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Gundam 00 Season 1 Ep. 5: Escape Limit Zone

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Summary

Marina watches a press conference announcing Taribia’s return to the Union and a meeting between Stegmeyer and the Taribian prime minister. She concludes that America and Taribia must have planned things out beforehand to manipulate Celestial Being, but Shirin says that’s wrong. She says that Celestial Being is so dedicated to its goal that it would go as far as attacking Taribia, even though that would turn public opinion against them. Marina then leaves on a trip to obtain solar energy for Azadistan. At the HRL’s orbital elevator, Kinue drops off Saji for a field trip and tells him not to try anything strange with Louise. Nearby, Sergei tells Soma that they’re ready to board the linear rail and head up to space. Setsuna does sit ups in his room and receives a computer message about a mobile suit performance test. On the uninhabited island, Allelujah tells Lockon about the newest mission from Sumeragi: spy on a new mobile suit performance test, and depending on the results, destroy it. Lockon warns Allelujah to be careful because most of the world hates them now after the Taribia incident. At the orbital elevator, the linear rail begins its climb toward the Pillar of Truth low orbit station. Sergei asks Soma why she volunteered for the military’s enhancement project, and she tells him that she’s a designer baby created for the project. He then recalls watching her in a physical and a scientist’s report that her body is enhanced through the use of nanomachines. Sergei asked the scientist if the agency had any problem with doing such things, and the scientist answered that it’s necessary to have people like Soma to adapt to space. The train stops at the Pillar of Truth station, and Saji and Louise meet with their tour instructor, Porz Assan. Porz takes them out for a spacewalk and quizzes Saji about orbital rings. Louise calls Saji over to the end of the station, and the two look down to see the entire Earth spread out below them. Porz cautions them that there’s still some gravity, so they can be pulled down if they fall off the station. Louise then does just that, and Saji falls over the side trying to grab her, but Porz grabs them both by their safety lines. At the station’s military outpost, Sergei and Soma examine the Tieren Taozi, a mobile suit customized to match Soma’s abilities. Two days later, Allelujah rides the train and engages in small talk with a stewardess about seeing the Earth from space. Saji and Louise walk through one of the station’s gravity blocks and pass by Wang and Hong Long. Sergei launches in a Tieren Space Commander Type, followed by Soma in the Tieren Taozi. Soma begins the performance test, but she suddenly veers off course and says she feels something strange in her head. On the station, Allelujah feels pain in his head, and suddenly his personality changes completely. Mad with pain, Soma begins firing on the station.

Sergei catches up to Soma and tells her to stop, but she continues to fire and damages the station, causing one of the gravity blocks to break off and drift away. Saji and Louise are trapped inside the block, which has now lost gravity. In his mind, Allelujah attempts to reach out to the “Hallelujah” personality that is now in control. He then recalls being adrift on a shuttle as a child, and Allelujah takes control again. Sergei calls the station for a report and is informed that 232 people are trapped in the gravity block. A rescue team will launch in 7 minutes, but the gravity block is decelerating and will be sucked in by the Earth’s gravity in 14 minutes. Sergei orders a team to retrieve Soma and takes off to help with the rescue effort. Wang examines the data on the gravity block and concludes that the rescue party won’t arrive in time. Sergei grabs onto the gravity block to try to accelerate it into a stable orbit, but he knows that his suit alone won’t be enough, and that he’ll eventually be pulled into the gravity well too. Allelujah arrives in the Gundam Kyrios, and while Wang tells him he’s violating his orders, he ignores her and says she wouldn’t understand what it feels like to drift in space. The Gundam Kyrios transforms to mobile suit mode and presses its thrusters to the max to help accelerate the gravity block. Sumeragi is surprised when she receives a message from Wang about what Allelujah is doing. At JNN headquarters, Kinue is shocked when she sees Saji and Louise’s names on the list of people stranded in the gravity block. Allelujah calls out to the gravity block and tells everyone to quickly gather inside the center block. Inside, Louise says that since they may not survive, she has something important to tell Saji. Sergei calls Allelujah and tells him he should leave because he’s already done enough, but Allelujah responds that Celestial Being doesn’t accept failure. Just then, a beam blast comes up from Earth and hits the gravity block, causing one of the outer containers to break away. Down on Earth, the Gundam Dynames uses a giant sniper rifle to target the gravity block. Setsuna flies around in the Gundam Exia to clear away the clouds that are blocking Lockon’s view, and he fires again to break off the other outer container. With the reduced weight, Allelujah is able to push the block into stable orbit. The rescue party arrives, and when Allelujah takes off, Sergei orders the Tieren pilots to focus on the rescue. On the Ptolemaios, Tieria criticizes Sumeragi for abandoning Veda’s recommended mission and revealing to the world that the Gundam Dynames can snipe high altitude targets. Sumeragi responds that she wasn’t helping Allelujah, but rather protecting the Gundam, and Tieria comments that people lacking skills shouldn’t pilot Gundams. Saji asks Louise to tell him what she was going to say earlier, but she refuses.

Commentary

This episode is a welcome change of pace from the political world-building of the previous four episodes. It’s good to have an episode that doesn’t focus on every plotline and can instead zero in on several characters. This episode provides some good insight into Sergei. We see from his battle with Setsuna that he has a code of honor by demanding a one-on-one melee fight, and we see more here. He’s uncomfortable with what Soma is, and he clearly doesn’t like the HRL’s human experiments. He acts quickly to try to rescue the civilians, and he gladly accepts Allelujah’s help to get the job done. That may cause him some trouble later, since he’s under orders to capture a Gundam. We also find out more about Allelujah, mainly that he has a murderous split personality named Hallelujah. What’s more interesting is that this was set off by his proximity to Soma. His background information states that he’s an orphan from the HRL, so it’s possible he was part of the same human enhancement project as her. He could also have nanomachines inside him, and maybe they reacted negatively to Soma’s and set off this reaction. A good question here would be if anyone in Celestial Being is aware of these personalities, and if so, what they plan to do about it. Additionally, it was rather surprising to see Lockon with a giant sniper rifle that can hit targets in space from the ground. Also, we finally get to see Wang do something other than engage in conversations with people from other scenes. There’s a bit of mystery around what Louise wanted to tell Saji. He seems to be too much of a useless dolt to be having sex with her, so I doubt she’s pregnant or anything. Not that she’s much better, especially since she seemed to have a bit too much fun eating Pringles in zero gravity. We’ll have to see if what she wanted to tell him was of any actual importance.

Overall Rating
4/5

Gundam 00 Info

Director:
Seiji Mizushima

Writer:
Yousuke Kuroda

Mechanical Designer(s):
Kanetake Ebikawa
Takayuki Yanase
Hitoshi Fukuchi
Kenji Teraoka
Naohiro Washio
Kunio Okawara
Seiichi Nakatani

Character Designer(s):
Yun Kouga
Michinori Chiba

Musical Composer:
Kenji Kawai

Format:
50 episodes; 3 compilation movies

Airdates:
Japan 10.06.2007 – 03.29.2008 (S1);
10.05.2008 – 03.29.2009 (S2)
U.S. 11.24.2008 – 02.09.2009 (S1);
06.29.2009 – 09.21.2009 (S2)

Video Release (SE):
Japan 10.27.2009 – 02.23.2010
U.S. 09.04.2018

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