After many unfortunate delays, Bandai Entertainment have released the third volume of Gundam 00's first season. Can it measure up to the first two parts? Or is it just so many dancing Ewoks?
 Events in Mobile Suit Gundam 00 pick up sharply from where we left off last time. The newly arrived Team Trinity spread chaos and confusion, using their Gundam Thrones units to conduct interventions far more brutal than the original Meister team ever did. Said original team are forced to wonder whether this was Aeolia's plan all along, with themselves cast as disposable pawns. The idea of antagonistic Gundam pilots has been done before, but 00 goes to great lengths to make Team Trinity an integral part of the narrative. The Meisters and Celestial Being were introduced as a gathering of people who were willingly walking contradictions for the sake of what they saw as a better future. They knew their interventions were spilling blood, but they also used restraint and on some occasions played the hero. Team Trinity instead revel in psychotic anti-social behaviour, slaughtering for fun and hiding behind the Meister title. So vile are their actions that they impact directly on Saji and Louise's ongoing sub-plot. As I said back in my review of part one, I liked those two characters from the start, but the story then brings them into the main plot in an unexpected and tragic way. Their more lighthearted escapades suddenly take on another layer, as I'm sure no one was expecting such a fate back when they were providing chunks of rom-com.
Of course, the more pressing issue lies with the Thrones existence: if someone could create three knock off GN Drives (technology which we are told is near identical except for the "infinite energy" bonus the protagonist have), what's to stop them making more? This indeed happens when an opportunistic traitor gives the put-upon three powers a brand new mobile suit derived from the Gundam technologies. It's been remarked across the season that more often than not the Meisters have been saved more by the power of their Gundams than by their own talents, and the new GN-X brutally reinforces that. With the technology gap closed, the Meisters now have to face trained and seasoned military personnel who are their superiors. There's an odd mix of emotions at this plot twist. On the one hand, partly fueled by the questionable handling of other series in the franchise, it's nice to see Gundams knocked off their pedestal and the heat being put on them by superior pilots. But at the same time, we've come to care for the members of Celestial Being, and it's heartbreaking to see their genuine efforts to improve humanity's lot destroyed by a greed-induced power grab.
As everything starts to fall apart and the seemingly flawless plan appears to go against them, the members of Celestial Being are forced to find refuge in one another's company. This is understandable, given that their actions have isolated them from the rest of the world, but its handling is a mixed bag. Tieria gets one of the better character developments, as he finds himself having to build bridges with the teammates he had previously so harshly brushed off. Each of the Meisters has developed across the season, but Tieria's development is perhaps most noticeable and interesting due to how far it has taken him from where he started. Slightly less successful is the backstory suddenly provided on the Ptolemy bridge crew. Whilst it's somewhat realistic that people likely facing death in the near future would open up to those around them, in some ways it comes across as a confession that the writers had failed to make these guys compelling.
Ultimately, the season ends with a time skip and several dangling plot threads. Who survived the epic battle? What is the truth of Aeolia's plan? Will there be more cute girls to come?
 As if the excellent main attraction wasn't enough, we also have a generous helping of extras. The stand out of these is "Prologue to the Second Season", an interview piece in which director Mizushima discusses things such as how fan attitude shaped the ongoing production of season one and his attitude to the then forthcoming season 2. This is an interesting extra as it put a new perspective on things I already knew in part, such as an explanation of how the show's storyboarding changed mid-season. Additionally, having already seen the second season, the comments made in regards to the handling of that still make sense after the fact and don't come across as promotional hyperbole.
The other standout extra is a parody trailer for the second season. Starring super deformed versions of the four Meisters, it's a loving send up of the show's own quirks, fan theories and general lunacy. BEI have had bad luck in regards to gaining the rights to similar extras for other Gundam titles, so I'm really glad they were able to secure this winner.
Furthermore, we get two cast and director commentaries this time round. The CB gals join Mizushima for episode 21, whilst the Meisters take a turn with episode 25. Both commentaries are pretty much the same as the earlier Team Trinity outing, but they tend to be more successful at covering more interesting ground. The episode 25 commentary in particular is a hoot, with the voice actors offering up a good many funny gags on the production and the finale itself. Watch this if you want to learn where not to install a self-destruct button.
The other extras are a textless version of the "Friends" ED credits, a textless version of the epilogue animation (sadly presented with the dub audio) and the now familiar 00 promotional videos. Also a standard at this point is the manga volume you'll get if you buy the "Special Edition" version. It too concludes the season one story, but does so via any number of erratic and awkward plot changes to save time. Admittedly it wouldn't be too interesting if the manga just aped the story we were already getting, but in some elements it treats them as though this is what it has done when really it's ignored them or changed them around. For instance, the half-hearted resolution of certain subplots occurs in a way that won't make sense unless you've also seen the original version. The volume ends with a preview of the season two adaptation, no doubt to be likewise packaged with related DVDs. I'd say I hoped it learned from the mistakes made in covering season one, but I've already seen the original printing through to the end. It only gets weirder, folks.
The technical side of things is once again sound. Both picture and audio are presented in high quality, with no weird lines as was the case with the second disc last time. Both English and Japanese audio are provided but I still give my vote to the incredibly strong Japanese cast. That's not to disregard the English cast, many of whom have clearly now become comfortable in their roles. But there's still a lot of camp to various performances, lack of emotion, or words getting funny stresses. I have to wonder if really I should be pointing my complaints at the voice director for all of this, as the overall feeling is that the English track is just kind of lifeless and dry.
 The discs are housed in the same kind of case as we saw with the previous volumes. The cover art matches up with that of Part Two (both were taken from the wrap around of a Japanese boxset), featuring the enemy aces and Graham's customised Flag. Western releases of anime always tend to suffer somewhat in terms of cover art; a cover which makes perfect sense on the original release will seem off on a revised release for other countries, but this cover does a good job of summing up one of the themes of the episodes.
Mobile Suit Gundam 00 Season One ends with some tantalising details just begging to be resolved. Whilst this volume serves as a miniature finale, it's clear that the story is only halfway through and there many questions still to be answered. The episode 25 epilogue gives us a taste of what's to come, and it's clear that this isn't exactly the same world the story started with. Let's see what the second season does with that potential.
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