Still Earth side, the Minerva becomes the frontrunner of
ZAFT many counterattack operations against the Earth Alliance. Shinn Asuka’s abilities continue to excel but
so does the young mans bloodrage. Athrun
attempts to mentor the unstable Shinn and learns about the young mans tragic
past and the fate of his family two years ago.
Though victory might be coming easy to the Minerva thanks to Shinn and
his Gundam, the question of who the real enemy of this war is lingers in the
minds of many. And it’s Gilbert
Durandal, the leaders of the Plants, who might know the true answer to that
question.
This is it. This
is where Gundam Seed Destiny is beginning to try my patience. For once, the show decides to give itself
some distance from the old guard and focus almost exclusively on the new
cast. It’s finally a chance to get to
know everyone better beyond their skills in battle or being relegated to
Shinn’s support group. Instead, this set
turns into “Let’s show Shinn at his absolute worst and try to justify his
actions and make him likeable”.
It…does…not…WORK!!! If anything,
this set made me hate Shinn Asuka more than ever before and I firmly believe
he’s worthy of a Redux Top 5 of my least favorite characters in all of Gundam.
God, where do I even begin with him: Killing unarmed
soldiers, openly complaining about his orders or acting high and mighty because
he thinks he knows everything? Last
time, we saw Shinn mercilessly mow down an Atlantic Federation fleet while his
Gundam looked like one of the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse. Now he’s walking through unfinished Alliance
bases killing every soldier he sees because theyre using slave labor. Pause here: Slave labor is a horrible thing
and I’m glad the work force was set free.
But Shinn doesn’t stop there, he kills everything in his path because he
has the Gundam and he’s gonna make anyone he deems evil pay for their crimes
(hi pot names kettle have we met?).
That’s actually enough for Athrun to slap him, TWICE, for being so
needlessly violent. But Shinn continues
to stand by his actions and is hailed as a hero by his crew and teammates. The kid committed freaking war crimes and is
getting pats on the back…WTF!!!???
Later, Shinn balks at being given an important role on a mission because
he’s nothing but bad boy attitude. He’s
rude, incensitive to a young rebel spy supplying intel for the Minerva, and
just a total ass and not seeing any problem with being such. And then there’s Athrun trying desperately to
get through to the kid, basically going for the “With great power comes great
responsibility” speech immortalized by Spider Man. He says he sees a lot of himself in him but
Athrun is clearly trying to hard there.
Athrun has similar reasons for originally wanting to join the military
but he was never gung ho about the violence.
Athrun has a conscience and felt horrible for the lives he had to
take. Shinn will sleep like a baby after
blowing up every Alliance person he can find.
It’s hard to believe Shinn was ever a happy kid before all of this since
all of his actions make me think he’d kick a puppy for looking cute at his
sister. In the end, I think Athrun
summed up Shinn best, “Are you saying that you’re always right, and whatever
you don’t like, or don’t agree to is a mistake.” Shinn Asuka is never wrong, you’re the one
who’s wrong and he wont try to see reason, only complain and kill and kill some
more. This is our “Hero” for Gundam Seed
Destiny folks…I hope he dies in the end.
Well, as you can imagine, with all the focus being on
bitchy murder machine Shinn, there wasn’t a lot of meaningful time dedicated to
the rest of the Minerva crew. Much of
what we did see, we’d seen already before.
The only new things I gleamed are Rey having a more than close
relationship with Durandal, openly smiling and hugging the guy…foster dad or
something a bit more insidious? Arthur
is the worst XO, unable to comprehend battle plans and passing battle briefing
responsibilities to Athrun. Did Talia have
a say in picking her First Officer or did she have to settle for someone’s
leftovers? And Lunamaria and her sister,
Mey, are competing for Athruns affections.
Oh and I don’t know why Lunamaria is an elite Mobile Suit pilot who gets
her own custom Zaku because she’s been shot down more times than Rey or
Shinn…she’s just not that good. Luna has
a super cute design but that can only get you so far…also she loses points
cause anyone who tries to justify and defend Shinn’s bad behavior has issues of
their own. Oh and remember when I said Neo and his trio of psycho kids showed
up again? Yeah they did…nothing. They fought the Minerva crew again and ran
off just as quickly…why are they even here (besides Stella being the inevitable
Four to Shinn’s Kamille? BTW it feels
wrong to write that. While I’ve seen
little of Zeta Gundam, I know Kamille is nowhere near as much of a pain in the
ass as Shinn.)
We did check in briefly with the Archangel crew, who are
chilling out under the sea cause the ship can do that now. I’m not gonna lie, I’m kind of with Murrue,
Shinn aside, ZAFT has kind of been the side to root for in this war. After all, Durandal tried his hardest to
prevent an all out war after Earth found out Coordinators unaffiliated with
them dropped Junius Seven. The Earth
Alliance and their other forces are being run by outright racists and power
hungry maniacs who are genuinely awful people, more so now than they ever were
in Seed. Plus there’s the revelation
that Blue Cosmos was created itself by Logos, possibly that collection of old men
and Djibril from a ways back, who are looking to start war so they can make
money off selling weapons and such. I’m
not saying Durandal’s out of the suspicion laden dog house yet, there’s an air
about him that I cant look past. But
he’s handling most of the overall situation well…except maybe it’s possible he
was the one behind the Lacus assassination attempt. He definitely jumped to the top of the list
when he asked Athrun about Lacus’ whereabouts.
Meer Campbell made her Earth-side Lacus debut in this set
too, jamming to a remixed version of “Quiet Night” from the first series. As a Jpop fan, I like the remix and Meer
sounds great. But I can see why this
area of Seed overall is criticized by fans.
There’s a ton of damage control needed to be done with the story and
characters but we have time for catchy musical numbers? Also, there are people noticing the
differences in Meers Lacus performance (she’s more upbeat, bouncy, more
revealing wardrobe and yes, bigger boobs).
Yet no ones questioning if this is the same Lacus…are people just that
gullible? But hey, whatever works I
guess so long as she has the public’s support.
Meer’s also wasting no time trying to shack up with Athrun, giving
little care to Luna’s clear crush. Yep,
we have time for all of this right now.
I don’t know what the plan was for Gundam Seed Destiny
but it’s not working. The old cast has
taken most of the spotlight and has gotten some of the better development…which
others have been steadily character assassinated (Cagalli and Kira, even Lacus
seems to be lacking her usual spirit). The
battles do look epic and the animation shiny and better than Seed. But as long as we’re supposed to be rooting
for a murdering psychopath like Shinn Askua, this series has failed so soon, so
fast…and there’s still 30 episodes of mayhem to go. This is what I signed up for people. As a Gundam fan I knew I’d get to this
eventually…now excuse me while I go weep for lost time before I get started
again. More Mobile Suit Gundam Seed
Destiny is coming your way tomorrow.
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