Gundam Reconguista in G: Episode 5 + 6 [ Will you pay the cost? ]

Hngggh. The big problem with reviewing these episodes has been that for the most part, Gundam Reconguista has been a big pile of boring. That’s the worst thing about anime. When it is boring, it is boring. Now add on that this is a mecha, my favorite type of action genre, and I should spend most of my time being impressed and amazed by the story. I don’t really feel that way, or haven’t, since watching the beginning and found myself at a standstill. As a reviewer, shouldn’t I objectively watch even when things are boring to update the viewer on content and quality changes? I found myself being really challenged to do that for this show.

The main focus of episode 5 is Bellri is on the Megafauna, the resistance ship, with Norido and Raraiya. For the most part the entry is confusing and kind of ambiguous. The implication isn’t done well that Bellri is just spying, because it doesn’t either convince us too thoroughly that it’s a lie or the truth. Bellri acted the same as he always does and all that served to do was make me frustrated rather than impressed. It felt like poor writing and not effective whatsoever, but I went in assuming Bellri was trying to learn more about the Space pirates and thus his actions.

Episode 5 has a really good point: the fighting in it is actually getting interested and fluid. The best part is the mech battles so it was a shame when it didn’t do it before. We got new characters, one of which is a hot blonde chick who is awesome with mobile suits so of course I give a crap about that, For the most part we only really learn a few things. Klim Nick is a hot heat who isn’t necessarily good with his mobile suit, so he’s named and has a slight amount of skill but at times he can be humorously bad. Bellri as always uses his dynamic thinking to actually be good in battle. The Megafauna has plans entailing space combat, and Aida will probably hate Bellri forever because she was totally in love with Cahill.

I don’t really ship anymore like I thought I would. Honestly now I’m just trying to stay focused on the plot which can be sloppy. Episode 6 gave some good moments and some stupid ones, such as Chuchumi the fish having a dirty bowl and causing Raraiya to repeat ‘poop! poop!’Episode 6 also introduces a character who I think has a voice actor the casting director must have been exponentially pleased to have, because her english was fairly good and they rubbed it it right into our faces. So much so that the novelty wore off and I could soon hear they weren’t native to the language, thus kind of squandering the point. A plus for effort though, it’s interesting to see them use actors with better english.

Dare I say it, 6 might be the turning point that was worth keeping an ear out for the show. Bellri makes a crucial error in 6 as he is fighting for the megafauna. I doubt he realized he should be fighting a little less harsh when he was in the G self and killing his own allies. (seriously, he has been fighting hard and threatening the lives of his own allies. He is lucky ‘Mask’, the token masked character who looks A LOT like his friend, is too important to die so quickly). Bellri actually kills probably one of my favorite characters and instead of shrugging it off like he tried to do with Cahill, Bellri tries to deny it for the rest of the episode as he can’t believe he killed his own teacher.

Now that Bellri is forced to face a dilemma, I can’t help but be interested more. Leave it to Tomino to make a series better with death, and given Dellensen was one of the only characters we were given reason to like right away I think this will both be hilarious and end very badly for our little Bellri. Count me in, now that I can actually feel emotions from Bellri (and Aida, who clearly hates Bellri for what he did) I am a little more invested. We’ll see if it can take it from here and make up for a slow start. (Though I REALLY loved Dellensen, sobs)

Oki