Has Gundam SEED aged well? SPOILERS

Q

Question Master

New member
Spun off from elsewhere to avoid taking that thread off topic.

There's no doubt that the Cosmic Era Gundam series attract much controversy. Question is, how well do you feel Gundam SEED has aged?

Personally, I think the general superiority of works such as 00 has shown it up in the near decade since. For me, the key moment that really hurts SEED is when Andy is revealed to be alive. Killing Andy was an important moment for Kira and the audience, illustrating that in war 'the enemy' is not really too different from yourself and thus Kira was killing any nuraber of 'good' men and women. Bringing Andy back (a fact Fukuda annoyingly puts down to needing 'cool adults' in the cast) removes the entire point of that.
 
I'd say that it has aged rather well. SEED itself has a pretty decent lead, Kira. The story itself is also rather interesting, a Coordinator is forced to fight against his own kind in order to protect his frienRAB. Perhaps not original, but certainly interesting.

I'll say that one of the larger issues I have with the series are with Athrun. In general, his character just kind of annoys me. Not to mention, I just wish he would have realized Kira was an enemy. But perhaps that was part of the charm, both of them being young and naive, unlike trained soldiers.

The crew of the AA was rather likeable, and I think that is because each of them could be related to in some form. Fllay was a bit crazy, but I wouldn't say she was completely off the handle.

I will say that I wish that Nichol, Yzak and Dearka had been developed a bit more, and hadn't been...left in the dark during the second half. Sure, Dearka and Yzak get some closure, but Kira and Athrun definitely eclipsed them.

Lacus. Well. She is an alright character, but she is rather annoying. Especially when she stanRAB up to Athrun. I simply don't buy that an innocent girl like herself could command a war ship, but hey, that's me.

Oh and, I will say that, as much as I love the Freedom, Kira had been given a mobile suit that required a bit more talent. In the end though, this worked out so I don't have any real complaints.

I also thought that Rau was fantastic. I loved to hate him during the end of the series.

I'll assume we are sticking to just SEED, so I will leave Destiny out of this. I wouldn't say that 00 is really THAT much better than the original SEED. The first half of 00 didn't have spectacular pacing, which some say SEED suffered from, but the latter half kicked in to high gear. Now, 00 blows Destiny out of the water (mainly due to the last 10 episodes of Destiny) but as for the original, I wouldn't say there is such a large gap in quality.
 
SEED had major pacing problems in the first half, and durab plot points in the second half. There was little to no point in Kira being Cagalli's sibling other than a couple laughs. His origin is expositioned a few episodes later in detail, and they don't do anything in Destiny with it anyway.

Space Whale? Really, one conversation over coffee and that's it?

OMG Rau is a clone! ....Why introduce it in the last 10 episodes?! And do nothing with it? Forget about genetically perfect humans, you made freakin clones man!

As the show started ending, the villains just became more one-dimension. It went from "We have an inferiority complex" to "Grrr space monsters bad! Must kill coordinators blarg!" Don't get me started on the Federation, who were generally straight-up being a-holes for the sake of being a-holes as the show went on.

Too many flasbacks, too many recap episodes, Lacus was way too Mary Sue even back then. You can argue she was really a political powerhouse pretending to be a songstress, but it was just set up way too easily for a 16-year old.

Yzak, Dearka, and Nicole suck. They just plain suck. 4 Gundams against 1, and they can't beat him. Trained soldiers with reinforcements can't beat what is essentially worse than what the White Base had in the first series (At least Guntank and GunCannon did stuff, unlike Mobius "I can't scratch the paint" Zero.) Heck, they were so unimportant they cut them out completely in the compilation Desert Arc.

There was way too much of a technology jump. How do you get from DINNs to Freedom Gundam in the span of...what was it, a couple months at best? From scratch, mind you. And Lacus casually strolling in and giving it to Kira.

No explanation on Kira's escape from the Strike/Aegis fight. Not in the show, at least.

I liked Athrun. In the second half during Kira's "death," he was basically the second protagonist with a good conflict. His frienRAB dead or captured, his father deepening into madness. A bit stupid at the end, though. "Duh, I should explode myself with the Gundam cause that's my thing."

I really did like SEED back then, but it's just so hard to re-watch it due to the pacing and the wangst and Sai being owned every 3 minutes.
 
Barely a decade, and people are asking if Seed aged well? The animation, characters, and story are decent and fun to watch. The story remains relevant, and to this day fans still discuss it. At the anime convention we had this weekend, they showed Gundam

Seed when most of the Anime they had at the viewing rooms more very recent works. Sure, there are better shows out there, but Seed still has beautiful animation, great plot, and lots of action. It can still stand with newer shows today.

Also, Seed presented us with Fllay. Thus making SEED 10x better.
 
Aren't you the same person who liked Nena?

Hmm...SEED. I will say that it's the only series I have every episode of (both 26 episode boxsets) but has it aged well?

Well, if anything, if I was going to introduce someone to Gundam, I would not use this series. I'd use the original, Wing or even 00, but I don't think I would use this one. Which is funny as it is supposed to be a of reimagining of sorts. But to answer the question, I will say that is a show that if I wanted to watch an episode, I wouldn't have a problem popping it in the DVD player.

The main problem I have with it is just that its rather boring at parts. The messages offered are just so annoying and somewhat pretentious. And I think that I'm not the only one who hated the repeated animation. I mean, at least Wing tried to hide it, when you're using footage from the OP in your anime and it's a carbon copy, and you're doing it consistently instead of like once, then I think there's something wrong.
 
I think it has, It's still one of my favorite Gundam series though it does have some flaws (the biggest to me was the overuse of flasrabroadacks) and while I think that 00 is superior to it in some aspects, I still really like it and find it better than most of the UC Gundam series.

I found Seed's cast for the most part to likeable and interesting, Kira and Athrun to be good protagonists, the drama to believable and REALLY GREAT music. It also features the best Gundam villain ever in Rau Le Creuset and the second best final battle in Gundam. (the best being G Gundam last battle)

One thing that bugs me though is people saying that the messages offered in it are ''annoying and pretentious'' I mean to me Seed's message was that people could overcome haterd and war through love, frienRABhip, understanding one another which is very similar to 00's message. Whats ''annoying and pretentious'' about that?
 
I remeraber watching SeeD on TV way back when and while I thought it was no Gundam Wing in a lot of respects, watching the odd episode now and then waiting for something else to come on didn't fill me with murderous bile like some other shows have been known to.

I don't think it ever shined as one of the Gundam Multiverse's crowning achievements, all the characters looked the same, the CG was as bad then as it remains today and there were far too many pink haired girls and Haros for my taste, but it had plenty of redeeming features to recommend it too.

I'v just never been to thrilled with the idea of overpowered teenaged gundam pilots. One I can stand when it's an aberation, but when seemingly the entire elite of a military is composed of nothing but teenagers who clearly haven't been given any psychological training whatsoever and who's personal problems (rather predictably) affect thier battlefield effectiveness, then I get bored watching concurent episodes.... Fast.
 
Oh yeah, that was really bugging me. The way-above-overpowered mecha.

Lasers on top of lasers that shoot out bigger lasers=/=cool. Even better when you realize that they are not blowing up the actual mecha. They're "disarming" them. Yeah, cause the beam-spamming wasn't enough.
 
I've never seen this... "gundam" thing you speak of, but I have a question.

Realistically, shouldn't teenagers be the easiest soldiers, psychologically, to convert into bloodthirsty killers?
And doesn't the killing get easier as you go? (I'm saying for the most part; there's obviously a threshold.)

Also, by personal problems, I'm assuming your talking about: "Does she like me, or him?"
If that's the case... ugh.
Glad I never watched it.


I never understood the desire to make clone soldiers.

Hey guys, lets make all our soldiers genetically the same and train them in the exact same manner as well!
That way they'll always react the same, thus being completely predictable to the enemy.
And they'll also be susceptible to the same diseases too!
Why, if they happen to be prone to the flu, we better hope that we aren't at war during flu season.
 
No, kiRAB are the easiest. Teenagers are a real biatch to convert unless you're willing, which Kira wasn't.

They did explain a bit why the coordinaters are so young. Genetically, they're about as able as trained Federation older pilots (even more, to a point), and the low birth-rate of coordinators basically force-draft the younger generation.
 
Considering Freedom could out-perform mobile suits 2 years later with ease, yes it is overpowered in context. Then again, Akatsuki was just chilling in Orb the entire time so....


Wing Zero, if compared to the rest of the Gundam universe, isn't as much powerful. Twin Buster Cannon is outperformed by Satellite Cannons (designed to take out multiple colonies), and otherwise has lackluster secondary weapons (a problem in general with Wing mechs.)

00 Raiser is powerful, but considering Ribbons was beating it pretty soundly despite interference from 2 other Gundams and the Ptolemy, and the time limit, it's pretty good but not all powerful.


The Turn A Gundam is still and will always be the most powerful. No argument on that.
 
I'd say the 00 Raiser was just as overpowered as Freedom. Let's not forget that Rau was also doing well against it during the final battle.

Sure, Freedom had a ton of beams...but 00 Raiser had...how long of a beam sword? Yeah...
 
Wing Zero has a really big gun. A kick ass really big gun but that's mainly it (and the Zero system but I'm going with practical hardware here)

G Gundam doesn't even count, I mean, if it did, I might as well say "TTGL is the most overpowered mecha in existence."

00-Raiser....hm, well, I guess being able to freaking quantize is something I never thought I'd see but see, the abilities were given development and explanation as well as the enemy being able to match them eventually (Remeraber. 00 is the first series to have a downgrade final battle)

Freedom on the other hand, has like six lasers that can apparently hit any target (later upside-down!) and then when equipped with METEORS gave Kira the nickname it has today and is just not interesting to watch when I know he can just go SEED mode and snipe everything (again, non-lethally, cause that's possible with like 100 lasers.) At least when Setsuna goes Innovator and dominates the battlefield, it's not using repeated footage from an OP song.

EDIT: Tae don't even get me started on Akatsuki and it's magic "reflect everything" paint
 
Well, it's more of a 'He scared my perfect face, I'm going **** him... UP! **** him up! That's what I said!'

I don't nessecarilly have a problem with Kira because he was never trained as a soldier, it's all the others who were that I have a problem with. The problem I have with Kira is that he's some kind of super co-ordinator even among other co-ordinators, to the point where he's able to regularilly take them 1 against 4 despite the fact he has no tactical experience, no mobile suit training and is piloting something that has such a bad opperating system most proffesional trained pilots can't even make the thing walk in a straight line. Talk about your overpowered protagonist. He takes Gary stu-ness to the enth degree.
 
We're talking about the suit, not skills. Freedom basically has unlimited energy, while Raiser can only unlock its full potential for 3 minutes and MAJORLY suck afterward. Not to mention its PS Armor, which renders everything but beam technology useless (Not an issue against the main Gundams, but certainly makes Trowa and Quatre cry.)

But then again, we're talking about Freedom, while Raise and Wing Zero are the final upgraded suits of their respective shows. Strike Freedom is even more overpowered, remeraber with literally double the guns still with unlimited energy.
 
But he's still taking out armies and armies (with stock footage) and it's just not exciting. And as for Rau thrashing it in the final battle....Dude, when has any Gundam not gotten thrashed or at least banged up in it's final battle

Oh....right

(Oh Gundam X. I still appreciate you!)
 
Also, the 00 raiser habitually needed to be supported by the other 3 gundams and while it was by far the most powerful machine in exsistance, there were plenty of other people who by sheer force of awesomeness alone could match it nearly toe to toe in single corabat and it gets pretty brutally mauled in many a battle.

For what it's worth, I had exactly the same over powered complaint about the Wing Zero, except at least it had the Epion to counterballance it a little bit. Kira in the Strike Freedom was just game over man.
 
The Epyon was a terrible Gundam. The only reason why it was usable was the Zero system and Zechs being the best pilot on the show. Otherwise, the whole "close-corabat is all it neeRAB" thing is just durab.

Destiny was game-over in general. I still have no idea why Destiny Gundam didn't have the same nuclear engine when clearly Lacus had enough for 2 Gundams. At that the point in the story, the treaty meant nothing. (Hey, let's ban invisibility! Now uh...how do we make sure?)
 
Back
Top