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Sep 09 2004

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

7 Comments »

I’ve always held a special place in my fanboy heart for giant robot series. They were the original series that got me interested in anime: Macross/Robotech, Voltron, Transformers, and even Doraemon figured promiently in my memories. Must have seen Optimus die fifty times, and Do You Remember Love is still one of the best compliation movies ever. Despite my early leanings for giant robot, I stayed away from Gundam. Maybe it was the lackluster animation of the original series or the high Gundam-fanboy factor required to enjoy 8th MS Team.

I took a break from anime for over a decade. Oddly, Gundam Wing was what returned me to the fold. I still remember taping each episode from Cartoon Network and watching them every weekend. While not perfect, Gundam Wing rectified two of my earlier complaints. The animation easily went against other series of the time, and since it started its own mythological universe, no previous-Gundam experience was necessary to enjoy the series. It was also one long continuous 50 episode plot… something wildly different than the crap on American TV at the time. I tried watching other Gundam series, but they were just horrible. Turn-A Gundam is the Gundam equivalent of Rocky V and The Next Karate Kid.

Recently, I’ve been engrossed by Gundam Seed, having watched the bulk of the series the past few weeks. It’s been a while since I’ve enjoyed a series this thoroughly and with so little fanservice. The story of Seed has many Gundam trademarks: the chix0r who wants peace, the upgrade for the hero’s MS halfway through the series, the villian in the mask, and the struggle between humans and Newtypes (Coordinators). Seed is really divided into two main parts: the struggle between Kira and his best friend Athrun and then struggle between Earth and ZAFT. Besides the space drama/military fanboy fun, there’s also a huge soap opera brewing in the back between the relationships between Kira, Athrun, Lacus, Cagilli, and Fray that makes Kimi ga Nozomi Eien look like Pokemon.

A major part of the appeal to me is that the story moves swiftly and is interesting– each episode made me want to see the next. Plot is definitely Seed’s strong point… another would be character developement (just don’t get too attached to some characters) such as how Kira and Athrun grow into their roles. The Kira and Athrun from episode 1 aren’t the same as the ones in episode 50. Cagalli and Fray also have strong characters and roles. The rest of the characters feel like they were lifted from Macross… like Captain Raimus as the hot chix0r captain, Mu La Fraga a la Roy Focker, and Lacus as Minmay. Most of the seiyuu for Seed work very well… especially standouts Ryuga-sensei (Koyasu Takehito) as Mu La Fraga and Mariel (Rie Tanaka) as Lacus. At first Souichiro Hoshi as Kira seemed weird to me at first, since I know his voice to be Kaoru’s from Ai Yori Aoshi, but it sorta fit the role in the end since Kira ends up crying so much.

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. There’s also four one-hour specials that recap the entire series for sadists. The music is great; Mika Nakashima’s Find the Way is a great ballad that counters the full throttle nature of the events of the series– a great reflection song. T.M. Revolution’s Invoke is still the song that plays in my head whenever I think of Seed. Nice mix of upbeat, ballad, and jpop (Lacus’ songs) throughout.

There’s also the mech battles. Great stuff… I got goosebumps whenever Strike and Moebius Zero sortied. Just got worse at the end with the nice armada of Gundams assembled. Overall though, Gundam Seed could have used a bit more, uh, Lacus and Raimus fanservice. If not for Fray, it would be a total fanservice loss.

Spoilers upcoming! Highlight to read!

My major complaint for the series is that for 50 episodes, it seems short. The ending arc, after Eternal joins up with Archangel, feels really rushed. I wasn’t exactly thrilled to see the three new Earth Gundams go up against Freedom and Justice for like a dozen episodes just to see a quick ten minute battle between Freedom and Providence, Also, the sheer amount of people killed in the final episode was over-the-top.

End spoilers…

I’m going to look forward to the new Gundam Seed Destiny series next month. Hopefully, it’ll continue the adventure in the same enjoyable manner as Seed did and keep me interested in the Gundam universe.

Next page for some magazine covers.