Gundam AGE Episode 3
What They Say:
Nora’s collapse has almost reached the point of no return. Having taken the girl into his Gundam, Flit escapes into space, only to encounter a new, black enemy mobile suit. Meanwhile, Grodek, who has taken command of the Diva, fights to control the Colony Core and save Nora’s inhabitants from its collapse. Base commander Bruzar remains on Nora to complete the final preparation for the Colony Core’s ejection. They each risk their lives, giving their all for survival. As the Gundam and its shadowy foe face off, Flit hears unexpected words from the girl…
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
The first two episodes of the series certainly set things in motion well for what’s going on, giving us a large scale battle within the colony that felt appropriate, a lot of damage and the introduction of multiple characters. The only downside is the continued reliance in so many Gundam series to give us that gifted novice who just seems so capable, even under duress, to handle the situation. Luckily, while that is Flit in a nutshell so far even with the nudges they gave for the reasoning, a lot of the two episodes and this one focuses on the colony itself and the evacuation. The citizenry isn’t given a huge amount of time but some decent logistics are involved as well as seeing how the military and others are working to salvage the situation as best as possible and save as many as possible.
The first half of the episode handles this well as time is running out and we’re seeing the minute count down until the colony is going to simply go under due to the structural issues. It’s pretty interesting to watch since there is some good tension to it as we see the captain and commanders doing their best while dealing with their own issues as well, especially with Bruzar who gets quite injured during all of it. But we also get to see Flit out and about in his mobile suit, damaged as it is, doing his best to fight and having some good successes overall. It’s not painted as an easy to do thing as he fights, especially with a girl on his lap, but the movement of it all, the choreography and the kind of bond that grows between him and Yurin during it definitely makes for an interesting pairing.
The second half continues on all of this rather well, especially the fight that Flit and Yurin are engaged in, but we also see how the core of the colony is being removed and the kind of hope that gives for greater survival of the civilians and others caught up in the carnage. The build up is well done here and the drama as we get the final removal of the core and the flight away hits a really good tone. It’s reminiscent for me of some of the early Star Wars material in that there are losses and a victory that doesn’t taste sweet because of the cause, hence we get that quiet atmosphere about it. With the focus on the dual storylines that are tied here at the start with the colony and with Flit, it balances them well here and brings to a close the opening chapter of it all.
In Summary:
As we move along, admittedly slowly, with Gundam AGE, I continue to enjoy it a lot since it has the old school feeling even if it plays with some of the tropes I don’t care for, such as the young characters. But so far, it has a certain polish and style – even at 360p playback – that’s keeping me more interested than the slick and overproduced pieces that dominated a lot of the last decade. This episode closes up certain aspects of what kicked off the series and opens us up to a lot of potential from there, but it’s also showing us a touch or two of what’s to come in the final scenes which certainly causes its own visual cues for older science fiction fans.
Grade: B
Streamed By: YouTube