Mobile Suit Gundam SEED

S

Slapilishis

Mobile Suit Gundam SEED
(a.k.a. Gundam SEED, Kidou Senshi Gundam SEED)

Synopsis, screenshots, recommendations ~ Add Recommendations

Discuss individual episodes and first impressions of this anime here; reviews and final impressions should be posted in the Anime Reviews Forum. Post format and full rules can be found here.

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I'm not sure about this anime. I know that i should probably atleast give it a chance but i'm curious as to how you people feel about it. :D
 
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It seems to have a couple of good points, but all in all I still feel pretty average about it. It's still not very original, and it is very clearly just yet another retelling of the basic Gundam story, with many elements from the original Mobile Suit Gundam and Z Gundam.

Having said that, I don't think it's specifically bad or terrible..... and it seems like the character-based episodes it does are actually fairly good, for what it's worth.

I wouldn't put it very high on the list of Gundam shows I recommend (those would be the Mobile Suit Gundam movie trilogy, Z Gundam, Char's Counterattack, Gundam 0080, Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory, the Char's Counterattack movie, 08th MS Team and Turn A Gundam), but I wouldn't specifically say it is all that bad either.

A lot of this of course depends on how the series shapes up, as there's still plenty more to go. For what it is, a sort of modern take on older Gundam ideas, it seems passable.

-Freakzilla
 
Best Gundam Series period! Non-stop action packed and the story keeps you on the edge of your seats sci fi thriller of the year. :hamster:
 
If you have seen the other series Freak mentioned the story will be predictable (new opening seems to really confirm this) but even then this series is still my favorite out of all the alternate timeline series, plus when compared to the other current/recent mecha series I think it holds its own. You should definitely give it a shot.

By the way, does anyone know why only AJ is currently at the half way point in this series? I know they rush their releases but the other groups are at least ten episodes behind. AJ's encodes and subs for the show are just dog crap but I, like a lot of other fans of this show, can't wait for the other groups.
 
I figured I'd offer the perspective of someone who hasn't seen any of the other Gundams (except 0079), as that's obviously the demographic this show is targeting. Note that I've only seen up to Episode 17.

The show has some nice ideas. The characters are done fairly well, particularly the four ZAFT Gundam Pilots. Kira's plot, fighting for people who discriminate against him, while not at all original, is still somewhat compelling. Frey's plot (I refuse to use her official name =p) is pretty good as well.

Downsides... the show is really very slow. During a lot of episodes, not much at all happens. Unnecessary amounts of time are spent on recaps. The space fights are also woefully unrealistic... I'm not talking about physics or anything, I'm talking about the fact that four Gundams can take out an entire FLEET of warships without getting as much as a scratch. Makes you wonder why ZAFT doesn't just forget about Strike and the ArchAngel and go make short work out of the 'normal' fleets of their enemies. At this point in the series, Princess Lux is also largely irrelevant... she's gotten a fair amount of screentime but has had absolutely no effect on the plot in any way, shape or form.

It's worth watching, but it hasn't impressed me at all yet.
 
as already stated, the show might not be original, and is predictable if you've seen enough other gundam, but it's got more style to it(and im not talking just the style of the artwork). i never liked the older gundam shows, so sue me.(08th ms team was alright, couple others too).

masakari, i thought gundam was synonymous with inexplicable obsessive compulsive behavior leading to completely irrational decisions and illogical situations(liek the 4 zaft gundam pilots constantly targeting strike and archangel when they could just tear up everything else within an hour and leave them for last)
 
im halfway through episode 27 and i have more to add.

after seeing the new intro, it looks almost like every other gundam show damn near. if you havent seen the new intro yet, watch it and you'll see what i mean.

and... ANOTHER ^@%$ING RECAP?! episode 26 was like the third or 4th recap episode already, and episode 27 so far is more damn recaps. give me a break, this is even worse than my complaint about the constant recaps in naruto in the naruto rules thread. its only been 27 episodes, why the hell do we need 4 or 5 recap episodes already ontop of the constant flashbacks in this show? jesus christ...
 
only recap in Gundam seed was 14 if I remebered correctly. Hmm 26-27 recap also? Oh well im saving up the series to watch so it doesnt matter to me. Naruto has the combination of slow pace story plus too many recaps so I find it more irritating then GS recaps. Oh well all long series is going to have dumb recaps plus dumb filler episodes.
 
15 was mostly a recap too... and many episodes have 2-3 minutes of recap at the beginning. This has been around in anime forever, but it's all the more irritating in shows like GSeed, where the pace is pretty damn slow already.
 
I was going to reply with a reason why I like it but its no point so im just going to do this.

:...:
 
fruit_basket_bob, i know long shows are gonna have filler episodes. that's a given. but between episodes 14 and 27, they've had FOUR. and they werent even spaced apart.(and i swear i still remember a recap episode somewhere in the middle of there too). and just about every episode already has 2-3 minutes of recap in the beginning(which is reasonable) but then you end up having 5-7 minutes of characters freaking and having flashbacks in the middle of the show. it's so ridiculous that 26 and 27 i just skipped through 30 seconds at a time till i saw enw footage, then went back and watched it. so for all i know there might have been recaps of flashbacks.

and it isnt even the fact that theres so many recaps, flashbacks, and fillers that is truly annoying in this show more than others, it's that from what i saw in 27, they were going over crap they already went over in 26. yea, eps like these are cheaper to produce, but as popular as gundam is that i've seen, they shouldnt be having a problem with money. they simply dont have enough of anything happening in the show to warrant all the recaps because the show is already slow as dirt
 
Gundam is about a lot of things..... at its core the actual mecha weren't even ultimately as important as the issue of newtypes as a metaphor for a new generation (a metaphor that kids and young adults in Japan really picked up on at the time it originally came out).

IMO Gundam is at its best when it is character driven, and dealing more with larger issues of humanity and societies clashing with each other. This is probably why my all-time favorite Gundam series is Turn A Gundam, which I think is probably the best thing Tomino has done in his career (and yes, I think it is better than his work on the original Gundam series).

Unfortunately it just wasn't popular enough, and it is unlikely Tomino is ever going to do another Gundam series.... but I'm glad he at least got a chance to do Turn A Gundam. It's very different from most Gundam series, but I think it really did some incredible stuff, and it is a fitting way to have celebrated the 20th anniversary of Gundam at the time.

Will have to ultimately see where Gundam fits in in the grand scheme of things. The guy behind Gundam Seed (I forget his name) at least acknowledged in an interview how the whole Gundam timeline had been altered by Turn A Gundam, and how he saw that affecting even an alternate universe story like Gundam Seed, but that's about the extent it seems that that show is influencing anything.

But I'm sure Gundam Seed is at least doing its job in providing plenty of models and toys for Bandai to sell, which is the main motivation and benefit Bandai currently sees in the franchise.

-Freakzilla
 
of course, which is why they should have more than enough money to not have to worry about filler. and yea, gundam is at its best when it's about the characters instead of the gundams themselves(like 08th ms team) and i havent seen turn-a-gundam, but as far as characters go, gundam seed is still progressing slow as dirt
 
I'd definitely recommend Turn A Gundam.... I think I heard there was some group that has been fansubbing it, but not sure if its still out there. If there is a group that is going to finish the whole thing, I'd definitely recommend it. Otherwise the HK bootleg script makes it pretty hard to understand what's going on.

I almost don't categorize it with the other Gundams, since it is sort of a superset of them (hence the "turn a" in the title, a symbol representing all things collected together), combining everything together. Either way.... I'd definitely recommend it, as I think its a great combination of a really excellent story, some great and unique character designs, an absolutely beautiful soundtrack by Yoko Kanno, and some great animation by Sunrise.

You may end up not liking it, but I still think it warrants a lot of merit.

Although having said that, the impact of the original Mobile Suit Gundam certainly can't be denied, when you look at how much the idea of newtypes resonated with the youth of Japan, and how popular even today Char Aznable is as a character (he still pops up near the top of those "favorite male character of all time" lists).

-Freakzilla
 
just a thought, isn't 26 the last episode usually in a series?

therefore normally there would be a break where the series broadcasts re-runs to get the next season or episodes together. Doesn't this usually takes weeks, and i don't think they (japanese) tape all the anime they watch, so a recap of what has happened either might tempt them to continue watching the show again when it does come back to regular scheduling.

hhmm.... yeah
 
Recaps are usually made when there is not enough original animation ready to make a full new episode for the coming week... at that point, they have three options:

1) Recap episode. (Most common)

2) Air the episode with incomplete animation. (Soul Taker did this... not sure if any other recent show has)

3) Simply don't air an episode that week. (As far as I understand, that's the reason behind the three-week hiatuses that Wolf's Rain is taking)
 
Usually most of the Gundam TV series run for around 50 episodes (with exceptions being shows that were cancelled early and had their runs shortened), and my understanding is that the recap episodes are actually usually put in there during planning..... i.e. this is a case where they do the recap eps intentionally, just to give a refresher over the plot points from the first half of the show that will be important in the second half.....

No matter the quality, this usually ends up being beneficial, given how convoluted some Gundam series get. And the fact that it allows for an episode of mainly re-used animation, as Masakari pointed out, can't be underestimated.

-Freakzilla
 
A somewhat silly question:

Are there plot ideas in GSeed that *AREN'T* reused ideas from previous Gundams? The first few episodes were straight out of 0079, but as for the rest, I have no idea...
 
-=Masakari=- said:
A somewhat silly question:

Are there plot ideas in GSeed that *AREN'T* reused ideas from previous Gundams? The first few episodes were straight out of 0079, but as for the rest, I have no idea...
Click to expand...

Nothing major that I've seen that doesn't have origins from 0079 and Z Gundam.... although some things are sort of modernized trappings from newer shows to give it more appeal.... although I think that's intentional, as this show doesn't seem to be going out of its way to be anything more than a retelling. In and of itself there's nothing terribly wrong with that, as they've made it clear the primary purpose of Gundam Seed is to try and develop a new fanbase of Gundam fans, so retelling what worked really well the first time is a tactic I can't exactly argue with.

It's a formula that seems to pull in decent ratings at least (something that can't be underestimated for a 20 year old franchise), and it provides a vehicle to sell a lot of model kits and toys, which Bandai seems to have hooked on to as the main purpose in doing new Gundam Series. The less than stellar commercial success of Turn A Gundam I think put the kibosh on them taking any more chances with it, and sticking to what is proven to work.

Hopefully the Gundam franchise still will have some potentially good stuff in the future..... will be tough without Tomino, but he isn't the end all and be all of Gundam. Before Shinichiro Watanabe really made a name for himself with Macross Plus and Cowboy Bebop, he really broke out with his work on 0083: Stardust Memory. And the basic Gundam universe can certainly perhaps be a nice playground for some new talent at Sunrise to do something really special. I don't think this will happen in the mainstream TV series any more though, but possibly in new movies or OVA series.

Just my personal opinion on it though..... even if Gundam as a franchise is creatively dead and it has nothing in its future but more rehashes, I still think it has done quite a lot of good, and certainly enough to counter some of the absolute dreck that has been part of it.

-Freakzilla
 
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