Ninth Yells About G-Tekketsu Episode 3

[ninthfeather]

 So, I don’t have any friends in real life who like Gundam.  This is frustrating, because when I find a new thing and I love it, I like to obsess about it at length and there’s a point where I can tell I’m just getting annoying and my friends have no idea what I’m talking about.  So, my solution to having gotten sucked into G-Tekketsu is to yell about it on Tumblr.

 

If nobody reads this or the previous post, at least it’s out of my system.  If you’d like to read more of these…they’re probably coming whenever I watch the episodes, which may or may not be every week, my schedule’s pretty up in the air at the moment.  If you don’t want to follow my ridiculously eclectic multifandom blog to read these, you can track the tag “ninth yells about tekketsu.”

 

Spoilers, feelings, and so many questions about backstory under the cut.

 

Okay, first and foremost: I want to express my deep and abiding joy that this is going to be a kill-em-all series.  Because, okay, Gundam 00 is my favorite Gundam series forever, but it didn’t get character-death-heavy until later and if this series had tried that scheme, with the tone it’s set?  It would’ve rung false.  But, nope, likeable noble adversary dies three episodes in.  Clearly Nagai and Okada are not holding back and I can get behind that.

 

On that note, Crank’s death was good.  Not just in a “he died nobly and he deserved that” way, but also as a setting piece.  This series is getting more topical by the episode, at least if I’m reading the symbolism right, because–Crank died because he tried to use a custom from his time, before the Calamity War, to settle things, and that wasn’t something that Mikazuki and the others could trust or even understand, really.  It seems like the generation gap is being highlighted here–particularly, the differences in the way things were before and after the Calamity War.  That is definitely something that’s going to get exposition or a flashback eventually.

 

Also, re: that fight–I need a flashback about Mikazuki.  Like, a complete one.  I have so many questions.  Like, I assumed that the surgery was involuntary, given that the kids obviously weren’t working for the CGS by choice, but apparently Mikazuki chose to have it?  Three times?  How does a kid have the ability to ask for presumably-costly technology to be implanted in him multiple times but not have access to education?  Like, what leverage did he have in this situation; why was it in the interest of whoever was giving out surgeries to let him do it?  For that matter, who was doing these surgeries?  I have so many questions.  

 

I do not remember what the pot-bellied old man who wanted to sell Kudelia to the enemy’s name was but I am an FMA fandom veteran and I am referring to him as Lt. Yoki until I remember.  I understand his role in creating dramatic tension but I also want him to be slapped.  A lot.

 

I am thrilled by Kudelia, honestly.  First of all, her scene with Mikazuki, when she flipped out about her cooking?  Okay, it was completely stereotypical and logically I should not have found it cute but I actually really did.  She just…tries so hard.  And then she went and took that to it’s logical extreme.

 

“Could I pilot one of those?” she asks.  You go girl.  I really wish she could.   Seriously, if the world mechanics weren’t set up just so it was too risky for her, I’d be cheering for that so much.  She’s got such a backbone, I love it.  And then, at the end, when she says she’d like them to keep escorting her and she pushes herself to address Orga as an equal even though it’s clear she looks up to him…she is gonna be such a dangerous little politician and I love it.

 

Orga seems just as thrilled as I am; I think he’s gonna apprentice her.  I stand by my earlier assessment of him as anime Hannibal Smith.  Nothing in this episode changed my mind.  

 

As a final note, regarding Mikazuki’s ability to shoot people at close range—again, I need backstory.  In the past, every time I have judged a character for being this way, it has ended up with me staring in slack-jawed horror at the awfulness that is their backstory.  It happened with Heero, it happened with Setsuna, I’m waiting to see how awful this one’s gonna be.

 

I noticed an unknown woman in the opening credits; yay for another female!  As I’ve said previously, I do want at least one pilot or ship captain to be a lady so I’m holding out hope.

 

As a final note, I really need to know exactly what the deal was with calling one of the units within the CGS “Human Debris.”  Like, why are they called that, what was their function exactly, why did they say they were there for the other soldiers’ entertainment, I need to know these things. I am hoping that this is a question the anime will get back to eventually.