What's Gundam 00's timeslot?
Gundam 00 probably isn't the best anime to start with, but it's on "Ani-Monday" at 11 PM
have you ever seen any anime? what are your thoughts on it?
the best "starter for other non-anime scifi fans" is of course, Cowboy Bebop, because its essentially "Firefly: the Animated Series" (more or less)...I know Whedon is a big anime fan (the opening shot of River Tam curled up in a box is a shot-for-shot recreation of a scene from the series "Outlaw Star"
Long story short: rather than endlessly extend series with sequel series that drain the concept (like Voyager and Enterprise) what the really-long-running anime series like to do is make lots of "remakes" and re-imaginings (like BSG)
the original "Gundam" series ran in the late 1970's, and it did have a sequel series and ended with the movie "Char's Counterattack", but it told the beginning and end of one war; they call this the "Universal Century" continuity.
Long story short: Earth Federation establishes many space colonies...not on other planets yet, but at Earth's Lagrangian points. One of the colonies, Zeon, at the Lagrantian Point on the far side of the Moon, basically become Space Nazis and declare their independence as the Principality of Zeon. War is now fought by versatile humanoid battlemechs (for once, used as actual military hardware and not Super Robots)...
other Gundam series were variations on this theme, such as "Gundam SEED" and "Gundam Wing" which aired on Cartoon Network but didn't have a political edge.
I just read a really good review of Gundam 00, which said that it's amazingly political and actually about *US* in the present. That is, the enemies from "Zeon" used to be just "Space Nazis". You know who the bad guys were (even though they made Zeon characters fullly rounded)
Gundam 00 basically just says this: it's 300 years from now in AD 2307, and fossil fuels are running out. Unlike past series, there are no space colonies at lagrangian points. What did happen was there are 3 superpowers that have carved up the world, and rely on solar power from massive orbital elevators lined with solar panels, which extend all the way into orbit until they reach "Star City" like space stations in geosynchronous orbit.
The 3 factions, while a little different, are easily recognizable as outgrown versions of the United States, Europe, and China. The "Union" (USA) controls both Americas, Australasia, and Japan. The "Advanced European Union" control continental Europe including Russia west of the Urals, and Greenland. The Chinese ("Human Reform League") control Korea, Indo-China, Indonesia, Siberian Russia, and India (not Pakistan). The remaining third world countries of Africa and the Middle East (extending to Afghanistan and Pakistan) are basically just left to rot now that their fossil fuels have run out.
There was an indesicive non-nuclear world war a few decades ago, and each major superpower has learned that it would be difficult to fight the others, so they spend their time fighting proxy wars in the third world over dwindling resources.
The politics are obviously meant to mirror our own and be more complex than "Space Nazis": the USA (known as the "Union") is essentially the "good guys"....so long as the right thing happens to be the same as maintaining their power (think Haliburton: outright genocide in the third world would be bad for business, so they try to intervene and stop that kind of thing, but they're not particularly altruistic, except compared to the other two). The Chi-Coms are a new Socialist/Maoist state and have an alien valueset to the other two, being fairly ruthless. The Europeans are constantly upset about how they have lost the prestige and power they used to have, and are scrambling to play catch-up with the other two major powers, and are willing to screw over any third world country in the process to bring themselves back to prominence.
The main characters are actually a paramilitary "warriors for peace" kind of new terrorist organization, called "Celestial Being" who basically say that all 3 major powers are wrong for fighting major wars betwen themselves and for using the third world as pawns, and their mission statement is to end all wars (in one episode, a South American nation that is effectively Kosovo or South Ossetia declares its independence and they forcibly repulse Union troops who are sent in to restore control to the national government). The main pilot character is from former Kurdistan and as a boy was forced to become a child soldier and shoot his parents. This isn't the happy "Power Rangers"-esque Gundam-series of past incarnations.
Further, mention of "strife in the Thrid World and proxy wars" isn't just something they mention on the sidelines; a major viewpoint character is actually from there and the show doesn't really take the "side" of any of the three superpowers (not even the Union) ; a viewpoint character is "Marina Ismail" who is the first elected sovereign of the "Kingdom of Azadistan"...which is actually future Persia (Iran), though they have conquered Kurdistan. They're one of the few comparatively stable Third World countries left (all of Africa and the Middle East are effectively like Burma is today). The idea is that when the fossil fuels ran out and everyone switched to solar power, Iran was screwed. Now "Azadistan", without oil, was subjected to a trade embargo by the 3 superpowers that has crippled it. They're basically begging either the AEU or Union to let them develop their own solar power but basically the superpowers just went to strip-mine the Third World of whatever's left.
So for once, a political Gundam series set relatively near-Earth (there are space battles but they're all in low-orbit now)
