Kidou Senshi Gundam SEED Destiny

When I finalized this review note that I have watched Gundam Seed 5 times and Gundam Seed Destiny 4 times.Actually I watched GSD first so I know both the point of view of those who have watched the prequel first and the ones who have watched the sequel only. Story (7/10) Okay, GSD's story is definitely a sequel, so instead of the setting being introduced the we are just given the background of the time skip. It is basically a continuation of the Cosmic Era and here are the questions: Who are the new characters and what will they play? Where are the old characters and will they bepart of the story? What will be the new conflict since much of it was resolved already? There are many questions that was left from the prequel and many more arises from GSD. Yet I think it did very well in making an exciting extension story and the characters' interactions make the series very interesting. It again tackles the issue of war-its effects and its very existence. And the strong dialogue make way for philosophical clashes and the continuous conflict of duty and humanity. The characters were pretty much torn in between many things, so not only the action and battles make way for suspense but definitely the drama too. Most of the time, mecha actions are enjoyable and excellent. It has many positive attributes but its flaws outweighs its goodness or vice versa. In short, many fans found it disappointing: The story was strong at first, but it was degraded by incoherence and drag- the weak characters greatly contribute (will be explained later). The story that was supposed to be two sides with good ideals fighting for a good cause amid some really evil guys turned out to be a "fan war" where the more loved characters are the ones glorified. The sides were once equal and then suddenly the loved ones are made goody-goody while the other is being made "evil." Then the worst part is the dragging anti-climatic lines (or endless flashbacks) of characters where they justify why they fight and why they oppose the other. Its purpose is to explain what they think- but as a critic, too much destroys the character of the show itself, add hypocrisy and were just made to really emphasize the supposed to be "good guys" of the show. Art (9/10) Surely the animation of this sequel is impressive especially to the fans of Seed. It has higher quality and more consistency. It did not fail in imaging a lot of memorable and dramatic scenes..The machines here are so much cooler and it has less reused action scenes. Still, like Seed, there are times where characters look like each other. Sound (10/10) GSD's sounds are in my top list; for me, its music is one of the best in anime, almost seemingly comparable to Cowboy Bebop in terms non repetitiveness. The sounds are so mecha and transports you to a different dimension while in dramatic scenes the music creates the perfect mood. All its opening and ending songs suit the series at all aspects. Also, it variates its songs and image music so well that the melody stays in your head though it creates different moods. Most of my favorite soundtracks came from this anime. Character (6/10) For me GSD is one of the series that disappoints a lot of viewers. It failed to portray its philosophical themes because of its weakness in its characters. The character of the show itself (as explained earlier) becomes weaker after the middle- it is degraded by fan service and "god-wisdom" lines. It has the most unnecessary flashbacks I have seen in my anime watching life,flashback episodes, flashbacks from Seed and itself. Because of that, it looks so "trying hard" to be deep and psychological. The NEW characters are clearly introduced at the beginning and the viewers expect their development and role. But GSD failed miserably at this: the main character lacks strength and growth which is very necessary for a drama plot. Most of the secondary characters don't pretty much add up to the overall drama and many find them insignificant. Of course, there are very interesting and lovable characters (like Stellar and Dullindal) and it seems that they were the ones that are saving GSD from doom. I must also note that the connection of the main protagonist, Shinn, and Stellar is probably the best asset of the series and is a very good psychological drama story. The RETURNING characters are pretty much developed already but their conflict with the new ones is interesting. They are supposed to be only part of history, but the writers made them the makers of history because of their popularity. Many fans will expect to see their loved characteristics again but GSD failed those fans by either adding angst or perfecting them to the point that they are annoyingly unrealistic. And lastly, if the viewers are not familiar with them they will ask : When did they become the main characters? Moreover, new mobile suits just sprout out of nowhere just to create a "cooler model" Enjoyment (7/10) For Seed fans it is quite enjoyable but disappointing.This sequel was made to make the audience anticipate the appearance of the Seed characters and how they will affect the new characters' lives, and it did succeed it a way. It may quench the thirst of hungry Gundam Seed enthusiasts but may make them hate the sequel for tampering with their favorite characters happy lives. Originality is also an issue, for by reading about Zeta Gundam I was disappointed by the "copying and making it a lot better." Personally I really love Stellar and I just can't forget her and this series is a little bit more romantic and political than Seed. OVERALL: 7

Potentially one of the best turned to easily one of the worst; the best description for Gundam SHITTO Destiny. *SPOILERS FOR MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM SEED DESTINY! I WILL COVER THE HD REMASTER.* It's not a secret that I'm not the biggest fan of SEED. Even still, there's no doubt that the SEED series as a whole could`ve been epic. Season 1 laid the foundation for an even more dramatic and depressing Gundam series to spring up, on the level of Zeta, in more ways than one. This quote represents this perfectly. SEED Destiny in particular also made itself an interesting template that, under the right hands, would`vemade one of the most critically acclaimed Gundam shows of the franchise. However, it failed on that massively (something the score on this review and the show`s MAL score can attest to), and instead, we ended up with one of the most commonly loathed series of the franchise, among other infamous Gundam series like Victory and G-Reco, and considering the Gundam fandom`s infamy for holding internet wars about whether SEED, Wing, 00, Original, or Zeta is the best Gundam series, on the level of Star Wars v Star Trek, that is both impressive and depressing. So, what makes this series so bad? What the hell happened to make us hate this one so much? Well, let's find out, shall we? STORY: 1/10 This is the most depressing part. Keep in mind, that doesn't mean there is nothing redeemable to the story. Moments like the reunion of Athrun, Yzak, and Dearka, are powerful, and the Kira crashing the wedding scene, the arresting Yuna scene, and the killing Djibril scene are glorious. It's just a shame that those moments are SEVERELY outnumbered by moments of bad decision making, contrivances and plotholes, and plagiarism, often in moments where the series tries to be at its most dramatic. I can't respect a story that has me shouting the obvious answers at the screen demanding that these dumbasses do something right for a goddamn change, and episodes 28 and 32 are the prime examples of this, and I`ll touch on that in the characters section. The war here is started for stupid reasons: assholes from Earth and ZAFT ravaging Earth and the PLANTs respectively via terrorism because of a stupid grudge held by Blue Cosmos and certain ZAFT goonies from the war prior. Characters start existing to die or constantly fail, others make stupid decisions that result in lots of death, and the ZAFT guys start thinking that interfering between the two sides is stupid, despite the fact that that was how the heroes in SEED ended the war, and how they'll do it here. The first and last few episodes directly rip off from SEED, like how the heroes resolve the war in the last few episodes, and how Mu La Flaga stops a giant beam from destroying the Archangel. We also have Kira and Athrun fighting in rage due to a misunderstanding, how Athrun loses a friend and immediately starts fighting Kira again afterwards, and Kira disarming someone who was about tho blast through the Archangel`s front, all of which rip off from the same scenarios that happened in SEED. Back to Mu. He died in SEED, like, deader than dead. Apparently he's back as an amnesiac villain known as Neo, and there is no decent justification for this, as this is the worst case of Studio Sunrise's trademark character revival, as they brought back someone who died in one of the more emotional moments of the previous series. It`s crap like this that makes this story impossible for me to care about. Fatal blows to cockpits of mechs fail to kill (BULLSH*T) (happened 3 times), and seemingly non-fatal injuries result in death just to make Shinn have feefees (said mockingly). The Kira v Shinn fight is the dumbest Gundam fight I've ever seen for reasons that I won't cover here; this review is long enough as it is.The ZAFT guys for some reason cannot understand what the Archangel crew is trying to do despite the fact that it is literally the same thing that they were doing in thr latter half of SEED, which is even worse considering that Athrun can`t make it out either despite being part of what happened immediately above! Episode 32 (the death of Stella) and to some extent, the Shinn x Stella subplot is a direct ripoff of the Four death and Four x Kamille subplot from Zeta respectively! ONE OF THE MOST EMOTIONAL MOMENTS IN THIS STUPID ASS SERIES IS A GOD DAMN RIPOFF!!! Plus, the ending is so unsatisfying, that they had to remake it for us almost immediately afterwards! Plus, for some asinine reason, they give us 3 RECAP EPISODES! 3! Sure, they have increasing amounts of relevance and new footage, but 3 of these in a 50 episode series is inexcusible! It was close to a 2, but the ending was the final nail in the coffin to the destruction of the story`s credibility. CHARACTERS: 2/10 Looks like we're not out of the cavalcade of cum-stained crap! Let's talk about the characters! Let's start with the returning guys. Kira is basically a meh protagonist who basically got PTSD at the finale just to give him some depth aside from the fact that he at one point has to find his friend again. He isn't as infuriating as he was in SEED, but he isn't interesting or complex either, probably because he's just a boring Gary Stu now instead of an insufferable hypocrite Gary Stu, though he is still a terrible character nonetheless. For the first 20 episodes, Athrun kept his role as the best character in SEED, until he starts assuming that Cagali isn`t even trying to do her job, acts like a bigot in the middle episodes (about as much as his ZAFT allies), and becomes wishy-washy. Lacus and the other guys are the same though, except for Mu, or rather, Neo. He is a sympathetic villain who cares about the subordinates he has that were genetically engineered for war (Auel, Sting, and Stella), even though he often relies on shady equivocations, and when captured, he slowly remembers his real past after being hounded about it by the Archangel crew. Yzak was at least more humorous and interesting than in SEED, and Dearka's basically same as always. As for Cagali, she is downgraded the worst! Now, all she does is while, spout her ideals, fail, and repeat until she finally does something to take down a douchebag (named Yuna) in episode 40. She has the weakest will of the whole series, and hat`s impressive considering the new cast. Plus, for some reason, whenever she tries to intervene, she doesn't try to disarm despite how easy and obvious it should be for her to do so, and how badly IT BITES HER AND HER ALLIES IN THE ASS WHEN A LOT OF THEM DIE AS SHE CRIES TO THEIR DEATHS DUE TO HER SHEER STUPIDITY!!! In season 1, she at least had a strong resolve, and there, she was less incompetent. Now, she sucks! Way to go, Destiny! Shinn takes the award for worst Gundam protagonist ever, and given that we have Kira Fucking Yamato, that says a lot! His family died in the previous war (when he was stated to be 12) over a year ago, and because of it, he is a total sh*t-stain who blatantly disrespects idealists and his superiors (age 16, and yes, this is a knock against the story). He acts especially horrible to Cagali, and as such, as has earned the sheer hatred of many, including myself. Lunamaria started out as the fun, quirky, and cute one, until episode 22, and she basically becomes weak. Lame. Rey was never that interesting, but at the beginning, he was a good friend to Shinn, and ends up being the mediator often, becomes a crazed devotee towards the end. Auel is some douche who goes through one breakdown 2 episodes before dying. Sting was the more reasonable one of his trio who had a cocky side, until he becomes a generic crazed loon in the same episode he dies in. Stella is psychologically broken (going insane at mention of possible death), yet surprisingly innocent, especially when around Shinn. Too bad she had to die. Heine only exists to spout some jovial dialogue and die in battle due to poor decision-making. Yuna is a pathetic cowardly loser who eggs on Cagali and is a total tool, and I`m glad Cagali arrested him. Djibril is probably the most horrible person in all of Gundam, trying to kill every single Coordinator (especially civilians) for no reason other than selfish desire for profit, and commits major atrocities against entire civilizations in episodes 32 and 43, until he gets eradicated epically in episode 43. Chairman Durandal is a man with a realistic and bleak outlook on war, but becomes the final villain of Destiny who decided to take a stupidly unrealistic approach to ending the war. What a waste. The Minerva crew members I didn't cover are meh. They don't harm much, but aren't that interesting. Meer on the other hand, IS interesting. She went through surgery in order to have a job impersonating Lacus, including singing, and personality, but is ditzy, and can get annoying at times, aside from her sad death. Funny enough, most deaths in this series are still competently tragic, but even then, this cast of characters still sucks. ART: 3/10 The artstyle isn't much better than it was in SEED, but the faces and facial expressions are at least somewhat more tolerable overall. Plus, Lunamaria has some priceless facial expressions in episode 22. The CGI is as bad as ever, albeit mercifully less prevalent, and the mech designs a d fights are as solid as ever. Plus, the lasers are still great. It`s basically everything I've said about SEED, only slightly better. At least it uses orange and fiery environments better for some well done and varied mech shading. The reused animation is festively bad since not only do they reuse animation in the OPs and many battles like SEED does, but they sometimes directlhbrip stock footage from SEED, including during the OPs! Just...what the hell?! SOUND: 6/10 All of the OPs in this show were great, and that is one advantage this has over SEED. OP 1 (Ignited) by T.M. Revolution is a fun OP to start off the series with. It`s kickass. OP 2 (Pride) by High and Mighty Color isn`t as good, but is catchy enough. OP 3 (Bokutachi no Yukue) by Hitomi Takahashi is definitely a great one as well. OP 4 (Wings Of Words) by Chemistry is a soothing and catchy OP, even if it has no business being the OP of a serous mecha war drama. HD OP 4 (vestige) by T.M. Revolution is a great one yo cap off this series with, due to how climactic it feels. All f the EDS (except 3 and including the HD ones) were great and catchy, and in some cases, rather emotional too, like Life Goes on (by Mika Arisaka) and Kimi wa Boku ni Niteiru (by See-Saw). The OST isn't amazingly memorable, but can be emotional and fit the scenes really well too, with some really well used tracks (like the one used for liftoff) The dub still isn't good. The equipment got better, but the returning VAs (especially Athrun`s) didn't, and the new guys didn't feel right either. It`s not as horrid as the one for SEED, but it's not good either. I wonder why they decided to dub both this and the original, since many of the actors did not suit their roles or sound right even in suitable roles. ENJOYMENT: 4/10 The action in this series is as solid as ever, and there are still some funny and even powerful moments in this series. Too bad it likes to piss me off more and make many of its episodes feel double length. Cagali and Shinn make some boneheaded decisions that make some deaths excruciatingly panful to watch due to how easily they could've been prevented. The contrivances, plotholes, and etc. were downright aggravating as well, as I mentioned in the story section. It makes it so disappointing to watch, as with even the slightest of logical tweaks, many of these moments would've been so much better, and for all other reasons above, this series gets upsetting really often. OVERALL: 4/10 RAW SCORE: 34/100 This is one of the worst Gundam anime I've seen to date, and that in and of itself is a tragedy considering how epic this series could`ve been. At this point, I have nothing new to say, but I hope this makes you understand why this show receives such a bad rep. It may have also left a blemish in SEED's reputation that probably led to some guns pointed in SEED`s face. It fails as everything it tries to do, aside from having some fun mech action, which isn`t enough to carry a mech show, let alone a dramatic one that tries to show just how amoral and depressing war can be. Well, with all that said, I bid you adieu.

Sometimes, sequels to popular series work. Most of the time, they don't. Destiny was one of the latter. STORY - The fact that this is a direct sequel to a Gundam series already puts Destiny's story at a disadvantage. Think about it -- all Gundam series start with war and end with resolution. Thus, SEED had resolution, and the only way for Destiny to begin is by destroying that resolution. And it has to be a cheap and forced-feeling destruction because there's hardly two year's difference between the end of the first series and the start of the sequel since they wanted to reuse a majorityof the cast. So yeah, we're not off to a great start here. Admittedly, it is near-impossible for me to view Destiny as a standalone series, and as a huge fan of SEED, I know I'm prone to being a lot more critical than usual on its sequel. And that's me admitting to my bias upfront. Moving on. Destiny seems to try too hard in mirroring many circumstances and storylines already present in SEED, making them seem forced, unoriginal, and repetitious. (If SEED already had a few recycled storyline elements, then certainly Destiny has them in spades.) The basis for the new war seems trivial compared to the previous, and all the countries far too eager to participate in the conflict considering their hard-won peace. The twists were too predictable. Surprisingly significant and unexpected character death was one of the greatest merits I found in SEED, and Destiny tried to perform the same tricks. Unfortunately, these attempts all failed as almost all the character deaths in this sequel could be seen a mile away. The final resolution at the end of the series is also weak and rushed. In all, I can think of very few story element that surprised me or that are worth mentioning on grounds of praise. Even the ones that were kind of interesting -- such as the replacement double for Lacus Clyne -- were overshadowed by the lackluster quality of everything else (and unsubstantial character development as addressed below). I feel like I should maybe elaborate more here, but there really isn't much else to say, and specifics are hard to point out without invoking spoilers. CHARACTER - SEED had a fantastic cast of realistic and noteworthy characters. Destiny took those existing characters and warped them into sub par, flat versions of their former selves, or else twisted them so badly that they were hardly recognizable. And Destiny's newly introduced characters hardly make up for it. I found Shinn, our brand new protagonist, incredibly difficult to sympathize with, which is never a good thing. His background seemed far too much like a generic sobstory, and his fixation on his own tragedy made him out to be too narrow-minded and self-righteous. Done right, those might have been interesting qualities for a protagonist, but for Shinn, it only made him incredibly annoying to put up with. Kira, the initial protagonist of SEED, had been flattening as a character since halfway through the first series. In Destiny, he reached the height of one-sidedness. He is self-righteous to the extreme and seems to think that only his morals and way of dealing with things is the correct one. In some ways, this isn't an entirely bad thing -- it just changes his role within the series, I suppose. He transforms from one of the main protagonists into a more secondary character that contributes one viewpoint without variation. Perhaps he'd just reached the point in his development when he doesn't need to change anymore. Still, it may be frustrating for some to see a once-fleshed out character become so generic, even if he remains a fantastic foil to Athrun. And Athrun? Of the original cast, he is certainly one that retains a majority of his previous characteristics. His multi-faceted personality is intact, and his emotions remain complex. Once again, he is a very interesting character to follow as he is caught between a conflict of both morals and ethics and the alliance (or lack thereof) between his friends. With both Shinn and Kira on their respective high horses with unwaivering opinions, Athrun serves to contrast with the both of them and again offers the same inner turmoil that he provided in SEED. Essentially, Athrun is the same character that he was tossed into a "new" setting, but as the similarity of his situation forces similar reactions, those who've already seen SEED aren't really getting anything new at all. And then there's the matter of romance... It's almost comical how many female characters are thrown at Athrun in Destiny; indeed, it seems like all the girls except Stellar are utterly in love with him. This might have been more amusing had he not already had a perfectly good and stable relationship with Cagalli, and had they not been "broken up" for no good reason at all. The entire romantic ordeal seemed like a cheap (and completely pointless) shot at riling up all the fangirls and boys and to reject the already canonized pairing established in SEED. Certainly Athrun and Cagalli's relationship was put under stress in Destiny, but I found a lot of it to be rooted in a lack of communication that was entirely unreasonable. In an age of mechas and space colonization, I can't imagine it would have been too difficult to send a quick email now and again. If nothing else, the number of new suiters for Athrun reinforced his feelings for Cagalli, but the entire subplot was a waste of time because we knew that already. As well, Cagalli is ridiculously out of character in Destiny. She goes from being a headstrong and independent girl to being a political pawn. Certainly she faces some pressuring circumstances, but considering her development in SEED, it would have made more sense for her to tackle them with head-on rather than...anything she decides to do instead. It's extremely disappointing to see her take such a step back and for her to devolve into such a generic "save me, I'm a weak girl"-type character (especially since we already have one of those in Destiny). It just didn't make sense to me. I'd read somewhere that Destiny had controversially employed a mediocre writer that was in a relationship with one of the producers and that much of the poor character renditions were a direct result of this person, but I can't confirm this for sure. Whatever the reason though, Cagalli was among one of the biggest disappointments here. But finally, there's the matter of all the other characters. The remaining carry-over characters from SEED are casted as less complicated versions of their former selves, though most of this can be attributed to the fact of their diminished significance beyond practical roles (captains, pilots, ship controls, etc). The other new characters introduced in the series are mostly reincarnations of characters that didn't make it to the sequel (Stellar and her companions take the place of SEED's druggie trio, new masked guy takes the place of old masked guy, Captain Gladys is almost identical to Captain Ramius, etc), which further supports the idea that Destiny is just an uninspired rehash of the original SEED. Otherwise, they were generically casted archetypes, including the blindly loyal devotee, the bubbly spaz girl that is willingly manipulated, and the political figure with ambiguous intentions that aren't really that ambiguous. Certainly a few characters are interesting -- Stellar is actually a fairly intriguing character that grows and changes with the story -- but like any interesting story elements, they're largely overshadowed by everything else. PS - There is also the matter of the resurrection of a character that dies in SEED. This was completely unnecessary and ruined a perfectly touching and emotional death. Come on, no more of this I-survived-but-lost-my-memory bullshit, please. ARTSTYLE & ARTWORK - Thankfully, the art and animation did not change between SEED and Destiny. I'm still fond of the particular style used in the series, and everything else stayed in that average range that's perfectly acceptable. MUSIC - Considering the general failure of the above sections, I was especially grateful that the music in Destiny lived up to SEED's, which I absolutely adored. The composer and most of the artists involved remained the same, and thus, beautiful music ensued. T.M. Revolution returns to perform fantastically upbeat and energetic pieces, including the first opening theme ("Ignited"), just like last time. Nami Tamaki also returns to provide its first end theme "Reason," as well as a number of insert songs. And SEED threw young Nami Tamaki into the j-pop spotlight, Destiny did the same for Hitomi Takahashi, who sang my absolute favorite opening for the series, "Bokutachi no Yukue." Additionally, Rie Tanaka, the voice of both Lacus Clyne and Meer Campbell, sings both a super-energized remix of her "Shizukana Yoruni" from SEED and a slow, peaceful, and absolutely gorgeous new song, "Fields of Hope." And last, but not least, Rie Fu, who did the famous first ending of Bleach ("Life is like a Boat") comes in to sing "I Wanna Go to a Place," possibly my favorite ending theme in Destiny. Seriously, I adore all of the vocal tracks used in this series. And of course, Sahashi Toshihiko once again provides four new soundtracks worth of fantastic orchestral and piano music for the background. These include updated versions of old, familiar tracks, as well as dozens of new themes that are just as fun. And as a piano player myself, it especially pleased me to see the inclusion of more piano tracks that are actually played within the content of the series since Rey Za Burrel takes Nicol's place as your character-that-can-play-piano. Fun stuff all around, guys. :D VOICE ACTING - All of the actors that reprised their roles from SEED were once again excellent. I still love Akira Ishida as Athrun Zala. Of the new roles, Stellar stood out to me as a pretty awesome performance given the strangeness of her character. Other than that, the rest of the voices did well to fit their part, but weren't anything particularly memorable. As far as I know, Destiny hasn't even been released Stateside (probably because of SEED's strangely dismal failure), but it did have a Canadian release, so I assume there's a dub out there that I haven't seen. I imagine it'd be pretty much the same as the SEED dub though, which was very average. OVERALL - Almost everything about Gundam SEED Destiny annoyed me, and though I'm not sure how high my expectations were in the first place, I don't think I could have been more disappointed with this sequel. Other than the technical aspects (sound and animation), nothing lived up to the standards set by its predecessor. Maybe if it were judged as a standalone work, it would score a little higher (especially on the character scale), but as a direct sequel to a series, I don't really see the point. It astounds me sometimes that some fans of SEED actually enjoyed Destiny, 'cause in the end, Destiny, for me, only served to reinforce the idea that sequels to perfectly good series are utterly unnecessary.

Destiny is a tale of two shows, the show it could have been versus whatever the hell the staff of the show presented it as. To get to the point, I’ll point out the shows main problems immediately. The show’s pacing, character development and plot I felt were all horrible and on top of that unoriginal. Destiny started off better off than any Gundam series I’ve watched so far. While most series in Gundam canon usually start off slow and tedious. Destiny gave you some brief, but useful enough introductions. The age old practice of stealing Gundams right from under theenemies' noses was fine, I chalked that up to them paying homage or going with a tradition. And then you were thrown headlong into the action. Pacing was pretty good throughout the first half, while they developed this somewhat annoying formula of action, followed by character development episodes, the action was good enough to make you put up with the way stuff was spaced out. A particularly enjoyable part of the show was the interaction between Athrun and Shinn. Though whiny, generally ignorant and pretty arrogant, he showed signs of hope, realizing at times that Athrun’s advice and tutelage had helped him for the better. In the second half of the series, the trend continued, but with far less interesting action. The Gundams became over powered and the later battles seemed inconsistent and unfair at times. Also, the change in focus about half way through meant that you had to sit through the same babbling that permeated the original SEED, but this time its just a rehash of their already stated opinions and can’t be counted as character development. Clip shows and flashbacks were also used EXCESSIVELY and killed pacing. The worst pacing came towards the end, as entire episodes seemed wasted on minor characters or minor developments and MORE flashbacks, only to have a very short, rushed feeling ending that seemed to have a lot of out of character moments, but that’s an issue for the next paragraph. Destiny showed signs of good characters and good character development. Instead of getting a patchwork group of out of place soldiers and refugees, you get professional soldiers in their element, facing extreme challenges (except for Arthur, I don’t know how he became an XO). Durrandal started to become my favorite character that, even though he showed signs of being evil, was just a very smart, sharp character with a lot of charm and who made a lot of sense. Shinn though a professional soldier is whiny and arrogant. Captain Gladys seems like a character with logic and a good amount of insight into the world. Athrun shows up as a conflicted character, who ends up being a mentor to Shinn. And tries to show him what is wrong with his impulsive and arrogant attitude. Unfortunately, the interesting characters of Destiny are replaced halfway through with the much less interesting characters of the original SEED. And then the previous cast gets a serious downgrade in on-screen time, skills and even intelligence. The characters from SEED seem like less than objective observers, until they start meddling and screw everyone over. The characters of Kira and Lacus show no change, nor room for it. Athrun changes, but only in the way a pendulum does. It takes him an entire series to come to the same realization he had in SEED, war is bad, no one should be killed and hatred will destroy the future. The characters come off as almost god-like, knowing all, looking down on the world and generally being untouchable, literally. As for the new cast-away cast, once they are pushed to the side, you don’t know whether the director wants you to root for them or not. They go from saving the day, to be viewed as oppressors in the span of an episode. On top of that, their skills and intelligence seem to change as the episodes go along. In one episode, they are able to practically fight off the entire Orb military by themselves, later in the series they are unable to take down Orb even with the entire ZAFT military behind them and with Shinn and Rey using upgraded, super powerful Gundams. The Alliance was able to take down Orb in the original series even with Kira, Athrun and the Archangel present, yet ZAFT receives a brutal punch to the nose and retreats. This is also in contrast to when they fought the Alliance earlier at Heaven’s Base. With no less than 5 Destroy Gundams (mountainous Gundam death machines with more weapons and armor by itself than most militaries), they pretty easily take their objectives. Even earlier than that in the series, one Destroy Gundam was enough to hold off both Kira and Shinn by itself. The worst case is the final battle, where everything comes to a head. The same ZAFT that pretty easily defeats the entire Alliance, and takes their super weapon for themselves, gets a resounding defeat by a pretty small Orb force in what has to be the worst Gundam ending ever. Their ace pilots are easily chopped up, the Minerva is defeated, not by the Archangel, but by a restored Mu La Flaga in his overpowered (Hyaku Shiki rip-off) mobile suit. And in the end, three major characters on the ZAFT side decide to cash it in and commit suicide, while two more lie on the surface of the moon, next to their destroyed mobile suits crying. My final gripe is with the overall plot of the show. Sure it started off pretty simple, but it then threw a pretty nice twist at viewers, by dropping a massive celestial body (Junius Seven) on the Earth at the beginning arc of the show instead of during the last two episodes like most shows. Great! Then the plot goes into the basic war itself between the Alliance and Z.A.F.T. Once the Archangel starts screwing with things though, it becomes a slower more convuluted plot. And when it gets near the end, it just seems to become nonsensical and chaotic. It really isn’t that complicated and there aren’t many surprises. If the point of the show was to show that repeating one’s mistakes was foolish and stupid, then this show proved that perfectly. Then didn’t just repeat the stakes of the original SEED, which was a good show in its own right, it doubled them. Great character and mecha designs and potential are wasted by the flawed plot and logic. And this show has left me disappointed to say the least.

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