Kidou Senshi Gundam SEED

Gundam Seed was my first taste into the Gudam universe. At first I was really hesitant to start watching this series because I thought the show was for children because of the mecha. However once I started watching the series, I couldn't stop without finishing it. Story: 9/10 The whole series is basically about an ongoing war between the Natural human race and the genetically superior Coordinators. This may seem like a straightforward plotline, however several things push the plot so it is not as simple as it seems. Throughout the series you are left wondering which side is truly the right side to be on. Throughoutthe series you get to see both sides of the story as much of the Natural's justifications are shown with Kira and most of Coordinator's justifications are shown with Athrun. Art: 8/10 Because this is a very old series, the art style is very different from the art style today. It's not to say that it's bad, but it might take some getting used to for someone who has only started watching anime recently. The battle scenes have a lot of flashing lights and aren't choreographed too badly. I would say this area is the weakest point of the whole series. Sound: 9/10 I thought that all of the opening and ending songs really fit the series as a whole. The best music to me was Rie Tanaka's singing throughout the series. I was really amazed when I first heard her sing has Lacus Clyne because she sung for her own character. In my experience, many people usually get singers to sing their character roles. So I was really impressed that she sung her own song and that she was actually very good at it. Character: 10/10 The characters are the strongest point of this series. This series is built on the interaction between the characters. The battles and action almost seems secondary to me compared to the drama occurring between the main characters. This series has a lot of characters that pushed the plotline forward, but the main characters really shone above the others. Kira Yamato is the main protagonist of the story. During the beginning of the series he really is a normal person with many weaknesses and faults. However as the series progresses, he grows and matures in order to face the trials given to him. I believe Kira's growth as a person is one of the things that really grabs a viewer. He grows from a weak school student to a leader that many people can count on. Athrun Zala is another main protagonist of the story. Athrun enters the story on the opposite side of the war as Kira. Their past history of being childhood friends becomes one of the key factors in the story as Athrun and Kira both fight on opposite sides in the war. Athrun's emotional struggle continues throughout the series as he tries to figure out what is the right thing to do. Lacus Clyne is one the main female protagonists of the story. While originally appearing as Athrun's finance, she later becomes Kira's love interest. Lacus's first appearance in the series is as a normal girl who doesn't hold any importance in the war aside from the fact that her father is the High Supreme Councilor of the Coordinators. However as the story progresses, Lacus quickly shows her strength as she rallies up support against the war in face of great opposition. Cagalli Yula Athha is the other female protagonist. Although very close with Kira in the beginning of the series, she later becomes Athrun's love interest. She appears in the beginning of the series as a strong woman who is capable of fighting for what she believes in. Later on in the series her heritage of being the daughter of Orb's leader is revealed. Overall: 10/10 Gundam Seed is one of my most favorite series of all time. I would say that this is a must see series for all new, incoming anime fans.

I’m not really into mecha anime, so when I decided to watch Gundam SEED (GS) I was a bit reluctant. I was primarily expecting lots of action and very little on story and characters. However, considering the positive reviews I decided to give it a chance. Anyway, before I start I would like to say that I watched several universal century Gundams (0079, Zeta, and Char’s Counterattack) and even did reviews for them. So I may make several references and comparisons. GS was considered to be an updated version of the original Mobile Suit Gundam (MSG)for the 21st century, as it deals with more contemporary issues (ie cloning, genetic modification, etc). So it should be no surprise that GS starts out in a very similar vein to MSG. However, this isn’t to say that GS copied MSG, instead GS took the best parts of MSG and improved it. Well at least for the first half of the series. The pacing was a definite improvement as it was nearly flawless, I can’t really separate the episodes easily as they blended so well together which makes GS ideal for marathoning. The story is also very similar, 2 warring factions, political intrigue, and the viewpoint of both sides, typical Gundam. I don’t need to get in to specifics, in general the crew of the <new advanced ship> attempts to escape/fight off another ship and its crew. This is while trying to get to a specific destination and completing various checkpoints. Sure it wasn’t the most original of stories but paired with its fast pace and execution it was damn entertaining in its own right. However, in the case of GS the characters take a much bigger role. While the 1st half was good and entertaining it doesn’t compare to its 2nd half. The 2nd half was where GS breaks free from its MSG roots and finds its true self. Here, GS really focuses on the characters, in particular the conflict between Kira and Athrun. Not only them, there was a lot of focus on the various character’s conflicts as well as plenty of character development. Here the action/battles take an even more secondary focus and the characters/narrative clearly becomes the primary focus. The overall structure of the story improved tremendously as it’s no longer linear (from checkpoint to checkpoint); instead GS features a more dynamics story structure. Pacing for the 2nd half moves even faster and GS rides this momentum until the very end. However, its not without its faults. The new antagonist introduced felt like they were introduced for the sake of having Gundam battles/make more toys. This is due to them being extremely one-dimensional. Finally, there were quite a few coincidences and illogical moments throughout. For example, when the odds becomes overwhelming Kira or someone else coming out of nowhere to save the day. Considering the overall quality of everything else, those moments can easily be forgiven. As I mentioned before there was a much bigger focus on the characters in GS than in MSG. For the most part, the characters are multi-dimensional and likeable, the major exception being the newly introduced antagonist in the 2nd half. Kira in particular has gone through quite a bit of development. The angst Kira goes through in the beginning is often exaggerated by some people. If anything Kira is quite admirable, fighting/doing what he has to despite his fears and doubts. He doesn’t let his feelings get in the way of what needs to be done and the only person he’s complained/confided in was Fray. This is unlike Amuro or most of the cast of Zeta where they do whatever they want for no concern for the greater good. However, Athrun get my vote for most complex and interesting character in GS. Not only does he have to deal with having his best friend as an enemy, he also has to deal with his father, own beliefs, etc. Plus he’s a badass when it comes to all forms of combat. In terms of purely technical merit, GS features good animation and artwork. Rarely does the quality drop. My only major complaint would be with the constant use of recycled animation, a major pet peeve of mine. Also, the action scenes feel a bit uninspired. Gundam shoots, close up of plot screaming, Gundam does a melee attack, close up of pilot and repeat. What made these mecha battles more exciting was the excellent and powerful music. The ost in general is also well done and features some very good insert songs. Another interesting thing to note would be the recap episodes. Normally, I hate recaps but in the case of GS there were a few that were worth watching. This is because some of the recap episodes actually add background information to the GS universe. Nevertheless a recap episode is still a recap episode and they had far too many. (Not 1 or 2 recap episodes but 4!) I also have to warn the viewer that GS features many references to other Gundam titles and the Gundam universe in general. References such as newtypes, Char clones, etc will go over the head of viewers not familiar with the Gundam universe. While its not necessary to watch other Gundams to enjoy GS it will most likely increase one’s enjoyment. GS is easily one of the better mecha anime titles I’ve seen. The first half was light and enjoyable with a fast paced plot, albeit very linear. It feels like the crew of the Archangel was simply moving form checkpoint to checkpoint. When the 2nd half comes the overall quality increases. This is partly due to GS becoming its own and really focus on the character/narrative. The 2nd half was distinctly more serious and dramatic. Plus it takes its momentum and keeps building and building until the very end. Animation and art were all top notch, suffering from a few thing namely, recycled animation and slightly uninspired action scenes. GS also suffered from too many coincidences and illogical moments. Although, considering the quality of everything else, those things can be ignored. In the end Gundam SEED is fast paced entertaining watch, but the true strength of Gundam SEED can be found in the 2nd half with its characters.

Mobile Suit Gundam SEED---an excellent combination of science fiction, mecha, action, drama and romance. This is, indeed, the best gundam series and the best anime I've watched in my life! There are a variety of reasons why I like this anime. The plot (or the story itself) is well-organized. There are a lot of twists and other shocking revelations in the story, making this a must-seen anime. The role of each character is relevant to the story---each character is connected to one another, making the story more interesting. And besides, the personality of the characters are those in which you can relate to. Aside from the wonderfulstory and the characters involved in it, I also appreciate very much the theme songs used in this anime. In my own opinion, the theme songs are suitable to the anime itself. These songs add more color to the anime. As a matter of fact, these songs are my favorite ones because for me, they convey special messages and at the same time, they have a beautiful tone that when you hear them, you start to have a feeling of relaxation. Above of all, you can get a lot of moral lessons or values, especially about friendship, love, and loyalty to your own nation. So you better not miss this anime series for only once in a lifetime comes an anime like this. That's why I'm giving this anime a perfect overall rating because one thing I can say about this anime is---PERFECT!

My thoughts haven't changed much since last year after watching SEED in its entirety and I had dropped this last year after seeing 9 episodes. Like Gundam Wing, this series got a great deal of hype and praise from fans in the early to mid 2000s among Gundam fans. At the same time, there are folks that accuse SEED of being a poor-man's Gundam 0079 with its blatant rip-off of story elements and structure from the original 1970s series and its nice load of angst and melodrama that are regularly pushed throughout the course of the series. Between my original watch of SEED from lastyear and now, I'm gonna have to go with the latter camp. I might as well deal with the elephant in the room and address the obvious dilemma with SEED in its blatant use of elements, themes and plot structure from 0079 and several older titles in the Universal Century continuity of the franchise. If you've seen your fair share of older Gundam titles, you will see enough parallels in what gets rehashed from UC titles here in SEED. The clashes between humans and enhanced humans with Naturals and Coordinators? That's a recurring plot element with many later titles in the UC continuity with Oldtypes and Newtypes. The struggle of the lone battleship's journey to get to allied headquarters against enemy forces with the Archangel? The same thing happened with White Base in 0079. The enemy stealing allied Gundam units here? The same thing was done in Gundam 0083. A great tragedy starting war between Naturals and Coordinators with the Bloody Valentine massacre? Same thing occurred with the 30 Bunch Incident with Zeta Gundam. Kira getting a Gundam upgrade in SEED's second half? Same thing done in Zeta with Kamille. I could go on, but I don't want to drag this review out any further than necessary. Setting aside its obvious use of Universal Century themes and elements, the series does make some attempt at adding in some new elements to its plot by adding modern issues into the story of the series such as cloning, genetic engineering and nuclear weaponry. Plus, some of the major characters do get enough focus and depth where you know who they are and can care for their issues, like Cagalli and some members among both Naturals and Coordinators. However, this series has a pretty large cast and characterization suffers in this series greatly thanks to SEED's greater focus on plot development and advancement. Characters who get introduced either get reduced to archetypes, don't get enough focus for viewers to connect with them or the series rushes through any developments that could have been built up on throughout SEED's episodes. Like many past Gundam titles, this series has a high kill count with mooks, supporting and even major characters. You'll be caring less for many of the character deaths here since SEED never bothers to devote enough focus on many of its characters and the nice amount of angst that gets packed during such moments. Ah, the angst. SEED loves pushing its angst and melodrama quite heavily at many points throughout its run in its superficial attempts to have you care for the issues faced by the show's characters. However much like Gundam Wing, the series gets too overbearing with its angst and melodrama where it makes what should be emotional moments pretty irksome and even laughable as characters either get reduced to pathetic angsting messes, screaming out character names if they get killed or get in the habit of spewing random philosophic rhetoric during heated battles in a vain attempt to sound like they are saying something meaningful. The plot does become a bit of a mess in later episodes of the series when multiple story developments get rushed through and resolved during the climactic final battle of the series, as well as trying to toss in some unconvincing romantic pairings among major characters that seemed artificial and lacked natural chemistry. Also, expect some clip shows and recap episodes to pop up at points in the series. The animation to SEED is a mixed bag. The series sports a diverse number of scenic shots in space, Earth and on space colonies that are nicely detailed and sport vivid color. Mecha designs look slick and pleasing on the eyes, despite their obvious influence from past Gundam titles and there is some decent use of CG animation in rendering space battleships and weapons moving or being used despite sticking out prominently compared to the cel-shaded animation. However, character designs are a bit on the plain side and the series likes resorting to a nice number of animation shortcuts rather frequently throughout the course of its run such as speed stripes, still shots and reused animation frames. The soundtrack consists of dramatic music inserts and upbeat J-Pop tracks used for OP and ED tracks that are pleasing on the ears, do well at flowing at whatever scenes they are played in and is perhaps the highlight of the series for me. Overall, I feel Gundam SEED is just as overhyped as Wing in being a quality addition to the Gundam franchise thanks to its complete ripping of major elements and plot structure from Gundam UC titles, its heavy reliance on angst and melodrama, limited depth and focus on many of its characters and rushed later episodes. You would be better off watching Turn A Gundam if you are looking for a good quality alternate continuity title in the Gundam franchise.

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