Back again pretty fast this time! Didn't have much to do in May so I got through these entries really fast. So, let's see what I though of them.
Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny (2004-05)
This was such a major improvement from the original series. There's no stretch of episodes where I felt miserable and the general quality was just greater in all regards. Athrun made for a great protagonist, of all the SEED characters to put into that role, he was absolutely the best pick. The series does a good job at challenging him and his beliefs from the prior series, that he hadn't yet fully come to an answer to Kira's question at the end of SEED. To challenge him we have the deuteragonist, Shinn Asuka, in an odd way he reminds me of Flay, in that he's in a very important role, but the difference here is we get all the context for why he is the way he is so I'm not constantly frustrated, and he gets to end the series finally making his realization, so I'm also not left disappointed like I was with Flay in the original series. Shinn constantly makes a lot of bad decisions in his sense of self-righteousness, some of which are good but a lot of which are just motivated on pure spite and his inability to see past his own biases or look at the broader context. I can't even fully blame him for some of them, because Durandal and Rey are master manipulators, they're really good at what they're doing.
Speaking of Durandal, man he's a great villain, you know as soon as you hear his VA is Char's that he'll be a villain of some kind, but for a good chunk of the series you can't really pin down what his angle is, aside from a repeat of specific wording, he's very good at framing his actions as the logical conclusion even if he's rushing it through a bunch of steps. An interesting part of the series that I like is that they hint that he's much more aware of events or planned more things, but they never confirm it, he had the blueprints for the Destroy Gundam the same as Djibril, so he knew that was coming. There's even hints he had orchestrated the Junius Seven drop as well as the armoury theft at the start of the show, he gets frustrated when he's forced to board the Minerva at the start of the show, which is very out of character with context of the rest of the series. I really like how they never go out of their way to state this, Durandal was very good at keeping any concrete evidence from reaching him, but it's all there to see and figure out as you're watching. As for Rey he's easier to sus out, he's not as good at it as Durandal, and he also has the same target across the show, the first or second time he sticks up for Shinn and chides Athrun on his own behaviour you might dismiss as a friend sticking up for their buddy... but as it goes on you notice a worrying pattern that he's constantly reassuring Shinn's irrational choices are correct, that he's in the right and he shouldn't take the valid criticisms Athrun's bringing out as good advice. It's very interesting watching these two characters set up the board.
As for other characters, Kira's group is there, they don't get that much focus until the last stretch of the series and I'm glad for that. Kira had mostly completed his character arc in SEED, and while there is a lingering sadness to him and his responsibilities, he generally knows what he wants. Cagalli I'm a bit mixed on, I think they go a bit too hard on how bad Cagalli is at her position in the early portion of the show. She is being manipulated by Yuna and Unato, but she is so bad at giving counterarguments against them, now this wouldn't be too much of a problem if she was shown to learn and grow from this... but we never see that and instead when she comes back she's just suddenly the perfect leader for Orb. They could have done her so much better.
Mu La Flaga... he comes back from the dead and... I don't know what the writers were trying to do with him. I don't mind seeing him again, but they really don't do anything with that idea. None of the cast know he's alive until they see his mask fall off and take him prisoner, and after that point the evil actions he had done under his previous brainwashed identity are just... never addressed. It's such a strange way of doing it, you can get some good drama out of it, particularly his connection with Shinn who came begging him to give Stella a better life and he just sent her back into the war machine. Instead the show wipes their hands when he's revealed and says "Now he's on the good side". I needed a lot more than that.
While SEED Destiny is a massive improvement, I do still have qualms with it, and one of my major ones is the parade of underwhelming side character deaths. The Extended pilots get done fucking dirty in this show. I was really interested to get more expansion into them but the series does nothing with them, Auel dies so underwhelmingly in the middle of a battle after some interesting setup of him being the only one to notice that a Stella shaped something was absent. Sting gets absolutely nothing in this show, we at least learn a bit about Auel and get a decent amount from Stella, but Sting has zilch, we don't get his trigger word, we don't see what makes him tick and he gets two underwhelming deaths, the first one was already bad but then he's brought back to die and show how cool the new Gundams are and that sucked ass. Stella is slightly better than those two... but she's still not getting much about her own self, she's really just there to die for Shinn's character, and that makes me so frustrated, she can't have proper conversations with people, she's about the level of small child so we don't get much about her, just reasons why Shinn liked her. It's better than what three Extended pilots in SEED got... but Goddamn not by much. Continuing our parade we have Meer Campbell... I'm going to ignore her shit ass Lacus costume, I can't believe the show tries convincing you it's appealing or even sexy, it's just bad. But moving on, I like her character, she gets a decent amount of screen time and its nice how her story ties in with the themes of the show and really showcases at first the surface level of Durandal's motivations before we get what he's actually aiming for, making it far more twisted. Her death is just so... underwhelming, there was much more you could have done with her beyond the point where she took a bullet, but instead we just quickly end it, she at least gets an entire episode dedicated to mourning her and her own journey, but it still feels like a waste. Yuna also dies disappointingly, mostly because his death just felt unnecessary, he was already captured and being hauled off for treason, I don't see what dropping a mobile suit on him added.
Oh yeah, before I forget, one small negative is that I was a bit bummed they had Miri and Dearka date and break up off screen. The original SEED ended with them as friends, and I was interested to see their friendship continue, or possibly expand into feelings for each other, I just wanted to see more on their characters really... but just having that all happen off screen and then not having them ever interact just felt like a weird choice, would it have really been that hard to keep them on friendly terms instead?
Now for my last big negative, what the fuck was that final scene with Talia, Durandal and Rey? I get it's thematic and ties into the idea that they had all been wronged at one point, but there's a limit to how dumb the characters should act. Talia's just... letting herself die and knowingly leaving her child behind to stay with the man she loves even after she realizes the horrible things he's done, and she also wants Rey to stay with them and die because??????? I was so disappointed they let Rey die there after he had finally made his first choice for himself. Just... an obscenely stupid scene to end those characters off on and kind of puts a sour note on the climax, though thankfully the rest of it is strong enough.
Speaking of the final battle, I do love that it takes Shinn until the final episode to finally realize just how severely wrong he's been, and in the arms of his completely underdeveloped romantic subplot with Lunamaria, he's finally on a path to heal for himself, that was a nice way to wrap him up for this show but leave him open for any future instalments.
Before I give full overview on my thoughts, I'll note I watched the HD version of the show... and man I did not need that stupid ass Lunamaria panty shot or the various nipples on the women. I don't know what else the HD added, but I wanted to isolate how bad those were in particular.
Anyway, overall I am very positive on this show, it is so much better than the original, just a great improvement in most regards, I wouldn't call it a favorite, too many bumps for me to really forgive, but I'm very much willing to say it's as good as some other Gundam series. Gives me hope for other SEED properties.
Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam: A New Translation Trilogy (2004-06)
...Why? Why does this exist? Obviously whatever happened behind the scenes meant they didn't have the time and/or budget to fully reanimate things for a trilogy of movies... but why make it at all in that case? The jumping back and forth between the new and old style is so jarring, particularly since it seems like they did not pick good places for swapping, sometimes there's just a random 3 second shot in the middle of a scene with new crisp animation, sometimes its a whole several minute scene. There's no seeming rhyme or reason as to why some get new animation and others don't, it's just a mess.
Obviously since its recap movies a lot of things are going to get skipped over, it all makes sense, Four dies immediately instead of at a second trip to Earth, we just don't bother with the Rosamia plotline but we do have her in the movies, we combine the deaths of both of Kamille's parents together even though it makes Bask Om look like a complete moron. A lot of the choices to consolidate the original plotline makes a lot of sense... but I'm just so distracted by the constant visual changes to really appreciate this as recap movies. It really feels like if Tomino wasn't restrained by having to reuse footage, he'd have done a lot more changes to the Zeta storyline, he even ends the movie with Kamille still mentally healthy.
Overall... just a weird movie trilogy that exists, I do not understand how they managed to get this approved and them put into theaters.
Gundam Evolve.../Ω (Shorts 6-10) (2004-06)
Some more shorts! These ones were... strange, in different ways.
Episode 6: ...This one was completely baffling. It seems to be based on the sequel manga to SEED Astray, so I am missing a ton of context. I kind of appreciate the obscure pick for this short, and kind of wish they did more of that in Evolve, the others are all set or focused on the regular anime characters. That being said, without context this was just a bunch of different things happening, a Gundam being pursued onto an asteroid declaring it doesn't want to fight, a ghost Gundam coming out of it and fighting, another Gundam coming in to fight and then the first Gundam joining in to destroy the ghost, to which the remaining two turn on each other... just odd.
Episode 7: Fun to see Gundam Wing again, there's not too much to this, just a story of Heero pulling off a daring mission while Doctor J explains the origins of his codename to Relena. There's really not much to talk about.
Episode 8: SEED again, seemingly after Andrew Waltfeld's defeat, with the Strike Freedom taking out a whole base... nothing of substance of here, just cool action.
Episode 9: ...What the fuck? Now, I can tell there's a lot... I think it's general Buddhist imagery and themes, though I don't really know enough about other religions from the area to know if there's overlaps and it's actually something else. Either way a lot of the general meaning of the theming went over my head, so I wouldn't be surprised if I was aware I'd like this short even more, but as it stands this is one of the better shorts in these collections. Anyway, the story is that this is likely taking place sometime during ZZ, and while Judau's dealing with normal Gundam shit, Amuro's dealing with a Lovecraftian nightmare. But worry not, Amuro's not alone, he's joined by Yuri, a purple haired girl who didn't accept his hand when he tried to help her up after almost running her over at his mom's funeral and she obsessed over this for years, and some other guy named Shin who just dies opening a way for Amuro. Anyway, they're all piloting 3 Zetas (Kamille really should have copyrighted that...), to stop an evil Illuminati pyramid controlled by multiple Newtype pilots who if the pyramid touches you they can suck in your mind data/the soul in and steal information. Honestly, from beginning to end this short was wild, with some cool visuals, which I appreciated.
Episode 10: This was very cute, it's nice to see a younger Judau early on before he becomes the tired old man. Seems he's still in contact with his friends at this point, as they all pitch in together to get him a birthday present. He aids a mysterious Zeon defector in a black Qubeley and the short ends suggesting it may be Ple-2, which I am perfectly fine with retconning her death in ZZ, because that was unsatisfying some bullshit. Overall, very fun short.
A grab bag of weird shit for this batch, but that's what I like, a good variety.
Gundam Evolve.../α (Shorts 11-15) (2004-07)
Even more shorts, but these are the final ones! These ones were a bit underwhelming.
Episode 11: Not really much to say about this one, just kind of underwhelming, some Ball units go to A Baoa Qu, all except one go down, the last remaining Zaku and pilot he screams. Just a pretty nothing short.
Episode 12: Quattro Bajeena fights against himself (Char Aznable), more meat on the bones to this one, with the bar discussion and seieng the effects of the lingering memories of the One Year War on people... but it's really nothing much.
Episode 13: This one was fun, a Titans pilot during the drop to Earth to Jaburo, his father, a wealthy company executive has somehow managed to get information about the Federation blowing the base with a nuclear bomb bomb, but Jonathan's so emotionally torn on his father that he just begins to lose it, with the machine going haywire and playing the father's message like an electronic beat which was pretty fun. He survives and we get the rest of the message, his father begging him to live and we see that Jonathan seemingly has.
Episode 14: Woohoo! A break from the Universal Century, too many of these are dedicated to that setting. We're in SD Gundam town baby, so there's jokes and hijinks in the land of samurais.It feels like this is either based on something or a prototype for something they wanted to possibly expand on, because there's a lot of details they mention that don't really matter to this short. Anyway, it's fun, but the final battle just has the main Musha Gundam pulling shit out of his ass to win, which is just unsatisfying.
Episode 15: Back to the Universal Century, this seems to be an apology short to Challia Bull... it was alright, cool action, but it really is mostly just a retelling of that segment from first Gundam.
I enjoyed Evolve overall, though these last five were just kind of okay for the most part. I kind of wish Evolve had continued, I enjoy seeing obscure Gundam series get a short to expand on stuff, bit sad After War Gundam X didn't get one but a SEED manga did.
MS IGLOO: Apocalypse 0079 (2006)
Ugh... this one was better than the first, but not by much. They're at least trying harder with the characters this time, even if I still can't invested in them due to the basic premise. The second episode where the test pilot was the brother of the hardliner red haired lady was good, finally I give a shit about one of these doomed to die pilots, but that doesn't save it from the predictable nature of the show killing them off by the end of the episode. The final episode is a neat switchup where the perspective main character is forced to be the test pilot, and he seems to die, but is then brought back and... am I supposed to care? I wasn't invested enough to want him to live or not. Then he gives a big speech about how all the beliefs of the dead pilots will live on within him and he won't let this be the end of their stories, even if the flag of Zeon disappears, all while that flag is waving in the background, and it just made me fucking gag.
Glad the captain lived though, he's the only character I liked. One more MS IGLOO to deal with, thankfully, but that'll be after Gundam 00, I hope it's better, because I cannot deal with this shit.
Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny Special Edition (2006-07)
It's recaps again! But this time? There's 4 of them... that was a bit painful. It doesn't do anything weird like SEED's recap movies so it's just... normal recaps. I like that it added in some narration from Athrun, giving his thoughts and feelings at key moments. They do some smart condensing, such as putting some of Athrun's talks with Shinn together or saving the scene of Shinn's family dying for later to make it flow better.
But yeah, overall, good recaps... but I'd just recommend the main HD show.
Mobile Suit Gundam SEED C.E. 73: STARGAZER (2006)
This was a very enjoyable little side story set during Destiny, focusing on a team of scientists trying to make a Gundam with an advanced AI and the Earth Alliance Forces trying to take it from them as the war heats up. I think its biggest issue is that it feels like it's too short for what it's trying to do, this is the type of story that would have benefited from a full movie run time rather than three 15 minute episode OVAs. Still, the general story works as we learn about our two protagonists, Selene is mostly focused on building the AI. Sven meanwhile is someone who, as a kid, was forcibly drafted into Blue Cosmos when the relative he was libing with after his parents died seemingly signed some sort of agreement. Though it seems like she either regretted it or realized she had been tricked, it's not made clear. He is then trained horrifically and eventually just gives in and becomes a willing tool, killing his opinions and emotions and doing whatever task he's given, no matter how horrific.
Again, the weakness of this entry is its length, a lot of these ideas would benefit greatly from having more time to stretch, and there's a lot of details in focuses on that don't get time to breathe, like the character of Edmond who lives and dies in the first segment getting Selene to space while handling some terrorists, that'd be a nice section in a movie, but with 45 minutes on the clock it eats up a lot of time that could be better spent on Selene or Sven.
The final section with Selene and Sven trapped out in space together is very nice but oddly short, however I do think Sven slowly realizing he had a lot of relationships he valued and who cared for him despite the life he lived and trying to cut off his emotions hits very well, it's a good character beat to end the OVA on.
All in all, would recommend this one if you haven't seen it yet, won't take up too much time.
The Tenth Wrap-Up
Looking back on this batch, this was a good one, ignoring MS IGLOO. Destiny was great for me and a lot of the smaller ones were weird in interesting ways, Evolve in particular is cool, I kind of wish they kept doing it, would love just getting a lot more mini stories set all around Gundam, more long running franchises should do things like that.
That being said, we look to the future, the era of SEED is over, and I have 17 more years worth of Gundam to go through before SEED Freedom enters my periphery. Now, what will I be doing in the next batch? First up another 50 episode juggernaut series, although this is the first one that's split over two seasons rather than running continuously like the others, it's Gundam 00! I have 0 idea what that series is about and I think the only thing I've ever seen of it is a dub clip where some guy goes "I'm always fighting. In fact, I'm fighting right now!" while a lady gasps. Honestly, I thought that was from Gundam Wing for a while. After 00 we have MS IGLOO for the final time, thank god, then a short called Battlefield Record: Avant-Title that acts as a prequel to a Playstation 3 video game, then another short called Ring of Gundam whatever the fuck that is, then a 2 episode OVA called Gundam Frag, the 00 compilation movies and then we end off with a 15 minute short called SD Gundam Sangokuden Brave Battle Warriors, which seems to act as a prelude to the longer 51 episode BBB Warriors TV series.
Quite a lot to look forward to in the next batch, I'll see you all the next time I finish more Gundam!
