Review of Mobile Suit Gundam 00 The Movie: A Wakening of the Trailblazer

I would say out of all the up coming sequels Gundam 00: Awakening of the Trailblazer was on the top 5 of my list. After much anticipation, I would have to say it was a bit of a disappointment. Story: 7 I would say the biggest problem I had with this movie is its storyline. It was pretty generic as far as mecha anime story lines go. I was expecting something new. It flows somewhat well and keeps you into it throughout. It also builds wonderfully to a climactic ending battle seen, the only problem is that it just ends. It seemedas if they couldnt figure a spectacular way to end the story so they thought up something stupid. My initial reaction was,"That's it?" Also make sure you keep watching after the credits because the story tries to redeem itself with something extra but just adds more questions. The bottom line is the story was descent at best. Not enough drama in the story at all. The best part of the story were the Gundams and the battle scenes. But they save the best Gundam for only the last 10 minutes of the movie. I wanted to see much more of that.

Art: 10

The art was great, quite flawless. The battle scenes were crafted perfectly so that you could see what was happening. The Gundam's were very cool. Like I said earlier the best of the Gundams doesnt make an appearance until the last 10 min or so. But besides the fact the Gundams were cool and the characters were drawn very well.

Sound: 8
The Voice acting was great but a little difficult to get into at first. I watched the first and second season in English so it took a few minutes to get used to the new voices.

Characters: 7
All the old characters were in it as well, especially my favorite Patrick Coulisour "Ace pilot of the AEU" haha. It just felt a little too congested. So many characters for a two hour movie was too much. The new characters didnt really even have much to do with the story line so they probably could have been left out. Some characters who had major parts in the first two seasons were left with two or three cameo scenes.

Overall: 8
Overall this is still a really good movie. Definitely worth seeing. Animation is great and it had a high quality cast of voice actors. I just wish the movie had a better storyline. It needed way more drama to keep me on the edge of my seat. They also did a poor job with character relationships. They seem to build throughout the movie and evolve into nothing. For most people im sure the fighting will be enough because the battle scenes are fantastic. A solid 8, I just hope that the Gundam Seed movie will come out soon and hopefully they get it prefect.