unfortunately, she is the only confirmed Meister to return in Season Two. Fancy that ^^;
Best Celestial Beings' Supporting Crew: Lasse Aeon
I must say all the crew members on Ptolemaios had their equal shares in helping out with the Meisters' operations, but Lasse's role was perhaps the most outstanding of them all, outstanding as in assisting in actual combats. His debut as a combat fighter was in Episode 21 with GN Arms Solo, and managed to blast off a few GN-Xs. He helped a lot in the final fight against Aruvatore, and while many of his first attacks were futile, they managed to scrap a lot of useful information about the dreadful foe. His death in the final episode was quite a grim moment for me.
Best Enemy Supporting Crew: Kathy Mannequin
I'm sure you remember her appearance in Gundam Double O started with two punches on Patrick in Episode 14. XD Since then, she became the Sumeragi-equivalence in the anime, directing the Alliance in following week's major desert operation to capture the Gundams, and then in space too.
Plus, her relationship with Patrick was another interesting point to watch out for in the anime XD
I was considering Billy Katagiri for this 'award', but he was completely absence in the last few vital episodes, and the writers seem to give up developing the relationship between him and Sumeragi as well. So his role in the whole story has been minimized to just being Grahams's assistant. Not for Kathy though. Will Patrick be successful in courting her? I sure hope so, maybe they will be the only successful couple at the end of Season Two ^^;
Best Non-Gundam Pilot: Graham Aker
I supposed I don't have to tell you how awesome his skill was as the captain of the Overflag team right? He fought Exia, Dynames and Throne Eins. While the earlier two were unfinished fights, he managed to defeat Throne Eins at the cost of his own health. He also showed his honor as a soldier by stopping his team members from attacking the unarmed Exia when Setsuna returned the kidnapped to the Kingdom of Azadistan in Episode 13.
While I do not approve of his motive in the final duel against Exia, I still consider him as the best non-Gundam pilot in Gundam Double O so far.
Worst Non-Gundam Pilot: Daryl Dodge
Just in case you forgot, he was the other Overflag team member beside Howard Mason.
Assisting Ali's Throne Zwei in defeating Dynames for the vengeance over Howard Mason's death, while Throne Zwei was the Gundam which killed his friend in the first place, this dude was really 'good' in picking his target -_-
Having the surname 'Dodge' but chose ramming onto Dynames for a Kamikaze attack, this dude was really good in being sarcastic too.
Best Antagonist: Ali Al-Sanchez
With or without an MS, Ali was plain scary. When he appeared, you know someone was going to die, probably a horrible death too. If you check out this particular posting, you can see that he killed three Meisters (first Michael, then Johann Trinity and finally Lockon) and two civilians (Kinue and Laguna Harvey) who were all noteworthy cast members in the anime. His piloting skill was quite impressive as well, especially when he hijacked Michael's Throne Zwei and mastered the controls in almost no time at all.
Like him or hate him, he was definitely the most 'effective' antagonist in the anime: no complicated conquer-the-world-plot, no last-minute-backstabbing or even a soldier's honor. His characteristics never altered before throughout Gundam Double O, which was just plain evil to continue the war in the world for his own profit.
Worst Antagonist: Alejandro Corner
Like many failed antagonists, Alejandro's worst mistake was to come out and reveal himself to his opponent at the last minute, while leaving everything to his fully trusted associate. Maybe he wanted the pleasure of crushing Ptolemaios himself? or maybe he was too confident in Ribbons. Either way, his miscalculation caused him his live, not before discovering that he was betrayed by Ribbons of course.
With so many plots arranged in the past, for example risking his life to stay in Azadistan to show his sincerity, bringing in Team Trinity, betraying them and then supplying GN-Xs to the world in order to destroy the Celestial Beings, Alejandro's final move really seemed too rushed and somewhat stupid to me.
The way I see it, he could have supplied more GN-Xs to the UN Force, let them destroy the Meisters, and then come out to finish the remaining GN-Xs and his world domination dream would have been achieved. With that, Ribbons can kiss his Innovator dream goodbye as well ^^;
Also, 300 years into the future, Alejandro Corner should have known that LOL-ing too much in the final battle is a doom sign for all antagonists. He should have watched more anime like all of us do.
Most Surprising Character: Allelujah Haptism
In my opinion, Allelujah was the least significant one among the four Meisters in the first three episodes. Aggression and anger for Setsuna, humor and friendliness for Lockon, and calmest and uncompromising for Tieria. Except for his hairstyle, not much can be said about him actually. Allelujah's personality seemed somewhat in between Lockon and Setsuna to me. A very cool character, even though the color of his Kyrios is a bit too striking to be labeled as cool ^^;
But when Soma Peries was introduced in Episode 5, Allelujah showed his extremely dangerous personality as Hallelujah. Only this evil twin of his can wield the spikes of Kyrios's shield (or maybe Allelujah chose not to use it even when he knew how), which proved to be extremely effective, but cruel in melee combat.
In Episode 25, Allelujah's Schizophrenia reached an unbelievable state when he merged with Hallelujah to fend off both Soma and Sergei, in a broken Kyrios with just the shield. He almost killed Sergei too, if not for Soma's intervention at the last moment. I don't recall seeing such aggresion from the other Meisters before, not even Setsuna. It's like watching a completely new character in the anime, mainly because Allelujah brushed his hair backward, and make him looked like someone else. ^^
So, Allelujah was truly the character who brought the most surprises in the anime. Even at the end of war, it was revealed that he recognized Soma as Marie, a very late surprise in terms of the development of the characters' relationship. I believe we'll get to see more of their past in Season Two.
Also, plenty of credits to Hiroyuki Yoshino, the sei-yuu for Allelujah/Hallelujah. It must be hard voicing two characters at the same time ^^; but he sure did a great job for his role.
Most Disappointing Character: Graham Aker
As mentioned above, Graham Aker is my pick for the best non-Gundam pilot in Gundam Double O, but I don't understand anything in the grand speech he gave while he and Setsuna trashed each other's MS in the final showdown. It was about how his 'love' for Gundam degraded into hatred, and how he related this 'relationship' to all the conflicts in the world. I also don't understand why he kept holding on to seeking vengeance for Howard Mason and Daryl Dodge, when he himself mentioned that a soldier's life is about fighting. In my opinion, Graham's obsession for defeating Gundam with his Flag had pretty much blinded his reasoning, and vengeance for Howard and Daryl was his own justification for the final duel.
For a character who started off with so much confidence, coolness and leadership, as well as showing his honor in Episode 13. Graham Aker's appearance, and his somewhat reckless attack on Exia at the last moment of Season One was extremely disappointing.
For me, the death of Alejandro should have been the ending of all, but the writers chose to dish out the most anticipated GN Flag and finished it off in such a short time. That was exceptionally anticlimactic to me.
Most Fortunate Character: Patrick Colossawar
- survived Exia's sword (Episode 1)
- survived Virtue's GN Bazooka (Episode 6)
- survived Throne Eins's GN Cannon (Episode 16)
- being drafted into the GN-X squadron because of a timely bouquet of roses and date (Episode 20)
- survived GN Arm's GN Cannon (Episode 21)
- survived an asteroid hit (Episode 23)
- survived Nadleeh's GN Launcher (Episode 24)
- most likely to come back in Season Two
Did I left out anything? ^^;
Most Unfortunate Character: Saji/Louisse
Come to think of it, I still don't understand the real intention of having characters like Saji and Louisse in the anime, except for us to look at the conflicts in the world, and the armed intervention of the Celestial Beings from the civilians' point of view. If so, both of them are truly unfortunate, they lost their families, Louisse lost her hand, and it was also revealed that they didn't continue with their relationship in the epilogue.
Sad, really sad...
Really, I hope the writers will give them a happy ending in Season Two.
