Episode 18

The episode starts with Johann Overpowering HRL troops in an armed intervention. The Trinity’s targets seem to be targeting any military base and completely wiping it off the map. While waiting for Wang Liu Ming to find any information about the Thrones, CB halts all their operations, as per Sumeragi’s orders to prevent the three powers from mistaking that they are working together. The Overflag Platoon of AEU were able to tell the difference in CB’s and the Trinity’s operations, though giving hint of things to come.

Despite bearing the title Gundams, the Thrones are built of a different technology than the original CB units. Although they provide power and distribute GN particles, they have a limited time of operation as opposed to the original’s “unlimited” time. This lead them to believe that information was somehow leaked out of their organization into the hands of those who built the Thrones. Evidence of such tampering was seen further in the episode where Tiera was blocked from accessing a level 7 block of information as well as Nena’s “affinity” to Veda as shown in the previous episode.

In an exchange with Saji’s journalist sister, we get to hear the name <strong>Lagna</strong> thrown around. Though there still very information to be found about it, I’m quite sure that Libbons (the assitant of Alejandro) is involved in this somehow. The informant was killed later in the ep though showing just how much this underground network is bent on keeping itself secret in contrast to CB’s efforts.

On their way to a mission, Nena reveals her cold-blooded personality by attacking the wedding that Louise is attending killing everyone in the villa except for her. It’s harsh but I think it’s quite a turning point to the series. With her family dead, Louise is sent to the hospital with injuries that will turn the series around. How? Doing a little backtracking, on a previous episode, Louise was eying a pair of rings and Saji bought it for her on his visit all the way to Spain. Her scene with Saji really struck me at that time. “They’re pretty Saji, but I can’t put this on anymore.” I nearly broke to a tear (yeah I’m a softie).

Louise lost her left hand (and from the looks of it her feet but I’m not 100% on this) leaving Saji heartbroken and in despair. It was both touching and powerful. So much that I lost all motivation to continue working the night I watched the RAW and just went on contemplating. It’s really impressive to see how much it turned so many people’s expectations on the series around.

From this point, I see two possible paths for Saji to follow, he’ll either join up with CB and battle the Thrones (which would be after they official declare war on each other) or he’ll join up with AEU and the Overflags.

In this episode, we also get to see just how great of a pilot Graham Acre is. During the Trinity’s attack on a munitions factory, Graham was able to destroy Gundam Ein’s right arm in One-on-One combat. Too bad the flags are too hard on their pilots otherwise they’ll be the most powerful mass produced units in the series.

Upon hearing the attack on the all-civilian munitions factory, Setsuna sets off to engage the Thrones and the episode ends with Exia charging at them at full speed.

The episode ends with Setsuna in Exia charging towards the Thrones.

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