Thursday, May 21, 2020

Mobile Suit Gundam Seed Destiny Part 4 Episodes 16-20


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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