Hero said:
My comments on the show are 95% directed at the "characters" and "story" with the other 5% being at dumb shit like poor animation or other varied things. Again, just because things make sense to YOU does not somehow make it conventional truth. How fucking old are you that I need to point this out to you?
The reverse also applies; Just because it doesn't make sense to you doesn't mean it's the conventional truth. Hence why we argue with each other.
The entire Trans Am system was something I was against because all it does is give the writers excuses to make anything happen during battles that they want smply because. Even the "tradeoff" for using Trans Am has only been brought up a handful of times after beng used in both seasons one and two.
Well, CB has been smarter in using it. Just because one has a weakness it doesn't mean it should be paraded in public with no reason. This is why Seravee was so awesome. In the beginning, it showed no signs of being excellent in close range combat until Episode 9, where Tieria WANTED to take down a valuable target in close combat. Ditto with Bring Stabity's Garazzo and Revive Revival's Gadessa.
Unfortunately, this also hurts the show in terms of 00 Raiser. If Trans Am 00 Raiser is so powerful, there is no reason for CB not to use it. The staff has to choose between making the story inconsistent (lower 00 Raiser's power through unexplained, inconsistent plot measures), try to hamper 00 Raiser (Devine Nova's Empruss inadvertently forcing 00 Raiser to basically miss with its gigantic beam saber in "Break the Pillar" incident, Hilling shooting up the cockpit, 00 Raiser being separated from Ptolemaios...), or just roll with the punches since it makes the market happy and Bandai happy that 00 Raiser is so friggin' broken. Power sells. Hence why Strike Freedom/Freedom are so popular despite their terrible aesthetics.
And I realize that AC universe pilots tend to rely on the brute force/power of their Gundams as opposed to ability...that's why I said it. There is absolutely nothing in the anime to discern that Setsuna has improved as a pilot from S1 in the Exia to S2 in the 00-Raiser.
I can understand why you would say that. I was just saying that the creative staff realized this, and tried to generate tension in S1 by having aces with great skill or courage go up against them and actually give them a hard time despite the meisters being so far ahead in equipment. Unfortunately, I have the feeling that they lost a good amount of control in S2 due to executive meddling. I'll elaborate this later on...
I like how you pick on this critique of the show and ignore everything else that you can't defend.
Hm? Hey, I'm willing to admit 00 has flaws.
Like all the times in season 2 that the Meisters have escaped battles and other dangerous situations without explanation and magically appear back at the ship safe and sound.
In the latest episode, it was...understandable, but the circumstances that it was done under was poor. Essentially, what we saw was 00 Raiser sortieing, and then literally a little bit later, Hilling Care/Revive Revival in the Gadessa/Garazzo escape pods along with the Regnant. This convinced me that the staff is painfully aware of how broken 00 Raiser is, considering that they went ahead and chose to skip the fight with Garazzo/Gadessa and how they had Hilling shoot up the cockpit in O-Raiser.
Or how in the most recent episode the Innovators were shown to be attacking the ship directly and the next thing we see is 00-Raiser shooting Anew's unit. Or how twice now the Mobile Armor has had multiple Gundam units disabled but instead of capturing or destroying them they flee the scene without another word on the matter.
00 Raiser is simply that much powerful. In retrospect, 00 Raiser along with the two seasons are the biggest wreckers in 00's stuff. Which is sad, because at this point I'm extremely, extremely certain that 00 Raiser was largely put in by executive pressure from Bandai for a powerful main character Gundam that trounces everyone else, ala Freedom/Strike Freedom/Wing Zero/God Gundam.
But the creative staff did try to work with 00 Raiser, as they did with Bandai's other executive meddling. It's ironic, as 00 S1 had quite a bit of success with the amount of freedom that the creative staff worked with. Bandai simply rewarded them by giving them less creative control in S2.
But I digress. I can't blame every problem in 00 on executive meddling. As for Episode 15's battle that was interrupted by the coup d'etat announcement, yeah. That was a bit of poor writing. It's funny, because even with GN Archer sortied, Ptolemaios II would have met its end without that lucky, lucky announcement.