blog好き

Oct 01 2005

Categories: anime, general review, gundam, spoilers
Tagged: gundam

2 Comments »

I find it amazing that they waited like 95 episodes before giving Mwu a real mobile suit… his talents are wasted — WASTED I TELL YOU — in a Sky Grasper. Same goes for Meyrin and that hat as she looks so much better with the hair down.

The last episode was almost 75% recycled footage. Since Gundam Seed Destiny features more gratuitious footage reuse than Girls Bravo features gratuitious fanservice, I’m going to cut and paste from my Gundam Seed post:

The animation, while very good, still has problems of repeating certain segments too much (I think I’ve seen Dual Gundam piece together his gun like 20 times), and there’s about five recap episodes for the entire series, which grates on my nerves a bit.

As Peter Griffin would say, stock footage really grinds my gear. The last ten or so episodes featured maybe four or five episodes of new footage. Two recaps… tons of reused footage (even some from Gundam Seed)… Destiny didn’t just limp to the finish, it died at the finish line.

Continue for spoilers.

The start of Gundam Seed Destiny followed a young man with a huge sister complex, Shinn Asuka, who tosses away his Orb roots to fight for Zaft. I honestly thought it would be some sort of ragtag fun like the original Seed… only with Athrun sliding into Mwu’s old role and hoping for Lunamaria fanservice. The problem, though, is Shinn… they never made him likable as a hero. Your sister died. Ok, but we got it. You carry around her cell phone and listen to her voicemail. Disturbing, but we got it. You hate Orb because they did the best they could to save your family but failed. Odd logic, but we got it.

Sadly, this self-loathing made his character too one dimensional. I think that’s also why most fans dislike him, and why even though he’s always the featured character piloting the title Gundam, he’s always in the backseat to Kira and Athrun. While the original Kira was easily swayed (see: Flay), Kira managed to see through and follow his own way. Shinn accepts his fate and accepts his role… even if it means going against the land he once called home. I was hoping he’d change in the end, and I was more shocked that it was Rey who changed. I can definitely see why they re-introduced Kira halfway through– Shinn couldn’t hack it. It’s no different than the WWE re-animating Hulk Hogan from the grave or the Jet’s bringing back Vinny Testaverde. (Yes, that’s right… a WWE and an NFL reference in an anime blog.)

Shinn wasn’t the only mistake Destiny made. I can go on and on… for instance, Wings of Word as the final OP… the recycling of scenes… the lack of Lacus x Meer action… the Y4L-ification of Rey and Izak… the confusing Destiny Plan… the complete and utter power imbalance (more on this later)… the development of a harem for Athrun, only his surviving harem (Cagali and Meyrin) get zero lines of dialogue in the end. Wasn’t this all for Orb? Why don’t we hear from Cagali?

Don’t get me wrong. I enjoyed the series, and I’m not sure why. The earlier episodes were enjoyable just to see the fights… then after the druggies died, things with Destiny weren’t the same. The Shinn/Stellar storyline had legs, and they killed her off way to soon. Towards the end, the people who kept watching probably stuck around to see the mass supersuit whoring… one episode, Destiny and Legend lay waste to everything. Then it was Strike Freedom’s turn… then Infinite Justice… then Kira once again. I thought I was watching the first dozen episodes of Gundam Wing again. Toss in some Meyrin and Meer fanservice, it actually because a servicable mecha show. More in line with Vandread than Gundam X.

The last story arc highlighted one of my least favorite parts of Destiny: the lack of plausible mecha action tension. For some tension, there has to be doubt as to who the victor might be… the battles were always too one-sided and that sapped the fun. Back in the last battle in Seed, it went on for a few episodes, and, by the end, there wasn’t much left of Strike or Freedom. Here in Destiny, Orb managed to polish off Zaft in, uh, half an episode, and not a single dent in Freedom, Justice, or Ataksuki… more incredibly, the DOM pilots survived. That’s like a red shirted ensign coming back from an away mission with Kirk and Spock. Also, most of the cast introduced in Destiny is gone… the count: Destiny loses Stellar, Meer, Dullindel, Rey, and Talia whereas the Seed cast loses… uh… gains back Mwu. Hardly seems fair.

Destiny leaves not as the best… but it was still enjoyable and had good points. Mwu was back– plot holes be damned– and putting him in a top tier MS was fantastic, though he should have gotten in more sexual harrashment. Murrue still had her, uh, bounce. Meer and the rest of Athrun’s harem (again, especially Meyrin without the hat). At the end, the show became a parody of itself… taking itself too seriously not to laugh. Definitely frustrating for any fan because it could have been so much better… like the last five episodes of Kare Kano. It became fun to watch, in the MST2K kind of way.

(Sorry, I couldn’t resist making this after watching that episode of Keroro…)