I watched s1 a while ago, I binged it in pretty much one go while I still wasn't allowed to read with my eye stuff. It's my first Gundam, I've seen some other mech stuff but not tons. S1 totally engrossed me, but there wasn't more as I finished it. I checked, I didn't immediately see a release date for more but also I wasn't suppoed to be reading so I stopped.
It's been like two years maybe since then and I thought about it one day and realized there has been more for ages and so I ran home and downloaded it and watched it all. I freaking love this show, I'm actually working on the Aerial gunpla right now lol.
It starts out as just like, a normal high school battle anime. There's other stuff going on, but that's kind of in the background. You can pay attention if you want, but it feels a bit set dressy. Until it smacks you in the face with it and you realize you were a fool to ever ignore it. It pulls off that intensity and dichotomy so well, the contrast makes both stand out even more, but also it is both of those things. It is just a high school romance battle story, and it's also an intense politics show about war.
The romantic Suletta/Minorine ship is great. I love those two so much. They really get put through it together, but seeing them be married at the end feels so nice. And it makes sense how they would actually end up back together after it all. Convincing relationship.
This show is crazy, it feels like there's so much that it does at the same time, but it all seems to work out in the end. I don't think it really tried to do anything and failed on that execution. Maybe some of the plans were a bit behind the camera-y? Like the dissoulution of the company kinda came from nowhere, but like, whatever. I didn't mind, and it was a way to get everyone safe, and keep true to their ideals, and end up helping Earth. Maybe not perfect, but it did work. Anyway I love this show. It's great.