Has Gundam SEED aged well? SPOILERS

Well, but the point of the Epyon is that because he was there fighting Hero in the last battle, Hero couldn't be just flaying the entire enemy force with his giant beam rifle and it actually let everyone else be (somewhat) relevant.

No such likeness for Kira.

True though, without the Awesomeness of Zechs, the Epyon would be totally stupid.
 
Epyon's a Gundam? (checks wiki) Holy crap. Well there went my thought that Zechs was just so badass, he could take Heero in anything.

And I know Gundam still has issues with upgrades appearing out of nowhere and stuff but the C.E.'s upgrades were just so random. You know, since they involved just literally giving the protagonists the Gundams like they were gifts or something.

"Now Kira, you need a powerful weapon to end the rages of war.....here you go. Have fun."
"Oh your Impulse was destroyed in a battle against Freedom. Okay, well here's an even prettier one!"
 
Yeah, I think what you meant was Zechs keeping the Wing Zero in check. He could've been in the Talgeese II with Zero System and still keep up.

Destiny Kira has a lot of problems that just hapeen to stem from bad writing, so it's not an isolated problem. Maybe if Lacus died, he'd have a personality.



Impulse wasn't destroyed....Lunmaria's piloting it in the next battle. The Destiny was already made for Shinn.
 
As much as I don't like to say it... No. It has not aged well, and with Destiny, it got worse. On its own, SEED was rather conventional fare really, with a few splish-splashes of originality over an old style of plot. It only found itself after the second half when it started to get more super roboty, and they started to look into more of the interesting concepts like genetic enhancement. But at the end of the day, it did things well, but didn't really do them as dynamic and as striking as it should have done them.

That said, it gave us Episode 30's Kira vs. Athrun, and in Destiny's case, Impulse vs. Freedom. No matter what, they *especially the latter* I consider two of the most crowning moments of awesome in Gundam. It's just a shame they dropped the ball with Destiny so badly.

But then again... without SEED we wouldn't have had 00. I know it's kindof weird to think "without this there wouldn't be that", but I do believe 00 is an aftereffect of SEED/Destiny, an attempt to take Gundam in a serious manner that the last series never did. Plus I have some attachment to it since it =was the first Gundam series that I REALLY got into, flaws and all. So SEED has a special place in my heart.

But sadly, SEED is essentially Marlon Brando's character in "On the Waterfront" right now, lamenting how he could have been a contender. I lament too, and hope that maybe... just maybe... the movie (if it ever does come out) will at least show what the Cosmic Era could bring.
 
I will agree that a sad part of the matter is the listening to the teen audience. Obviously they were the target demographic and so the show neeRAB to cater to them in someways (see the pain that is 'ship teasing'), it was to the point that CE seemed to put audience before story. It's why I was relieved when a popular character in 00 died and Mizushima told the fangirls (led by SEED to believe they'll always get their way) that said character was staying dead and if they didn't like it they were free to watch something else that they did. Now granted you could make the argument that even 'classic' Gundam was wobbley on death (many make this argument with Four), but when a key part of your narrative is the consequences of death then you neuter your story. As I said before, killing Andy was a turning point. Kira even has visions of him when he kills other ZAFT pilots. Him coming back...it's just ridiculous. The only case more stupid then that is Mu. The original message is lost, overwritten by "In war, if you're popular enough, you're immortal!". Death is powerful, both in reality and fiction, because it's meant to be final. Various possibilites involving that individual are now impossible. SEED spits on this by making it a key reason behind the direction its protagonist goes and then removing it at the foundation. Given the fact that Kira knew Andy was alive later, I'm suprised he didn't backtrack.
 
Andy I was kinda iffy to me. To be honest I didn't quite mind it, but was irked all the same. I still get irked by Mu's resurrection to this day however, which is sortof unsurprising since I liked Mu, thereby giving him a lot more of my emotional investment.

The sad part is that despite the fact that I hate them sparing Mu's life, I would have accepted his resurrection as Neo if they just made it plausible within the confines of the CE, ideally something that doesn't involve surviving a large fatal positron cannon to the face. I'm welcome to keep my suspension of disbelief as long as it doesn't insult my intelligence. However the only way for them to do that in that regard is... clone.

I may have done the same with that 00 guy as well perhaps. Provided of course he wasn't where one character was in Season 2, a masked man. He would go by the name "Mr. Shamrock" and pilot an Irish Green A-Head with a Leprechaun top hat and a giant GN-powered shillelagh with a Blue Haro who keeps saying "Top o' the mornin'! Top o' the mornin'!"
 
I think SEED will live on, if not solely for the fact that it may remain the only AU series to get a proper sequel series.


Of course, I thought Destiny was all right. Jesus, it was about time that Sunrise tried something new...
 
I like Seed a lot, i dont agree with most of the hate it gets. Destiny on the other hand, lets just say that when Kira kicked that so called protagonist out of the protagonist seat i was extremely happy, cause Shinn had to be one of the worst protagonists i had ever seen up to that point, and i totally laughed when he was crying at the end. I consider Shinn Asuka to be the worst idea ever in the history of Gundam.
 
Oh yeah, I should be clear. There were a lot of things that annoyed me about SEED and I don't think it's a good "first series" for a newcomer to watch but I did not hate it. I dislike many parts about it, but I did not hate it and I think it got much less boring in the second half.

Destiny on the other hand was way worse.
 
My experience with SEED has been limited, and odd. I believe back when the DelRey release was going on I caught a volume or two, read them...and that was it. I really can't remeraber anything about the story. Several months back, when I practically had Dynasty Warriors Gundam 2 running through my veins, I really couldn't stand the characters, and I played quite a bit as them to get to understand their plots. Basically, all I got was that none of their dialogue made sense and I just wanted to Brightslap them. I tried the first few minutes of the first TV compilation special out and couldn't follow what was going on there, either. I don't know how any of you managed to sit through this stuff, but from what I've read of the series' plot in plain text, there's some good ideas rattling around...they just were horribly executed. This idea of Shinn having a reverse relationship with Kira from what Kamille had with Amuro and Char seemed fun, and to see the great Kira--who had quite a bit of exciting hype to his name--being defeated as he was was actually pretty exciting, although I'm sure we all know how Destiny turned out from there.


One day, I'll likely sit down and try to stomach the full series', but for now I think SEED is definently one of the weakest Gundam universes and would suggest a newbie try out UC and 00's AD first, by far.
 
If you're talking about the machines he first encounters on the island they were mass production mechs so you can't expect anything less the only issue I have is when he utterly owns the Impulse and every other machine on the battlefield in his big reappearance. Even in the consecutive battles that followed its power was disturbing not to mention what happened to the Saviour Gundam but I have to admit watching Athrun's face made me a bit happy. When Saviour got dismantled I've never seen a Gundam with such a grim look on its face as if the Freedom was sharing in Kira's feelings aswell. As for Akatsuki lets say it was sent back in time that's the only possible explanation.



Okay I've had this on my mind for the longest time, Wing Zero and WZ Custom from EW are the same machine just redesigned right? How can Zero in Wing destroy colonies and resource satellites, and in EW it has trouble dealing with a sheltered base (it took 3 cannon shots)on earth that's something that really irritated me.



The Freedom was in my opinion too advanced for Kira at that point and his skills developed far too quickly even if he is the Ultimate co-ordinator. By the time he faced Rau it seemed natural except for that New Type deal where Kira sensed him from who knows how far off.

Now the Strikefreedom is truly overpowered especially when he took on the Destiny and Legend at the same time not once but twice yet the idea of it is not mistaken considering Kira is horrible at defense (so why have a shield) he shines when he's on the attack and the Dragoon helps him with his style of fighting. What's up with turning Rey into a joke in the final battle with Kira? Kira wasn't even trying you could even say he was distracted during that entire fight and Rey didn't land one blow that's not possible that was truly bad writing.
 
You're discussing basically Quatre on a rampage vs Heero firing on a bunker he knows Relena is in. Wing Zero had also been damaged before the finale (it does blast itself apart after all). There's also the theory that the cooling systems on the Twin Buster Rifle were designed to work in space, not the atmosphere. Overpowered as it is, the Twin Buster would not likely have been built to withstand constant shots.
 
No, he actually fought more Gundams than grunts. He defeated all 3 druggie Gundams twice, Impulse 2 or 3 times, and completely destroyed Savior (unforgivable, way cooler than Strike Freedom). The only reason why it was defeated was because Kira got so lazy, Shinn could predict his movements with a home computer.
 
That'd be another problem- there is virtually no planning to the fights in SEED, especially later on and into Destiny. It very much becomes 'Swoop in and taste the beam rainbow'. One of the few genuinely good battles is when Yzak drops the Assault Shroud to fake Duel's destruction.
 
I was referring to the amphibious mechs in Destiny that came after Lacus. Besides the druggie Gundams weren't that much more powerful than the Strike just far more better armed, also Kira was barely able to handle them when they first showed up. That's the thing I didn't like he only lost to Shinn because he was distracted just like in his fight with Rey but the Strikefreedom can't be touched it seems.

I loved "The Rainbow Assault" but it was overkill especially when the METEORS are in the mix beams and missiles up the ying yang.
 
I honestly don't remeraber much about SEED except, Kira dies, but didn't, Mu dies(but he didn't) Fllay dies*sniffle* that one just HAD to stand didn't it? :P

Watched Destiny recently and i think i like it better overall(even like Shinn somewhat, and he got what he deserved in the last battle, Athrun + Infinite Justice > All other close corabat units)

As for Wing Zero show vs EW....i dunno, yeah he was holding back more then likely, maybe thats really why the thing damaged the suit so easily, to much power NOT being used.
 
Well, I've kept out of this threat until now because I'm not sure the "has this show aged well?" question is all that relevant yet. Personally, I think it's yet another wank thread for Gundam 00 is better than "fill in the blank"/anti SEED patrons to just diss SEED yet again (and get replies back from SEED fans) and it's redundant at this point. IMO, neither the SEED or 00 Universes has had enough time time to really become outdated. In SEERAB case, the visuals still are quite fresh and the core elements of what pushed the plot (Genetics and the politics of where things might be going) are also still relevent. So are Gundam 00's similar issues with looks and outlook (that is, they are also still relevant and look fresh). They also both have solid music used in them. I'm talking background music here, btw - the OP /ED music wasn't really that wildly different, other than they were made in different parts of the 2000's and thus focus on different music styles popular during this period (both shows have both excellent and clunker OP/ERAB IMO).

So for me which show I like still comes down to which show clicked better with me, and it was SEED. I still think about SEED all the time where I haven't been able to make it through all of 00 (00 bores me to tears ). I want to know what Andy, Murrue, Mu, Kira, Lacus, et all have been up to since we last saw them, while I can't tell most of the lead cast of 00 apart. As to which show has the better mecha battles, this isn't something I dwell on. I like mecha, and mecha battles, but it doesn't make or break a show for me. This could be a reason SEED fairs better than 00 in my view. I can see/understand where 00 does have better, more well thought out battles, but for me it is like "who cares if I don't care about who is piloting them to begin with?"

As to the Space Whale, it has lead to one of my favorite thoughts on Anime and its fans, which is "Space whales and talking cats will mess with a Anime Fans mind better/faster than anything else out there ."

So there is my two cents on this thread .
 
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