Monday, May 18, 2020

Mobile Suit Gundam Seed Destiny Part 1 Episodes 1-5

Cosmic Era 73.  Two years have passed since the end of the Bloody Valentine War and an uneasy peace has been reached between the Earth and the Plants.  While inspecting a ZAFT Mobile Suit factory with new ZAFT chairman Gilbert Durandal, Cagali Yula Athha and Athrun Zala are caught up in a surprise attack that results in the theft of three new Gundam Mobile Suits.  ZAFT’s latest battleship, the Minerva, is given orders to pursue, along with her compliment of fresh new recruits, including Shinn Asuka, an Orb survivor who also pilots the new Impulse Gundam.  It seems the era of peace is about to come to a crashing halt once again.

Alright, this is it, the moment I’d been kind of dreading since thinking up this crazy plan.  While Gundam Seed was a shaky but passable attempt to launch the Gundam Franchise into the 2000s, Gundam Seed Destiny has a far less positive air about it.  It’s not like this is hasn’t happened with Gundam before.  Zeta Gundam made big strides for the franchise, including covering some very dark and heavy subject matter…then came Gundam ZZ, which traded the drama for slapstick comedy in the first half of its run.  Seed’s sequel doesn’t look to be repeating the same mistakes as ZZ…no it looks like its set to make all new ones.  And I’ve got ten reviews to write about it.  Sigh, here we go.  This is Mobile Suit Gundam Seed Destiny.

It's hard to start this review off without going straight to that good old feeling of “familiarity”.  The beginning of Seed Destiny isn’t a beat for beat retread of Seed…rather it’s a beat for beat retread of Seed plus a bunch of other Gundam titles, most notably Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory.  This is the second time in a row we’ve started a series off with a Gundamjack, shouldn’t there be a crap ton of extra security around something that powerful?  And the perps of this theft?  Three brand new weird and hyper violent experimental youths akin to those three psycho Gundam pilots under Azrael’s command in Seed.  Aeul, Sting and Stella have that cocky attitude and the penchant for bloody mayhem (Auel can even do gun kata cause that automatically makes him cool?).  Stella stands out the most of these three because she’s clearly meant to be Seed Destiny’s answer to famous doomed Newtype beauty Four Murasame from Zeta Gundam…which means its only a matter of time before she falls for our new lead character.  Oh and there’s a new Char Clone in a mask named Neo Roanoke…and he could be another Rau Le Crueset clone or something else…I have a theory but I’ll hold onto it for now.  Once again, the Seed franchise returns to the well of Gundam ideas that worked in the past and is trying to smash a ton of things together and hope that they work.  Instead, they stand out in the worst ways…the fact that it is as far from original as possible and not a good start.

We do kick off the story from the ZAFT side of things, which is a good change I think.  We got the Federation/Civilian perspective on a major war, so a series from the former opposing side isn’t a bad approach.  The crew of the Minerva is a bit of a mixed bag.  Captain Talia Gladys seems formidable but I’m not a fan of her first officer, Arthur, who just seems to bumble about the bridge.  Then there’s Meyrin, who is the comms officer and we hear her voice A LOT in each episode.  Even Miriallia didn’t give as much of a vocal play by play over the intercom.  Mey’s older sister, the very cute Lunamaria, might have potential…but again that’s more so because she is nice and actually part of the active Mobile Suit roster.  Sigh, ok, then there’s Shinn.  Never before has a Gundam series made me hate a lead character so quickly.  Notice I’m not calling Shinn “The Protagonist” because in my eyes, he isn’t.  Yes, he has a tragic backstory: he lost his parents and little sister during the Battle of Orb and still carries around his sisters cell.  But Shinn is quick to anger and lashes out at Cagalli several times, blaming her for a matter out of her control.  Shinn doesn’t want to listen to reasons other than his own and the way he carries himself, I’m shocked Athrun didn’t just punch him and I’m sure I’ll be saying that a lot over these next two weeks.  You know what?  This is bad, very bad.  Shinn is our main character to follow for Seed Destiny and he’s already the most unlikeable part of the show.  Much like Flay Alster, I’m probs going to start a section of each review dedicated for the stupid crap Shinn gets into…I have a bad feeling about this.

We spent a lot of time with the new cast (sadly this is their show) but we did get to catch up with some familiar faces.  Cagalli and Athrun were right in the middle of the action, though Cagalli got more than the short end of the stick.  Now running the country of Orb, she’s far less of a spitfire and more an uncertain leader.  This is evidenced by her interactions with ZAFT’s handsome new man in charge, Gilbert “Gil” Durandal.  I don’t like this guy.  I just know there’s something lurking under that self assured smile.  He reminded me of Guin from Turn A Gundam, he’s got a play of his own on his mind and he teasingly switches back and forth calling Athrun by his false name (Alex) and real name…cause it amuses him?  Cagalli from Gundam Seed would more stand her ground against Durandal AND tear Shinn apart for talking smack about her father and claiming she doesn’t know a thing about loss or war cause she lives in Orb.  This is a far more fragile Cagalli…and I’m not ok with that.  Athrun is hanging in there and it’s good to see him back in the middle of the action again.  I’d actually say if he wasn’t playing Cagalli’s bodyguard, he’d make a good Captain considering he got the Minerva out of a sticky situation when no one else had a good idea.  No sign of Kira, Lacus or Murrue yet.  We did get to see Yzak and Dearka briefly.  Theyre still working together in ZAFT and Yzak’s face is fully healed now.  They look good.

I will say the animation looks better than Seed, and a good thing too.  Everything looks shinier and more polished, more a mix of Digi Paint and classic Anime techniques.  I’m not too big on the design of the three stolen Gundams but the Minerva and the Impulse are solid successors to the Archangel and the Strike. The Impulse’s combination sequence is one of the few fun call backs to classic Gundam, when they could do mid air conversions from fighters to Mobile Suits, almost like a Super Robot.  The Minerva just looks freaking cool with the extended wings, I bet it could glide through anything with ease…if the right person was at the helm.  Oh and going back to reborrowed ideas, Zaku’s are officially a thing for ZAFT now.  They’re fewer in design atm, the GiNN’s are still ZAFT’s main Mobile Suit of use.  But aces like Lunamaria, Rey, Dearka and even Athrun are getting to pilot them.  On the one hand, again, not original.  But it’s also good to see a classic and beloved Mobile Suit get a new lease on life.

While far from a perfect beginning, Seed Destiny did offer one helluva major development to throw a cliffhanger on.  Sending the ruins of Junius Seven to Earth as a declaration of revenge and/or war is bold and definitely ups the stakes from anything in Seed besides the original Junius Seven attack.  The question is, who is behind it?  Is it a rebel faction of ZAFT?  Is it this Phantom Pain unit that is wearing Earth Alliance colors?  Or is it the council of old fossils and a young upstart named Djibril who are the main minds behind Blue Cosmos?  It could be the third option considering Djibril’s thinking very far ahead to an armed response against the PLANTS because why not.  It could be another faction we just haven’t seen yet.  That’s a lot to throw in and I miss the days when shows started off with just two sides trying to beat the crap out of each other.

The premieres many faults aside, it’s all hands on deck as the Minerva heads into battle.  Will we see Athrun get to reunite with Yzak and Dearka?  Will Junius Seven hit (quite possibly yes)?  And where the hell is Kira and how will he and Lacus get involved in all of this?  We’ve only just begun with Mobile Suit Gundam Seed Destiny…deep breaths, deep breaths…maybe it will get better.

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