Anime / Mobile Suit Gundam 00

I am Gundam.

"Rebirth begins through destruction."

Premiering on October 4th, 2007, Mobile Suit Gundam 00 ^note Pronounced "Double-Oh", the eleventh series in the franchise, was the first series in the long-running Gundam franchise to be set in the Gregorian calendar. The series is set roughly 300 years in the future — in AD 2307, and the world has divided into three international alliances:

• The Union of Solar Energy and Free Nations (or "Union,") composed of North and South America, Australia, and Japan.
• The Human Reform League (or "HRL,") composed of Southern/Eastern Asia (primarily half of Russia, China, India, and the surrounding nations).
• The Advanced European Union (or "AEU,") composed of essentially the modern European Union, and possibly some, if not all, of Africa.

Since fossil fuels have become too depleted to be sources of energy, these three superpowers have jointly constructed a massive solar array ring around the Earth, connected by three equally-gigantic equatorial Orbital Elevators (Union's in South America, HRL's in the Pacific Ocean, AEU's in Africa). Despite this cooperation and mutual reliance, they still engage each other in military actions and power plays, all part of a calculated zero sum game; war is still very much a reality.

Enter Celestial Being — a shadowy private military organization with the goal of eradicating war completely and permanently. Armed with four incredibly advanced, seemingly-unstoppable Humongous Mecha known as "Gundams," Celestial Being seeks to eliminate war... by attacking all other sides. The three global powers immediately mobilize to match the power of the Gundams, and before long it becomes increasingly clear that Celestial Being's goal of eradicating war will come at a heavy price: They must become the enemy of the entire world.

Gundam 00 is split into two seasons; with the first airing from October 2007 to March 2008, while the second from October 2008 to March 2009. The series also spawned several side-stories, detailed here, and a movie wrapping up the universe (called A Wakening of the Trailblazer) came out in September 2010. In 2018, a sequel anime to A Wakening of the Trailblazer was announced with Seiji Mizushima returning as director, currently slated for 2027, on Gundam 00's 20th anniversary.

Revealed Chronicle, a CGI anime taking place between seasons one and two, was announced in 2022.

Check out the character sheet.

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This show provides examples of:

• 0% Approval Rating:
  • Celestial Being loses the faith of the public after Team Trinity starts indiscriminately bombing civilians and utterly annihilating civilian and non aggressive military installations.
  • The movie reveals that A-Laws is finally being treated like the jerkasses they really were, AND that Celestial Being is finally getting the recognition that they deserve, with a VERY hammy movie that makes them the heroes.
• Absence of Evidence: GN particles jam sensors the same way that Minovsky particles do in the UC. However, unlike in the UC, Celestial Being has the only machines that generate GN particles, which means that their ships and suits can be tracked by deploying a large sensor net and watching where it stops working.
• Absurdly Sharp Blade: The GN swords. They are all quite bulky, but they are absurdly sharp despite not looking like it. Justified In-Universe as GN Particles can (apparently) be used to increase a solid blade's sharpness... whatever that means.
• Ace Custom:
  • Graham Aker is the 00 universe's king of Ace Customs. After his stock Union Flag proves incapable of matching the Gundams, he has it upgraded into a much more powerful custom model (that later serves as the basis for the upgraded Overflag); at the end of the first season he's offered the new GN-X, but refuses for personal reasons^note Two of his wingmen were killed by the Throne Gundams, so he swore that he would avenge them by defeating the Gundams with a Flag and instead jury-rigs its GN Tau Drive onto his Custom Flag for the final battle. In the second season, he initially uses a customized Ahead with katana-shaped beam sabers but his Masurao and Susano'o are both one-of-a-kind units visually based on the Flag and, as later revealed, were basically built around the Flag's frame. In the movie, he uses the Brave Commander Type, the next-generation version of the Flag series equipped with two GN Tau Drives (but not a Twin Drive System) and a few other improvements that set it above the Brave Standard Type.
  • Soma also uses two Ace Customs before her Heel–Face Turn: a pink Tieren designed specifically for her and another modified Ahead which becomes a hand-me-down for Louise Halevy.
• Ace Pilot: Graham Aker, Sergei Smirnov and Ali al-Saachez are sufficiently skilled such that they can fight the technologically superior Gundams to a standstill.
• Actor Allusion:
  • Ribbons Almark, who shares a Japanese voice actor with Amuro Ray, pilots both the RX-78-inspired 0 Gundam & the Guncannon-inspired Reborns Cannon/Gundam.
    • Furuya also voices E. A. Ray, a member of Celestial Being shown in flashbacks to its earliest days. Even better, his first name was eventually revealed to be "Eternal", calling to mind the ending theme for the original Gundam, whose name can be translated to "Eternal Amuro".
  • A more subtle reference: in the first ED Setsuna F. Seiei is eating an apple, referring to another role that both Mamoru Miyano and Brad Swaile are famous for.
  • In regards to Mobile Suit Gundam SEED, this is not the first time either Lisa Ann Beley voiced the buxom brunette captain of a starship or Chantal Strand voiced a pink-haired Bridge Bunny.
  • Richard Ian Cox is the voice of another character who engages in a lot of Say My Name, from Inuyasha (KAGOME!) to Allelujah (MARIE!). Also befitting another previous role of his, Gundam Kyrios is a white and orange-painted mecha, much like Liger Zero Schneider.
• Aerith and Bob: Subverted. Most of the esoteric names — a staple in the Gundam franchise — are in this case codenames for much more mundanely named characters. It's played straight with the Innovades.
• Age-Gap Romance: Ian Vashti and his wife, Linda. Ian is even called out on how young his wife is, causing him to defensively note he waited until she was legal to marry her (or try anything else), before demanding they focus on the important reasons they're there and not on his young wife. They are 57 and 32, respectively, in the second season (which is when Linda first appears); it's also worth bearing in mind that they have a 14-year-old daughter, the Bridge Bunny Mileina.
• The Ageless: The Innovades, whose aging is controlled by gene manipulation and nanomachines.
• Airborne Aircraft Carrier: The Ptolemaios is the mothership/carrier ship that carries the protagonists and all their Gundams. In season 2, it gets replaced by the Ptolemaios 2 that can traverse in space as well as atmosphere and sea.
• All of the Other Reindeer: Louise Halevy, during her time as a rookie in the A-Laws.
• All There in the Manual: The six official 00 related works, 00P, 00F, 00V, 00V Senki, 00N, and 00I fill in various details left unexplained in the series, such as who were and what happened to Feldt Grace's parents, what happened in the gap between the two seasons, and so on.
• Alphabet News Network: The JNN. May double as Product Placement in that JNN is a real world network, as it is the news division of TBS, the broadcaster for the series.
• Alternate Calendar: This series is the first to avert this entirely, with it being set 300 years into the future instead.
• Ambiguous Gender: The Innovades are highly androgynous, and while it is confirmed that they have physical sexes, it can be difficult to tell which they are.
• America Takes Over the World: America clearly dominates the Union powerbloc that includes the entire western hemisphere, plus Japan.
• Ancient Conspiracy: Celestial Being. To accomplish their goals of wiping out war and unifying humanity, they have subverted the greatest minds of the scientific community and formed a development chain that lasted over two hundred years, all to ensure utter technological Humongous Mecha domination when they chose to reveal themselves. In the process, they even executed a round trip to Jupiter. And in a peculiar twist on the trope, this ancient conspiracy is mostly staffed by the heroes. The resident Big Bad is also a member, who is trying to co-opt the organization's resources for his own means. In fact, a lot of the conflict in the series is a result of warring factions trying to be the lead actor of the conspiracy and to swing its end result in their favor. Further complicating matters is that very few are privy to the plans full scope.
• Anime Accent Absence: There are characters both important and insignificant from all over the world - Japan, the middle east, America, Ireland, Russia, just to name a few. All of them have Japanese/American accents in both versions, although it's understandable given the sheer amount of different nationalities involved.
• Anyone Can Die: As is the norm for the franchise. To drive the point home, one of the main Gundam Meisters dies near the end of the first season.
• Apologetic Attacker: Graham Aker apologizes for his (attempted) destruction of the 00 Raiser in both his fights against Setsuna. The first time, Setsuna deflects his beam sabres with the 00 Raiser's GN Field, and the second time, he catches the blade with 00 Raiser's bare hands and shatters it, denying Graham victory in both cases.
• Arc Words: "The dialogues to come..."
• Arm Cannon: Arios' GN Submachine Guns, Exia's seldom-used GN Vulcans, and the Gadessa's and Garazzo's GN Vulcans.
• Artificial Human: According to the novels, the Trinity siblings are test tube babies, and Nena's glowing eyes after coming out of Veda seems to imply that the siblings are also Innovades themselves.

• Artificial Limbs: Lichtendahl had his entire right side replaced with cybernetic parts, since he was severely injured in an attack in the past (which gives a whole new painful meaning to the swimsuit he was using fairly early on in the series). In season two, Louise Halevy has an artificial hand.
• Attack Drone: Arguably even more prominent that in the Universal Century setting. Numerous mobile suits have remote weapons of varying effectiveness, complexity, and purposes, from "reusable missiles" to "remote-controlled shields/rifles."
• Award-Bait Song: Season 2's second ending theme, Trust You.
• Ax-Crazy:
  • Michael Trinity, though he barely holds a knife candle to Ali al-Saachez, who in turn is eclipsed by Hallelujah Haptism.
  • Louise Halevy at the height of her Brainwashed and Crazy phase may also count.
• Backup Twin: Lockon Stratos, in the second season.
• Badass Longcoat: Part of the A-Laws uniform in Season Two, though it's closer to something of a half-skirt.
• Badass Normal: Sergei Smirnov, Ali al-Saachez, and Graham Aker all effectively take on the ridiculously Bigger Stick Gundams in utterly average mobile suits (in the first season). Lockon Stratos (both of them) would be this among the Gundam Meisters, given that the other three are: A Child Soldier and eventual Innovator, an escaped Super-Soldier, and an Innovade.
• Bait-and-Switch Credits: While the series delivers plenty of the action promised in the credits, the credits and indeed the early episodes of season two heavily imply that Tieria Erde would be the one avenging the first Lockon's death by killing Ali al-Saachez, only for the second Lockon to be the one to ultimately receive the honor.
• Bait the Dog: Nena Trinity comes off as a silly comic relief upon first inspection until she blows up a random wedding out of boredom.
• Barbie Doll Anatomy: Any of the scenes when Setsuna uses Trans-Am Raiser. Any characters shown are completely naked and lacking certain features, most notably Setsuna, Lockon, Graham and Saji all lacking something between the legs. Female characters, however, still have breasts, but without nipples.
• Barehanded Blade Block: Used beautifully when "Mr. Bushido," the human incarnation of Everything's Better with Samurai, shows up in season two using every samurai trope in the book. Setsuna responds by executing a perfect Barehanded Blade Block, then casually snapping Mr. Bushido's katana in half with a flick of his (Gundam's) wrists.
• Battle Butler: Hong Long is Liu Mei's servant and bodyguard, capable of outrunning bullets.

• Beam Spam:
  • Gundam Virtue is the main culprit of this in season one, and the Alvatore mobile armor does it as well during its appearance. In Season Two, the Seravee Gundam takes it even further while the Cherudim joins the fun, and then both out-do themselves from Episode 22 onwards.
  • Then the Reborns Gundam does it in the series finale.
  • 00 Raiser does a pretty good job for a melee-unit. Granted, its biggest beam-weapon is actually a several kilometers long Beam Sword, but even its GN Rifle Swords when used as regular rifles turn out to be nearly as powerful as Virtue was.
• Beat Them at Their Own Game: At the end of season one, Celestial Being is given a very, very severe beating when Veda is taken from them by the Innovades and their technological superiority is removed. Their response in Season Two is to literally do the exact same thing to the Innovades. Irony is a bitch.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Sadly averted with Louise Halevy, from Episode 18 of the first season onwards. She first loses her hand and can't get it to re-grow through rehab, and when she gets a prosthetic one it's through a treatment that leaves her pale, sick, addicted to painkillers, and mentally unbalanced, contrasting heavily with the cute and lively girl she used to be. She gets better, though...
• Become a Real Boy: Both adhered to and subverted. Artificial Human Tieria Erde learns to live like a human over the course of the series, but ultimately sacrifices his physical body and merges with Veda.
• BFG: Several of the mecha are equipped with massive cannons.
  • Tieria Erde's Virtue has not one but two (technically four) giant cannons attached to its back, along with a hand-held Wave-Motion Gun it uses to cause even more destruction, and eventually goes Guns Akimbo with. Its Mid-Series Upgrade, Seravee, is equipped with all that to begin with, and gets upgraded with additional cannons.
  • Lockon Stratos' Dynames has an optional "super sub-stratospheric altitude gun," which is basically a giant cannon designed to shoot massive objects out of orbit... From the ground.
  • Throne Eins' GN Launcher, which is longer than the Eins is tall when it's unfolded. The other Thrones can also link with Eins to give the launcher a huge power boost.
  • The Gadessa wields the "Triple GN Mega Launcher," an improved variant of the GN Launcher.
  • Every mobile armor with a GN Drive has this in some variation, with the first having one that was powered by seven GN Tau Drives and capable of incinerating an asteroid field, and the latest to be introduced having the added perk of being able to bend its beams.
• BFS:
  • 00 Raiser's Trans-Am Raiser gives it a massive beam sword (the "Raiser Sword") that is nearly ten thousand kilometers long and requires four "limbs" (both arms and both shoulder-mounted binders) to control.
  • The GN Sword III upgrade incorporates the functionality of the Raiser Sword into the beam pistol, giving the 00 Raiser a smaller but one-handed version of the massive weapon, putting Setsuna right back into his comfort zone.
  • The Throne Zwei and Arche also have one in the form of the GN Buster Sword.
• Big Bad Wannabe: Laguna Harvey. He's rated even beneath Alejandro Corner, another Big Bad Wannabe.
• Big Brother Mentor: Lockon Stratos aka Neil Dylandy. His twin brother and successor Lyle/Lockon Stratos II did quite the job acting upon this trope by simultaneously lecturing both Allelujah Haptism and Saji Crossroad about love and relationships in Episode 18 of Season Two.
• Bigger Stick: The GN Drives used by the Gundams, which allows them to utterly outclass every other mobile suit in existence. Then the Twin Drive System comes along and utterly outclasses that.
• Big "NO!": More than once, by multiple characters, in both regular and Say My Name versions.
• Bio-Augmentation: The Human Reform League used genetic engineering in an attempt to create an army of supersoldiers with telepathic ability. Among the Super Human Research Institute subjects where Allelujah and Soma. The genetic modification is likely a call back to Coordinators of Gundam SEED, while telepathy recalls the Cyber Newtypes of the Universal Century.
• Bishōnen Line:
  • Gundam Nadleeh, emerging from the hulking mass that is Gundam Virtue; it even has hair.
  • The mobile suit Alvaaron, hidden inside the monstrous mobile armor Alvatore, also counts.
• Black Box: Each of Celestial Being's GN Drives had a black box that no one could figure out. This eventually gives the Gundams the Trans-Am ability.

• Book Ends: Several.
  • During the final battle, Setsuna F. Seiei and Ribbons Almark are both back to piloting their original Gundams, the Exia and 0 respectively.
  • Aeolia Schenberg's broadcast in the first episode and the ESF President's in the last episode show reaction shots of many of the same locations.
  • The first season ends with a voice-over of Setsuna's letter to Marina Ismail, while the second season has a voice-over of Marina's letter to Setsuna.
  • In the first episode, the Exia appears from the distance as a sparkle of light and finishes off the Enact in a matter of minutes. In Season One's finale, GN Flag makes its entry in a similar fashion and finishes off the Exia in a matter of minutes. This happens again in Season Two's finale, when the Exia Repair II appears from the distance as a sparkle of light and finishes off the 0 Gundam in a matter of minutes.
  • The end of the 1st season ends with "Daybreak's Bell," the intro used at the beginning of the anime, to close out season 1. Not to mention that the trail of GN particles seen at the end is similar to the one seen in the intro, when the Exia is flying down the elevator.
• Boom, Headshot!: Okay, let's count: there's Aeolia Schenberg, Hong Long, Ali al-Saachez, Ribbons Almark, and Tieria Erde. The last two subvert this almost immediately, since Death Is Cheap for Artificial Humans like them.
• Boring, but Practical:
  • Mobile suit example, the Anno Domini timeline got the Anf mobile suit. It is big, bulky and quite slow, but it is also incredibly easy and cheap to produce as well as being one of the few mobile suits that run on fossil fuels making it ideal for the Middle Eastern region.
  • The Cherubim has long-range capabilities just like the Dynames, two beam handguns for group combat with anti-beam coating on them for melee combat, and Attack Drones going for it, but otherwise doesn't have much special going for it compared to the other Gundam in Season 2, or the A-Laws Ace Custom mobile suits. Lockon puts in work with it regardless, defeating Ace Pilot after Ace Pilot with airtight improv plans and creative use of the Trans-Am.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: The pills Ribbons Almark give Louise Halevy also let him control her. She gets better though.
• Break the Cutie: Louise Halevy, made worse by losing her family and left hand in an attack nobody saw coming.
  • Nena Trinity also gets this via a bit of Laser-Guided Karma.
• Bridge Bunnies: Averted. The crew of the Ptolemaios is equal opportunity, with two males and two females. The Ptolemaios II, however, plays it straight with one male and three females.
• Britain Is Only London: Averted. The only bits of British action in the show took place in Scotland.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Sumeragi Lee Noriega, who despite often falling into alcoholic depressions is one of the best tacticians in the world. To clarify, her greatest tactical innovations come to her while she's drunk.
• But Not Too Foreign: Allelujah Haptism is Russian-Chinese Kazakhstani; Sumeragi Lee Noriega (Leesa Kujou) is an American with Japanese-Spanish heritage; Saji and Kinue Crossroad, as well as Billy Katagiri, are Japanese-American.
• Calling Your Attacks:
  • Justified in that systems such as Trans-Am are voice-activated.
  • Not so in season two though, wherein Trans-Am is activated by pushing two buttons. They must shout "Trans-Am!" out of habit; still doesn’t explain why the second Lockon does it though...
  • Tieria Erde in both seasons likes to update viewers on exactly what he’s doing or about to do with his Big 'Effing Wave-Motion Gun, although it's likely that, given that the Meisters can freely speak to each other in their cockpits, he is signalling for the other Meisters to get clear.
• Catchphrase:
  • "Setsuna F. Seiei, eliminating the target(s)."
  • "Lockon Stratos, targeted and firing." In the dub, he says "Dynames, Lockon Stratos, I'm gonna shoot 'em up!"
  • Setsuna also has a habit of declaring that "I am (a) Gundam". No one, in-universe or out, seems quite sure what that means.
  • Towards the end of the first season, the other Meisters do understand, somewhat. Setsuna sees the Gundam as the embodiment of justice and the power to end all wars, an ideal he had been striving towards for most of his life. Thus it's not enough for him to simply pilot the Gundam, he wants to become the Gundam or at least all that the Gundam represents.
• Char Clone: Deconstructed in Graham Aker. While he is blond, and does have a custom mobile suit, his identity is never in doubt, his badass nickname is just a nickname, and he doesn't wear the mask to hide his identity, but rather due to hideous scars given to him by the ostensible hero of the series. (He also has no Long-Lost Relative.)
• Central Theme: What exactly should the legacy of the Gundam franchise be? Which messages and themes should be held up, and which ones should be discarded?
  • Season 1 tries to seriously examine the idea of unilateral interventionism held up by other contemporary Gundam series like Mobile Suit Gundam Wing and Mobile Suit Gundam SEED, and in general the metaphor mobile suits like Gundams represent (i.e. weapons that give the protagonist the power to cut through entire armies and force their personal wills on nations). It puts Celestial Being and the Gundam Meisters in the position of those series leads, and asks if a good such as ending conflict can actually be achieved, despite all the issues standing in the way of such a goal. The season ultimately concludes that no matter how many issues are overcome, all such interventionism can do is reinforce hegemony, ending with the formation of 00's version of the Earth Federation, something most of the mainline Gundam shows consider a corrupt and destructive evil.
  • Season 2 becomes an outright criticism of Gundams and Gundam protagonists in general. The A-Laws are introduced as an even darker mirror to what Celestial Being attempted in season 1, committing massacres and destroying entire nations using the same Gundam / GN technology the protagonists did. The villainous Innovators evoke the main continuity's Newtypes and their instrumentalized Shadow Archetype, the Cyber Newtypes. The cast even includes the Japanese voice actors of previous Gundam protagonists in antagonist roles, such as Judau's VA Kazuki Yao and Loran's VA Romi Park. Especially of note is the main villain, Ribbons Almark, a dark mirror to the original Mobile Suit Gundam's Amuro Ray. Not only is Ribbons played by Amuro's Japanese VA Tōru Furuya, he espouses corrupted versions of Amuro's beliefs in the post-0079 works, and pilots 00 equivalents of both the original RX-78 Gundam and the Nu Gundam. For whatever good there is in Gundam as a franchise, the Gundams and the protagonists themselves are inherently problematic and easily twisted to support outright evils, and thus should not be held up as ideals to be followed.
  • The movie, Gundam 00: A Wakening of the Trailblazer, finally asks what then is of value to be taken from the rest of Gundam, throwing every concept and theme of 00 and Gundam in general at an existential threat represented by the ELS. The assembled armies of the Earth Federation; Descartes Shaman, an Innovator / Newtype turned into a weapon by the state; Graham Aker, representing the power of martial prowess; The full power of Celestial Being back in the hands of the protagonists after season 2; Gundams new and old... all are deemed worthless and unable to stop the ELS. Instead, the only thing of any worth is Setsuna throwing away all his weapons, blowing off the Qan[T]'s armor, and using the power of human empathy and understanding to reach out to the ELS. The same things that help the White Base crew survive the end of the very first Gundam show, and is the message repeated in many of Tomino's other Gundam productions, such as ZZ, Victory, Turn A, and more. And similarly, this saves not only humanity in 00, but as the epilogue shows, saves the 00 continuity from going down the same road as the Universal Century, as it appeared to be doomed to at the start of the movie.
• Character Development: Several characters, but most notably Saji Crossroad who, over the course of the second season, manned-up considerably.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • Nadleeh's Trial System. In the first season it's used once, briefly, before it stops working. Not even mentioned again until late in the second season.
  • The 0 Gundam seen in the prologue. Does not appear again until the epilogue of the first season, reappears in Episode 14 of Season 2 when it is revealed that Ribbons was piloting it during the Krugis Civil War and spared Setsuna/Soran as part of his plans later, then disappears into oblivion again until the end of the Second Season, where Lasse and then Ribbons Almark, the aforementioned original pilot uses it, the former to defend Ptolemy, the latter against Setsuna's Exia Repair II in the final battle after the destruction of their previous Gundams.
  • Veda was not constructed just to be the cornerstone of Celestial Being's plans, but also to help decode quantum brainwaves by being a massive-scale quantum computer, which turns out to be essential in communicating with ELS.
  • A small one but in the first season Anti Personal Automatons are mentioned in a throwaway line and then not heard of again until the second season where they become much more important.
• Chekhov's Gunman:
  • Lyle Dylandy makes an Early-Bird Cameo in season 1 and is recruited in season 2 to become the next Lockon Stratos.
  • Ribbons Almark, a seemingly-minor henchman character, is the Big Bad.
  • Minor character Linda Vashti later serves as a support engineer for the 00 Qan[T] in the movie.

• Chekhov's Skill: Quantum brainwaves get a few throw-away mentions in season one, only to become much more important in season two.

• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Alejandro Corner, Ribbons Almark, Wang Liu Mei.
• Code Name: The members of Celestial Being all have one except for Allelujah, Tieria, and apparently the engineers.
  • Let's be reasonable, who in Celestial Being would've believed them if they said Tieria Erde and Allelujah Haptism were their real names? (To be fair though, Allelujah may as well be his codename since he couldn't remember his real name after the HRL scientists mucked about with his brain. And it's a lot less conspicuous than E-57 or Meister 874...)

• Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: The Thrones and GN-Xs both emit red GN Particles, and the Big Bads, both of whom also happen to have certain issues, make use of golden particles.
• Combining Mecha: Several examples exist.
  • The two GN Arms in the first season can combine with any of the Gundams.
  • The 0 Raiser can combine with 00 Gundam to form the 00 Raiser.
  • The GN Archer can dock with Arios Gundam, both in mobile armor mode, to form the Archer Arios.
  • The Seravee Gundam has the Seraphim Gundam as a backpack, which detaches and transforms into a mobile suit form.
    • And in the movie, Tieria's Gundam Rafael has an upgraded Gundam Seravee as its backpack. And its legs can be used as huge GN Cannon Bits, for no adequately explained reason.
• Combo Rifle: The Seravee has two GN Bazookas that can be attached to its Shoulder Cannons for greater range and power, and/or combined together to create a Wave-Motion Gun (which can further transform into a Wave-Motion Tuning Fork mode).
• Comforting the Widow: Gender-swapped. Hiling Care oh-so-suggestively offers to "comfort" Devine Nova after his brother Bring Stabity is killed, only for her advances to be swiftly shot down.
• Contrived Clumsiness: A non-comedic example; Nena bombs a wedding party, killing almost everyone there. When questioned about it, she giggles and says she accidentally pressed the wrong button. The reason she bombed the party was because they were having more fun than her.
• Contrived Coincidence: A lot of them, mostly when bridging the gap between the two seasons. It's not particularly jarring though, because it allows for interesting character interaction most of the time.
• Cool Big Sis: Christina Sierra and Kinue Crossroad in season one, and Feldt Grace in season two.
• Cool Spaceship: The Ptolemaios. Its successor, the Ptolemaios II, is even cooler.
• Countrystan: Azadistan, said to be an evolution of Iran prior to the start of the series, features a Constitutional Monarchy style of government.
• Crazy-Prepared: Aeolia Schenberg's 200-year plan accounts for things like him being killed before he could be revived from cryosleep.
• Crippling Overspecialization: The four Gundams are tailored for very specific roles, giving them exploitable weak spots. This actually leads (partially) to their downfall in the first season.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Absolutely every fight against the Gundams for the majority of the first season is incredibly one-sided, various ace pilots and mass-swarm tactics notwithstanding. This is remarked upon by Allelujah Haptism, who thinks it feels unfair.
• Cute and Psycho: Nena Trinity was introduced as a cutesy Genki Girl, only to shoot up a wedding For the Evulz, killing almost everybody.
• Cute Bruiser: Soma Peries, Nena Trinity, Louise Halevy
• Cyber Cyclops: The Enact, Flag, Tieren, Anf, Taozi, Hellion... pretty much every mass-produced mobile suit without a GN Drive (except for the Masurao/Susanowo).
• Damsel in Distress: Louise Halevy in the second season, psychologically, if you think about it. In the end, she is rescued and redeemed by Saji and Setsuna.
• Dark Action Girl: Soma Peries, Nena Trinity, Louise Halevy, Hiling Care. Revive Revival can be one depending on the dub.
• Dark and Troubled Past:
  • Gundam Meisters Setsuna F. Seiei, Lockon Stratos (both of them), and H/Allelujah Haptism. Tieria Erde? No one knows.
  • And then there is Louise Halevy, whose tragic event is displayed right in the first season.
  • Don't forget miss Sumeragi, and her little accident, or Lichty, who lost his parents and half his body in an accident, or Felt, whose parents died and who wasn't even informed how. spotting a pattern here?
• Dark Reprise: The track "Recover" is a deep and ominous rearrangement of the normally uplifting and powerful track "Union", signifying Grahams obsession with revenge.
• Dead Man Writing: Setsuna F. Seiei's letter e-mail to Marina Ismail at the end of the first season.
• Death by Irony: Ribbons Almark, killed by the very boy he saved, inside the very Gundam he used to save him, while said boy was in the Gundam that Ribbons had pulled strings to put him in in the first place. And the whole situation was brought about by using his earlier tactics against him. Irony level: high.
• Death from Above: The Memento Mori (both of them) in the second season.
• Death Is Cheap: For Innovades apparently. They all seem to have their consciousness and memories backed up by Veda.
• Deconstructor Fleet:
  • Gundam 00 seems to have decided that its purpose in life was to deconstruct the entire Gundam franchise.
  • Or you could take the route that deems the first season as a Deconstruction and the second as the Reconstruction in a Decon-Recon Switch.
• Deflector Shields: GN Fields. The Defense Rods used by non-GN mobile suits serve as a physical version of the trope.
• Destroy the Abusive Home: Allelujah goes back and destroys the lab where he was raised and experimented on.
• Deus ex Machina: The Exia Repair II in Season 2. Absolutely no indication was given beforehand that the Exia had been rebuilt, and is pretty much only there so Setsuna has a mobile suit to pilot to fight the 0 Gundam.

• Disc-One Final Boss: Alejandro Corner, whom the main character has an epic Grand Finale-style battle against... halfway through the series. Ends the first season in style, though.
• Doomed Upgrade:
  • Meet the AEU Enact, the most advanced mobile suit to date. Meet the Gundam Exia, which curb-stomps the Enact during its demonstration within the first 10 minutes of the first episode.
  • Happens again in the second season with the GN-XIII, which despite being supposedly more advanced than the original GN-X is regulated to nothing but cannon fodder.
  • Also happens to the Ahead a short while after. Despite being the successor to the GN-XIII above, pretty much the same thing happens to it around 8-10 episodes in.
  • The GNHW add-on packs for the Cherudim, Arios, and Seravee count, as they're destroyed one after the other just 1 or 2 episodes after they're installed. Subverted with the GN Sword III of the 00.
• Double Agent: Every third person.
  • Wang Liu Mei, who's more or less willing to aid anyone who might, in some way, make the world change, including the completely discarded Thrones.
  • Lyle Dylandy is another example, leaking information on the Gundams' operations to Katharon. He's not very good at it though, since Celestial Being already knows he's a member of Katharon and that he's faking being a bad pilot. May be Celestial Being's very own Unwitting Pawn because of this.

• Dual Wielding: Another popular trope in 00. Exia, 00/Raiser, and Masurao/Susanowo are the most common examples. Seravee, being Multi-Armed and Dangerous, can wield 6 beam sabers at once, and the Cherudim's GN Pistols II have an "Axe Mode" for if it ever gets into trouble.
• Dying Alone: Poor Kinue. Poor Neil, too...
• Dysfunction Junction: all of Celestial Being, but especially the Meisters. Justified since they look for highly capable people that hate war so intensly that they will become terrorists to stop it. This means that most recruits have a very Dark and Troubled Past.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Andrei Smirnov, Sergei's son, was mentioned in the novels long before he ever showed up in season two.
• Effective Knockoff: The mass-produced GN Tau Drives emit weaker red/orange particles and lack the TD Blankets needed to provide a limitless supply. Despite that, the Tau Drives are far more effective than previous generations of non-Gundam mobile suits when confronting Celestial Being.

• Elite Four: The Gundam Meisters themselves were a group that would wreck havok on all sides of every major armed confilct until they centered the hatred and military might of the whole world on themselves.
  • The Idealist: Setsuna F. Seiei.
  • The Lancer: Lockon Stratos (both Dylandy brothers).
  • The Big Guy / Designated Point Man: H/Allelujah Haptism.
  • Genius Bruiser: Tieria Erde.
• Elite Mooks: The A-Laws, primary antagonists for half of the second season, are an elite unit of Mecha Mooks and remain so until they take over the rest of the world’s military towards the end of the season. Subverted in that they actually present a substantial threat to Celestial Being’s continued survival. For a while anyway.
• The Empire: The Human Reform League. Out of all the Superpowers, it is the least benevolent. It secretly conducts supersoldier research on orphans, sides with militants to gain control of Ceylon, and has shades of socialism. It's rivals with the Union and AEU, and the most antagonistic to Celestial Being. On the bright side, they're not as oppressive or ruthless as Zeon or the Ribbon's controlled Federation.
• Emotionless Girl: Feldt Grace is the emotionally repressed sort, though she gradually opens up over the course of the first season.
• Enemy Mine: Sergei Smirnov and Allelujah Haptism (and Lockon and Setsuna) working to prevent pieces of the orbital ring from falling early on in series.
  • The ESF, Celestial Being, and Katharon in the final battle.
  • The most impressive example has to be five different factions (Celestial Being, Kataron, one of the coup d’état factions, the regular ESF Army, and the A-Laws) spontaneously putting aside their completely justified grudges against each other to destroy the wreckage of one of the orbital elevators before it destroys the various towns and cities underneath it. To be more exact, A-Laws was the one who caused the catastrophe in the first place in order to pin it on the coup d'état faction. Their ground troops were happily closing off the faction's escape route as per their orders when the elevator started collapsing at which point the field commanders pretty much decided letting millions of innocents die wouldn't rest on THEIR consciences.
• Energy Ball: Seravee can create and fire one with "GN Bazooka, Hyper-Burst Mode!" The results are usually quite... explosive.
• Energy Weapons: Played with. Before Celestial Being and the Gundams showed up beam weaponry was considered too unconventional for mobile suit combat. Eventually, though, almost everyone had them.
• Enfant Terrible: The Innovades. Ribbons Almark himself is a classic example of this trope, presented as a beautiful, young, angelic boy, a facade which cleverly and effectively masks his God complex and rather unhinged state of mind.

• Even the Guys Want Him:
  • Lockon Stratos. No, not in the show (except for for Tieria Erde). The "00" fanbase has all but collectively decided that it's perfectly fine to be gay or bi for Stupid Sexy Lockon, so handsome and badass he is.
  • Tieria too.
    Michael: Man, he's so pretty. If he was a girl, I'd be all over him!
• Everything's Better with Samurai: Mr. Bushido is a subversion. His absolutely ridiculous motif causes everyone to think that he's out of his goddamn mind, which might honestly be true looking at some of his more bizarre antics. In addition, while you can't really call him a "bad" pilot, Graham is vastly more competent and dangerous in season one before he adopts the Bushido Bob act, and in the movie after he drops it.
• Everything's Better with Sparkles: GN Particles.
• Evil Laugh: Hallelujah Haptism, Alejandro Corner, Nena Trinity, and Regene Regetta.
• Evil Mentor: Ali al-Saachez was this to Setsuna, and to a lesser degree Ribbons Almark was as well (since he inspired Setsuna to the point where he tried to exploit that admiration TWICE).
• Evil Red Head: Ali al-Saachez and, arguably, Nena Trinity, Bring Stabity, and Devine Nova. Subverted by Patrick Colasour.

• Expository Hairstyle Change:
  • In the second season, Feldt Grace stops weaing pigtails and puts her hair in a style similar to Christina's, which is apparently a deliberate tribute, and the formerly long-haired Louise Halevy is shown with short hair.
  • Nena Trinity comes away from her face-to-face encounter with Ali al-Saachez in the second season with a bruised face and a hairstyle mirroring his.
• Expy:
  • Setsuna F. Seiei’s appearance, age, mannerisms and backstory, including his Pick on Someone Your Own Size ghost from the past, is very similar to both Sagara Sousuke and Heero Yuy.
    • Setsuna's similarity to Heero is even more emphasized with the similarities of their Mid-Season Upgrade units: the 00 Raiser and the Wing Gundam Zero Custom. The 00 Raiser sports large, white wing shields that gives it an angelic appearance like the WZC. Also, both Gundams are equipped with very high-output energy weapons which are capable of destroying multiple enemies or large targets in a single hit. Visually, the 00 Raiser doing a Guns Akimbo with its GN Sword I Is in Rifle Mode mirrors that of WZC when it splits its Twin Buster Rifle into two.
  • The soft-spoken, orphan-loving, pacifist princess Marina Ismail is an expy of both Relena Peacecraft and Lacus Clyne.
  • Ribbons Almark's Gundams (0 and Reborns) end up being expys of Amuro Ray's RX-78 – (for the 0 Gundam) and a combination of the Guncannon, Gundam, and Hi-Nu Gundam (for the Reborns) – as a Shout-Out to Tōru Furuya voicing both characters.
    • Although possibly unintentionally, the Reborns Gundam may be one for the Strike Freedom from Gundam SEED, as both units use Bit-like weapons.
    • Allelujah Haptism's Kyrios and later Arios Gundams invoke the Zeta Gundam, having a near identical alternate mode.
    • During the final battle where Arios is featured, Hallelujah even copies Z Gundam's famous "Waverider Crash".
    • 00V extends the joke further, giving the 0 Gundam a Full Armor form nearly identical to the Full Armor Gundam, as well as introducing a version of the Reborns Gundam with an additional Tank Mode (a tip of the hat to the Guntank, which Amuro piloted once).
    • There is also something else about Ribbons that should make someone wary of him. He shares a lot of tropes and motivations in common with Paptimus Scirocco.
  • Season two lets loose with the Zeta Gundam references: the A-Laws are an obvious parallel of the Titans, Katharon a parallel of Karaba, and the Regnant clearly gets its design from the Qubeley.
  • Aeolia Schenberg seems to be an Expy of Hari Seldon of Asimov's Foundation series, given their shared habit of showing up in public announcements despite being centuries dead. In addition, he's also based off Konstantin Tsiolkovsky - one of the founders of modern rocketry.
  • Soft spot for a far-younger woman? Suffering under self-serving superiors? Scar over the left eye? Similar vocal characterization? Sergei Smirnov IS Giroro.
  • Saji Crossroad, Louise Halevy, and Andrei Smirnov, seem to be Expies of Hathaway, Quess, and Gyunei from Char's Counterattack.
  • Saji himself is similar to Shinji Ikari since both are fearful, frail, young boys who would rather hide from problems of society. Both are also negative representations of their respective target audiences.
  • Louise Halevy also ends up very similar to Stella Loussier during the second season. Saji similarly ends up in a similar situation as Shinn, complete with a similar Wangst issues.
  • The Union Flags seem to be inspired by the Variable Fighters in Macross. Similarly, the Tierens are a convenient expy to Zakus.
• Extra Eyes: Being the first Earth-created mobile suits using (pseudo-)GN Drives, the GN-X and its successors have four eyes arranged in an "X" for added ominous factor.
• Eyepatch of Power: Lockon Stratos briefly sports one near the end of the first season. He also wears it for all of his Season 2 non-flashback appearances (dreams, visions, etc.)
• Eye Scream: Lockon Stratos, resulting in the Eyepatch of Power.
• Fanservice: The Exia Repair and Exia R2 certainly qualify. Same goes for Arche Gundam and 0 Gundam ACD (Actual Combat Deployment colors). Same actually also goes for Lyle, though he was already introduced in season 1.
  • Anew and Louise when Setsuna uses Trans-Am Raiser against them.
• Falling into the Cockpit: Notably (and unusually for a Gundam series) averted. With the exception of the second Lockon, all of Celestial Being's Gundam Meisters had years of training before they were sent out on combat sorties, and the Earth pilots they oppose are all professionals who, at worst, are unfamiliar with the model of mobile suit they were just issued while still being proficient in piloting mobile suits in general.
• False Flag Operation: Happens to Celestial Being when the Trinties show up, and begin their ruthless attacks. Despite beliving they're part of CB, the Trinities are really under Alejandro's control. Despite this, The Gundam Meisters get stuck with the blame, since the world doesn't know what's really going on
• Fatal Family Photo: Barack Zirin tells Louise Halevy about his deceased wife after she sees a photo of her in his locker. By the end of the episode, guess who becomes the designated guinea pig of the 00 Raiser's debut.
• The Federation:
  • The Union and AEU in Season 1 play the trope straight. They're actually relatively benevolent governments.
  • Deconstructed with the Earth Sphere Federation in Season 2. It's true ruler is a tyrannical mastermind, using whatever means necessary to achieve his goals. His minions include The A-Laws, a ruthless and oppressive State Sec. But once Ribbons is defeated, the Federation reforms and becomes extremely benevolent.

• Field of Blades: In the third ED Setsuna F. Seiei is pictured walking through a field of guns, which are covered in roses and standing barrels-down.
• Fictional Country: Several:
  • There are multiple fiction Middle Eastern countries, with the in-universe justification being that the collapse of the oil industry led to a massive redrawing of borders in the region. The most prominent fictional Middle-Eastern country, the Kingdom of Azadistan, has roughly the same borders as Iran.
  • Taribia is a fictional South American country with roughly the same borders as Venezuela and, like Venezuela, has a long standing feud with the United States. A map that mislabels Taribia as "Venzuela" can be briefly seen.
• Flawed Prototype:
  • The 0 Gundam while at the edge of GN technology at the time, it was very inefficient and it's massive GN Feathers caused a big loss of power. The 00 Gundam would later follow into this territory in that while the twin drive is both powerful and efficient it suffered from severe stability issues and could in worst case scenario cause the engines to surge. It would take the later 0 Riser to fix this issue.
  • The GN Tau Drives, especially the ones used in the Thrones, GN-Xs, and GN Flag in Season 1 also count, as they emit toxic GN particles and can cause cell damage or illness as demonstrated by Louise Halevy during Nena's attack and Graham Aker during the final battle (the GN Flag lacks a radiation-proof cockpit due to simply being a Mecha-Mook Ace Custom suit hastily installed with a drive on the back.)
• Flynning: Averted. Sword fights between mobile suits are kept considerably short in this series.
• Forgotten Childhood Friend: Allelujah Haptism and Soma Peries were very young friends in the same Super-Soldier program, but neither initially knows this due to their respective Split Personalities.

• Four-Temperament Ensemble: The Gundam Meisters: Setsuna F. Seiei is Phlegmatic, Lockon Stratos is Sanguine, Tieria Erde is Choleric, and Allelujah Haptism is Melancholic.
• Fragile Speedster: All Union and AEU mobile suits have this as their hat, though special mention goes grahams custom flag and the overflags, as in addition to the upgraded engines, the armor was reduced to give the suits that little bit more 'Oomph', as a result it can fly twice as fast as a regular flag and its limbs can move that little bit quicker due to the reduced weight.
• Freudian Excuse: Gundam 00 takes this and goes light-years with it.
• Full-Name Basis: Tieria Erde refers to other people by their full names more often than not, and Setsuna F. Seiei apparently follows his example.
• Fun with Acronyms: The Extraterrestrial Livingmetal Shapeshifters, pronounced like "Else", as in "Other". Not a bad description for a race of incomprehensible, semi-robotic aliens.
• Future Spandex: Nena Trinity's season one outfit.
• Gambit Pileup: Aeolia Schenberg, Alejandro Corner, Ribbons Almark, Regene Regetta, the Meisters, the world governments and various factions within said governments, and probably more are all going at it at once. It gets messy.
• Gatling Good: Averted for perhaps the first time in the history of the franchise. There is not a single gatling weapon in the show, not even the Gundams' now-iconic head guns. The closest things are the Exia's 'beam vulcans', which are just small, rapid-firing particle blasters.

• Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: Lockon Stratos flattens Setsuna F. Seiei after the latter gets out of his mobile suit in the middle of combat. Overlaps with Why Did You Make Me Hit You? when he asks Setsuna if he knew why he hit him.
  • Tieria Erde does this to Saji Crossroad in season two.
• A God Am I: Ribbons Almark, who developed his god complex when he saw Child Soldier Soran Ibrahim (who would later grow up to be Setsuna F. Seiei) looking at the 0 Gundam (which Ribbons was piloting) as if it were a god.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars:
  • Averted by Sergei Smirnov, who despite having a huge facial scar fit for a Bond villain turns out to be one of the most sensible, intelligent and humane characters in the show. He's the only antagonist from season one who decides against joining the A-Laws in the second season.
  • Played straight by Graham Aker, who in the second season has heavy burns on the right side of his face and hides them with a mask.
• Grand Theft Prototype: Ali-Al Saachez pulls this off on Team Trinity by first killing Michael Trinity and then taking the former's Throne Zwei with the help of Alejandro Corner and Ribbons hacking Veda. And to top things off, Ali kills Johann (in Eins) with his recently stolen prize, and is just about to do the same to Nena when Setsuna (in Exia) intervenes. Of note is that since the Thrones are essentially the prototypes for what would later become this GN-X series, this trope is played straight.
• Grasp the Sun: Lockon Stratos does this with Earth near the end of the first season. When he can't grasp it he makes a motion of shooting it.
• Gravity Sucks: Notably averted in episode 5, which gives an impressively accurate and plausible explanation for why the object in question is about to fall out of orbit, and more importantly shows the heroes pushing it in roughly the correct direction to prevent it from doing so. Somewhat diminished by a few errors, such as the Earth background moving in the wrong direction in one scene.

• Grey-and-Gray Morality: In true Gundam fashion, it's rather difficult to tell who the actual good guys are and who the villains are until the last few episodes.
• Guilt by Association: In the start of the second season, Saji is arrested and apparently sentenced without trial as a terrorist for talking with a coworker at the end of their shift when the A-LAWS storm into their locker room to arrest said coworker for allegedly being a terrorist.
• Gun Kata: With Humongous Mecha no less. Dynames does this sporadically throughout the first season, and its successor Cherudim uses Gun Kata against the Arche Gundam in episode 24 of the second season.
• Guns Akimbo:
  • Dynames more often than not. Virtue does this in episode 23 of the first season with its GN Bazookas (yes, plural), and Dynames' successor Cherudim also has dual pistols for glorious Guns Akimbo action.
  • The 00 Gundam is specifically designed to switch between Dual Wielding and Guns Akimbo at the drop of a hat, its main armament being a pair of swords that transform into rifles. Note that said swords are even outright called "GN Rifle Swords".
• Half-Human Hybrid: The Trinity siblings are part Innovator Innovade, having been engineered with some of Ribbons Almark's DNA.
• Handsome Lech: Invoked and Exaggerated by Lyle Dylandy in episodes 3 and 4 of season two, who deliberately plays the part in order to slam home the message that he is not his brother.
• Heel–Face Turn: Colonel Kati Mannequin, who brings Patrick with her, just in time for the final battle. Soma Peries/Marie Parfacy pulls one even sooner.
• He Knows Too Much:
  • Professor Ralph Eifman even got a taunting message to that effect moments before dying.
  • Kinue Crossroad as well, though that’s more a result of her being in the wrong place in the wrong time and a Horrible Judge of Character.
• Hero Antagonist: Sergei Smirnov, Kati Mannequin, and Graham Aker until he becomes what is essentially an embodiment of Occidental Otaku and a Deconstruction of Everything's Better with Samurai.
• Heroic BSoD: Once Virtue's OS crashed, poor Tieria-chan was pretty much useless for the rest of episode 21.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Subverted by Lockon Stratos in episode 21 of season one, and also by Patrick Colasour in episode 23 of season two.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: Billy Katagiri and Graham Aker, Ian Vashti and Dr. Joyce B. Moreno, Daryl Dodge and Howard Mason.
• He Who Fights Monsters: Celestial Being certainly qualifies during the first season.

• Homing Lasers: The Regnant's main cannon.
• Hopeless War: It's made quite clear early on that no matter how powerful the Gundams might be, a weapon can only end a fight, it can't do anything about the underlying reasons as to why the fight happened in the first place (which might very well cause the fighting to resume once the Gundams leave) or prevent new reasons to fight from coming up. As such, Celestial Being's ostensible goal of ending war by shooting anyone who starts a fight is impossible. This doesn't keep them from trying, though.
• Hufflepuff House: The AEU. Ironically, majority of the important characters originally hailed here.
• Humongous Mecha: It’s Gundam. Were you expecting something else?
• Hypocrite:
  • La Eden's terrorist campaign after Celestial Being showed up, telling them that their actions are done with the backing of the people. Yeah right...
  • Celestial Being itself could be considered this, given its modus-operandi of attacking (and killing) in the name of eradicating war. Although unlike La Eden's terrorists, they are perfectly aware of that contradiction but nonetheless believe that it's all for the greater good.
• Iconic Outfit: Wang Liu-Mei's qipao shows up in a lot of merchandise and fanart despite being worn only in the first episode.
• If You Kill Him, You Will Be Just Like Him!: Why Saji Crossroad didn't kill Setsuna F. Seiei in the beginning of season two, and it has been strongly hinted that this is the underlying reason for Marina Ismail unwittingly stopping Setsuna from killing Ali al-Saachez.
• I Got You Covered: All of the Meisters have done this for one-another at some point; most notably Lockon and Setsuna for Allelujah when he needed rescuing from his rescue mission. Strangely, it was Allelujah who spoke the words of encouragement. Hallelujah and Allelujah also tend to do this for themselves.
  • Averted when Setsuna failed to have Lockon covered.
• Improbable Age: While not as bad as other shows in the franchise, the main protagonist (Setsuna F. Seiei) is only 16 in the first season. This is actually justified, though, by Setsuna's prior history as a Child Soldier. Possibly lampshaded in an early episode, wherein Lockon orders milk for Setsuna while the other Meisters get tea.

• Invisibility Cloak: The Gundams and the Ptolemaios II can use high concentrations of GN Particles to refract light and thus make the Humongous Mecha disappear. Unfortunately for the Meisters, it's too resource-intensive for battle application.
• It's Personal:
  • Despite the fact they're supposed to be fighting to end war, Setsuna F. Seiei and Lockon Stratos go absolutely ballistic when it comes to dealing with Ali al-Saachez. Tieria Erde also develops a very strong thirst for vengeance towards Ali later on, going crazy on him when the two finally fight in season two. Nena Trinity also joined in on the Ali hate.
  • Lyle Dylandy, however, attempts to avert it by not trying to directly avenge his brother, stating that it's not good to let revenge cloud his judgment. However, he does go critical when Setsuna shoots Anew Returner down, and even then it's more about him being in the middle of an Heroic BSOD.
• Jigsaw Puzzle Plot: Good luck figuring out what’s actually going on until the final few episodes. And even then it's confusing.

• Katanas Are Just Better: Mr. Bushido’s mobile suits tend to wield katana-esque beam sabers, which is kinda fitting considering the Character Development.
• Kick the Dog: Pretty much what Ali al-Saachez does. Off-screen past ignored, he kills Kinue Crossroad after telling her about him being probably the worst person in the world, then kills two of the Trinity siblings, and finally makes his big return by razing an entire city for fun.
• Kill Sat: Season two gives us two of them. "Remember you will die" indeed...
• Knight Templar Big Brother: If you so much as look at Nena Trinity the wrong way, her brother Michael will angrily disembowel you with his combat knife. Johann will be slightly less scary, but we can't guarantee he'll stop watching you.

• Laser Blade: It's a Gundam show, so beam sabers aplenty.
  • Special mention goes to the 00 Raiser Cannon/Sword, which at first seems to be a Wave-Motion Gun that the 00 could fire, then it’s revealed that the thing could be wielded as a sword. And keep in mind that the sword is roughly in the ballpark of a mile long
• Last Episode, New Character: Regene Regetta and Arthur Goodman in the season one finale.
• Last-Second Chance: Refused by Ali al-Saachez (are you really surprised?) after Lockon Stratos offered it to him in the episode 24 of the second season.
• Latex Space Suit: The pilot suits.
• Law of Chromatic Superiority: Trans-Am not only increases a Gundam's performance threefold, it also turns them red.
• Leave No Witnesses:
  • As a general rule prior to revealing themselves to the public, all Celestial Being operations were to be conducted in absolute secrecy and as such, any potential witnesses not affiliated with said operation were to be eliminated. Ribbons Almark not abiding by this doctrine in a moment of pride is what kicks of Setsuna's whole journey.
  • The A-Laws follow a similar style with them making sure that there are no survivors that can speak of the atrocity of their operations. They are so extreme about this that they are willing to kill hundreds of thousands of people directly and even more from collateral damage as well as causing destruction on a near continental scale by destroying parts of the orbital elevators to keep potential witnesses from getting out, even if they had absolutely nothing to do with what is going on around them.
• Let Them Die Happy: Christina Sierra to Lichtendal, letting him believe that he had successfully saved her life with his Heroic Sacrifice... before dying herself.
• Living with the Villain: The Union's Billy Katagiri with Celestial Being's Sumeragi Lee Noriega. Also, Saji Crossroad feels this way after ending up on the Ptolemaios.
• Love at First Punch: Patrick Colasour for Kati Mannequin.
• Love at First Sight: Andrei Smirnov for Louise Halevy.
• Love Hurts: And how! But it sometimes works out in the end.
• Love Martyr: Arguably Wang Liu Mei's older brother Hong Long, who is clearly concerned only with protecting and serving his sister throughout the conflict despite her resenting him and treating him like crap.

• Luminescent Blush: That poor waiter that serve drinks to Wang Liu Mei. Also Saji when someone inquire if Louise is his girlfriend.
• Macross Missile Massacre:
  • The missile containers/pods used by Kyrios and, from episode 22 of the second season onwards, Arios are built on this concept, and to a lesser extent the GN Archer. The Ptolemaios 2 also indulges in it from time to time.
  • Every Union Realdo in episode 15 of season one.
  • Though more notable for its Beam Spam, Zabanya bears mentioning as well, given the staggering SEVENTY-SIX missile tubes mounted on various parts of its main body. The Gadelaza, also from the movie, has an even more mind-blowing 256 missile tubes.
• Made of Explodium: Not to the extent of most Gundam series, but mass-produced mobile suits/ships still tend to blow up violently after taking critical damage. Gundams and other elite units initially seem to avoid this, but still suffer the same fate every time a pilot actually dies in the cockpit. Sometimes parts that were sliced off a mobile suit in combat explode as well.
• Male Gaze:
  • The first seven seconds of the fourth OP.
  • In-Universe when Saji spot Wang Liu Mei and couldn't took his eyes off her. Louise isn't happy about it and tell him so.

• Master Computer: Veda, the keystone of Celestial Being's operations and Aeolia's plan, is a massive-scale quantum computer and apparently the first of such in the Anno Domini universe. Along with being a major part of both Celestial Being's and Ribbons' plans, it is also necessary for achieving First Contact with the ELS.
• Meaningful Name: The Trans-Am System, as “trans-am” is one of the stages of a phoenix's life cycle, where it gives off a burst of flames right before it dies and is reborn.
  • The Trinity siblings' family name may fall under this. Aside from there being three siblings, Trinity was also the name of the test site where the first atomic bomb was detonated. Rather appropriate, given the trio’s purpose.
• Mechanical Monster: The Automatons used by the A-Laws, though they're deployed in larger numbers than usual for this trope. Their sole purpose is to enter installations and exterminate human life, and by doing so demonstrate A-Laws' callous disregard for human life.
• Meditating Under a Waterfall: Mr. Bushido expresses his desire to engage Setsuna in combat while doing so in the second season.
• Mid-Season Upgrade: More like "Mid-Story Upgrade", since most of those who survive at the end of the first season went on to pilot new units in the second season. Same goes to those who survive at the end of the second season, who went on to pilot new units in The Movie.
• Mildly Military:
  • Celestial Being. Justified that the organization is an irregular private militia, many of its members are non-military, and its people are eccentric.
  • The A-LAWS, whose senior members sometimes carry "One-Man Army" Licenses, which is pretty much the authority to do whatever the hell they want, regardless of the commander's wishes or battle plans. Most of the license-holders are Innovators, who wouldn't be inclined to take orders from mere humans anyway.
• Mile-Long Ship: The Celestial Being mothership, which measures roughly 15 km in length.

• Military Maverick: Mr. Bushido, though A-Laws leader Homer Katagiri gave him special permission to ignore any and all rules, since Bushido would just do whatever he wanted anyway.
• Mind Control: Technically it’s more like body control. Ribbons Almark can hijack the bodies of other Innovades and control them like puppets.
• Minovsky Physics: GN Particles not only shield the Gundams from weapons, they also act as sensor jammers and even as a method of propulsion, among other purposes. Oddly enough, these are the exact same properties of the Minovsky particles this trope is named after. This is possibly because they were originally intended to actually BE Minovsky Particles. Though later on GN Particles do things that Minovsky Particles never did, like enhance telepathy across the world, cause teleportation effects, and even regenerate dead cells and heal wounds.
• Moe Anthropomorphism: According to the shows creators, the brown-haired girl seen in the first opening is not Marina but rather a personification of Exia due to Setsuna's view of it as a bringer of peace.
• More Dakka: Celestial Being typically responds to challenges by using more gun:
  • Lockon Stratos' Cherudim went from from a long-range sniper unit to a long-range sniper unit with several Attack Drones.
    • The movie gives him Zabanya, a Sniper-type Gundam with 76 missiles and 10 Rifle and Holster Bits (with an optional 4 more of each). The Missiles are pretty obvious and the Rifle Bits can shoot pretty far and cause massive destruction. The Holster Bits, however, don't have nearly as much firepower. They do, however, have enough to provide heavy-duty short-range Beamspam. Oh, and it has a sniper-rifle, but somehow, that's less dangerous than the rest of the arsenal. Somehow, the creators found it necessary for a sniper-type to be capable of putting Seravee to shame!
  • Allelujah Haptism's Arios takes Kyrios' GN Beam Machinegun, builds one into each arm, and then uses an even bigger handheld version as its primary weapon. Then he dual-wields it, and when that apparently isn't enough it's replaced with a GN Cannon.
  • Then there’s Tieria Erde’s Gundams: Virtue (four GN Cannons and a Wave-Motion Gun) —> Seravee (four even more powerful GN Cannons and two Wave Motion Guns that can combine) —> Upgraded to have two more cannons.
  • Subverted by Setsuna's Gundams, if only because it uses swords instead.
  • Played with by Gadelaza, a Battleship-sized Mobile Armor. It not only has a rediculously powerful beam cannon, it also carries 256 missiles and 10 GN Large Fangs. And those GN Large Fangs? They're each the size of a Mobile Suit, and each carry 14 GN Fangs. Apparently, they can never have enough Dakka.
• Mr Fix It: Ian Vashti for Celestial Being. Billy Katagiri fills the role for the bad guys.
• Mr. Fanservice:
  • Setsuna is a Troubled, but Cute boy in season 1. In the second season, he grows up to be quite Tall, Dark, and Handsome.
  • Lockon is a badass Nice Guy and Long-Haired Pretty Boy. The second ED animation features a lot of Female Gaze on him.
  • Allelujah is a Tall, Dark, and Handsome quiet guy. His Split Personality, Hallelujah, is a Tall, Dark, and Snarky. The second ED animation also has a Shirtless Scene with him.
  • Tieria is an effeminate-looking guy with glasses, has a Sexy Soaked Shirt scene in the OP, and a fairly gratuitous Shower Scene in season 2.
• Ms. Fanservice: Most of the women are large-chested and wear tight outfits, but it's especially noticeable with Hard-Drinking Party Girl Sumeragi (whose buxom figure is constantly the source of admiration from characters and the camera) and Anime Chinese Girl Liu Mei (who has an [Unlimited Wardrobe Ever-Changing Wardrobe]] that are often focused on fanservice). The first season could be particularly blatant about it, especially early on, while the second one was somewhat more prudent. Then there's Nena Trinity - An Evil Redhead with large breasts dressed in Sensual Spandex and long socks/boots.

• Must Make Amends: Essentially Celestial Being in the second season, after it hits them that, far from creating peace, by uniting the world against them they instead led to the creation of a brutal State Sec which has killed tens of thousands of civilians.
  • This is on top of the fact that the animosity towards them led to the deaths of several of their members in the last episodes of the first season. As a specific character motivation, Setsuna F. Seiei joined Celestial Being for this express purpose, to atone for his past as a Child Soldier and his Self-Made Orphan status, which ties nicely into Revenge below.

• Mythology Gag: Oh boy is there a lot. See the subpage for details.
• Mysterious Waif: The slightly telepathic, blind, and possibly paralyzed Marie Parfacy.
• Nanomachines: The explanation for how the crew of Ptolemaios can stay in space for extended periods of time without suffering from bone density loss and so on; could also explain how Allelujah Haptism was able to maintain a good level of agility merely minutes after being freed from four years of sitting in a straitjacket)
  • According to Regene Regetta, the Innovades are essentially created by nanotechnology, with the nanomachines slowing down their aging process significantly.
  • In above mentioned case with Allelujah Haptism, he and Soma Peries are both Super Soldiers, whose bodies have been enhanced with Nanomachines.

• N.G.O. Superpower: Celestial Being and the PMC Trust.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Celestial Being fought to eliminate war and unite the world population and its governments into one. They succeed, only to learn that in doing so they've created an authoritarian regime which uses mass propaganda to keep control and murders countless innocents to "keep the peace". Good job, guys!
• Non-Indicative Name: The Innovators don't do much actual innovating. Most of them are simply tools to implement the will of their leader, and Wang Liu Mei actually points out that the only real difference between their strategy to take over the world and what other dictators have done in earlier centuries is that Veda allows them to apply their strategy of oppression and information control on an unprecedented scale.
• No Party Like a Donner Party: It's heavily implied by a flashback that Allelujah engaged in this as a boy, during an early appearance of his evil split personality, Hallelujah. Allejuah was trapped on a ship with his fellow tykebombs, and they had no food and were starving to death. Cut to a grinning Hallejuah with blood dripping down his shirt.
• No-Sell: The Gundams get to do this on repeated occasions during the first season with them sometimes just standing there taking hits and not even getting their paint job scratched.
• No Social Skills: Pretty much all of The Stoics in Celestial Being can trace their social ineptitude to being on their own since they were kids.
• Not Allowed to Grow Up: Setsuna. At least in the movie, though this could go as Not Allowed To Age instead.

• Not-So-Small Role: With Ribbons Almark having only a handful of lines and hardly any screentime in the first half of the show, many long-time Gundam fans were wary of the fact that he had such a small role for a character being voiced by none other than Tōru Furuya (using pseudonym "Noboru Sougetsu"), the man who portrayed the very first Gundam protagonist. Of course, after truly gaining the viewers' collective attention with a few foreshadowing lines and the ability to hack Veda, Ribbons turned out to be the Man Behind the Man and the real Big Bad of the series.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: In season two, Lyle Dylandy intentionally downplays his own piloting skills, also acting nonchalant and as a bit of a Handsome Lech. It seems he's doing this to keep people from comparing him to his dead twin brother.
  • Ribbons Almark does this for the entire first season, doubling as a Chekhov's Gunman.
• Offhand Backhand: Seravee does this with a beam saber to a GN-XII, so it’s more like Offhand Beam Saber.
• Oh, Crap!: Setsuna F. Seiei gets an epic one◊ when Mr. Bushido shows up and activates Trans-Am.
  • He has another one at the end of the series when Ribbons Almark reveals that his Reborns Cannon is also a Gundam
  • Wang Liu Mei immediately prior to her shuttle being vaporized by Nena Trinity.

• One Degree of Separation: In the first season, Saji Crossroad is Setsuna's neighbor and Louise Halevy is his girlfriend. Guess who becomes his co-pilot and one of his more dogged opponents respectively in season two?
  • Season One also offers up that before Setsuna had joined Celestial Being; he was originally a part of Ali Al Saachez's Paramilitary group operating in Krugis that had performed terrorist actions: one of which resulted in the deaths of Lockon Stratos' family in Scotland. Season Two reveals that the terrorist act was carried out by a Suicide Bomber: one that Setsuna personally knew and had tried to talk out of performing the deed.
• One-Federation Limit: Subverted and played straight with The Union of Solar Energy and Free Nations and the Advanced European Union. However, the Advanced European Union is always referred as the "AEU".
• On the Next: Parodied shortly after season 1, where a a super-deformed "preview" for season 2 was produced, featuring Lockon Stratos (not) coming back to life, a third Split Personality for Hallelujah, Tieria revealed to be a robot, the characters whining about poor rating, an alien invasion, and Stuff Blowing Up.
  • Surprisingly, some of those things actually do happen... sort of. Lockon is replaced by his twin brother, Tieria is revealed to be an Artificial Human, and in the movie THE ALIEN INVASION ACTUALLY DOES HAPPEN, and Setsuna becomes a Gundam for real.
• Opposite-Sex Clone: Ribbons Almark and Hiling Care, Revive Revival and Anew Returner. The English dub explicitly makes Revive female, leaving Ribbons and Hiling but also adding Tieria Erde and Regene Regetta.
• Ordinary High-School Student: Saji Crossroad and Louise Halevy in the first season.
• Out-of-Clothes Experience: The Twin Drive System exists to invoke this trope (and to make people understand each other, of course). It’s quite emotional when the people meeting sans clothes are lovers (Lockon Srtatos II/Anew Return) and (Saji Crossroad/Louise Halevy), but also quite Narmy when even Setsuna F. Seiei and Mr. Bushido had a naked discussion with each other.
• Outside-Context Problem: Celestial Being, from the point of view of the superpowers.
• Pick on Someone Your Own Size: Ali al-Saachez, though in a subversion of this trope Setsuna F. Seiei was only one of dozens.
  • Graham Aker, though it's more about the Gundam(s) than the pilot(s), making it only more twisted.
• Pink Girl, Blue Boy: Soma Pieres got a pink mobile suit in season one and Nena Trinity wore a pink pilot suit; in season two, they switch to red and purple respectively.
  • Louise Halevy and Saji Crossroad wore a pink jacket and blue vest respectively in season one.
  • Setsuna F. Seiei's Gundams are all blue, while Feldt Grace's hair is pink; in the second season, they start wearing uniforms with those corresponding colors.
• Poor Communication Kills: Most of the hatred between the various sides, especially in the second season, revolves around nobody having any clue what is really happening (including Ribbons Almark) and just assuming the worst with no concrete proof. Several important characters die because of it.
  • This appears to be the Aesop of the series, really. Assume the worst, you get the worst.
• The Plan: Pick any major event in the series. Odds are Aeolia Schenberg planned it or planned for it. 200 years in advance

• Power Crystal: The GN Condensers present on GN Drive-equipped mobile suits. The 00 Raiser has the highest number of these, at 8.
• Power Gives You Wings: Subverted, as the 0 Gundam's "GN Feathers" is due to the experimental nature of its GN Drive. The 00's Twin Drive, however, plays the trope relatively straight.
  • Then there’s the Throne Drei's Stealth Field, which quite frankly makes one wonder if Instrumentality is about to commence.
• Powers That Be: Aeolia Schenberg and Veda
  • Both Alejandro Corner and Ribbons Almark thought they were this. The above made them their bitches.
• Private Military Contractors: The PMC Trust from the first season based in AEU Moralia, which subsequently is forced to suspend all activity after Celestial Being literally tears their operations apart. Ali-Al Saachez is also a member of this organization for a while, before joining the French Foreign Legion under an alias.
• Propaganda Machine: Thanks to censorship, propaganda and doctored recordings, very few people know about the atrocities committed by the A-LAWS apart from those who witness them firsthand.
• Psychic Link: Soma Peries and Allelujah Haptism.
  • To an even further (and more advanced) degree, the Innovades.
  Regene Regetta: (to Tieria Erde) There's no need to answer me so hastily. We will meet again, because you and I... are always connected.
  • Everyone, everywhere, whenever the 00 Raiser goes Trans-Am.

• Psychotic Smirk: Ribbons Almark and Alejandro Corner each pull one off in episode 19 of the first season (for different reasons).
• Putting the Band Back Together: Basically the entire premise of the first three episodes of the second season, with numerous CMOAs mixed in.

• The Quiet One: Soma Peries, with a bit of Cute Bruiser mixed in.

• Ragnarök Proofing: Late in season 2, Marina and Shirin use an underground tunnel that Shirin states had been a leftover from "the great wars of the 20th century". It looks barely a month old.
• Reactionless Drive: The GN Drives used by the Gundams, though side-stories and technical profiles have revealed that they're not so much reactionless as... incredibly long-lasting and possessing a ridiculously common and cheap fuel supply.
• Really Dead Montage: Lockon Stratos I/ Neil Dylandy, Christina Sierra, Lichtendal Tsery, Sergei Smirnov.
• Real Men Wear Pink: Tieria Erde pilots the chunkiest of the Gundams... and spends much of the first season wearing a lovely pink cardigan. Then he crossdresses.
• Real Robot: Goes without saying. Though some would argue, not without some justification, that the Gundams themselves deliberately blur the line between Real and Super, while the Twin Drive units are full-blown Super Robots.
  • Although Given the fact that the Energy Output of the Gundams is Me V (Mega Electronvolt) a measurement of energy that people still do not understand anything is possible.
• Recap Episode: The first half of episode 16 of the first season.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Michael Trinity, Aber Rindt, and several of the Innovades. The protagonists' side has Tieria Erde, of course.
• Redshirt Army:
  • Not only does Katharon get its collective ass kicked in practically every confrontation with the A-Laws, but by episode 14 it hasn’t even shot down a single A-Laws mobile suit. Thankfully, by episode 22, Katharon gets to have a few kills while supporting Celestial Being, mainly due to Kati's forces informing them of the anti-field.
  • The armies of the three world powers in season one also border on this before the appearance of GN-X, although they actually put the Gundams in serious danger a few times.
  • Done literally with Ribbons Almark's army of Bring and Divine clones in episode 23 of the second season, if the red pilot suits weren't a big enough hint.
• Religious and Mythological Theme Naming: Take your pic. They're everywhere in 00.
• Renegade Splinter Faction:

• Celestial Being had a sects who differed from their methodology and goals. Team Trinity was one group, as was The Innovators.
• The ESF Coup detat Faction to the Federation. Inverting the trope, once the Faction forms the Federation becomes increasingly antagonistic.

• Replacement Goldfish: At first it appears that Lyle might be one for Feldt's crush on his late brother Neil. Then Lyle makes an open pass at her, causing her to slap him and storm off. Lyle admits to Haro after she leaves that he did it on purpose so that she wouldn't see him as an extension of his brother.
• Rich in Dollars, Poor in Sense: Louise Halevy in season 1 (something she shares with her mother apparently, since her mother doesn't even know where Azadistan IS despite it being Modern Day Iran)
• La Résistance: Katharon, Celestial Being, and the coup d’état factions.
• The Reveal: Remember the 0 Gundam in the prologue? Well, Season 2 Episode 14 reveals that Ribbons Almark was the pilot, and had decided to spare young Soran Ibrahim/Setsuna F. Seiei (the former was ordered to kill all witnesses at the site in order to maintain secrecy of the new Gundam). Not only that, but the latter's actions (looking at the 0 Gundam like a god) was a large part of why Ribbons became what he is .
• Revenge: ... this. In addition to half of the show's cast being motivated by revenge, in season one Lockon pulled a gun on Setsuna after he finds out that Jihad-kun had been part of the organization who destroyed his family and life. And despite the fact that Setsuna saves Saji from being turned into a rag doll, when the usually calm Saji realizes his next-door neighbor pretty much started the conflict that destroyed his family and life, he pulls Setsuna's own gun on him. Then there's that whole affair with Anew Returner.

• Robot Hair: The Nadleeh Gundam has long red cables of some sort at the back of its head, which move around like long hair. It resembles a longer version of its pilot, Tieria Erde's, hair.
• Rule of Symbolism: When you think about it, in the final battle the generation 3 Exia should curb-stomb the generation 1 Gundam 0. However looking at it symbolically the power factor becomes irrelevant and besides Ribbons handled better than you would think.
• Running Gag:
  • Team Patrick of course, with his ability to trash his mobile suits in increasingly spectacular ways and still survive with nary a scratch. Heck, his only appearance in the third OP was a cameo of his GN-XIII getting demolished by the Seravee. The fandom love him for it though.
  • Tieria Erde's gender, considering the number of times the show itself has poked fun at it.
  • Everyone in 00 has one extra life. To get them really dead, you have to kill them twice (eg, impaled by shrapnel, then exploded) in rapid succession.
• Samus Is a Girl: Borderline example – the Virtue. When it purges its armor, to the shock of both the HRL and the audience, it reveals a slim robot with long, flowing hair referred to as Nadleeh, a Native American word for someone who has taken up the roles of the opposite gender... implying that Nadleeh is a warrior woman with heart of a man.

• Say My Name: Whenever a character dies, there's a good chance that someone screams the dead character's full name. Hell, even a Haro does it at one point.
• Scary Shiny Glasses: Aeolia Schenberg has a Scary Shiny Monocle. Played straight by Regene Regetta.
• Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale:
  • Subverted greatly. One prominent example is in one of the first episodes, when Graham sorties in his Custom Flag, which has been modified to keep up with the Gundam Exia. When he turns around, it is stated that he will be exposed to a force of pressure equal to 12G. True to the statement, Graham seems to be hurting whenever he turns around.
  • Another, more funny, example is in the Taklamakan Desert, when Graham transforms a bit too close to the ground, with the result of his Flag's foot hitting the ground, causing Graham to take down a Gundam using his head. As in, he stumbled and headbashed the Dynames, knocking both down.
  • In episode 5 or 6, when Saji and Louise are walking around on the outside of a Low-Orbital Station, their guide says that even at 10.000 km height, there's still some gravity. This is true, except the gravitational pull is greatly reduced.
  • In many scenes, when he Gundams are seen, they are almost 12 times as tall as Setsuna. Assuming that Setsuna is an average person his age in the second season, and knowing the Gundams are 18-19 meters tall, this is actually pretty well-fitting.
  • Also, whenever mobile suits engage each other in space, and aren't actually in melee combat they only show as tiny specks on the viewscreens until the HUD zooms in on them.

• Secret Police: The A-Laws, in addition to being a State Sec.

• Send in the Clones: Near the end of season two, Ribbons Almark mass-produces an enormous amount of Innovade clones created from Bring Stabity and Devine Nova's DNA for combat purposes.
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: Billy Katagiri and Graham Aker, Saji Crossroad and Setsuna F. Seiei, Allelujah and Hallelujah can be seen as the two in one body, Dr. Moreno and Ian Vashti, Litchy Tsery and Lasse Aeon, Devine Nova and Bring Stabity.
  • Both of the Dylandy twins are both sensitive and manly.
• Seppuku: Homer Katagiri's suicide can be seen as this.
• Sequel Hook: There's a stinger at the end of the last episode showing something strange going on with Jupiter, which ties into The Movie.
• Sexy Mentor Sumeragi whose relationship with Allelujah has some romantic undertones. It's actually canon that they have slept together more than once. The Drama CD has a clueless Setsuna asking Lockon why do Sumeragi and Allelujah lock themselves in a room so often. Curiously, they end up with other people: Allelujah hooks up with his childhood friend Marie/Soma and they become a Battle Couple, whereas Sumeragi gets back together with her New Old Flame Billy Katagiri once he gets over himself.
• She's All Grown Up:
  • Feldt Grace and Wang Liu Mei in season two.
  • Gender-flipped with Setsuna, who goes from a somewhat stoic cute boy in season one, to a bonefide Tall, Dark, and Handsome young man starting season two.
  • Sherilyn Hyde in the latest 00F chapters.
• Shirtless Scene: Setsuna F. Seiei and Allelujah Haptism in the second ED.

• Shout-Out:
  • The series creators seem to be huge Square Enix fans.
    • The first time Exia used the Trans-Am System he attacked Ali al-Saachez using the "Omni-slash".
    • The Trans-Am Raiser is very similar to the Blasting Zone, and is actually nicknamed as such by fans.
    • Setsuna F. Seiei and Saji Crossroad were respectively voiced by Riku and Sora's seiyuus.
    • Keiji Fujiwara (Ali al-Saachez's seiyu) did Reno and Axel. On a side note, all three characters are red heads.
    • Setsuna and Graham Aker's rivalry mirrors that of Squall and Seifer from Final Fantasy VIII', from hair colors (Brunette, Blonde) to personalities (Ascended Fanboy, The Stoic) and scars (at least in Graham's part).
  • A fan video reveals the possibility that 00 Gundam's combination sequence with the 0 Raiser is a homage to GaoGaiGar's Final Fusion sequence.
  • Both Exia and 00 Gundam/00 Raiser are seen using swords that double as rifles. 00 Raiser's are even called GN Rifle Swords, which is just a fancier way of saying "Gunblades".
  • The A-Laws' Shako caps look exactly like the ones worn by Britannian military members.
  • The second season ends with the message "The Childhood of Humankind Ends", which is a reference to Childhood's End, a novel in which a benevolent alien race comes to Earth and guides humanity into a singularity of consciousness, providing some vague foreshadowing of the events of the movie for those who get the reference.
  • The battle against the Memento Mori in episode 13 of season two is a much darker version of the Battle of Yavin since Nena Trinity sends them the information about Memento Mori's weak point.
  • Without Nena Trinity, who leaked the plans, that battle would have never occurred and more people would have died. It also kicks off her partial redemption with her Moment of Awesome.
  • The Seven Swords mode of Exia is a reference to the Hong Kong action movie Seven Swords; Kenji Kawai scored the music for both the movie and this Gundam show.
  • The Raiser Sword is suspiciously similar to the Ideon Sword.
  • Hallelujah's final blow to Hilling Care is uncannily similar to Kamille's Wave Rider crash onto Scirocco.
• Shower Scene:
  • Sumeragi gets a fanservice one in season one, we only see her Sexy Silhouette from behind a glass door before her shower is interrupted by an incoming message and there's a gratuitous shot of her peaking her had out of the door, showing a lot of Sideboob but still covered by Godiva Hair.
  • Tieria Erde has a Shower of Angst in season 2, shot from the waist up.
• Sibling Team:
  • Team Trinity is a group of three Gundam Meisters made up of three siblings.
  • Averted with the two Lockon Stratos, with them never working together and Neil merely inheriting Lyle's position in Katharon.
• Single-Stroke Battle: Setsuna F. Seiei with Graham Aker and Ribbons Almark in finales of season one and two repectively.
  • Sort-of subverted in the fight between Setsuna and Ribbons, as instead of leaping by and someone falling a few seconds later, they just charged head-on into one another and were mutually impaled on their swords. Ribbons' 0 Gundam did explode shortly after though.
  • Technically, subverted in the battle between Exia and the GN Flag. It ends up with both MS impaling each other's shoulder, damaging both GN Drives badly enough to make them explode, before the MS drift apart. Neither of them are really destroyed either, only very badly damaged.
• Sissy Villain: The Innovades are so gender-queer that it's hard to believe Mamoru Nagano wasn't involved.
• Slept Through the Apocalypse: Ian Vashti, after being wounded in an attack on the Ptolemaios, rests for ten days. When he wakes up he learns that he slept through two battles and a crash landing through the atmosphere from orbit.
• Smoke Shield: During one early intervention, Exia gets hit with a shell from a Cannon Tieren. The pilot of the Tieren then wonders if he got him, only for the smoke to clear showing Exia stand there completely unscratched.
  Tieren Pilot: Did I get him?.. (smoke clears) Not a scratch!? What kind of armor does AaAaahhrgh!
• Smug Snake: Alejandro Corner, Wang Liu Mei, and ultimately Ribbons Almark. Revive Revival was one, hence his breakdown after Setsuna kicked his ass.
• Society-on-Edge Episode: The first season had the episode "Trinity", where Team Trinity reflects on the chaos that had happened so far and how the world is disintegrating into varying stages of anarchy. Ironically, their arrival makes things worse.

• South Asian Terrorists: In the first episodes, Celestial Being engages Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (or Tamil Tigers) mobile suits as a minor antagonist in Sri Lanka when the group announces its existence to the world. Although the group was defeated by the Sri Lankan military in the early 2000s, it's possible that militant Tamils got together to recreate the group once more as there are plans to revive the movement from outside of Sri Lanka.
• Space Elevator: A fundamental part of the setting.
• Spell My Name With An S: Bring Stabity; corruption of "Bring Stability" or just plain random awesome?
  • There also one of the "lost in transliteration" variety; while the show's promotional materials in Japan are very consistent with spelling the government-backed antagonist group's name as "A-Laws", and the English translation followed suit, the katakana are very clearly meant to be readable as "Arrows", as well. Which sounds rather less stupid for a military strike force, on the whole.
• Split Personality: Allelujah Haptism has a much more violent split personality he calls Hallelujah, born to cope with his deeds as a child.
  • Split-Personality Makeover: Which personality is in control depends on which of his mismatched eyes is covered by his bangs. An odd instance of this trope being true in-universe instead of just a stylistic change.
  • Split-Personality Merge: Allelujah and Hallelujah manage this in the first season finale. And yet again in the second season finale. Soma Peries and Marie Parfacy eventually do the same by the end of the second season.
• Star-Crossed Lovers: Almost every romantic relationship seems to either be this, start out like this, or end up like this. Saji Crossroad/Louise Halevy, Soma Peries (Marie Parfacy)/Allelujah Haptism, Sumeragi Lee Noriega/Billy Katagiri, Lyle Dylandy/Anew Returner (may may not consciously be a mole but is anyway). Just about the only persons with feelings for someone who is never on an opposing team are Patrick Colasour, Andrei Smirnov, and Feldt Grace.
• Start X to Stop X: The protagonists seek to end global conflict by attacking anyone who causes conflict.
• State Sec: The A-Laws - an autonomous force separate from the military, and controls the Federation security apparatus. Like any good State Sec, it answers directly to the Big Bad. Interestingly enough, the A-laws have different levels of trust: Those who are unaware of what's really going on, the top brass who committed the atrocities but remained pawns, and the Innovades, who knew everything.
• The Stoic: Setsuna F. Seiei especially, but also Tieria Erde (who defrosts) and to a lesser extent Allelujah Haptism... which leaves the two Lockon Stratos as the only Meister to consistently exhibit an open personality.

• Storming the Castle: Celestial Being's assault on Ribbons Almark's asteroid base, the Celestial Being.
• The Strategist: Sumeragi Lee Noriega for Celestial Being, Kati Mannequin for the AEU and then the A-Laws and Sergei Smirnov for the HRL. The last one metioned is also an Ace Pilot on his own right, making him a Genius Bruiser.
• Super Mode: Trans-Am. Made even more so due to the Law of Chromatic Superiority.
• Superpowered Evil Side: Hallelujah is a much better pilot, but also equally more psychotic, than Allelujah. When they merge, it's something between this and Dangerous Forbidden Technique.
• Super Prototype:
  • Not the Gundams, but rather the Masurao/Susanowo piloted by Mr. Bushido/ Graham Aker.''
  • The Jovian solar reactor GN Drives the four main Gundams use are this compared to the Tau GN Drives. A true GN Drive can only be constructed in Jupiter's atmosphere, Aeolia having done so via a science vessel sent to Jupiter in the 2090's which was subsequently destroyed along with all on-site files and then assimilated by the ELS, seemingly due to relying on extremely specific atmospheric conditions during it's construction. Even when the Tau drives become standard-issue, the Jovian drives are still extremely desirable to the Big Bad because the pure GN Particles they disperse are apparently key to Innovation and the key to the GN Burst.
• Super-Soldier: Soma Peries is the first successful product of the HRL's Enhanced Soldier program. Allelujah Haptism is also a reject from this program.
• Take My Hand!: Setsuna F. Seiei in the last two OPs. The third is with Marina Ismail, while the fourth is with an unseen character. Fans naming this unseen character could result in Ship-to-Ship Combat though...
• Taking the Bullet: A few times:
  • Lockon Stratos saves Tieria Erde from Patrick's incoming attack, getting Dynames and his right eye badly damaged in episode 21 of the first season.
  • Hong Long does it to protect Wang Liu Mei in episode 21 of the second season. She still gets herself killed shortly thereafter.
  • Patrick Colasour for Kati Mannequin, kinda. He throws his mobile suit in front of a kamikaze enemy mobile suit headed for Kati's ship. A bit stupid on both their parts — both Patrick and the suicide mobile suit still had guns they could have used. Patrick, being Patrick, survives unscathed.
• Talking to Themself: Allelujah and Hallelujah, mostly for the purpose of irritating and tormenting themself. It only gets awkward when Setsuna F. Seiei finds himself in the same room during one of said "sessions".
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Several characters are fond of doing this, but most notable are Hallelujah and Ribbons Almark, usually before killing their latest victim/s.
• Theme Music Power-Up: The track "Fight" usually plays whenever the heroes activate Trans-Am and start kicking some serious ass. Similarly, "Trans Am Raiser" starts playing when Setsuna uses the raiser sword.
• Theme Naming: Save the 0 and 00, the Gundams are all named after various types of angels and tarot cards.
• This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman: In episode 23 of season two the A-laws suddenly decide to use all those anti-beam grenades they had, only for Katharon to show up and suddenly become useful for the first time ever due to the fact they were using outdated mobile suits with non-beam weaponry.
• This Loser Is You: Saji Crossroad during the first season, our typical ordinary person who only regards the events of the Celestial Beings and their cause as foolish and our daily headline news, and only considers living a normal life of his own - and he is every one of us viewers of the show!! He gets better in the second season, when Tieria delivers him a Bright Slap - serves him right!
• Time-Compression Montage: The third OP takes the entirety of season one and somehow manages to compress it into 30 seconds.
• Time Skip: The epilogue of the final episode of season one takes place four years after the events of that episode, and there were several smaller ones over the course of season one. Season two then skips ahead roughly another year after that, and roughly midway through said season there’s another Time Skip, this time for four months.
• Tim Taylor Technology:
  • The most popular method of making a mobile suit stronger is slapping more GN Drives onto it. The Alvatorre is the first and most egregious offender, with seven GN Tau Drives.
  • The 00 Gundam only has two, but they're proper GN Drives and are "synchronized" squaring the power output. Eventually, Ribbons Almark figures out how to do this with two GN Tau Drives, resulting in Reborns Gundam.
• To Create a Playground for Evil: Ali Al-Saaches wants to help create a world of endless warfare, so that his slaughter will never end.

• Tomboy and Girly Girl:
  • Soma Peries/Marie Parfacy can be seen as both in one body.
  • More traditional examples are Shirin Bakhtiar/Marina Ismail, Feldt Grace/Christina Sierra or Feldt/Mileina Vashti, and Nena Trinity/Wang Liu Mei.
  • To a lesser degree, Kati Mannequin/Sumeragi Lee Noriega in their backstories.
  • Depending on the dub, Revive Revival/Anew Returner.
• Took a Level in Badass:
  • Setsuna F. Seiei, in the second season, is much more competent while on foot than he was in season one, probably as a result of playing Tactical Espionage Action with the A-Laws for four years.
  • Episode 11 of season two sent Saji Crossroad well on his way to badassery as the pilot of the 0 Raiser.
  • Setsuna once again, when its revealed in season two, Episode 21 that he's starting to undergo "Innovation".
  • Also from season two, episode 21: Louise Halevy gets to show everyone her recently aquired Dark Action Girl credentials by killing Nena Trinity.

• Transforming Mecha: Every mobile suit derived from the Union Realdo, including the Flag and Enact, as well as Kyrios, Arios, and the GN Archer, have both standard robot mode and aeroplane mode. Though for quite a while only the Gundam models are capable of pulling off said transformation in mid-flight.
  • And then there's the Reborns Gundam, which turns into a Long-Range Fighter when in its Cannon mode.
• Two Guys and a Girl: The Aces of the three power blocks in season one. Traditional examples are Sergei Smirnov, Hank Hercules and Sergei's wife Holly; the Trinity siblings; and Setsuna F. Seiei, Saji Crossroad, and Louise Halevy.
• Tyke-Bomb: Several. Setsuna F. Seiei is a Child Soldier; the Trinity siblings were test tube babies; Marie Parfacy (aka Soma Peries) and Allelujah Haptism both come from the Enhanced Soldier program; Louise Halevy after the Time Skip
• Übermensch: Almost every major character, but especially Tieria Erde, Regene Regetta, and (maybe) Ribbons Almark.
• The Unfavorite: Lyle Dylandy (Lockon Stratos II) seems to hold resentment against his dead twin brother Neil (Lockon Stratos I) for the comparisons and constant fanfare the latter gets.

• Unfinished, Untested, Used Anyway: Ian warns Setsuna that the 00 Gundam isn't ready yet, but Setsuna ended up using it in battle anyway.
• Uniqueness Decay: The show starts with only five^note one is off being used in the side manga Gundam 00F GN Drives in the whole world; later on, three new Gundams pop-up with imperfect Drives, and later still each of the three global superpowers is handed 10 such Drives. After a four-year Time Skip, The Federation is mass-producing the imperfect Drives, while the heroes still have the five they started with and any support machines have to piggy-back off of them by using particle storage tanks. At the end of The Movie, we see that 50 years later, mankind will be able to produce the true GN Drives.
• United Nations Is A Super Power: While initially just there for humanitarian assistance, the UN later gains more support and funding once the three power blocs begin working together to take down Celestial Being, forming the UN Forces in the process, which become the basis for The Federation in Season 2.
• Unknown Rival:
  • Patrick Colasour plays this role towards Tieria Erde in season one. In season two Graham Aker sadly takes up the role, with Setsuna F. Seiei just being flat out dismissive of him.
  • Also in season two we get an interesting play on this trope: Soma Peries becomes this to Andrei Smirnov after the latter killed his father, while Andrei himself is this to Saji Crossroad in the last dozen or so episodes (yes, it has something to do with Louise Halevy), who seems to have become friends with Soma Peries.
• Upgrade vs. Prototype Fight: Twice over. In the final battle, the Setsuna pilots the 00-Raiser, the prototype for the Twin Drive System, against the Ribbons' Reborns Gundam, which was built from its data and improved upon. The two machines wreck each other, with the Reborns Gundam barely coming out on top. Thus, Ribbons switches over to the 0 Gundam, the prototype to all of the Gundams in the show, while Setsuna switches to a rebuilt Gundam Exia, which is a much stronger upgrade from the 0 Gundam, and destroys Ribbons and the 0 Gundam.
• Upper-Class Twit: Louise's mom is this to some degree. When they're watching the news she has to be reminded where Azadistan is.
• Uptown Girl: Saji Crossroad, a poor Unlucky Everydude, falls for Louise Halevy, a sweet pampered tsundere, whose family is implied to be extremely wealthy and influential. The series seems to subvert the expectation that Louise's family would be hostile to Saji, as Louise's mother quickly takes to him, especially after hearing that he's an orphan, and basically treats him like a second child (which actually makes Louise jealous, a reaction played for comedy). Unfortunately, the series has a large dose of Break the Cutie for both of them.
• Verbal Tic: Mileina Vashti ends nearly all her sentences with "~desu".
• Vibroweapon:
  • The various GN Blades, and the sonic blades used by Union and AEU mobile suits.
  • Also the Throne Zwei's and Arche's GN Buster Sword.
• Villainous Breakdown: Ribbons experiences this after Setsuna first uses his powers to rip Revive Revival apart (as well as when Setsuna's powers weaken him enough for Tiera to steal Veda back from him); Ali experiences this after his machine shuts down, and Revive Revival experiences this after Setsuna delivers the aforementioned ass-kicking.

• The Voice: Both Regene Regetta and Tieria Erde ultimately become this after their bodies were shot to death but their consciences upload into Veda.
• V-Sign: Nena Trinity is prone to doing this whenever she's in a good mood. She stops doing it for a while after Ali killed her brothers, but it makes a return after she screws Wang Liu Mei's plan in a form of Take That!.
• Walking the Earth: In the Grand Finale, Celestial Being combines this with space travel. In a subversion, though, Allelujah Haptism and Marie Parfacy left Celestial Being and walked the Earth on their own to find the true meaning of their existence.
• Was It All a Lie?: Lyle Dylandy to Anew Returner, after her betrayal.
• Wave-Motion Gun:
  • The GN Bazooka. Gundam Virtue makes a giant trench in the desert with it in episode 15 of season one, and in general commits other acts of mass destruction with this weapon. Then it goes Guns Akimbo with it. And then Seravee upgrades on that.
  • The Alvatore is equipped with a massive anti-ship cannon powered by seven GN Tau Drives; in its debut the unit detonates an asteroid field with it.
  • Gadessa's GN Mega Launcher, which rivals the GN Bazooka II in output but also has the advantage of functioning as three separate beam rifles.
  • The Memento Mori (both of them) is basically the power of a nuke focused into a beam.
  • The 00 Raiser's Raiser Sword, despite being a BFS rather than a BFG, is this trope in practice.
  • The Regnant, successor to the Alvatore and Empruss, manages to one-up its predecessors by being able to bend the beam mid-flight at up to 90-degree angles.
  • The Celestial Being (no, not the group) has the "80m GN Laser" (no, that's not a typo), which drains an entire Tau Drive in a single shot.
  • The Reborns Gundam has a grand total of five, and four of those can serve as Attack Drones for Beam-Spammed Death In All Directions. You know, in case there were still some atoms left.
• Wave-Motion Tuning Fork: The Virtue’s GN Bazooka during Burst Mode (also the current page picture).
• We Are Not A Couple: Setsuna F. Seiei and Marina Ismail in season two but in a completely deadpan manner, as if the idea genuinely never had occurred to either of them.
  • When the very same question ("Are you two lovers?") is posed to Marie Parfacy and Allelujah Haptism later on, however, their reaction is up to standard, complete with the usual blushing and stuttering.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Everyone seems to have turned into one by the end of the series, aside from Marina Ismail (who was never an extremist) and Ali al-Saachez (who was never well-intentioned).

• What Happened to the Mouse?: The sub-plot involving Feldt Grace's feelings for Setsuna F. Seiei and whether or not they were requited is left unresolved.
• "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: Both seasons show the Time Skip aftermath of the last battle. The movie, Gundam 00: A Wakening of the Trailblazer, has its epilogue set after the ending credits and it shows humanity and the ELS coexisting peacefully with Setsuna, who is now a hybrid ELS/Innovator, visiting an elderly and blind Marina.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: Laguna Harvey. He's the mysterious sponsor of Team Trinity and we get a glimpse of how powerful he is through his activities: CEO of Linear Train Industries, a hand in the orbital elevators administration and a major shareholder in JNN. He quickly get killed before we learn anything about his past, agenda or motives.
• Woman Scorned:
  • In episode 12 of the second season Louise Halevy learns that Saji Crossroad is piloting the 0 Raiser, and reached the (not unreasonable) conclusion that he was with Celestial Being from the start. Naturally, She was NOT amused.
  • Billy Kataragi is a gender-flipped version. Find out that the woman you've had an obsessive crush on for years is working for the terrorist organization that killed your mentor and drove your best friend half-insane? Make more powerful mechs for The Federation to destroy Celestial Being! Let's not forget that in season 1 he had shown her information about the first joint operation between all three power blocs in the Taklamakan Desert before it was planned to happen.
• World of Badass: Say what you will about the characters, but no one can deny that every one of them is badass in their own right.
  • Even the Haro's are Badass in this verse. Data storage, top mechanic and capable pilot all in one.
• Worst Wedding Ever: The infamous event that turns Louise into the Broken Bird she becomes in the second half of the series happens at a family wedding she's attending. Things were going fine, but then the Trinity siblings, coming off a mission, flew overhead in their gundams. The youngest, Nena, frazzled by back-to-back missions, decided to blow off steam... by randomly bombing the wedding because she was angry people were happy while she had to work, also boredom. Needless to say this action ended up killing Louise's family with her just barely surviving the attack.
• Would Not Shoot a Civilian: This is one of the main things that sets the main group of Celestial Being apart from the Trinities: while Celestial Being targets military, criminal, or mercenary groups trying to promote conflict, they do not attack civilians if they can help it. One early episode shows Lockon deliberately missing some civilian workers at a mine he was trying to destroy, in order to scare them off instead of killing them. The Trinities, however, have no qualms about attacking civilian targets if they're connected in some way to conflict. They also show no real problem with one of their own slaughtering a wedding because she was bored.
• Xanatos Gambit: Though Celestial Being continuing to operate independently, various power structures being dismantled or merged, and so on was certainly preferable to Aeolia Schenberg, given everyone was going to continue to use GN particle technology and Innovators / evolved humans continued to be created through natural or artificial means as a result Aeolia's ultimate goal of preparing humanity for a future First Contact was assured, regardless of which of multiple groups came out on top over the series' Gambit Pileup.
• Yandere: Billy Katagiri and Louise Halevy in season two.
  • They get better though.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Laguna Harvey, Aeolia Schenberg, and Celestial Being itself are targeted for elimination after having served their purpose in Alejandro Corner's master plan. Then, in an ironic twist, Alejandro himself suffers this fate in the final episode of the first season after he served his purpose in Ribbons Almark's master plan.
  • The parade continues in season two when Wang Liu Mei and Nena Trinity are unceremoniously disposed of after being told "Your role had ended" almost verbatim.
• You Killed My Mother: Andrei Smirnov is distanced from his father Sergei because he blames him for his mother's death.
• Zerg Rush: If you listen carefully, you can hear the mass-produced Devines and Brings going "kekekekekekeke".
• Zero-Approval Gambit: At the end of season one, Celestial Being has united all the world's superpowers against them, ending the endless conflict between them and creating a united world government. Too bad that the second season revealed that the newly formed Federation's methods of enforcing order are far more destructive than the low-level skirmishing between superpowers had been.

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That... is Celestial Being.

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