#igloo 2

Right away - this second series is markedly different from the first. We're now on Earth following Federation ground forces as they try to hold off the Zeon invasion. And it seems like the animation has improved too. It doesn't look nearly as stiff and janky as the first series did.

Hell, if I'm being really honest... I think the character animations look better in IGLOO 2 than they did in Requiem for Vengeance.

So - in this first episode we're following an anti-mobile suit squad as they try to ambush some Zakus. Just straight-up human soldiers with missile launchers. They don't have any tanks or mobile suits of their own.

And there's this weird framing-device of a Shinigami or Grim Reaper or Death God following our protagonist - Ben Barberry.

While our anit-mobile suit squad is successful in taking-out two Zakus... They're ultimately all killed, including Barberry, when a third Zaku pops up out of the ground where it was hiding. Which seems a little odd to me? Why didn't it pop up sooner and maybe save its comrades?

Our second episode follows Sgt Rayban Surat as he's transferred to the 301st tank squadron. He's going to be driving for Lt. Herman Yandell - an ace tank commander that's taken out several mobile suits

But Yandell seems to be haunted by the same Shinigami that we saw in the first episode. And Yandell is seeking vengeance against a specific white Zaku.

We get a big battle between the tank squadron and some Zakus... Yandell manages to get his vengeance and destroy the white Zaku... But is ultimately killed himself when a group of Zeon soldiers arrives.

Our last episode takes place during the attack on Odessa.

We meet Aline Nazon - an engineer working on the RTX-440 project that's accused of leaking information to Zeon. She's taken out of her cell and pressed into service during the Odessa attack.

The RTX-440, incidentally, is one hell of a scary Guntank. It's big and fast and heavily-armed. Three of these things absolutely tear through Zeon's forces at Odessa.

As the episode progresses we get more of Aline's backstory... Seems she was in love with a man who defected to Zeon which is why she's been accused and left to rot in a jail cell. And it looks like she's made a deal with the Shinigami to get her revenge.

Ultimately Aline does get her revenge... She blows up her Guntank in a kamikaze attack against the Dobday that her ex-lover, Clyde Bettany, is in. She discovers far too late that it was actually all a ruse... He had "defected" to Zeon so that he could feed information to the Federation... And he was actually still very much in love with Aline.

And Aline, herself, gets killed moments later.

So this second series was very different... I realized in that final episode that the only real recurring characters this time around were Col. Colmatta and the Shinigami. Pretty much everyone else just died.

I think I liked the Shinigami framing-device... It felt kind of weird and out of place at first, but I can dig it. In a setting with newtype ghosts and psychoframe bullshit I guess I can accept the existence of some kind of God of Death. And I really liked how it was clearly just all about the death. There were hints now and then that it might be legitimately trying to help somebody get their revenge... But, no, ultimately just getting everyone killed.

It was really brutal to see these Federation soldiers trying to fight off Zeon mobile suits with missile launchers or tanks or whatever. Really very clearly outmatched in every way. Kind of terrifying to see those mobile suits stomping across the battlefield. You can definitely see the early advantage Zeon had.