Mobile Suit Gundam 00

Yes, those are Gundams. Any more war and we'll start using them.

Premiering on October 4th, 2007, Mobile Suit Gundam 00[1], 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"), comprised of North and South America, Australia, and Japan.
  • The Human Reform League (or "HRL"), comprised of Southern/Eastern Asia (primarily half of Russia, China, India, and the surrounding nations).
  • The Advanced European Union (or "AEU"), comprised 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.

Check out the character sheet.

Tropes used in Mobile Suit Gundam 00 include:
  • 0% Approval Rating: Celestial Being after the actions of the Thrones, which was Just As Planned by [Fucking Ribbons...
  • 108: The number of enemy suits in Episode 22, Season 2.
  • Ace Custom: the SVMS-01E Union Flag Graham Aker Custom, from which came the SVMS-01O Overflag, designed specifically to fight the Gundams. Graham later gets the Masauro and Susanowo, bases on the Flag's design.
  • 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 voice actor with Amuro Ray, pilots both the RX-78-inspired 0 Gundam & the Guncannon-inspired Reborns Cannon/Gundam.
  • 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.
  • The Ageless: The Innovators, whose aging is controlled by gene manipulation and nanomachines.
  • 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 and what happened to Feldt Grace's parents, what happened in the gap between the two seasons, and so on.
  • Ambiguous Gender: The Innovades
  • Ancient Conspiracy: Celestial Being. Two hundred years of effort, all to wipe out war.
    • Or was it? It may have been part of a massive Gambit Roulette to bring a true Innovator into the world. Or both. Who knows?
  • Anime Accent Absence
  • Anime First: Like the large majority of the franchise.
  • Another Century's Episode: Portable
  • Anyone Can Die: And they do, oh so hard.
  • 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.
  • Armor-Piercing Slap: Some of the more memorable ones are listed.
    • Sumeragi Lee Noriega slaps Tieria Erde when he goes ballistic on Setsuna F. Seiei after the first Lockon's death.
    • Feldt Grace does it to Lyle Dylandy for kissing her.
    • Inverted with Kati Mannequin's armor piercing punch, which she uses against Patrick Colasour; not only does it bring him into line and following orders correctly, it also won his heart.
    • Ribbons Almark does it on Wang Liu Mei and Regene Regetta.
  • Artificial Human: The Innovades
    • Arguably the Trinity siblings as well.
    • According to the novels, they 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".
  • Awesome McCoolname: Lockon Stratos, Hallelujah Haptism, Hank Hercules, Bring Stabity.
  • Awesome Yet Practical: GN Drives.
  • Ax Crazy: Michael Trinity, though he barely holds a knife candle to Ali al-Saachez, who in turn is eclipsed by Hallelujah Haptism.
  • 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
  • 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
  • Beach Episode
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Berserk Button: Do not insult the late Neil Dylandy to Tieria Erde's face, ever.
  • 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 ginormous beam sword (the "Raiser Sword") that is thousands of 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.
  • 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.
  • Bishonen: To the point where it's simply ridiculous – many, many male characters are portrayed as absolutely gorgeous, but what else do you expect when Yun Kouga is the character designer?
  • Bio Augmentation: The Human Reform League used genetic engineering in an attempt to create an army of supersoliders with telepathic ability. Among the Super Human Research Institute subjects where Allelujah and Soma. This is likely a call back to the earlier Gundam SEED.
  • Bishonen 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.
  • Blood Knight: Michael Trinity, Ali al-Saachez (self-admitted too!), and Hallelujah Haptism.
  • 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. Also, 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. Finally, 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.
  • 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.
  • Brainwashed and Crazy: Louise Halevy. She gets better though.
  • Break the Cutie: Louise Halevy, made worse by losing her family and left hand in an attack nobody saw coming.
  • 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.
  • Capulet Counterpart: Soma Peries, made somewhat more complicated by the Split Personality.
  • Catch Phrase: "Setsuna F. Seiei, eliminating the target(s)."
    • "Lockon Stratos, targeted and firing."
    • Setsuna also has a habit of declaring that "I am 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.
  • 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.
  • Chekhov's Gunman: Lyle Dylandy and Linda Vashti.
    • Saji Crossroad and Louise Halevy may both also be considered as such.
  • Chekhov's Skill: Quantum brainwaves get a few throw-away mentions in season one, only to become much more important in season two.
  • Child Soldiers: Setsuna F. Seiei, or rather Soran Ibrahim.
    • Soma Peries/Marie Parfacy, H/Allelujah Haptism, and the Trinity siblings all also fit this trope to a degree.
  • Chinese Girl: Wang Liu Mei
  • 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.
  • Colonel Badass: Sergei Smirnov.
    • Kati Mannequin also counts.
  • Color 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.
  • 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.
  • Crazy Prepared: Aeolia Schenberg. He makes Light Yagami look like an amateur.
  • Crippling Overspecialisation: 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.
  • Cross-Dressing Voices: An interesting variation: for the sequence in Season two where Tieria Erde poses as a woman, his voice is provided by... his normal seiyuu, Hiroshi Kamiya.
  • 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 on 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).
  • 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?
  • Darker and Edgier: All thing considered, 00 is probably the fourth darkest Gundam show, behind Mobile Suit Victory Gundam, Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket and Zeta.
    • Though the movie, and arguably the second season, are more idealistic.
  • 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.
  • Deflector Shields: GN Fields. The Defense Rods used by non-GN mobile suits serve as a physical version of the trope.
  • Diabolical Mastermind: Alejandro Corner and Ribbons Almark.
  • Diabolus Ex Machina: The GN Flag in season one.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Do Not Adjust Your Set: Celestial Being hijacks the airwaves to deliver its manifesto in the first episode.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Dragon Lady: Wang Liu Mei.
  • 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.
  • Earn Your Happy Ending: Everyone finally gets this in the end of the movie, but damn if they didn't go to hell and back to get it.
  • Early-Bird Cameo: Andrei Smirnov, Sergei's son, was mentioned in the novels long before he ever showed up in season two.
  • Eleventh-Hour Superpower: Basically anything related to the GN Drive.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Enigmatic Minion: Ribbons Almark, Wang Liu Mei.
  • Even the Girls Want Her: Tieria Erde's Wholesome Crossdresser stunt in episode 8 of the second season had lots of fangirls going weak at the knees alongside the fanboys. Stupid Sexy T-chan.
  • 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.
  • Everything's Better with Sparkles: GN Particles.
  • Evil Albino: Aber Rindt.
  • 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 Redheads: Ali al-Saachez and, arguably, Nena Trinity, Bring Stabity, and Devine Nova. Subverted by Patrick Colasour.
  • Evil Twin: Regene Regetta, or so the story wants you to believe, and Revive Revival.
  • 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, as well as similar saying as Amuro Ray (when he saw Ali piloting a Red Gundam Setsuna says i know who pilots a suit in that color
    • 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 Tohru Furuya voicing both characters.
      • 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).
    • 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 fof 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.
    • Louise Halevy also ends up very similar to Stella Loussier during the second season.
    • 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.
  • Eyes of Gold: Hallelujah Haptism, Soma Peries, Nena Trinity, and the Innovades while interfacing with Veda. Also, Louise Halevy and Setsuna F. Seiei in season two.
  • Famous Last Words: This series has plenty. Check the trope to see them.
  • Fan Service: 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.
  • 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: Deconstructed.
  • Female Gaze: The second ED. Squee!
  • The Fettered: Arguably Saji Crossroad.
  • 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.
  • Five-Bad Band
  • Five-Man Band
  • 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
  • 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 Is Death: The Gundams, and they are beautiful.
  • 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 armour 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.
  • 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.
  • Genki Girl: Mileina Vashti.
    • Brutally deconstructed with Louise Halevy.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Green Rocks: GN Particles. They're even green.
  • 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.
  • Gundamjack: Lampshaded by the fact every Gundam has built-in biometrics, theoretically making them impossible to Gundamjack.
    • Ali al-Saachez manages to jack the Throne Zwei anyway, with a little help from Fucking Ribbons.
    • Subverted in season two during an attempt by the Innovades to Gundamjack the 00 Gundam. They fail, settle for jacking the 0 Raiser, and are foiled again... by a Haro of all things for the ultimate humiliation.
    • Played straight in the finale, when Fucking Ribbons Gundamjacks one of the original GN Drives and his original Gundam.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Heroic BSOD: Once Virtue's OS crashed, poor Tiethatvoiceria-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.
  • Hidden Agenda Villain: Celestial Being, to a certain extent.
    • Wang Liu-Mei is more of this.
  • Hime Cut: Marina Ismail and Wang Liu Mei.
  • Hot Mom: Linda Vashti, to the point where it's lampshaded when Allelujah Haptism jokes that it should be illegal, considering Linda's apparent age and the fact that she's already bore a teenage daughter.
    • Holly Smirnov would probably also apply, although the last time we see her alive through flashbacks seems to indicate that it was a long time ago, and if she was still around she probably wouldn't be that young.
    • Marlene Vlady might also apply, except, like Holly, she has been dead for a while.
    • One of the novelizations states that Shirin Bakhtiar is pregnant with Klaus Grado's child.
  • Hufflepuff House: The AEU. Ironically, majority of the important characters originally hailed here.
  • Humongous Mecha: It’s Gundam. Were you expecting something else?
  • 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.
    • Cruelly 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.
  • Intrepid Reporter: Kinue Crossroad, Saji's older sister. Also a very Hot Scoop.
  • 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 Got Worse: For everyone. Every episode does its best to out-do the previous one, and usually succeeds.
  • 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.
  • Karmic Death: Wang Liu-Mei, Nena Trinity, and finally, Ali Al-Saachez.
  • 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.
  • Lack of Empathy: Ali al-Saachez.
  • Laser Blade: It's a Gundam show, so beam sabers aplenty.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Loads and Loads of Characters: One of the largest casts of any Gundam show.
  • 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.
  • Love Triangle: Starting with...
    • Type 4: Billy Katagiri, Sumeragi Lee Noriega, and Emilio Ribisi.
    • Type 3: Feldt Grace, Neil Dylandy, and Tieria Erde.
    • Type 4: Saji Crossroad, Louise Halevy, and Andrei Smirnov, although this is ultimately resolved in Saji's favor.
  • 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.
  • 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. Squee!
  • Man Behind the Man: Ribbons Almark.
  • The Man in the Mirror Talks Back: Alleluja gets a few scenes of this.
  • Manchurian Agent: Anew Returner.
  • Mask Power: Courtesy of Mr. Bushido.
  • 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.
  • Meganekko: Shirin Bakhtiar, Kati Mannequin and Linda Vashti. Tieria Erde and Regene Regetta are, arguably, male versions.
  • Meditating Under a Waterfall: Mr. Bushido expresses his desire to engage Setsuna in combat while doing so in the second season.
  • Mildly Military: Celestial Being.
  • Military Brat: Andrei Smirnov and Billy Katagiri. Feldt Grace and Mileina Vashti can count as Paramilitary examples.
  • 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.
  • Missing Mom / You Killed My Mother: Andrei Smirnov is distanced from his father Sergei because he blames him for his mother's death.
  • 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.
    • 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.
  • Mr. Fixit: Ian Vashti for Celestial Being. Billy Katagiri fills the role for the bad guys.
  • Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Seravee.
  • Multinational Team: Celestial Being, Katharon, A-Laws, the ESF, and the UN Forces.
    • By the end of the movie, Setsuna qualifies as one as well, being half natural Innovator and half ELS.
  • Murder the Hypotenuse: Andrei Smirnov attempted to kill Saji Crossroad near the end of the second season. Thankfully, Setsuna is there to save the day.
  • 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.
  • My Death Is Just the Beginning: Aeolia Schenberg, Regene Regetta, and Tieria Erde.
  • 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.
  • Necessarily Evil: Celestial Being.
  • NGO 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!
  • 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 As You Know Her: Louise Halevy in the second season... Poor girl...
  • Not Good with People: Setsuna F. Seiei, Tieria Erde, Feldt Grace, Soma Peries, Andrei Smirnov.
  • 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 Tohru 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. Fucking Ribbons.
  • 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.
  • Oedipus Complex: Andrei Smirnov.
  • 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.
    • Wang Liu Mei immediately prior to her shuttle being vaporized by Nena Trinity.
  • The Ojou: Wang Liu Mei, Louise Halevy pre-Character Development
  • The Omniscient Council of Vagueness: The Observers.
  • 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?
  • "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 one of the movies THE ALIEN INVASION ACTUALLY DOES HAPPEN.
  • Opposite Gender 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.
  • 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: Seriously. Most of the hatred between the various sides, especially in the second season, revolves around nobody having any clue what the fuck is really happening (including Ribbons Almark). Several important characters die because of it.
    • This appears to be the Aesop of the series, really.
  • The Plan: Pick any major event in the series. Odds are Aeolia Schenberg planned it or planned for it. 200 years in advance
  • Post Episode Trailer
  • 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.
  • Power Walk: In the third ED.
  • 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.
  • Psycho for Hire: Ali al-Saachez.
  • 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.
  • Quantum Mechanics Can Do Anything
  • The Quiet One: Soma Peries, with a bit of Cute Bruiser mixed in.
  • Qurac: Azadistan
  • 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, 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.
  • 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.
  • Red Oni Green Oni: The GN drives designed by Aeolia Schenberg and entrusted to Celestial Being emit green particles; the Thrones' GN-X drives emit red particles. At first this seems to indicate that the Thrones are using more advanced technology, until it turns out their drives - the basis for all technologies used by the UN and later the A-LAWS - are only cheap knockoffs that can't match the capabilities of the originals.
  • 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.
    • 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.
  • Reliable Traitor: Regene Regetta.
  • Religious and Mythological Theme Naming: Take your pic. They're everywhere in 00.
  • La Résistance: Katharon, Celestial Being, and the coup d’état factions.
  • 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.
  • Revenge Before Reason: Neil Dylandy.
    • In short, Setsuna seems to have quite the track record.
  • Roboteching: The Regnant's particle beam.
  • 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 may also count, 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.
  • Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl: Saji Crossroad and Louise Halevy in the first season.
  • 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: A-Laws.
  • Serial Escalation: Just how many more Gambit Roulettes can join the train wreck before the series ends?
    • What other miraculous, near-magical properties can GN Particles be given?
    • How much more divided can the fanbase become?
  • Self-Made Orphan: Setsuna F. Seiei, Andrei Smirnov
  • 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.
  • She's All Grown Up: Feldt Grace and Wang Liu Mei in season two.
  • Ship Sinking: Too many to list. Only five couples remained strong. [2]
  • Shout-Out: 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.
  • Shirtless Scene: Setsuna F. Seiei and Allelujah Haptism in the second ED.
  • Shoot the Dog: Allelujah Haptism in episode 11 of season one.
  • Shower Scene: Sumeragi Lee Noriega in season one, Tieria Erde in season two.
  • Sibling Team: Team Trinity and, technically, the Innovades as well.
    • Averted with the two Lockon Stratos.
  • 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.
  • 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
  • Smug Snake: Alejandro Corner, Wang Liu Mei, and ultimately Ribbons Almark. Revive Revival was one, hence his breakdown after Setsuna kicked his ass.
  • Sociopathic Soldier: The majority of A-Laws.
  • 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?
  • 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 Peek-a-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 / Dating Catwoman: 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.
  • 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.
    • Johann Trinity and Bring Stabity qualify as antagonist examples.
  • 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.
  • Stuffed Into the Fridge: In order of stuffing: Holly Smirnov, The Dylandy family except for the twins, Commander Emilio Ribisi, the entire Halevy clan except for Louise, Kinue Crossroad, Michael Trinity, Johan Trinity, Sergei Smirnov, Anew Returner, Hong Long, Wang Liu Mei, Nena Trinity.
  • Super Mode: Trans-Am. Made even more so due to the Law of Chromatic Superiority.
  • Super-Powered 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 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".
  • Tall, Dark and Bishoujo: Marina Ismail, Sumeragi Lee Noriega, Kati Mannequin, Shirin Bakhtiar, Kinue Crossroad, and Anew Returner.
  • 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!
  • The Three Faces of Eve:
    • The female Bridge Bunnies in both seasons, just replace Christina Sierra with Mileina Vashti.
    • Setsuna F. Seiei's three potential Love Interests.
  • 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" in such a way as to jack up their output to Over Nine Thousand. 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.
  • Token Evil Teammate: Hallelujah Haptism and Fon Spaak.
  • Tomato in the Mirror: Anew Returner
  • 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.
  • Tragic Villain: Louise Halevy and Anew Returner.
  • 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.
  • The Troubles: The first sign that Celestial Being was having a palpable effect on the world was the ceasefire message sent out by the "Real IRA" group in Ireland. Considering when the show is set (2308), that’s a seriously persistent splinter group.
  • 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
  • Ubermensch: Almost every major character, but especially Tieria Erde, Regene Regetta, and (maybe) Fucking Ribbons.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Uptown Girl: Saji Crossroad, a poor Unlucky Everydude, fall for Louise Halevy, a Spoiled Sweet 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 a new asshole (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 aformentioned asskicking.
  • Villain Protagonist: Celestial Being to a degree. Fon Spaak fits this trope well.
  • 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: The four Gundam Meisters in first ED.
  • Was It All a Lie?: Lyle Dylandy to Anew Returner, after her betrayal.
  • Wave Motion Gun: Probably the biggest offender in the Gundam franchise so far.
    • 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 "60m 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: Celestial Being.
  • Wham! Episode: Episodes 16 and 18 of season one.
    • Episodes 23 and 24 of season one as well.
    • Episodes 16 and 17 of season two pretty much out-wham every previous contender.
    • Episodes 19 and Episode 20 of season two. Generally the whams happen in short bursts.
  • What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic: They had a lot of fun with the "Celestial Being" thing.
  • 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.
  • White-Haired Pretty Girl: Super Soldier Soma Peries/Marie Parfacy.
  • A Wizard Did It: There is an increasing trend among the fandom of explaining away apparent plot holes with "GN Particles Did It."
  • 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!
  • 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.
  • Yandere: Billy Katagiri and Louise Halevy in season two.
    • They get better though.
  • You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Michael Trinity actually has blue hair, though he and his siblings are artificially-created Tyke Bombs.
    • Averted in that all characters born on Earth the old-fashioned way have normal hair colors. Only Spacenoids, Innovades, and other Artificial Human have weird Hair Colors.
  • 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 Stuffed Into the Fridge after being told "Your role had ended" almost verbatim.
  • Zerg Rush: If you listen carefully, you can hear the mass-produced Devines and Brings going "kekekekekekeke".
  • Zettai Ryouiki: Christina Sierra, Nena Trinity, and Feldt Grace to a degree.

That... is Celestial Being.

  1. ↑ Pronounced "Double-Oh"
  2. ↑ These being Ian and Linda Vashti, Saji Crossroad and Louise Halevy, Kati Mannnequin and Patrick Colasour, Shirin Bakhtiar and Klaus Grado, and H/Allelujah Haptism and Soma Peries/Marie Parfacy, respectively.
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