Ill admit Kira is a character I thought was really cool when I was like 12 years old but the older I became the more detached I was from the character. the thing about Kira and Amuro is that even by todays standards Amuro is such a unique character there’s really not many like him while Kira is basically no different from your standard modern anime protagonist
What I always found hilarious about seed and destiny is that the most dangerous organization was not the good guys or the bad guys not even the government it was a singer and her groupies 🤣
Kira was at ground zero of a nuclear explosion. Remember that his BS suit was powered by a nuclear reactor. He survived a nuclear explosion at its center.
@@BeeWaifu You mean the battle of Freedom vs Impulse? That wasn't the Freedom that exploded, that was the Minerva firing a positron cannon that created the huge explosion. Positrons are the anti-particles of elections and when anti-particles touch particles, they release an explosion even bigger than nuclear reactions. That is why Murrue was against using them in the first series for environmental reason. Kira also turned his nuclear reactor off when Shinn beat him.
Yep, Gundam Seed and it’s sequel sucks. The whole every faction is evil and everyone is a racist. Now, Earth Alliance is basically Titans of UC and ZAFT is a neoZeon faction. It’s like we get it! War is hell is like super obvious unlike UC. Now, Earth Federation was flawed but willing to reform to make things better while Zeon are basically space Nazis with imperial Japan mentality. Your analysis on the characters is spot on.
The most interesting thing about Amuro is that he was (just like Shinji Ikari) a deconstruction of Kouji Kabuto from Mazinger Z. Whereas Kouji is a brave and hot blooded guy in a clear cut good vs evil fight, Amuro is a shy boy thrust in a complex situation far bigger than him, where making the right choice isn't as easy as pummeling the monster of the week.
Kira tries to be like Amuro but completely misses the point while also forgetting the fact that what was unique in the 1970s isn’t unique anymore in the early 00s
Was there any reason to dunk on Naruto and Inuyasha? They aren't really supposed to be complex political war dramas like Gundam. They are literally Japanese saturday morning cartoons
Seed was a good entry point for new viewers to the moble suit in war at the time, myself included. But it was understandably hated by die hard gundam fans, it tries to be a simplfied version of the orginal series. Also Fye was manipulating Kira when he was emotionally vulnerable, trying to get him to kill all enemies, something Amuro never had to deal with.
Kits survived because the anime made the explosion way too massive. It was only supposed to be just his Gundam heavily damaged. The Astray manga shows the red frames pilot Low witnessing the fight and the explosion in his newly acquired red frame astray. The strike was just heavily damaged but still intact. The pilot then rescues Kira from the cockpit and proceeds to transport him to where he wakes up from his coma. One thing about the show is a lot of things were poorly enacted. Like they knew Kira was gonna survive but made the explosion overkill to the point where it really is like “No the hell he didn’t survive that”. They should’ve toned it down and not animated the strike blowing to pieces because in the manga it was strong enough to mainly withstand the blast point blank staying mostly intact. Just not operational anymore and heavily damaged. I blame the directing.
Gundam SEED franchise is popular in Asia because Asians are into the romance drama that involves relationship conflicts and NTR/cheating. Most importantly, the robot designs are really good. Some people compare Gundam Wing to SEED because they are comparably successful in both Japan and outside except for SEED being mostly prominent in Asia, while Wing is even. My biggest problem with SEED is the author and his wife ruining the Destiny sequel. Director Fukuda was made into his position due to nepotism which is very common in Asia, while his wife was unqualified due to her illness and inexperience. Worse than that, Fukuda was definitely cheating on his wife because he later remarried with the same accused person after his wife's death. SEED and Destiny are both heavily leaning forwards NTR/Cheating genre which can describe the director's subconsciousness of his action at the time. SEED Freedom has largely fixed the franchise to be normal again after Destiny debacle. What I am quite worried about SEED & Destiny is the heavily fascist undertone which is not traditional in the Gundam, a franchise that was pioneered by Japanese socialists in 20th century. I won't go into politics but the problems with SEED are how favorably one-sided towards the coordinators who got no flaws and are always being antagonized by Naturals who are depicted as savages. It reminds me closely to Tarzan novel which the original version is highly fascist and eugenic. Even Newtypes in UC are optionally available for Natural people if they live in space long enough. However, you are born into coordinators in SEED, and there is no other way for Naturals to become equal. Coordinators, except for main characters, are also supremacists who advocate to kill all Naturals. By the end of the series, all main characters join the coordinators to leave the Naturals at a disadvantage - the biggest problem is Destiny. I am not sure if this is intentional from either Fukuda or his wife. This is quite disturbing really! It leaves a message that inferior people are racist monsters that should die to more advanced ubermensch. Today, fascism and eugenics are still popular ideas that you occasionally have some Japanese elites want to kill all poor, old, sick people.
And on the point of the anime that came out at that time, the thing is that we got some real gems that actually did everything much better. Chief among them being the 2003 version of Full Metal Alchemist. If anything, that show did better than it's source material at portraying moral complexities. As for why SEED was popular, the most it seems to be was that it was a simple escapism fantasy. That is the thing with many of these kinds of poorly written works with Gary Stu protagonists. They just appeal to the regular masses with a power fantasy and simple, on the nose themes.
Ya know, one thing that struck me as odd is when Kira killed Nicol. Up until that point, he had been dropping enemy pilots like flies, some in quite brutal ways, like the point blank shot in the desert. When he killed Nicol though, he acted like it was the first time he'd killed someone, which doesn't make any sense narratively. I'm guessing it was only put in there to up the drama with Athrun and extend their pissing match a while longer.
It makes sense though! Kira explained it after he killed Nicol, yes he killed many others before but it was the first time he killed someone he knew was Athrun's friend and that heavily will affect Athrun. It's easier to kill someone who has no connection with you rather than someone who is a close friend to your friend. It was the same with Athrun. He didn't feel anything after killing Tolle because he didn't realize how close Tolle was to Kira. It was only after they joined forces when Kira told him that he killed his good friend as well as Miri running off devastated which cause Dearka to react as well. This dropped the gravity of Athrun's actions on him.
I agree, i think its the issue of the thematic importance(the war got very personal for Athrun/Kira ad their close friends died), and the actual progression of the story conflicting, it might have something to do with Seed unexpectedly got greenlit for a second season(remember, no gundam AU before Seed ever got that, and still there are no AU that got more than 50 ish episodea), so stuff had to be tweaked. Because that point of the story is pretty much the biggest shift in the tond, both for the main characters(Kira/Athrun) and for the universe; things got personal, more extreme, hatred have taken over completely as the two friends try to kill each other. In the wider universe, we see Zala becomes the chairman and the full extent of Blue Cosmos surfaced, the war took a turn for the alot worse as both sides travels further down this path of eye-for-an-eye revengr spiral.
@@DmonHiro How could he not know he was killing humans? He knows mobile suits need pilots to operate so why would he think the enemies he'd been killing until now would be unmanned?
@@BradLad56 The bigger issue surrounding Kira's kill (beyond the fact that he knew it was one of Athrun's friends) was that it wasn't necessary. Nicol had practically nothing left, his phase shift was probably due to run out soon, he had one weapon left that Kira could easily avoid. And yet, despite his protests, Kira had become quite efficient at killing, so when the opportunity, he did what had become natural. It plays off the theme of the Berserker rather well, actually.
Seed's biggest problem in my eyes, as having gone through G 79 to Narrative in chronological order, is that it lacks humanity. Sure, it has gore, death, etc. But none of that has the gravitas it needs. Deaths are replayed over and over. People give the dead characterisation AFTER THEY DIE and people feel really disposable, which is a big issue in a show trying to remake 79 and Zeta, shows that relied heavily on the dangerous journey the main characters were on, and the sacrifices some had to make to get them to the finish line. When Ryu rams his ship into the enemy, it is given the proper build up, gravitas and CONSEQUENCES. Bright Noa, the fearless Captain of the Trojan Horse, breaks down begging for forgiveness. No such humanity is present in Seed or Destiny. Death is comical. You want these people to die just to see how badly they screw it up. It's not a tragedy of war story, it's a black comedy.
The absolute worst part about those deaths is that they have zero consequences. The desert arc where Kira fights Andy; while being a really shallow stand in for Ramba Ral had the chance to have Kira learn that there are good people on both sides and that by killing Andy, he basically pointlessly killed a good man. It would’ve worked. But then they randomly brought him back from the dead, having him join the Archangel crew and be revealed to have been against Rau the entire time. His death, and the impact it had on Kira are completely overwritten. They might as well have not even included him in the plot and it would’ve likely had more of an impact. It’s pointless and it’s simply another example of Seed being obsessed with making Kira out to be a great character.
Even as a kid who barely understood the plot I hated Kira and hoped Shinn finally beat him in Seed Destiny LOL and then everything got even worse somehow
Have you thought about the possibility that Asians would view Gundam differently than Americans? As a singaporean myself, I quite enjoyed Gundam seed and destiny more than any other series. Not just in terms of how cool the mechas are but because of how asian-like interactions the characters are that are super relatable to me. I guess different locations play alot in how we view things.
That’s alright. This should not take away your love for the series but you must acknowledge its flaw. Thought it seems it’s an American thing to shit on Gundam seed from what I’ve seen. At the end of the day, we are different people that view things differently but can come to an understanding
I agree. Although seed and seed destiny has MANY flaws. Us as consumers probably shouldn’t complain about any type of entertainment. Even if it is bad, money and time went into the making of this.
Whenever I'm tempted to think that there may have been some odd cultural dissonance responsible for Seed failing so hard in the West, I always think back to all the anime and manga I've consumed that not only _didn't_ suck, but were actually very good. Perhaps Seed made some cultural assumptions that just don't pan out in the West? I hear this happened with Build Divers, where there was a massive disconnect because Western game mods are intrusive and overzealous to the point of being kinda' draconian and banning over the tiniest of grievances, real or imagined, as opposed to Japanese MMOs which are a lot more (if you'll pardon the expression) Wild West. I don't think Seed gets to use this excuse to a huge degree, or at least I'd hope they can't given how characters typically interact in Seed. Are things okay over there? Because if Asians regularly make a habit of being cartoonishly genocidal for no adequately explored reason (North Korea notwithstanding), that might be a cause for serious concern. Because that's the main issue the West seems to have with Seed. Maybe if you were talking Wing, sure. Wing's problems were that the Gundam pilots were melodramatic, unsympathetic, or otherwise obnoxious, and a change of audience culture might permit those same characters more leeway. On the other end of the spectrum, G Gundam is also pretty notorious as being _very_ taste-dependent regardless of where you're watching it. But unfortunately for Seed, no cultural lens or personal taste (except possibly a _lack_ of taste; ba dum tish) can soften the blow of being mouth-breathingly stupid. Maybe the West has higher standards for villains. We've _seen_ cartoonishly evil psychos a million times over. In fact, America made something like half of them, to the point where many of those were reinvented later with increased complexity. The MCU's Loki comes to mind. A big part of why Western Gundam fans love Gundam with such devotion is for the complexity of its characters, especially when it seems like our own media isn't pulling its weight like it used to. (Said media appears increasingly content to depict _us_ as one-dimensional cartoonish sociopaths, but that's neither here nor there...) That's the kind of fanbase that looks at something like Seed and sees it as inferior garbage versus better entries like 00, IBO, and (hopefully; the word is pretty good so far...) Witch From Mercury. Eastern audiences with more complete access to the entirety of Gundam's canon might regard these popular-overseas entries as very high tier for the franchise. When you rank Gundam entries based on _every_ entry that has ever existed, you're likely to be more lenient than someone who has only seen Gundam entries that were deemed likely to make their money back if exported.
@@draketheduelist As a Singaporean, we behave very differently than an American including the way we perceive things. The drama in seed is something a Singaporean guy like me can relate to especially with the way we asians here are brought up. Their interactions and relationships in general, are very much lovable here. We are very much family oriented here in this country and we're very quiet like people even though we can be very loud at times. So perhaps that is why someone like Kira can be very relatable to the Asians here. And the interactions in general among the coordinates in Seed and Destiny are pretty relatable as well. I recently watched the movie Gundam NT thats released in 2019, the movie Gundam Hathaway's Flash in 2021, and the latest movie Cucuruz Doan Island in 2022. The order of favourites would be 1. Cucuruz Doan Island 2. Hathaway's Flash and 3. Gundam NT. I love how slow and calm 1 and 2 is compared to 3. I guess that could be why I favour Seed and Destiny due to certain relaxing scenes in them. Perhaps if I was born an American that tend to be very kind but loud, aggressive, rowdy and liberal, I'd probably had a different view.
You had me right up until you praised the redub, because that was budget trash. I swear to god 90% of the cast could have been the same person, or if they weren't they didn't even try to sound any different from one another. Various instances of characters having off-screen discussions are incomprehensible because I have no fucking clue who's actually saying what to who.
A friend once said, Seed and its sequel is UC Gundam's mentally challenged cousin. It pays a lot of tribute to UC, but fails to understand half of why UC Gundam works so well down to the design of the characters themselves. Kira is a nice tribute to Amuro up until the Flay affair, and I couldn't think of a more idiotic way to "advance" a character in the story. Whereas Amuro earns a lot of the things that makes him who is, whether good or bad ones, and learn from it. Kira simply refuses and needs the power of convenience to do what he should thus making a journey pretty much bland overall. That's not to say Seed and its sequel didn't have good characters it did, but they hardly carry the plot when the main premise is painful to watch. Also Cosmic Era possibly had the most confusing factions in the entire franchise. Not in the neutral sense like how they make Feddies dickish most of the time even if they're the "good guys". But it's hard to understand what ZAFT, Earth Alliance, and Orb Union really wants and the entire war and conflict seems pointless. Even more pointless than the one they did for Gundam Wing because G Wing at least had compelling faction leaders.
Lowe Guele is the only likable protagonist in the entirety of the cosmic era, because he isn’t a whiny, pretentious dork. Also the GINN is a Zaku II cosplaying as a cockatoo.
I despise Seed, but I disagree with the remastered dub being better. The performances were off and lots of unnecessary line changes that don't even improve the story. Example of this is when Kira says in response to seeing the Strike's weapon options "Here we go" in the remastered when in the original dub and sub he says "That's all there is" and "That's it" respectively. The latters do a better job of reflecting his frustration during a desperate situation, making him more human and relatable, while the former makes him into an even more generic anime character.
My beef with the re-dub is simply that no one character stands out from one another, with most of the male cast all sounding so alike to the point of being interchangeable. If I'm not paying strict attention I have no clue who is saying what most of the time.
Ultimate Coordinator just means that he is a prefect customized coordinator out of the artificial womb with no mother influence, and nothing else. He is not the strongest or the best. In the audio drama cd, he said himself, he is in school with all the second gen coordinators that are much smarter than he is, so he became very passive and he always needs Athrun to help with his homework. He is quick in software especially with when he left the coordinators school and attend the Orb school with naturals.
Honestly, I like the concept of the show, a war between genetically modified humans and naturally born humans, the impact and the ramifications of genetic engineering, coordinators see themselves superior, naturals see coordinators as unnatural, all the thing, I like it.....except the main character and where the story was focused, was lame.
Don't give a crap what you say about seed. It one if my favorite gundam series out there and if you don't like that I like it just scroll pass my comment. I know all the crap people say about the Series, but I just don't care. I like what I like
Still don't care for this series either; even back in the day I gave up on Destiny after the first few episodes. "A Typical Episode of Gundam Seed Destiny" is a much more entertaining piece of work.
Seed has a world building problem. Like you said in the video the ideas are there, but their not explored. Another crutch seed has is that Astray wound up fixing most of the holes in the series such as how Kira wound up in the colony thanks to the Junk guild or further going into more detail on George Glenn and what he wanted for the future of humanity by introducing coordinators which that also seems to be a bit problem. There's low drawback to being a coordinator when compared to naturals, but that's a long topic to cover.
Tbh, I think Deus Ex: Human Revolution did a better job exploring transhumanism than what Seed did. I would add the original Deus Ex, but I've never played it and I'm going off by the reputation it has garnered.
@@archonofplagues1329 in Deus Ex you have cyborgs, wich can do things better than humans, but you have to subject yourself to invasive surgery and give up parts of your body in order to become one. Coordinators on the other hand are better than normal humans in everything without any drawback, they're basically a nazi's wet dream. In any other fictional setting coordinators would be the villains a "master race" of super men oppressing humans. The Alliance in Seed is right in fearing them, it's not racism, it's the opposite, it's trying to prevent a superior race to enslave the rest of humanity. The name itself spells it loud and clear: "Coordinators" they're supposed to coordinate normal humans, to rule over them.
Meh. There were some interesting ideas from Astrat but also some real weird things that I am happy its not in the show. His explanation of what coordinator should be (from astray) is one. Dude shouldve really explained it better to everyone if that was what he wished instead of leaving some vague stuff about bridging Earth and space.
@@arx3516 I think you bring too much preconceived notion of "how it should be the way I want" into it. Anime fictional humans are not a rpg character build that must have advantages and drawbacks, and using completely diffetent fictional work to justify some weird notions that coordinators must be nazis and villains oppressing people is just ridiculous. If those works choose to portray certain groups in one way thats their choice, which does not also cover Gundam Seed. In the show, its shown that had it not been for the war and the Alliance, coordinators for the most part doesnt really care that much about Earth; remember, they left Earth in the first place. Most of the crazies that do have obssesion with Earth are people like Patrick, whose obssesion is caused by Earth forces in the first place. It was the Alliance' fear, racism and paranoia that caused the shitshow in the first place. The Alliance who by the way definitely does not represent entire Earth, only the interest of the 3 nations who founded the Alliance and were forcing everyone against their will. Hell, speaking of oppression and enslavery. It was the sponsor nations(precursor to the Alliance) who kinda oppressed the coordinators in Plant colonies in the first place. Coordinator labour were exploited for production and natural resource extraction, any unreasonable quota must be met even if Plant cant meet them or otherwise its sanction and blockage. And Plant was completely banned from making their own food, forced to get all of it from the sponsor nation, essentially putting the colonies into wage slavery with the "wage" being the food in this case. Hell, the idea of nazi's wet dream is really a stretch. What parent wouldnt want their kid to be healthier and smarter? Are they nazis now?
I can't really say I know a lot about Gundam Seed. I watched a few eps when it aired briefly in the US and couldn't really get into it. The story never really interested me (no shame if you like it) I think the thing kind of turns me more off to it, is that it seems there's SO much of Gundam Seed that it just kind of proliferates Gundam. It's probably due to their being SO many mobile suits in SEED and it having almost 2x the number of eps than any other gundam series. So just seeing SO MUCH of something I found to be not very appealing.....kind of makes it MORE unappealing? If that makes any sense.
I think I may be biased. This is my first Gundam that I watched. Though thanks to getting into Super Robot Wars, I'm about to start watching a bunch of mecha. One of which is the OG gundam. So after a few weeks on the weekend binging a gundam I'll be able to look at seed without nostalgia goggles. I hope the OG gundam is that good. Since I hear a lot of praise about it.
To be fair, there's a montage in the first episode that shows a bit of his day to day life as a high school student and either he or his friends complain their robotics teacher is giving him way too much workload. - But him beeing an exceedingly brilliant high school student still does not explain all the magic trick he pulls out of the Strike later on.
Amrou : kid who becomes a soldier Heero : a warrior who is trying to a reason to stop fighting Kira : a winney little shit with a sipierodey complex sorry for any missed spell words
Well it would’ve been nice if somewhere in Avengers Infinity War during 1 of the talking scenes (non action moments) where somebody confronted Thanos with his insane back ass ward logic of kill half the universe n the other will b better off about only to tear apart his idiotology with actual logic rather then just say he doesn’t know that 4 sure now of course I seriously doubt that would change his mind n he would suddenly put everything into reverse but still it would’ve been nice to have someone point out that Thanos’s plan was nowhere near a justified 1
Trust me, it is best you don't watch Destiny even if someone pays you. As you have probably heard, Destiny is worse, especially where Kira is involved. The fact Shinji Ikari of all people called him Kira Jesus Yamato tells you all you need to know. As far as my issues with both series are concerned, one is the fact that parts of the series are the most blatant copypastas of previous Gundam series, particularly the OG series. Second is how awful the characters are. As you said, the annoyance was dialed to eleven. And then we have, of course, Kira himself, though truth be told, much of the cast in general were as fake as Kira, just with less plot armor. Finally, the art style, both the cloned characters, and the mecha designs. From the second half of SEED onward especially, they were painful to look at. Animation saved it somewhat, but it doesn't stop the fact they came off as what we referred to back then as 'franken Gundams'. Wing was a masterpiece compared to the SEEF universe.
@@BigMicahC they're talking about Gundam seed. Gundam seed brought the gunpla market to new comers. A large majority of females came in when Gundam was at the brink of being irrelevant. if anything we should be thankful Gundam seed was born or we wouldn't be able to see all these other wonderful shows like Hathaway and etc come to light in the screen. Failure or not in others eyes there is no denying that seed gunpla still are the most popular models lol.
@@JustinVillemure just like how IBO is loved in the west but regarded as a total joke in Asia? It goes both ways. Just because a show is liked in one part of the world doesn’t make it a masterpiece when it’s violently flawed in numerous aspects
@@officialFredDurstfanclub except its not just Asia. West is a minority on Seed vs everywhere else. Seed is legit and I think ppl dislike it for failing to understand or they are hung up on certain (dare I say, superficial) details. The themes are profound and develop within the story, the character arcs are very well crafted and the emotional impact is poignant.
I'm sure that Seed Destiny is going to look good compared to what ever Netflix is going to give us. Netflix screwed up Death Note and Cowboy Bebop. Need I say more?
You know when there was an mecha anime years when i had my first Netflix account about a girl who want to kill his brother because she wanted to avenge her friends that were killed by her brother. i mention this because that anime 9even i don{t remember the tittle= is a much better mecha anime then seed!
I just wish I could have an anime with the lesbian romance and excessive nudity of Cross Ange, but with actually good writing. Imagine something like Legend Of The Galactic Heroes but it looks like Ragnaroek City. That would be my ideal anime. Anyway, I was laughing at SEED as I neared it's end, it was so bad.
I mean.. Seed the original series (TV 1-50) - not the movies or the sequel or its trash... Honestly I didn't have 'too many' issues with. Sure I had some I have had those with almost all of them. I mean.. If seed is an 'absolute failure' we need to literally eviscerate 00 (among others in the 'modern Gundam franchise)
Ah yes. The complete and utter failure of the series that saved the franchise and stopped Sunrise from going bankrupt. Complete failure. I'll admit though that looking back it's pretty trashy but as a teen I loved it, and so did many other teenagers, so they knew their audience and played to it.
Still find it odd people would like this, even with me liking stuff like the Super Mario Bros. movie, unironically. Give that movie this, it has more heart and good writing than this show seems to.
You know as a fan of freedom of speech when it comes to anime i personally feel every anime has flaw there no such thing as a perfect anime all the way from Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood (number 1 on MAL not like that means anything) to what ever the worst anime is so when i see people on youtube and any other platform talking about anime i take it with a grain of salt since no offence to anyone its just there opinion, anyways as seeing that Gundam seed is my number 1 pick for best anime i ever seen i figured it be fun to see another point of view and i got to say i had a fun time but it gets stale. Hate to say this as a fan of the show but i already knew all this when you seen this as much as i have so it funny to me that knows and seen a ton of really bad anime to hear that this was a fail got to check out your other content sorta wondering what you enjoy, got to say that its great you know you are a broken record at points
The coordinators vs naturals theme never worked for me. I find it hard to sympathize with the coordinators. Look at the spacenoids in universal century. The original "pioneers" were either political criminals or beggars that were forced out to the colonies. The whole "space colonization program" was just a glorified population control. Zeon is fighting for a right cause but with horrendous means. While the corrupted earth federation wanted to keep the status quo. Meanwhile, you can't have a poor person pay for a doctor to have his child genetically modified as a coordinator. The only ones who have money and power can afford it. They choose to seclude themselves and call themselves elite over the "inferior" naturals. I find seed better than destiny. I love it for the music and some mecha designs. If it weren't for the stock footages, I would've appreciated the fights even more than wing.
YAmato is slightly more correct, yaMAto is not. It’s more like YAMAto. Because each syllable is a separate character, and can be emphasized, unlike English, each word has only one emphasis
I got about halfway through the series before I stopped watching, I think, it was some fight in the desert, and it was Kira that killed it for me. I want to go back and watch Gundam Wing, bit I'm not sure how well it holds up a decade since I last watched it, but i gotta finish my real Cowboy Bebop run first.
How have I not commented on this one? I swear I've seen it before, and I can never help myself when it comes to dumping on Seed. As far as Seed's more commonly mentioned problems go, I can be extremely forgiving. The repeated animation. The suit design (though largely retroactively salvaged by Seed having some of the best gunpla in the entire franchise). The fact that every character bar one (and I _will_ get to that...) can't cry in a way that doesn't sound unintentionally funny. Basically, if I can tell what you're _trying_ to convey, I'll cut you some slack on production mechanics unless the attempted execution is unavoidably hilarious, like with the crying thing, or the line about Nicol and the piano. If Seed's problems were being technically ugly or inept animation mistakes, I could let it slide. But no, Seed had to suck in the one way I cannot forgive: the writing. And when it comes to Seed's writing, though there are still many flaws to pick on unique to the writing, most of those are similarly merely stupid or annoying (read: Jesus Yamato)... except for one flaw which is downright gross and cruel: Flay. I do _not_ slight you for that "banging [Flay] like a snare drum" bit because that is the beginning and end for the utility Seed thinks it can extract from Flay's character. (Though for the record, Kira didn't cuck one of his friends. ...He cucked _two_ of his friends after stealing Lacus from Athrun... somehow... IDK... IDGAF...) Maybe the reason it's called Gundam _Seed_ is because it's permanently stained with c[u]m. You could achieve the same effect as Flay by drawing a sw[a]stika on the forehead of a Real Doll. The problem is that if you actually take the time to analyze Flay's arc (and you'll have plenty of time given that she's the only character in the show who _has_ an arc...), what Seed shows about Flay and what it tells about her are at complete odds. She turns "racist" (in the interest of time, I'll skip my spiel about how coordinators aren't a race and how the prejudice against them around which all of Seed revolves around is actually really stupid...) at the mere _whiff_ of coordinator, but she seems to have an exception for Kira, which _already_ isn't how racism works. That is until Kira lets Flay's dad die because he was too busy jacking beam sabers with his hetero life partner to actually do a damn thing. (Though frankly Mu wasn't much help either. He was a literal newtype piloting what Seed has the _balls_ to call a mobile armor against two GINN grunts with unnamed pilots, and he _still_ gets outflown. "Hawk of Endymion" my a[ss]...) It's almost like Flay wasn't racist so much as she specifically hated Kira for that one specific event. She doesn't give a solitary damn about coordinators or naturals or anything like that. It wouldn't make sense for her to have a particular stake in the era's politics when there are new shoes at the mall to buy. (And before you call that s[e]xist, that's basically just how Seed treats Flay before Lacus shows up.) All that matters to Flay is the problem directly in her face: that she is all alone in a cruel, cold universe that killed her daddy. That's the kind of attitude that fits a flighty, skittish rich girl. She's not a Machiavellian schemer. She's not even all _that_ smart. She's alone, and she wants the one who _made_ her alone to take responsibility. Kira got her dad killed, therefore Kira has to be the one to take care of her. (Also, she might have been trying to get back at Sai for being a condescending douche, but Sai is another problem altogether. If Flay is the most abused characters, I'd call out Sai and Yzak as the most squandered.) You see this all come to a head when Kira finally breaks up with Flay. In the original Japanese audio (fun fact: Flay shares a VA with Badgiruel in the original Japanese, hence why the original Japanese is so uniquely gut-wrenching), you get the impression that Flay assumed that Kira was playing games with her, too. Kira couldn't _possibly_ be so stupid as to not realize what was going on, Flay figured. But when she realized that, no, Kira really _was_ that dumb, it hit her that all the time Kira spent with her was because he genuinely cared about her (because of course he did; Jesus-kun can do no wrong...). It wasn't just "pity" like she figured. She wasn't alone after all. Kira was there for her the whole time, and yet she almost broke him. And after it seemed like Athrun killed Kira, Flay blamed herself. She made _herself_ alone, which is what _actually_ spurred her change of heart after being kidnapped by Rau because he needed a living envelope for later... See what I mean about Seed trying to use Flay for the _dumbest_ stuff? Rau literally could've accomplished what he kidnapped Flay for by jettisoning a cardboard box out the airlock. Worst. Char clone. Ever! Flay spends the whole series a cosmic (era) chew toy because the writing doesn't know or care what to do with her. The story uses her and abuses her without any real thought as to how this otherwise super-privileged girly brat would act, treating her like just another crazy evil genocidal lunatic to add to the pile. (Considering Flay's peers in said pile, let's just _pretend_ that's fair...) More specifically, she's Kira's morality currency. She puts out whenever the writing needs Kira to be able to kill in a way that he can be morally absolved of later, which is super-gross for many reasons, most of which should be obvious given Flay's age, her mental health at the time, and the fact that she's hung out there by the writers for teenage boys to fap to anyway. Like I've got no problem with fanservice, but _wow._ Time and place, Seed. But what really sets Flay apart is that she's also granted just enough self-awareness to recognize and feel bad about her actions, but not so much agency that she can find any real redemption for what she does.
About Flay: there's a scene in ep. 38 of the HD remaster, where she is lying in the bunker naked. It served no purpose to the plot, rather than "FANSERVICE". If you do know the meaning, then tell me. Though from my perspective; it shows that Fukuda-san, the guy behind SEED and Cross Ange, is sexually frustrated, with his hormones going out of control.
@@therussianwanderer4851 I'm not familiar with the exact scene you're referring to off the top of my head. I have a guess though based on the episode count, as that seemed to be in the post-Freedom run of episodes, meaning it was probably when Flay was Rau's prisoner. I recall there was one scene that must've been around that time frame where Flay is shown sleeping / trying to sleep naked. If that's what you're referring to, I think there _is_ a point to it, but I'll preface my interpretation by noting that it still makes no sense in the larger context. By this point in the series, Flay has been shown wearing a ZAFT uniform while captured. Odds are this was just for hygiene as it's not as if Rau or his dwindling crew had spare EFSF uniforms handy. (Where her uniform _went_ is one of SEED's least egregious plot holes.) I don't understand in the larger context of SEED why Rau would be all that concerned with treating Flay amicably when, if he's as smart as the writers would seem to suggest, he _must've_ known by then that he was going to kill Flay anyway specifically to mess with Kira's head. (*shrug*) Anyway, as far as Flay should know at this point, Kira is dead, and he died specifically in a fight with ZAFT. Making matters worse, Kira had promised to talk things over with Flay right before the deployment to fight Athrun that would "kill" him. (And by all rights, it should have. Not even SEED Astray comes close to explaining away Kira surviving a bomb that melted his cockpit.) In other words, Kira told Flay exactly enough to give her a tiny speck of hope that whatever relationship the two had could be salvaged, only to snuff that hope right out. So at this point, Flay must assume that she wears the uniform of her lover's killer. I think the idea behind Flay sleeping naked in that scene is that she couldn't bear to sleep in a ZAFT uniform and so opted for the birthday suit instead, which makes a certain amount of fvcked-up sense. It's a visual metaphor for being exposed to the cold, hostile universe of the Cosmic Era, with no one left in it to protect her. What _doesn't_ make sense is what Flay was getting out of her captivity, and why it was being written that way to begin with. Regardless of which way the writers chose to put Flay down (I heard there was an idea to kill her off with a surgically-implanted bomb that the writers scrapped at some point), Flay was definitely going to die. And yet there's this asinine notion among SEED fans that the point of Flay's captivity was to learn empathy for coordinators. Really? To what end? If anything, she should've interpreted her captivity under ZAFT as adding insult to injury, like Rau was taking victory laps over Kira's grave, thus compelling her to hate coordinators more than ever before... but she doesn't. For whatever idiotic reason, Rau gives Flay _exceptional_ leeway, letting her hang around his private quarters instead of locking her in a brig. His private quarters where the pills that Rau needs to not suffer from his clone degeneracy are literally sitting in a desk unsecured after demonstrating what they did and why he needed them. Flay could have potentially _killed_ Rau by simply hiding those pills, if not flushing them out an airlock or something, or at least made him suffer. As we've seen with Kira, Flay is (apparently) clever enough to come up with ways to make the people she hates suffer. But Flay does nothing to Rau despite numerous golden opportunities and all of the motive. I'm not sure whose character suffered more here: Rau or Flay. This is all apparently because, at least in the Japanese audio, Rau le Creuset shares a voice actor with George Allster. No, really. That is _unimaginably_ contrived on so many levels. There is _no way in hell_ Rau could've known that his voice would have that exact effect on Flay, quasi-newtype BS or not. He didn't even know who Flay _was_ when he kidnapped her. And on Flay's end, you'd think she'd stop seeing her dad in a coordinator at about the point where Rau punched her in the stomach and kidnapped her. As a reminder, Flay was _terrified_ of civilian-ass Lacus Clyne, who did absolutely jack all in terms of demonstrating threatening tendencies (either because Lacus is just _that_ conniving, which would incidentally make Flay's paranoia 100% justified retroactively, or Lacus was completely on the level and her brain really _does_ have all the processing power of a Dorito), and all that before Flay's dad even got killed. But then after a conga line of trauma and stress that would justify her fears and hatred unlike never before, another coordinator presents an _absurdly_ blatant threat to her well-being, and Flay does nothing? SEED can't have it both ways. Basically, Flay's opinions on ZAFT and coordinators at large make absolutely zero sense to the point where she seems to flip flop at random. Her stance is basically exactly what it needs to be at any given time to ensure that she gets killed in the _exact_ way that would piss Kira off enough to kill Rau. Everything that Flay is and was, every change she ever suffered, every emotional twist and turn she takes across the entire series, was all intended to facilitate a one-time license to kill that Kira would use to dispose of the bad guy. And to think a series like SEED which treats its most brutally war-traumatized character like a plot coupon has the pendulous balls to bear the name of Gundam...
@@therussianwanderer4851 Same principle. I imagine the shirt might've been added to clear the censors. Besides, animation errors have caused _way worse_ plotholes than this. Mu's helmet floating through space. The Strike's stance when Kira killed Nicol got edited to make it seem _more_ deliberate. Allegedly Kira's barbecued cockpit was added to the HD remaster despite contradicting other sources. (Supposedly a blast panel shielded Kira at the last second... but if so, how did Kira get knocked unconscious?) It all makes sparsely little sense, and SEED isn't worth defending enough to attempt a plot autopsy anyway.
Man I remember how much my friend who first introduced me to gundam hype me up about the show, and this is after i watched 00. I saw a DVD set of Seed and Destiny (b4 the remaster mind) on a sale, so I bought it. I watched Seed to its full ONCE, and I hated it so much I just didnt bother to open destiny dvd box. It's one thing about having a gary stu mc, its just how insufferable Kira is as the show progresses. Athrun at least have BALLS to be a soldier somewhat. Yzak is a good leader and a bro to Dearka (who is a bro too) when he is not made to be a joke when kira shows up in THE STRIKE!!! I can at least see Rau as a legit threat. Astray stories are great on the bright side though.
I like Seed and Seed Destiny I know there is a lot to dislike about it but there are also bright spots like the action and the Gundam designs are cool. Kira stinks but sometimes that is just how anime works.
Wait, really? I've never heard that before. I know they said the time slot it was in kinda killed it (mainly cause of the audience that would be up around that time) but never heard seed played a part in that
i Think Seed have role to revive the Gundam Series in early 2000 since Gundam wing and endless waltz. i know if you see from the story and plot point of view Seed is under even the victory gundam, which i think one of the worse story in gundam series (after G gundam of course). but Seed have it own role, without Seed i think there won't be any gundam series after the year 2000 and late 2000 even until now. you maybe should review G Gundam as the one who bring gundam series to the bottom after big success at Zeta and CCA. G gundam is like Seed, fail in every thing even bring the gundam series which as real robot to super robot (shining fingeeerrr...). Seed only downfall is the plot armor its made to the veteran of yachin du, and the ending that seem too pushy to make the series not more then any 36 or less episode.
G Gundam is amazing and far better then Seed and wing. Domon especially is a better protag then Kira and Heero with more depth to him then most realize. It’s funny cause I’m pretty sure Micah made a video praising G 😂
Without gundam seed... i dont know what will happen to the gundam series... Gundam seed revolutionize the series... i dont know what you are taking about???
I understand that SEED has it's problems, whether it be some bad dialogue, or recycled animation. But honestly, I don't see why there's overall such a negative view of it. Maybe it's rose-tinted nostalgia glasses? It's not the best Gundam series ever, I'll admit, but damn I just don't think it's as bad as a lot of people say.
I just finished watching Seed for the first time about an hour before stumbling across this video, and while i see where it's coming from, some of these issues i noticed while watch, others were obvious in retrospect, i still found it to be fine, average, but fine, even if Rau le Creuset was an insult to my intelligence. But nothing, and i mean nothing, will convince me that Seed is worse than Turn A or Victory, or hell, the original series. It doesn't matter how good your story is if my eyes and ears are bleeding from the sheer repungnace of it's visuals, sound design and voice acting.
Gundam SEED made me hate anime, I spent a decade missing out on such great anime cause seeing anime reminded me of Gundam SEED. Then i saw Gundam 79, the depth, the weight, just the design of the show was amazing. Made me realize how bad Gundam 79 was
Hey guys! Sorry I forgot, but the Rate the Mecha video I did for Gundam Seed is now in the description like the vid says. My bad!
Destiny's first half is good but the second half cause it to shoot it self In the head
Ill admit Kira is a character I thought was really cool when I was like 12 years old but the older I became the more detached I was from the character. the thing about Kira and Amuro is that even by todays standards Amuro is such a unique character there’s really not many like him while Kira is basically no different from your standard modern anime protagonist
What I always found hilarious about seed and destiny is that the most dangerous organization was not the good guys or the bad guys not even the government it was a singer and her groupies 🤣
That sounds like something out of a Macross series.
@BioGoji-zm5ph curiously enough I saw seed at the same time macross frontier was coming out 🤣
Considering Taylor Swift in the 2020s, that isn't too far fetched.
@@brentatbluenovaproductions2136 the swifties 😖😖😖😖😱
So the lacusties? 🤔 lacusites? 🤔
@@BioGoji-zm5phExcept that Macross knows how to make that not only work with the plot but make it entertaining.
Usually, looking at you Delta and 7.
Kira was at ground zero of a nuclear explosion. Remember that his BS suit was powered by a nuclear reactor. He survived a nuclear explosion at its center.
Nuclear engines dont explode like nuclear bombs...You have to intentionally design a nuke to explode that way.
@@LatencyProblem It still exploded that way, though.
@@BeeWaifu You mean the battle of Freedom vs Impulse? That wasn't the Freedom that exploded, that was the Minerva firing a positron cannon that created the huge explosion. Positrons are the anti-particles of elections and when anti-particles touch particles, they release an explosion even bigger than nuclear reactions. That is why Murrue was against using them in the first series for environmental reason. Kira also turned his nuclear reactor off when Shinn beat him.
@@themadnessofmadara4883 Then that's even worse!
@@BeeWaifu How so?
G is gundam through the eyes of a shonen while Seed is gundam through the eyes of a shoujo....gundam for women and emo teen boys
Yep, Gundam Seed and it’s sequel sucks. The whole every faction is evil and everyone is a racist. Now, Earth Alliance is basically Titans of UC and ZAFT is a neoZeon faction. It’s like we get it! War is hell is like super obvious unlike UC. Now, Earth Federation was flawed but willing to reform to make things better while Zeon are basically space Nazis with imperial Japan mentality. Your analysis on the characters is spot on.
The most interesting thing about Amuro is that he was (just like Shinji Ikari) a deconstruction of Kouji Kabuto from Mazinger Z. Whereas Kouji is a brave and hot blooded guy in a clear cut good vs evil fight, Amuro is a shy boy thrust in a complex situation far bigger than him, where making the right choice isn't as easy as pummeling the monster of the week.
Kira tries to be like Amuro but completely misses the point while also forgetting the fact that what was unique in the 1970s isn’t unique anymore in the early 00s
Was there any reason to dunk on Naruto and Inuyasha? They aren't really supposed to be complex political war dramas like Gundam. They are literally Japanese saturday morning cartoons
lol Pain and Itachi have more depth then anyone in Gundam seed
Seed was a good entry point for new viewers to the moble suit in war at the time, myself included. But it was understandably hated by die hard gundam fans, it tries to be a simplfied version of the orginal series.
Also Fye was manipulating Kira when he was emotionally vulnerable, trying to get him to kill all enemies, something Amuro never had to deal with.
Kits survived because the anime made the explosion way too massive. It was only supposed to be just his Gundam heavily damaged. The Astray manga shows the red frames pilot Low witnessing the fight and the explosion in his newly acquired red frame astray. The strike was just heavily damaged but still intact. The pilot then rescues Kira from the cockpit and proceeds to transport him to where he wakes up from his coma. One thing about the show is a lot of things were poorly enacted. Like they knew Kira was gonna survive but made the explosion overkill to the point where it really is like “No the hell he didn’t survive that”. They should’ve toned it down and not animated the strike blowing to pieces because in the manga it was strong enough to mainly withstand the blast point blank staying mostly intact. Just not operational anymore and heavily damaged. I blame the directing.
Gundam SEED franchise is popular in Asia because Asians are into the romance drama that involves relationship conflicts and NTR/cheating. Most importantly, the robot designs are really good. Some people compare Gundam Wing to SEED because they are comparably successful in both Japan and outside except for SEED being mostly prominent in Asia, while Wing is even.
My biggest problem with SEED is the author and his wife ruining the Destiny sequel. Director Fukuda was made into his position due to nepotism which is very common in Asia, while his wife was unqualified due to her illness and inexperience. Worse than that, Fukuda was definitely cheating on his wife because he later remarried with the same accused person after his wife's death. SEED and Destiny are both heavily leaning forwards NTR/Cheating genre which can describe the director's subconsciousness of his action at the time. SEED Freedom has largely fixed the franchise to be normal again after Destiny debacle.
What I am quite worried about SEED & Destiny is the heavily fascist undertone which is not traditional in the Gundam, a franchise that was pioneered by Japanese socialists in 20th century. I won't go into politics but the problems with SEED are how favorably one-sided towards the coordinators who got no flaws and are always being antagonized by Naturals who are depicted as savages. It reminds me closely to Tarzan novel which the original version is highly fascist and eugenic. Even Newtypes in UC are optionally available for Natural people if they live in space long enough. However, you are born into coordinators in SEED, and there is no other way for Naturals to become equal. Coordinators, except for main characters, are also supremacists who advocate to kill all Naturals. By the end of the series, all main characters join the coordinators to leave the Naturals at a disadvantage - the biggest problem is Destiny. I am not sure if this is intentional from either Fukuda or his wife. This is quite disturbing really! It leaves a message that inferior people are racist monsters that should die to more advanced ubermensch. Today, fascism and eugenics are still popular ideas that you occasionally have some Japanese elites want to kill all poor, old, sick people.
And on the point of the anime that came out at that time, the thing is that we got some real gems that actually did everything much better. Chief among them being the 2003 version of Full Metal Alchemist. If anything, that show did better than it's source material at portraying moral complexities.
As for why SEED was popular, the most it seems to be was that it was a simple escapism fantasy. That is the thing with many of these kinds of poorly written works with Gary Stu protagonists. They just appeal to the regular masses with a power fantasy and simple, on the nose themes.
Ya know, one thing that struck me as odd is when Kira killed Nicol. Up until that point, he had been dropping enemy pilots like flies, some in quite brutal ways, like the point blank shot in the desert. When he killed Nicol though, he acted like it was the first time he'd killed someone, which doesn't make any sense narratively. I'm guessing it was only put in there to up the drama with Athrun and extend their pissing match a while longer.
It makes sense though! Kira explained it after he killed Nicol, yes he killed many others before but it was the first time he killed someone he knew was Athrun's friend and that heavily will affect Athrun. It's easier to kill someone who has no connection with you rather than someone who is a close friend to your friend.
It was the same with Athrun. He didn't feel anything after killing Tolle because he didn't realize how close Tolle was to Kira. It was only after they joined forces when Kira told him that he killed his good friend as well as Miri running off devastated which cause Dearka to react as well. This dropped the gravity of Athrun's actions on him.
I agree, i think its the issue of the thematic importance(the war got very personal for Athrun/Kira ad their close friends died), and the actual progression of the story conflicting, it might have something to do with Seed unexpectedly got greenlit for a second season(remember, no gundam AU before Seed ever got that, and still there are no AU that got more than 50 ish episodea), so stuff had to be tweaked.
Because that point of the story is pretty much the biggest shift in the tond, both for the main characters(Kira/Athrun) and for the universe; things got personal, more extreme, hatred have taken over completely as the two friends try to kill each other. In the wider universe, we see Zala becomes the chairman and the full extent of Blue Cosmos surfaced, the war took a turn for the alot worse as both sides travels further down this path of eye-for-an-eye revengr spiral.
Are you dense? He's a kid. He didn't actually conceptualize the fact that he was killing actual humans until he killed one he kind of knew.
@@DmonHiro How could he not know he was killing humans? He knows mobile suits need pilots to operate so why would he think the enemies he'd been killing until now would be unmanned?
@@BradLad56 The bigger issue surrounding Kira's kill (beyond the fact that he knew it was one of Athrun's friends) was that it wasn't necessary. Nicol had practically nothing left, his phase shift was probably due to run out soon, he had one weapon left that Kira could easily avoid. And yet, despite his protests, Kira had become quite efficient at killing, so when the opportunity, he did what had become natural. It plays off the theme of the Berserker rather well, actually.
Seed's biggest problem in my eyes, as having gone through G 79 to Narrative in chronological order, is that it lacks humanity. Sure, it has gore, death, etc. But none of that has the gravitas it needs. Deaths are replayed over and over. People give the dead characterisation AFTER THEY DIE and people feel really disposable, which is a big issue in a show trying to remake 79 and Zeta, shows that relied heavily on the dangerous journey the main characters were on, and the sacrifices some had to make to get them to the finish line. When Ryu rams his ship into the enemy, it is given the proper build up, gravitas and CONSEQUENCES. Bright Noa, the fearless Captain of the Trojan Horse, breaks down begging for forgiveness. No such humanity is present in Seed or Destiny. Death is comical. You want these people to die just to see how badly they screw it up. It's not a tragedy of war story, it's a black comedy.
The absolute worst part about those deaths is that they have zero consequences. The desert arc where Kira fights Andy; while being a really shallow stand in for Ramba Ral had the chance to have Kira learn that there are good people on both sides and that by killing Andy, he basically pointlessly killed a good man. It would’ve worked. But then they randomly brought him back from the dead, having him join the Archangel crew and be revealed to have been against Rau the entire time. His death, and the impact it had on Kira are completely overwritten. They might as well have not even included him in the plot and it would’ve likely had more of an impact. It’s pointless and it’s simply another example of Seed being obsessed with making Kira out to be a great character.
This needs like another 2 hours of tearing this show apart. This is like the new 52 but worse.
2 years later and Seed STILL sucks.
Even as a kid who barely understood the plot I hated Kira and hoped Shinn finally beat him in Seed Destiny LOL
and then everything got even worse somehow
He could be the second coming of kamille but look at how they massacre my boy
"even as a kid" man you barely understand it NOW
They need to redo Gundam Seed. It could use better writing.
Have you thought about the possibility that Asians would view Gundam differently than Americans?
As a singaporean myself, I quite enjoyed Gundam seed and destiny more than any other series. Not just in terms of how cool the mechas are but because of how asian-like interactions the characters are that are super relatable to me.
I guess different locations play alot in how we view things.
That’s alright. This should not take away your love for the series but you must acknowledge its flaw. Thought it seems it’s an American thing to shit on Gundam seed from what I’ve seen. At the end of the day, we are different people that view things differently but can come to an understanding
I agree. Although seed and seed destiny has MANY flaws. Us as consumers probably shouldn’t complain about any type of entertainment. Even if it is bad, money and time went into the making of this.
Whenever I'm tempted to think that there may have been some odd cultural dissonance responsible for Seed failing so hard in the West, I always think back to all the anime and manga I've consumed that not only _didn't_ suck, but were actually very good. Perhaps Seed made some cultural assumptions that just don't pan out in the West? I hear this happened with Build Divers, where there was a massive disconnect because Western game mods are intrusive and overzealous to the point of being kinda' draconian and banning over the tiniest of grievances, real or imagined, as opposed to Japanese MMOs which are a lot more (if you'll pardon the expression) Wild West.
I don't think Seed gets to use this excuse to a huge degree, or at least I'd hope they can't given how characters typically interact in Seed. Are things okay over there? Because if Asians regularly make a habit of being cartoonishly genocidal for no adequately explored reason (North Korea notwithstanding), that might be a cause for serious concern. Because that's the main issue the West seems to have with Seed. Maybe if you were talking Wing, sure. Wing's problems were that the Gundam pilots were melodramatic, unsympathetic, or otherwise obnoxious, and a change of audience culture might permit those same characters more leeway. On the other end of the spectrum, G Gundam is also pretty notorious as being _very_ taste-dependent regardless of where you're watching it. But unfortunately for Seed, no cultural lens or personal taste (except possibly a _lack_ of taste; ba dum tish) can soften the blow of being mouth-breathingly stupid.
Maybe the West has higher standards for villains. We've _seen_ cartoonishly evil psychos a million times over. In fact, America made something like half of them, to the point where many of those were reinvented later with increased complexity. The MCU's Loki comes to mind. A big part of why Western Gundam fans love Gundam with such devotion is for the complexity of its characters, especially when it seems like our own media isn't pulling its weight like it used to. (Said media appears increasingly content to depict _us_ as one-dimensional cartoonish sociopaths, but that's neither here nor there...) That's the kind of fanbase that looks at something like Seed and sees it as inferior garbage versus better entries like 00, IBO, and (hopefully; the word is pretty good so far...) Witch From Mercury. Eastern audiences with more complete access to the entirety of Gundam's canon might regard these popular-overseas entries as very high tier for the franchise. When you rank Gundam entries based on _every_ entry that has ever existed, you're likely to be more lenient than someone who has only seen Gundam entries that were deemed likely to make their money back if exported.
@@draketheduelist
As a Singaporean, we behave very differently than an American including the way we perceive things. The drama in seed is something a Singaporean guy like me can relate to especially with the way we asians here are brought up. Their interactions and relationships in general, are very much lovable here. We are very much family oriented here in this country and we're very quiet like people even though we can be very loud at times. So perhaps that is why someone like Kira can be very relatable to the Asians here. And the interactions in general among the coordinates in Seed and Destiny are pretty relatable as well.
I recently watched the movie Gundam NT thats released in 2019, the movie Gundam Hathaway's Flash in 2021, and the latest movie Cucuruz Doan Island in 2022. The order of favourites would be 1. Cucuruz Doan Island 2. Hathaway's Flash and 3. Gundam NT. I love how slow and calm 1 and 2 is compared to 3. I guess that could be why I favour Seed and Destiny due to certain relaxing scenes in them.
Perhaps if I was born an American that tend to be very kind but loud, aggressive, rowdy and liberal, I'd probably had a different view.
Thank you.
What I learned from gundam Seed. Teenage romance drama, plot armour, grunt units don't mean a thing and Kira is jesus.
You had me right up until you praised the redub, because that was budget trash. I swear to god 90% of the cast could have been the same person, or if they weren't they didn't even try to sound any different from one another. Various instances of characters having off-screen discussions are incomprehensible because I have no fucking clue who's actually saying what to who.
A friend once said, Seed and its sequel is UC Gundam's mentally challenged cousin. It pays a lot of tribute to UC, but fails to understand half of why UC Gundam works so well down to the design of the characters themselves.
Kira is a nice tribute to Amuro up until the Flay affair, and I couldn't think of a more idiotic way to "advance" a character in the story. Whereas Amuro earns a lot of the things that makes him who is, whether good or bad ones, and learn from it. Kira simply refuses and needs the power of convenience to do what he should thus making a journey pretty much bland overall. That's not to say Seed and its sequel didn't have good characters it did, but they hardly carry the plot when the main premise is painful to watch.
Also Cosmic Era possibly had the most confusing factions in the entire franchise. Not in the neutral sense like how they make Feddies dickish most of the time even if they're the "good guys". But it's hard to understand what ZAFT, Earth Alliance, and Orb Union really wants and the entire war and conflict seems pointless. Even more pointless than the one they did for Gundam Wing because G Wing at least had compelling faction leaders.
Lowe Guele is the only likable protagonist in the entirety of the cosmic era, because he isn’t a whiny, pretentious dork.
Also the GINN is a Zaku II cosplaying as a cockatoo.
I despise Seed, but I disagree with the remastered dub being better. The performances were off and lots of unnecessary line changes that don't even improve the story. Example of this is when Kira says in response to seeing the Strike's weapon options "Here we go" in the remastered when in the original dub and sub he says "That's all there is" and "That's it" respectively. The latters do a better job of reflecting his frustration during a desperate situation, making him more human and relatable, while the former makes him into an even more generic anime character.
Yeah everyone in the original dub was better. I'm biased though since I saw that one first. But Mu La Flaga and Murrue, 'nuff said.
My beef with the re-dub is simply that no one character stands out from one another, with most of the male cast all sounding so alike to the point of being interchangeable. If I'm not paying strict attention I have no clue who is saying what most of the time.
Ultimate Coordinator just means that he is a prefect customized coordinator out of the artificial womb with no mother influence, and nothing else. He is not the strongest or the best. In the audio drama cd, he said himself, he is in school with all the second gen coordinators that are much smarter than he is, so he became very passive and he always needs Athrun to help with his homework. He is quick in software especially with when he left the coordinators school and attend the Orb school with naturals.
Comments are good for the TH-cam algorithm.
Good video. Thought the Seed premise was interesting, but… you know how they went with it.
What do you think of Gundam Age?
Honestly, I like the concept of the show, a war between genetically modified humans and naturally born humans, the impact and the ramifications of genetic engineering, coordinators see themselves superior, naturals see coordinators as unnatural, all the thing, I like it.....except the main character and where the story was focused, was lame.
The only things I like about the Seed series:
1) Weapons & Designs of the Grunt units
2) Some OSTs
3) Lacus, Murrue, Meyrin, & Lunamaria
Just these.
Agree with the characters, but Lunamaria earned my hate after being brainwashed into thinking her own little sister was a traitor.
The only things I hate about the Seed series:
1) Kira Yamato
2) Kira Yamato
3) Kira Yamato
Just these.
Ah, a fellow Lunamaria enjoyer.
I mean, I agree with most of your points - Though the attack on 2000s anime feels a little over generalised and unneeded😅
Don't give a crap what you say about seed. It one if my favorite gundam series out there and if you don't like that I like it just scroll pass my comment. I know all the crap people say about the Series, but I just don't care. I like what I like
Still don't care for this series either; even back in the day I gave up on Destiny after the first few episodes. "A Typical Episode of Gundam Seed Destiny" is a much more entertaining piece of work.
Kira's survival of the explosion was explained in the Astray Manga. Doesn't make it any better, but just laying that out there.
not really explain how he survive, It explains how he ended up in Lacus's hand. Lowe found Kira after Aegis blow up
Lady Une would drop Kira off a plane and shoot him in the head while he's falling yet he would still somehow survive 😅
@@elgusaniiiodeljuego6823heero you mean ?
Seed has a world building problem. Like you said in the video the ideas are there, but their not explored. Another crutch seed has is that Astray wound up fixing most of the holes in the series such as how Kira wound up in the colony thanks to the Junk guild or further going into more detail on George Glenn and what he wanted for the future of humanity by introducing coordinators which that also seems to be a bit problem. There's low drawback to being a coordinator when compared to naturals, but that's a long topic to cover.
Tbh, I think Deus Ex: Human Revolution did a better job exploring transhumanism than what Seed did. I would add the original Deus Ex, but I've never played it and I'm going off by the reputation it has garnered.
@@archonofplagues1329 in Deus Ex you have cyborgs, wich can do things better than humans, but you have to subject yourself to invasive surgery and give up parts of your body in order to become one. Coordinators on the other hand are better than normal humans in everything without any drawback, they're basically a nazi's wet dream. In any other fictional setting coordinators would be the villains a "master race" of super men oppressing humans. The Alliance in Seed is right in fearing them, it's not racism, it's the opposite, it's trying to prevent a superior race to enslave the rest of humanity. The name itself spells it loud and clear: "Coordinators" they're supposed to coordinate normal humans, to rule over them.
Meh. There were some interesting ideas from Astrat but also some real weird things that I am happy its not in the show. His explanation of what coordinator should be (from astray) is one. Dude shouldve really explained it better to everyone if that was what he wished instead of leaving some vague stuff about bridging Earth and space.
@@arx3516 I think you bring too much preconceived notion of "how it should be the way I want" into it. Anime fictional humans are not a rpg character build that must have advantages and drawbacks, and using completely diffetent fictional work to justify some weird notions that coordinators must be nazis and villains oppressing people is just ridiculous. If those works choose to portray certain groups in one way thats their choice, which does not also cover Gundam Seed.
In the show, its shown that had it not been for the war and the Alliance, coordinators for the most part doesnt really care that much about Earth; remember, they left Earth in the first place. Most of the crazies that do have obssesion with Earth are people like Patrick, whose obssesion is caused by Earth forces in the first place. It was the Alliance' fear, racism and paranoia that caused the shitshow in the first place. The Alliance who by the way definitely does not represent entire Earth, only the interest of the 3 nations who founded the Alliance and were forcing everyone against their will.
Hell, speaking of oppression and enslavery. It was the sponsor nations(precursor to the Alliance) who kinda oppressed the coordinators in Plant colonies in the first place. Coordinator labour were exploited for production and natural resource extraction, any unreasonable quota must be met even if Plant cant meet them or otherwise its sanction and blockage. And Plant was completely banned from making their own food, forced to get all of it from the sponsor nation, essentially putting the colonies into wage slavery with the "wage" being the food in this case.
Hell, the idea of nazi's wet dream is really a stretch. What parent wouldnt want their kid to be healthier and smarter? Are they nazis now?
Gundam Seed is a true op protagonist power fantasy like many isekai anime.
I'm curious to know what your thoughts on Gundam 00 are, considering it's the show that came directly after all of seed wrapped up.
Hey, at least it's not AGE.
Dont forget he sparing the pilots who were trying to commit genocide
Where in the description is the link to the video about the mech designs that you mentioned in this video at 21:48?
21:49
@Micah Curtis Why do you like the NYAV dub over the Ocean dub?
I can't really say I know a lot about Gundam Seed. I watched a few eps when it aired briefly in the US and couldn't really get into it. The story never really interested me (no shame if you like it) I think the thing kind of turns me more off to it, is that it seems there's SO much of Gundam Seed that it just kind of proliferates Gundam. It's probably due to their being SO many mobile suits in SEED and it having almost 2x the number of eps than any other gundam series. So just seeing SO MUCH of something I found to be not very appealing.....kind of makes it MORE unappealing? If that makes any sense.
its my favorite gundam series so to each their own
I think I may be biased. This is my first Gundam that I watched. Though thanks to getting into Super Robot Wars, I'm about to start watching a bunch of mecha. One of which is the OG gundam. So after a few weeks on the weekend binging a gundam I'll be able to look at seed without nostalgia goggles. I hope the OG gundam is that good. Since I hear a lot of praise about it.
And there it is, nice disection good sir, i love this series. But of course it has flaws....... A lot.
Is it true the lead writer on seed destiny got brain cancer?
To be fair, there's a montage in the first episode that shows a bit of his day to day life as a high school student and either he or his friends complain their robotics teacher is giving him way too much workload. - But him beeing an exceedingly brilliant high school student still does not explain all the magic trick he pulls out of the Strike later on.
Amrou : kid who becomes a soldier
Heero : a warrior who is trying to a reason to stop fighting
Kira : a winney little shit with a sipierodey complex sorry for any missed spell words
I do think you should watch Destiny because you might adopt the same position that I did
Shin should have won.
I kinda wonder what your opinion on Code Geass would be .
characters Is dumb why
they not drive and fly superman
Well it would’ve been nice if somewhere in Avengers Infinity War during 1 of the talking scenes (non action moments) where somebody confronted Thanos with his insane back ass ward logic of kill half the universe n the other will b better off about only to tear apart his idiotology with actual logic rather then just say he doesn’t know that 4 sure now of course I seriously doubt that would change his mind n he would suddenly put everything into reverse but still it would’ve been nice to have someone point out that Thanos’s plan was nowhere near a justified 1
Trust me, it is best you don't watch Destiny even if someone pays you. As you have probably heard, Destiny is worse, especially where Kira is involved. The fact Shinji Ikari of all people called him Kira Jesus Yamato tells you all you need to know.
As far as my issues with both series are concerned, one is the fact that parts of the series are the most blatant copypastas of previous Gundam series, particularly the OG series. Second is how awful the characters are. As you said, the annoyance was dialed to eleven. And then we have, of course, Kira himself, though truth be told, much of the cast in general were as fake as Kira, just with less plot armor. Finally, the art style, both the cloned characters, and the mecha designs. From the second half of SEED onward especially, they were painful to look at. Animation saved it somewhat, but it doesn't stop the fact they came off as what we referred to back then as 'franken Gundams'. Wing was a masterpiece compared to the SEEF universe.
The designs of the gundams were cool, they looked a bit too much like super robots, but they were cool.
Gundam Seed was fine it has major flaws but it was still a good show.
i call it Gundam as made by shonen jump.
“Made by shonen jump” You can say that for wing and g as well lol
the series that brought Gundam back from the brink is a failure, huh? riiiiiight.
I never called Gundam Wing a failure.
@@BigMicahC they're talking about Gundam seed. Gundam seed brought the gunpla market to new comers. A large majority of females came in when Gundam was at the brink of being irrelevant. if anything we should be thankful Gundam seed was born or we wouldn't be able to see all these other wonderful shows like Hathaway and etc come to light in the screen. Failure or not in others eyes there is no denying that seed gunpla still are the most popular models lol.
@@BigMicahC wing is bad, take the nostalgia glasses off. Seed is only hated in NA (split fanbase) its widely revered everywhere else it aired.
@@JustinVillemure just like how IBO is loved in the west but regarded as a total joke in Asia? It goes both ways. Just because a show is liked in one part of the world doesn’t make it a masterpiece when it’s violently flawed in numerous aspects
@@officialFredDurstfanclub except its not just Asia. West is a minority on Seed vs everywhere else. Seed is legit and I think ppl dislike it for failing to understand or they are hung up on certain (dare I say, superficial) details. The themes are profound and develop within the story, the character arcs are very well crafted and the emotional impact is poignant.
I'm sure that Seed Destiny is going to look good compared to what ever Netflix is going to give us. Netflix screwed up Death Note and Cowboy Bebop. Need I say more?
You know when there was an mecha anime years when i had my first Netflix account about a girl who want to kill his brother because she wanted to avenge her friends that were killed by her brother. i mention this because that anime 9even i don{t remember the tittle= is a much better mecha anime then seed!
Do you mean Cross Ange or maybe Strain: Strategic armored infantry?
@@backpug1228 I'll check the google
@@backpug1228 I checked and yes is strain.
@@leonardojuan92 😊 I will try it just because of your comment
I just wish I could have an anime with the lesbian romance and excessive nudity of Cross Ange, but with actually good writing. Imagine something like Legend Of The Galactic Heroes but it looks like Ragnaroek City. That would be my ideal anime.
Anyway, I was laughing at SEED as I neared it's end, it was so bad.
I mean.. Seed the original series (TV 1-50) - not the movies or the sequel or its trash... Honestly I didn't have 'too many' issues with. Sure I had some I have had those with almost all of them. I mean.. If seed is an 'absolute failure' we need to literally eviscerate 00 (among others in the 'modern Gundam franchise)
I’ll take thunderbolt/narrative/00/unicorn/witch over seed anyday
The only thing I know about Gundam Seed, is that awkwardly voice acted scene of Kira crying and screaming, while looking out a window into space.
That is the plot XD
Nah Seed was good but I didn't enjoy Seed Destiny much
I mean the plot could've been better but I do like it
Ah yes. The complete and utter failure of the series that saved the franchise and stopped Sunrise from going bankrupt. Complete failure.
I'll admit though that looking back it's pretty trashy but as a teen I loved it, and so did many other teenagers, so they knew their audience and played to it.
G Gundam also helped sunrise yet that series gets shit on all the time for being different while Seed gets glazed to hell and back
Disliked ;)
Still find it odd people would like this, even with me liking stuff like the Super Mario Bros. movie, unironically.
Give that movie this, it has more heart and good writing than this show seems to.
What so odd about it? People will like whatever they want.
I loved the gundam designs in seed and seed destiny but the characters... not so much.
Seed is very digestible in comparison to older series, especially for children, fuck destiny tho/
Thats why it’s popular with younger fans but hated by older ones
Soy fans defending Gundam Seed.
4 me I’m more hungry 4 Robotech which I would say is better then Gundam Seed/ Destiny
You know as a fan of freedom of speech when it comes to anime i personally feel every anime has flaw there no such thing as a perfect anime all the way from Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood (number 1 on MAL not like that means anything) to what ever the worst anime is so when i see people on youtube and any other platform talking about anime i take it with a grain of salt since no offence to anyone its just there opinion, anyways as seeing that Gundam seed is my number 1 pick for best anime i ever seen i figured it be fun to see another point of view and i got to say i had a fun time but it gets stale.
Hate to say this as a fan of the show but i already knew all this when you seen this as much as i have so it funny to me that knows and seen a ton of really bad anime to hear that this was a fail got to check out your other content sorta wondering what you enjoy, got to say that its great you know you are a broken record at points
Kisaku is the only perfect anime
seed and destiny just sucks wrinkly ass. fact.
The coordinators vs naturals theme never worked for me. I find it hard to sympathize with the coordinators.
Look at the spacenoids in universal century. The original "pioneers" were either political criminals or beggars that were forced out to the colonies. The whole "space colonization program" was just a glorified population control. Zeon is fighting for a right cause but with horrendous means. While the corrupted earth federation wanted to keep the status quo.
Meanwhile, you can't have a poor person pay for a doctor to have his child genetically modified as a coordinator. The only ones who have money and power can afford it. They choose to seclude themselves and call themselves elite over the "inferior" naturals.
I find seed better than destiny. I love it for the music and some mecha designs. If it weren't for the stock footages, I would've appreciated the fights even more than wing.
Failure good sense of humor you got lol
Good to see you back in peak form.
Cross Ange = Gundam SEED Lesbian Edition
LOL
So basically witch before witch
@@MILDMONSTER1234
Pretty much.
YAmato is slightly more correct, yaMAto is not.
It’s more like YAMAto. Because each syllable is a separate character, and can be emphasized, unlike English, each word has only one emphasis
Jesus needs to have a Gundam battle with Buddha
I got about halfway through the series before I stopped watching, I think, it was some fight in the desert, and it was Kira that killed it for me.
I want to go back and watch Gundam Wing, bit I'm not sure how well it holds up a decade since I last watched it, but i gotta finish my real Cowboy Bebop run first.
Still one of the BEST series to date ~ even with its flaws it still holds up to this day ;)
I double dare you do a review of Seed Destiny and SRW 30
On the positive side, this Jesus does not turn the other cheek but blow things up with a giant mech.
Seed has a few good elements- beeing the music, Rau la creuset and the jiggle- but yeah writing messups and Kira drag it aaaall down
I love all gundam ( except for ZZ and Reconguista, not hate but feel they little cringe )
Hey can you do a video on Gundam 00. Personally I didn’t really like it, but hey you might turn around my opinion.
YES! I'm actually working on one as we speak.
@@BigMicahC awesome! Excited for it!
How have I not commented on this one? I swear I've seen it before, and I can never help myself when it comes to dumping on Seed.
As far as Seed's more commonly mentioned problems go, I can be extremely forgiving. The repeated animation. The suit design (though largely retroactively salvaged by Seed having some of the best gunpla in the entire franchise). The fact that every character bar one (and I _will_ get to that...) can't cry in a way that doesn't sound unintentionally funny. Basically, if I can tell what you're _trying_ to convey, I'll cut you some slack on production mechanics unless the attempted execution is unavoidably hilarious, like with the crying thing, or the line about Nicol and the piano. If Seed's problems were being technically ugly or inept animation mistakes, I could let it slide. But no, Seed had to suck in the one way I cannot forgive: the writing. And when it comes to Seed's writing, though there are still many flaws to pick on unique to the writing, most of those are similarly merely stupid or annoying (read: Jesus Yamato)... except for one flaw which is downright gross and cruel: Flay.
I do _not_ slight you for that "banging [Flay] like a snare drum" bit because that is the beginning and end for the utility Seed thinks it can extract from Flay's character. (Though for the record, Kira didn't cuck one of his friends. ...He cucked _two_ of his friends after stealing Lacus from Athrun... somehow... IDK... IDGAF...) Maybe the reason it's called Gundam _Seed_ is because it's permanently stained with c[u]m. You could achieve the same effect as Flay by drawing a sw[a]stika on the forehead of a Real Doll. The problem is that if you actually take the time to analyze Flay's arc (and you'll have plenty of time given that she's the only character in the show who _has_ an arc...), what Seed shows about Flay and what it tells about her are at complete odds. She turns "racist" (in the interest of time, I'll skip my spiel about how coordinators aren't a race and how the prejudice against them around which all of Seed revolves around is actually really stupid...) at the mere _whiff_ of coordinator, but she seems to have an exception for Kira, which _already_ isn't how racism works. That is until Kira lets Flay's dad die because he was too busy jacking beam sabers with his hetero life partner to actually do a damn thing. (Though frankly Mu wasn't much help either. He was a literal newtype piloting what Seed has the _balls_ to call a mobile armor against two GINN grunts with unnamed pilots, and he _still_ gets outflown. "Hawk of Endymion" my a[ss]...) It's almost like Flay wasn't racist so much as she specifically hated Kira for that one specific event. She doesn't give a solitary damn about coordinators or naturals or anything like that. It wouldn't make sense for her to have a particular stake in the era's politics when there are new shoes at the mall to buy. (And before you call that s[e]xist, that's basically just how Seed treats Flay before Lacus shows up.) All that matters to Flay is the problem directly in her face: that she is all alone in a cruel, cold universe that killed her daddy. That's the kind of attitude that fits a flighty, skittish rich girl. She's not a Machiavellian schemer. She's not even all _that_ smart. She's alone, and she wants the one who _made_ her alone to take responsibility. Kira got her dad killed, therefore Kira has to be the one to take care of her. (Also, she might have been trying to get back at Sai for being a condescending douche, but Sai is another problem altogether. If Flay is the most abused characters, I'd call out Sai and Yzak as the most squandered.)
You see this all come to a head when Kira finally breaks up with Flay. In the original Japanese audio (fun fact: Flay shares a VA with Badgiruel in the original Japanese, hence why the original Japanese is so uniquely gut-wrenching), you get the impression that Flay assumed that Kira was playing games with her, too. Kira couldn't _possibly_ be so stupid as to not realize what was going on, Flay figured. But when she realized that, no, Kira really _was_ that dumb, it hit her that all the time Kira spent with her was because he genuinely cared about her (because of course he did; Jesus-kun can do no wrong...). It wasn't just "pity" like she figured. She wasn't alone after all. Kira was there for her the whole time, and yet she almost broke him. And after it seemed like Athrun killed Kira, Flay blamed herself. She made _herself_ alone, which is what _actually_ spurred her change of heart after being kidnapped by Rau because he needed a living envelope for later... See what I mean about Seed trying to use Flay for the _dumbest_ stuff? Rau literally could've accomplished what he kidnapped Flay for by jettisoning a cardboard box out the airlock. Worst. Char clone. Ever!
Flay spends the whole series a cosmic (era) chew toy because the writing doesn't know or care what to do with her. The story uses her and abuses her without any real thought as to how this otherwise super-privileged girly brat would act, treating her like just another crazy evil genocidal lunatic to add to the pile. (Considering Flay's peers in said pile, let's just _pretend_ that's fair...) More specifically, she's Kira's morality currency. She puts out whenever the writing needs Kira to be able to kill in a way that he can be morally absolved of later, which is super-gross for many reasons, most of which should be obvious given Flay's age, her mental health at the time, and the fact that she's hung out there by the writers for teenage boys to fap to anyway. Like I've got no problem with fanservice, but _wow._ Time and place, Seed. But what really sets Flay apart is that she's also granted just enough self-awareness to recognize and feel bad about her actions, but not so much agency that she can find any real redemption for what she does.
About Flay: there's a scene in ep. 38 of the HD remaster, where she is lying in the bunker naked. It served no purpose to the plot, rather than "FANSERVICE". If you do know the meaning, then tell me. Though from my perspective; it shows that Fukuda-san, the guy behind SEED and Cross Ange, is sexually frustrated, with his hormones going out of control.
@@therussianwanderer4851 I'm not familiar with the exact scene you're referring to off the top of my head. I have a guess though based on the episode count, as that seemed to be in the post-Freedom run of episodes, meaning it was probably when Flay was Rau's prisoner. I recall there was one scene that must've been around that time frame where Flay is shown sleeping / trying to sleep naked. If that's what you're referring to, I think there _is_ a point to it, but I'll preface my interpretation by noting that it still makes no sense in the larger context.
By this point in the series, Flay has been shown wearing a ZAFT uniform while captured. Odds are this was just for hygiene as it's not as if Rau or his dwindling crew had spare EFSF uniforms handy. (Where her uniform _went_ is one of SEED's least egregious plot holes.) I don't understand in the larger context of SEED why Rau would be all that concerned with treating Flay amicably when, if he's as smart as the writers would seem to suggest, he _must've_ known by then that he was going to kill Flay anyway specifically to mess with Kira's head. (*shrug*) Anyway, as far as Flay should know at this point, Kira is dead, and he died specifically in a fight with ZAFT. Making matters worse, Kira had promised to talk things over with Flay right before the deployment to fight Athrun that would "kill" him. (And by all rights, it should have. Not even SEED Astray comes close to explaining away Kira surviving a bomb that melted his cockpit.) In other words, Kira told Flay exactly enough to give her a tiny speck of hope that whatever relationship the two had could be salvaged, only to snuff that hope right out. So at this point, Flay must assume that she wears the uniform of her lover's killer. I think the idea behind Flay sleeping naked in that scene is that she couldn't bear to sleep in a ZAFT uniform and so opted for the birthday suit instead, which makes a certain amount of fvcked-up sense. It's a visual metaphor for being exposed to the cold, hostile universe of the Cosmic Era, with no one left in it to protect her.
What _doesn't_ make sense is what Flay was getting out of her captivity, and why it was being written that way to begin with. Regardless of which way the writers chose to put Flay down (I heard there was an idea to kill her off with a surgically-implanted bomb that the writers scrapped at some point), Flay was definitely going to die. And yet there's this asinine notion among SEED fans that the point of Flay's captivity was to learn empathy for coordinators. Really? To what end? If anything, she should've interpreted her captivity under ZAFT as adding insult to injury, like Rau was taking victory laps over Kira's grave, thus compelling her to hate coordinators more than ever before... but she doesn't. For whatever idiotic reason, Rau gives Flay _exceptional_ leeway, letting her hang around his private quarters instead of locking her in a brig. His private quarters where the pills that Rau needs to not suffer from his clone degeneracy are literally sitting in a desk unsecured after demonstrating what they did and why he needed them. Flay could have potentially _killed_ Rau by simply hiding those pills, if not flushing them out an airlock or something, or at least made him suffer. As we've seen with Kira, Flay is (apparently) clever enough to come up with ways to make the people she hates suffer. But Flay does nothing to Rau despite numerous golden opportunities and all of the motive. I'm not sure whose character suffered more here: Rau or Flay.
This is all apparently because, at least in the Japanese audio, Rau le Creuset shares a voice actor with George Allster. No, really. That is _unimaginably_ contrived on so many levels. There is _no way in hell_ Rau could've known that his voice would have that exact effect on Flay, quasi-newtype BS or not. He didn't even know who Flay _was_ when he kidnapped her. And on Flay's end, you'd think she'd stop seeing her dad in a coordinator at about the point where Rau punched her in the stomach and kidnapped her. As a reminder, Flay was _terrified_ of civilian-ass Lacus Clyne, who did absolutely jack all in terms of demonstrating threatening tendencies (either because Lacus is just _that_ conniving, which would incidentally make Flay's paranoia 100% justified retroactively, or Lacus was completely on the level and her brain really _does_ have all the processing power of a Dorito), and all that before Flay's dad even got killed. But then after a conga line of trauma and stress that would justify her fears and hatred unlike never before, another coordinator presents an _absurdly_ blatant threat to her well-being, and Flay does nothing? SEED can't have it both ways.
Basically, Flay's opinions on ZAFT and coordinators at large make absolutely zero sense to the point where she seems to flip flop at random. Her stance is basically exactly what it needs to be at any given time to ensure that she gets killed in the _exact_ way that would piss Kira off enough to kill Rau. Everything that Flay is and was, every change she ever suffered, every emotional twist and turn she takes across the entire series, was all intended to facilitate a one-time license to kill that Kira would use to dispose of the bad guy. And to think a series like SEED which treats its most brutally war-traumatized character like a plot coupon has the pendulous balls to bear the name of Gundam...
@@draketheduelist Though in the original broadcast version, she was seen sleeping in her undershirt.
@@therussianwanderer4851 Same principle. I imagine the shirt might've been added to clear the censors.
Besides, animation errors have caused _way worse_ plotholes than this. Mu's helmet floating through space. The Strike's stance when Kira killed Nicol got edited to make it seem _more_ deliberate. Allegedly Kira's barbecued cockpit was added to the HD remaster despite contradicting other sources. (Supposedly a blast panel shielded Kira at the last second... but if so, how did Kira get knocked unconscious?) It all makes sparsely little sense, and SEED isn't worth defending enough to attempt a plot autopsy anyway.
Man I remember how much my friend who first introduced me to gundam hype me up about the show, and this is after i watched 00. I saw a DVD set of Seed and Destiny (b4 the remaster mind) on a sale, so I bought it. I watched Seed to its full ONCE, and I hated it so much I just didnt bother to open destiny dvd box.
It's one thing about having a gary stu mc, its just how insufferable Kira is as the show progresses. Athrun at least have BALLS to be a soldier somewhat. Yzak is a good leader and a bro to Dearka (who is a bro too) when he is not made to be a joke when kira shows up in THE STRIKE!!! I can at least see Rau as a legit threat.
Astray stories are great on the bright side though.
I like Seed and Seed Destiny I know there is a lot to dislike about it but there are also bright spots like the action and the Gundam designs are cool. Kira stinks but sometimes that is just how anime works.
Shit excuse. Enjoy better stories.
I hear goat in the background. You are forever my friend.
I'm only here because I've heard that Gundam seed is the cause why Ultraman Nexus flipped years ago
Wait, really? I've never heard that before. I know they said the time slot it was in kinda killed it (mainly cause of the audience that would be up around that time) but never heard seed played a part in that
Next, "IBO was terrible and so was 00." Might as well say all the shows making Sunrise and Bandai gobs of money are bad :D
"Oh they make money because dipshits have no taste"
I mean some of them are tbh lol
i Think Seed have role to revive the Gundam Series in early 2000 since Gundam wing and endless waltz. i know if you see from the story and plot point of view Seed is under even the victory gundam, which i think one of the worse story in gundam series (after G gundam of course). but Seed have it own role, without Seed i think there won't be any gundam series after the year 2000 and late 2000 even until now. you maybe should review G Gundam as the one who bring gundam series to the bottom after big success at Zeta and CCA. G gundam is like Seed, fail in every thing even bring the gundam series which as real robot to super robot (shining fingeeerrr...). Seed only downfall is the plot armor its made to the veteran of yachin du, and the ending that seem too pushy to make the series not more then any 36 or less episode.
G Gundam is amazing and far better then Seed and wing. Domon especially is a better protag then Kira and Heero with more depth to him then most realize. It’s funny cause I’m pretty sure Micah made a video praising G 😂
I enjoyed Gundam Seed
SEED AND DESTINY SOLID ! ORIGINAL ENGLISH!
Gundam seed is the worst gundam series of all time next to g-gundam and victory gundam. Gundam seed is a failure in the world.
G Gundam is the best one. People just lack testosterone
Nah G Gundam is peak. Just cause it’s different doesn’t make it bad
Without gundam seed... i dont know what will happen to the gundam series...
Gundam seed revolutionize the series... i dont know what you are taking about???
Revolutionized it by doing nothing new and being worse than its predecessors?
I suppose the "revolution" shouldn't have been televised.
Revived? Yes. Revolutionized? Not quite.
Agreed it mostly brought gundam back after the change in leadership but it just didn't full impress it's stronger points
As for the characters, never go full emo
But still better than build series it not about kids playing with toys or talking animals
Nah man the kids are more likable
I understand that SEED has it's problems, whether it be some bad dialogue, or recycled animation. But honestly, I don't see why there's overall such a negative view of it. Maybe it's rose-tinted nostalgia glasses? It's not the best Gundam series ever, I'll admit, but damn I just don't think it's as bad as a lot of people say.
The saltiness over the fact that your first gundam series was wing.
I just finished watching Seed for the first time about an hour before stumbling across this video, and while i see where it's coming from, some of these issues i noticed while watch, others were obvious in retrospect, i still found it to be fine, average, but fine, even if Rau le Creuset was an insult to my intelligence. But nothing, and i mean nothing, will convince me that Seed is worse than Turn A or Victory, or hell, the original series. It doesn't matter how good your story is if my eyes and ears are bleeding from the sheer repungnace of it's visuals, sound design and voice acting.
Destiny is way worse lol
I just finish seed and do you guys think I should seed destiny casue I think after finish it its pretty average not bad for me
Gundam SEED made me hate anime, I spent a decade missing out on such great anime cause seeing anime reminded me of Gundam SEED.
Then i saw Gundam 79, the depth, the weight, just the design of the show was amazing. Made me realize how bad Gundam 79 was