Chie and Haruka.

God, I love Sunrise. And I love what they've done with the My-Otome Zwei OAVs. Let's consider what we have here:

• There's a lot more physical comedy. For example, we have Sara Gallagher spit takes, giant hammer jokes, and we have Tomoe kicking her purported boyfriend off the top of a van, with a dumbfounded otomedience following his off-screen career with their wide eyes. I don't think the physical comedy in the My-HiME series has ever been as good as it is in the second Zwei OAV.
• And then we have Chie hat-punching a hijacker up-side the head. How can you not enjoy Chie hat-punching people upside the head?
• I also like Arika much better now in the Zwei OAVs compared to the regular Otome series. Her spunky "Do Your Best, Deshou" attitude is kinda endearing, now. Also, I like how she transforms into her mom when she powers up.
• We're all curious as to whether or not Nina and Akane still have their Otome powers, I'm sure, but I guarantee you that they're still strangers to the magical de-powering protein, alas. There's no way these two are just going to sit out all future Otomescapades powerless. I herein cite the Lacus Clause.
• Speaking of which, I hope Anime Jesus Kira Yamato really does get nightly visits from the Ghost of Flay and her occasional astral hand jobs in Gundam SEED III. That entirely platonic relationship he has with Empress Lacus is beyond ridiculous now.
• Almost as bad is Meyrin walking two paces behind Athrun on their dates. Maybe in SEED III she will Tonya Harding him in the knee so he'll have to spend most of the season with his arm around her shoulder for support again. Could happen.
• And then they'll squeeze Meyrin into a Buster machine as an excuse to make Fumiko Orikasa holler, "PHYSICAL CANCELLER ZENKAI! EXOTIC MANEUVER!" Hey, it could happen.

Rey and Lunamaria.

Man, why didn't someone tell me about these Gundam SEED Character Theater episodes before. They rule.

Just so you know, the top three mecha pilots of all time are as follows:

1. Shinji's mom.
2. Kira Anime Jesus Yamato, Gundam SEED Destiny edition—as long as he isn't piloting Strike Rouge
3. Sagara Sousuke, assuming Bonta-kun qualifies as a mecha

Mecha, powered armor, odious fursuit...it's a fine line.

That is all.

Athrun Zala in a left-hand-drive car.

Now, first of all, a show as wildly inconsistent and generally troubled as Gundam SEED Destiny will need drastic revisions in order to address its shortcomings. However, let's just tackle them one at a time, eh. The one in question here regards Athrun Zala's sports car. When he peels out of the parking lot the first time to go cruising with Kira, the steering wheel is on the left.

Athrun Zala in a right-hand-drive car.

However, later on when he's trolling for babes, err, apologizing to people for killing their boyfriends, err, trying to ditch his crazy stalker, Lunamaria, the steering wheel is on the right. So what is the most likely explanation for this inconsistency?

• Sleepy animators' wits dulled by too much Pizza Hut.
• Athrun owns more than one car because ZAFT red suit pilots make lawyer money.
• Athrun owns more than one car because Cagalli is either (a) loaded or (b) embezzling.
• Athrun stole two different cars.

Really, they were probably two different cars. We know the first one was at Orb, but I'm not sure where Athrun flew off to from Port Turkiosomething at the Sea of Marmots. It's wherever Miriallia was hanging out anyway, but it sure isn't Orb. Actually, probably neither of them are his because they aren't red.

The Hustler.

The preseason buzz for spring 2013 seemed fairly pessimistic. (Sort of seems that way more often than not lately.) Thankfully, this quarter is shaping out to be pretty decent, at least through the first third of the cour. I guess I was looking forward to Death Billiards from the name alone—turns out it's another excellent Anime Mirai short movie, by the way—and that show about giants eating people, and the second season of Railgun, so it's not as if I believed spring 2013 would be a total write-off. It turns out there are at least a couple of gems and one shiny rock to admire.

There was a time when I would have been so stoked to see this.

Until I watched Suisei no Majo (The Witch from Mercury), Kidou Senshi Gundam SEED (Mobile Suit Gundam SEED) and its sequel Gundam SEED Destiny were the only two series from that venerable franchise I had ever watched. I did enjoy Gundam SEED and thought it was good enough to buy the giant DVD box, but I probably enjoyed blogging about Destiny more because it's easier to get more mileage out of deeply flawed shows. I wrote most of those posts before adopting WordPress, and never got around to properly migrating all of them. I keep meaning to, though, someday.

Kira looks normal.

At the time, I thought a third season of Gundam SEED would not be too far away. As it turned out, ah, a variety of reasons prevented that from happening. I won't go into it since I don't have a complete understanding of the relevant facts (or at least not a confident understanding). In any case, a 20-year-anniversary movie project is expected in early 2024 now. The details I've been seeing about it do not exactly inspire much enthusiasm, though, at least in my case.

You ARE the villain, right?

At a minimum, the way the already distinctive character designs have evolved appear distractingly silly. Maybe I'll get used to them, but I can't take any of the promotional materials that I've seen so far seriously. More importantly, I'm skeptical a movie project can cram in all the things I'm expecting it to include in any sort of coherent way. I suppose it doesn't need to necessarily wrap everything up as a single movie. I had my doubts when I first heard the GIRLS und PANZER follow-up would consist of six movies, and that is working out well so far. They sure are taking a long time, though. Perhaps, if the FREEDOM movie is popular enough, Sunrise will make more.