Monday, May 25, 2020

Mobile Suit Gundam Seed Destiny Part 6 Episodes 26-30

With Stella onboard and her condition worsening, the Minerva hurries to a ZAFT facility to get her medical attention.  However, a blockade of Earth Alliance and Orb ships stand before them and the Archangel again tries to stop the fighting without fighting themselves.  Chaos and confusion erupt as Kira and Athrun end up facing each other in battle and Shinn, determined to save Stella, carves a vicious path of destruction through anyone who gets in his way.  But as his love nears death, will Shinn abandon his post on the Minerva to save Stella?

You know, I don’t know if Gundam Seed Destiny was this far along that it opted not to listen to any negative reactions.  But then again, this show was apparently just as popular as Seed so it managed to finish its 50 episode run intact.  And every passing second I wonder how?  How did this show ever succeed and yet the original Mobile Suit Gundam and After War Gundam X get taken out before their time?  We’ll be getting to Gundam X later this year.  For now, we’re back to Gundam Seed Destiny and if this set of episodes is any indication, the next five days are gonna be a pure pain to sit through.

I at first thought things might start getting better in the beginning.  Lacus finally decided to be a bit proactive and head into space with Waltfeld to find out what the hell is going on at the PLANTs.  This meant Lacus got to “disguise” herself as Meer, with Waltfeld as her manager, to trick a ton of ZAFT Soldiers/fans into letting her use a shuttle early.  I loved Lacus’ Mission: Impossible style infiltration, being able to find her way back into that early, aloof and bubbly version of herself back in Seed to avoid suspicion.  She didn’t have a problem dialing it up a notch either, matching Meer’s more showy personality perfectly.  Speaking of Meer, her disapproval of not being met by adoring fans was interesting.  Is the power and fame now going to her head?  I dare say even Kira got to have a bit of fun with this plan, clearing a path for Lacus and Waltfeld while also engaging in that time honored Top Gun tradition of “Buzzing the Tower” just for kicks.

But after Lacus was on her way to space, we came back to Earth and got reminded of just how much things suck now.  There were two major plots at play.  The first was Shinn desperately trying to save Stella from her deteriorating state.  At this point, I could care less about any Shinn storyline.  I feel for Stella but I feel far less for Shinn and we’ll return to that later.  Neo’s reaction to Stella being written off by Djibril was strange. They haven’t explained why Neo is so close to Stella or how he came to be part of the Extended Project himself.  If he is who I think he is under that mask, how the heck is he going to react knowing he drastically damaged the lives of three youths, if not more?  But Stella’s back in his hands now, courtesy of Shinn giving zero F’s and going AWOL to deliver Stella back to the people who can save her.  And as much as I give Talia credit for question WTF with the Archangel’s motivations lately, it is disturbing to know she was alright with the order to hand Stella over to ZAFT, as alive as possible, for further research on the Extended.  Still, no matter who she ends up with, Stella doesn’t have long and I’m gonna be expected to feel for Shinn when she does die (spoiler alert: I probably wont).

The second storyline saw the Minerva experiencing a dangerous case of Déjà vu as it was once again intercepted by an Earth Alliance and Orb fleet.  All I can say is, thank God that ship has a battle bridge because the Minerva got torn to pieces and yet somehow is still an intact ship.  It was a pretty brutal battle to say the least.  And it wasn’t helped that the Archangel decided, “If at first you don’t succeed…”  Only this time, people were taking their crap.  Even Athrun had to step in and try to stop Kira from interfearing with the battle…a decision that cost Athrun his Gundam at Kira’s hands.  And it only got worse.  With the Minerva beyond battered, Shinn got his Gundam sword and finally got his chance to slay anything related to Orb.  Mobile Suits, Carriers, it didn’t matter.  In fact, it almost didn’t matter that he took out Aeul during his little berserker barrage.  What mattered the most was Captain Todoka, the commander I spoke of a couple of last time.  Sadly he was on the receiving end of one of Shinn’s scream laden death blows and man…if only Shinn knew he just killed the man who looked after him after his family was killed.  Are we ever gonna see Shinn get that gut punch handed to him?  Probably not because unless your name is Stella it probably will matter little.  Anyway, Todoka stood by his wishes to fight for Orb’s ideals and even sent his crew to the Archangel with the message that he believes in them and that they’ll figure out what the heck they should be doing right now.  Hell, the man deserves a medal for being probably the only person who doesn’t see Orbs current predicament as Cagalli’s fault.  It’s a rare glimmer of hope in a show that has very little of that to offer because the cast is getting dumber by the episode and the main character is a stuck up maniac who is rubbing his bloody victories in Athruns face because there isn’t anything anyone can or will do about it…screw Shinn Asuka.

Any other odds and ends from this set?  We got some follow up to Lunamaria’s mission to spy on Athrun last time.  While I do like that Talia didn’t send her out there to actually spy on the guy, but to gather intel on the Archangel, I’m still leery of the Minerva Captain because she’s in the know about some bad stuff behind the scenes.  As such, I’m glad Luna has some seeds of a new plotline going with her because she knows that Meer Campbell isn’t the real Lacus Clyne and is deciding not to say anything.  Will one Minerva crew member decide to do something smart for a change?  Also, Miriallia is back on the Archangel and confirms that she and Dearka were together but she dumped him…nuff said.  Damn, but I shouldn’t be shocked. Like I said when I theorized that before, Seed Destiny is doing a bang up job ruining the reps of much of Seeds cast so this shouldn’t be a shock.  And why are Durandal and Djibril looking at the same blueprint of a new Gundam?  I doubt theyre working together.  Djibril is pretty peeved his plans to destroy the PLANTs have gone disastrously ever since the beginning and now Logos is on the verge of kicking him out.  So is there a spy in Logos feeding info to Durandal?

Twenty more episodes to go and at this point I’m not expecting miracles.  Most of the goodness Gundam Seed Destiny had to offer was squandered in the first few episodes and it has become a colossal train wreck of a sequel.  Next time though, we’re gonna get our big nod to Zeta Gundam as Shinn and Stella’s doomed romance reaches its climax…I think, I can’t see her being around much longer.  I’d say it will finally push Shinn over the edge of no return…but he crossed that line a couple dozen episodes ago so lets just see how he continues to ruin every single aspect of this awful show.  See ya tomorrow everyone.

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