75 years since the start of the war against the Vagan forces, it is time for the third generation of the Asuno clan, Kio Asuno to continue the legacy started by his grandpa after his father, Asemu mysteriously disappeared year ago. Now that Vagan is invading Earth, it's time for Kio to step up and fight the invading forces using the Gundam AGE-3!
This is my second least favorite story arc in Gundam AGE for a lot of good reasons. First is that this arc started really strong and showed us that Kio is one competent pilot, heck, he is more than competent because he is a gifted X-Rounder and thanks to the training he received from his grandfather with a little help coming from a virtual reality console given to him when he is a kid, it feels like that he thinks of war as some game and that the Vagan forces are just enemies he needs to blow up. In short, we see one aspect of Flit's slowly degeneration from the kid we saw in the first arc.
Another reason why this arc started really strong is the crew. My problem with the second arc's crew is that they have pilots, but not competent pilots who can shoot down enemies. The only ones who are competent in that arc are Woolf, Asemu and if Flit is on board the Diva, Flit. In this case, we have an actual competent squad of Mobile Suit pilots, including a veteran from the previous arc who still didn't move on after the passing of his girlfriend. In addition to that, they have an inexperienced captain who has a lot of potential to become one great captain, but for now, she is being thought by Flit on how to become one.
So what went wrong along the way? The first eight episodes of this story arc are strong and started the build up for the final battle thanks to the introduction of the EXA-DB and the relationship between Flit and Asemu after Asemu was declared missing by the Earth Federation. I find this interesting because of Asemu's later philosophy about war, all he wants is to balance the tides of war and take a neutral stand. He doesn't want either the Federation or the Vagan to win after discovering that each side is as dirty as the other. The only time he sided with the Earth Federation is during Kio's rescue mission.
This my friends is where the show started to take a downward spiral. I love that they showed us one of the Vagan colonies, but what I don't like is that it doesn't make sense why they still stayed in Mars. Here's the thing, if they have this kind of technology to create a colony and have a couple of their officers stay in the Earth Federation colonies, why the heck they didn't formulate a plan where they slowly send Vagan refugees to those colonies so that they can save themselves from the Mars radiation? Heck, they even developed a medicine to extend their life due to the effects of the radiation and they can take cold sleep to extent their life so that they can finish their research or something!
But no, they focused on this "Project Eden", which can be basically summed up into "we Vagan will conquer Earth as our own and will revive its original beauty that mankind has destroyed", you know the usual utopia plan made by the bad guy. To put it simply, they tried to make the villains sympathetic in the last few episodes of the show. To be honest, it's not a bad thing but if the bad guy is well, Ezelcant who ordered the destruction of one colony for this sort of utopian project and his soldiers killed a lot of innocent people in the process, how can I feel sympathetic for his situation? It didn't help that they pulled the "I only have a few months to live" card during Kio's time he was captive by the Vagan and the "dead son looks like protagonist" card.
Even if that's the case, some events of the last few episodes of the story arc are really touching. Kio's meeting with Lu and her brother, Deen. Kio just wants to make Lu happy that he doesn't care if he gives Ezelcant some classified military information just to save her life only for her to die in the end. To put it simply, even though his moments with Lu are touching and cute, he basically screwed the entire Earth Federation. Oh, and Asemu rescuing his son is one cool scene, especially how it ended in space.
That Clanche man.
Now to some of the technical stuff, the Mobile Suits introduced in this arc are really amazing. AGE-3 is one good looking mecha and same goes with its alternate forms, too bad that AGE-3 Orbital is pretty much useless in this story arc. The music is still superb and that the characters introduced in this arc are really interesting and have a lot of potential to become awesome characters in the show, just give them the right moment for them to shine. Now that Kio has seen life in a Vagan colony, what will be his decision? Will he continue to fight the Vagan or stop fighting them?
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