The main character, even in the first episode, is shaping up to be another crazy emo kid who we will all wind up hating, just like the kid from Seed Destiny

When it rains, it pours, and it's poured down hard on that Japanese kid. I don't remember his name since he seemed like such a throwaway character, but one of the new "fake gundam" pilots blew up a party his girlfriend's parents were attending for no apparent reason (fucking lame) but it kills mumsy and takes off the girlie's hand (pretty sweet). Now his sister has been murdered while investigating Celestial Being, and with a background in engineering, I hope to God this kid becomes a Gundam killer. They've been building him up for the majority of the first stretch now, with almost no indication whatsoever concerning what his role will be.

I still like all of the American and HRL guys a shitload more than any of the Gundam league, but that's been par for the course for the great majority of Gundam shows anyways, and they've gotten plenty of airtime to prove their mettle since this thread died 3 months ago.

For the fans of the faction(s) in which the gundams work for, it's getting a little better with one group, but a little worse with the other.

For the earth based military faction fans, it's gotten much better.

The event to trigger some kind of climatic change in the struggles between gundam interventions and the earth based militaries was certainly needed. But the fact that the event became something stupid like, "Oh, we managed to get top secret information on engines that work like the gundams. Let's make our own gundams and kill their gundams. Haha, victory is mine!" LAME. BORING.

I guess in one sense it can be somewhat understandable that the playing field was balanced in this way. In the sense that the only scientist who was studying the gundams immensely had ended up dying by the Trinity group. But then again, it's an example of another flaw in the anime's story/plot. Why only one scientist working on learning how the gundams work? Why not a whole team of them? Why not a whole faction with some secret underground base experimenting and learning of not only the gundams, but perhaps even inventing new tech to outfit their faction's mobile suits? Could these 3 earth based groups have really been THAT preoccupied with each other's existence? Not even one window of oppurtunity(?) arose for people to think, "Wait, HRL (or whoever) have a guy working on understanding the gundams? We should kidnapp him! Or get our own research team! Or kill him!" But noo, it's ended up being, "God, if I can capture a gundam, I'd be god amongst my subordinates and peers! They'd all bow down to me!"

Also, Aeris dies two Trinity pilots die/are-severely-wounded.

1) In a previous 00 episode, when Lockon goes to his parent's grave we were shown another Lockon-look alike, and in ep 23 in his final moments he mentions the world will be better for 'Lyra.' Needless to say, who is this guy and what role will he play will have to be answered.

2) Professor Aifman (sp?) of Union was close to realizing what CB's true aims where before he was promptly annihilated by the Thrones, and whatever Aifman stumbled upon we still weren't shown.

and, 3) Saji, his girlfriend only has one hand and his sister is now dead, surely he must serve some purpose other than to make us pour pity on him, I'm quite sure he'll have some pivotal role in the far future.

The three power blocs got the GN drives because of information disseminated from the cabal, or at least that's what I got out of it. It's still pretty lame that nobody at the highest levels seems to question how they got the information or why they all got it at the same time.

Lockon Stratos was the most well-adjusted Gundam pilot, so of course he ends up the first to die. I have very little reason to root for Gundams now.

So whats-his-face finally comes out with his pimped out Flag, and also gets owned by Setsuna. But the events of the episode aside, simply the ending alone is a treasure trove of speculation.

- Livonze/Ribbons is now the shadowy mastermind of some new group, got himself some new lackeys too.

- Saji looks like he is on some kind of deep spacecraft. Possibly heading to Jupiter? the flashback episode showed that derelict ship in Jupiter's orbit, possibly we could see some kind of connection here.

- The princess's adviser evidently is leaving?

- Ali evidently isn't dead, nor is that Flag pilot (who is now masked, surprise there?). Both men seem incredibly pissed off.

- Tiera isn't dead (at least a Tiera look-a-like), and is now coworkers with Louise?

- There is evidently a new Gundam being created and is currently undergoing testing. Meanwhile we're shown the first gundam to field a GN drive (which sounds like its going to be brought back?)

- Neena is now evidently part of CB (for reals this time). And her eyes are multi-colored now too.

- Exia has been salvaged. I would have to wonder, does that mean Setsuna is alive and kicking around somewhere?

It was pretty obvious that he was going to wear a mask at some point. Throughout the whole series I kept thinking about how much he reminds me of Zechs Merquise from Gundam Wing. He has a pretty similiar personality and obsession with gundams, so this is pretty cool.

The fight between Setsuna's Exia and Graham's Flag was just weird for me. Firstly, I guess it can be understandable that they can slice through each other so easily like that since they're both wielding similar level technology. But that does not change the fact that the gundams are made of better material than what the earthbound nations ever could know about. /flashback to first attempt to capture gundams. They couldn't saw open Kyrios' cockpit hatch.

Although, it may be debatable that because the armament tech was leveled enough that Graham's mobile suit had the power needed to slice through gundams.

Secondly, way too overly dramatic for me. Just that last fight sequence. "Oh yeah, you hit me? Well I hit you! Oh, another hit? Here's one from me!" God, that mechanic is soo overly used that it disgusts me now. Hey look, we are the evenly matched! lolololol!!!1111!

Thirdly, I want to say that fight sucked soo much because of the whole "we're on par with each other" idea. But then the entire series would be so lacking of that kind of detail if it didn't happen. We'd be back to the whole side B is greater than side A fact without any room to question the potentials of side A.