The Mobile Suit Gundam Seed Destiny review

This review is on my main website (check it out in my signature section).

Important: Forgive my english please. As a french guy it's not always very easy for me.

If you're wondering why a review on Destiny before Seed, I will answer. Seed is good and fun. It's not perfect, but it's a good Gundam show. Now, let's jump to the main topic please...Destiny. I'm warning you, I'm spoiling a lot of things, so if you hate that, just skip my review. Oh and also, this review's gonna be much longer than my other review.

Story: Oh boy...Okay let's do this. When I started Destiny, I was hoping that the first half of the show will be more paced that Seed, because there was a lot of time wasted in the first half of Seed. Destiny started with an easy cliché: hijacking of three evil-looking Gundam except the heroic white-blue-red Gundam. But even with that, it was fast paced and very fun. Then the drop of Junius Seven came and what a great idea this team production had. Yeah it's the same old big nasty thing that fashion spacenoids, oops sorry, coordinators want to throw on the evil Earth Federation, oops sorry again, I mean Earth Alliance. But again, even with that, it was making sense and it was thrilling. Then a little bit of the problems started. Those guys who are dropping Junius Seven are not crazy racists, they are more like canon fodder for Shinn and Athrun that get killed in 5-10 minutes. Then, Junius Seven is torn apart, but they are still huge pieces that hit the Earth and cause massive damage to a lot of cities (Québec is one of them. Why Québec, that's not very far from my own house). The Minerva lands on Earth and they get to ORB since it's a neutral country. ORB ally themselves with the Alliance, blah blah blah, they are trying to sink the Minerva, blah blah blah, they can't since Shinn has the Seed Factor and he kicked their asses in a spam of 10 minutes. Quess what? The show is actually very good. From episodes 01 to 12 it's entertaining and I was thinking: If it continues that way, it's gonna be way better that Seed. Boy I was wrong. Kira comes back... in a boring episode of Jesus Yamato with God-modish-Gundam that destroyed a lot of ZAFT junk. This is where everything is drowning. The focus on the main cast (Minerva) is shift to the old cast (Archangel). Some peoples said it's like Zeta when Amuro came back when the A.E.U.G is on Earth. But here's the difference. Amuro got some screentime, but Kamille was still the main character. In Shinn's and Kira's case, it's jumping to one way to the other. When Kira is nowhere fighting, Shinn is the good guy, but as soon as Kira is fighting, Shinn becomes the bad guy. Then a lot of stuff happens, blah blah blah, Kira kills love interest #1 of Shinn, Shinn gets angry, blah blah blah, Shinn obliterates the Freedom and is predictible-tactics-pilot Kira. He obviously survived. Shinn gets a new Gundam and tries to kill Athrun and miss him with an anti-ship sword to a grunt suit. Kira gets a even more God-modish-Gundam: Strike Freedom. Shinn is angry and whinny, blah blah blah, flashback episodes in the last straight of the show. Seed's last battle *copy* and *paste* on the last battle of Destiny: METEOR smashing fun. Shinn got his ass kicked by Athrun like he was nothing and Kira got a perfect on Rey's Legend Gundam. Durandal dies and peace is restore thanks to Kira and the crew of the ship-of-nonsense. Wonderful isn't it. You know what is the worst in all of that, Cosmic Era is one of the few side universe of the Gundam serie that have a huge potential in terms of story and conflicts. Because when you look on paper the story of for example G Gundam and Gundam 00, Seed had more potential. G Gundam: a tournament of Gundam fights. Gundam 00: a group call Celestial Being are making armed intervention to stop all the war in the world. What's the problem with the Seed universe then? Flashbacks everywhere, weird way to develop characters, weird idealogies and clip show episodes. That's the reason why the story of Destiny sucks a lot. Hold on, I have just finish the story part.

Art: If there's one thing that I liked about this show it's the art. Yes, yet again, it's Hisashi Hirai's character design. I know a lot of people had a tough run with him, but I liked his way of doing character and c'mon at least they are very well animated. I know some people had big problems with the Gundam design in this show, but let me say that I like most of them. I will always prefer the Impulse to the Strike. The Saviour was awesome, the three Gundams that got hijacking were cool too. The Freedom is beautiful even if I hate his pilot and the Destiny Gundam is probably next to 00-Raiser my favorite Gundam of all time (good god his wings are f****** great). On the lame note: Strike Rouge is still around (ugly pink painted Gundam), Legend is the Providence of this show and there's nothing original about him. Akatsuki is a Hyaku Shiki with Providence weapons and is kinda lame too. Strike Freedom is a stupid upgrade, the Infinite Justice is...the Justice with few new weapons and the Destoy Gundam(s) are just failed PSYCO Gundam. As for the grunts, I didn't mind the homage to Zeon for ZAFT, but they looked less advanced that their previous design. The CGUE and the GuAIZ are all looking more advanced that the Zaku and the DOM. The Gouf were cool, but again they look less advanced. The Alliance has again their ugly GM and the Windams were just piece of crap. ORB and their mass-produced Zeta, the Murasume, were also cool looking, but they explode like they were nothing.

Sound: The soundtrack of Destiny is good, but it's not the best compared to Kenji Kawai almost perfect score on Gundam 00. The openings of Destiny are high budget music, low budget animation. For the most part, the first three openings are good in their own (the second is the best althought). When you get to the last opening, you have two possibles reactions: you cry in agony or you just laugh with a disgusting face. The endings are great too except the third one.

Characters: Are you ready for it?! Let's start with something, with two words: complete downfall. There's an essential rule in anime: the characters you see in the first-two episodes are the main characters. Let's analyze characters by characters.

Shinn: The greatest idea of this entire show. A trained pilot (not an accidental one). A Gundam lead that pissed you off! Finally something interesting, not one of those whinny-emo kids that are indecisive and don't want to pilot Gundams anymore *cough*Amuro*cough* *cough*Kira*cough* *cough*Kamille*cough*. The problem is that is developpement went nowhere and the show focused on Kira who doesn't change at all. A good opportunity waste by the director and the writer to show a different take on a lead character.

Kira: Oh boy... what a pain in the ass that Kira. He wasn't my favorite protagonist in Seed but he changed and he realize the errors he had done during the run of the show and I liked is developpement. But, I just can't stand him in Destiny. He's the perfect guy who knows everything. Why war is war, why that is way is the better way, blah blah blah, nonsense, nonsense, nonsense. He's Lacus Perfect-Iceman-Bodyguard and they are supposed to be lovers. I'm sorry, they aren't. I always thought that his relationship with Flay was better even know that she was psyco and was using him. The worst part is how he became lazzy with the Strike Freedom. Kira has skills, but he just used the beam spammer button of his mobile suit, which is boring giving the fact it's all stock-footage animations. An other thing that annoys me is the fact that after the war, he's the same guy at the end of Seed. He never changes, so what's the point of having him as the main character after episode 12. Fail idea there.

Durandal: A great leader with the charisma of Char Aznable (Suuichi Ikeda always awesome in everything he does). I know he was gonna be the big boss at the end, but it just seemed way to forced. It's like, oops, now that Djibril is gone, guess we will give him everything. Here... take Requiem and NEO GENESIS and you can start your Destiny plan (wich is the most stupid plan ever). A great character waste again.

Athrun: That troubles my mind also. He obviously wanted to come back to ZAFT after what Durandal told him about what he should do. When he joined the Minerva, Shinn is angry against him for being promoted as a FAITH member given the fact he had just returned from ORB after two years. But they eventually sort go along together and that was great, since it was like a mentor-apprentice friendship. But when Kira appeared, Shinn is angry against Athrun yet again and for no reason at all. Then, after Kira talked to him, Athrun started to questionning the path he chosed. Quess what? Around episode 35, he wants to escape ZAFT for going back to Kira and his amazing friends. Basically, Athrun, in that show, was a punk.

Lacus: I can call her perfect-virgin-Lacus, but maybe I'm to harsh with her. She's not that annoying compared to his "lover" Kira. Nothing really that needs to be mentionned, except one thing. If the director wanted Kira to have the focus, why not killing her. Even if I doubt they're in love, Kira obviously care for her. If she had died, that will have give Kira good reason to fight and discover who wanted to kill her.

Lunamaria: An other great character that doesn't get a lot of screentime. She's a cool tomboy and a kind person. She's not the best pilot, far from it, but she deserved more that what they give her.

Cagalli: Ouf... she was a little bit annoying in Seed, but she wasn't someone who just talked, she was willing to take her courage and fight for what she believed. In Destiny she became a weak-whinny-cry-baby. At the end she redeemed herself a little bit by giving that Yunna-bitch a little lesson of honor, but after she gived the Akatsuki to Neo and she broke with Athrun, which is really weird, since they were the last good couple of this show and they were no reason at all for them to broke. Oh yeah... Athrun needed to go with Meyrin, WTF seriously.

Djibril: Just a cheap racist-vilain and way to one dimensional.
Heine: He was doomed but c'mon give this poor character a chance to shine a little bit. I don't mind him dying, but more like at the end.
The three Extendeds: less effective that the one from Seed, they are just there for filling hole. Stellar and Shinn relationship was kinda bizzare to. One encounter and they are depply in love. I don't buy that. One thing that would have work: Stellar changes side with the help of Shinn and since Durandal is a master in genetic, he could have saved her.
The entire Archangel crew: Just subpar.

Enjoyment: It's though to enjoy something like that. They are just so many things that went wrong in this show. The battle were boring (stock-footage of Seed and new scenes used in the beginning to the very end), anything that wasn't a Gundam was a piece of crap and exploded instantly, time wasted on flashback and clip show. I think that we saw Cagalli's father more in Destiny as a flashback that alive in Seed and how many time that we have to see Nicol getting baseball bat to oblivion even know it has nothing to do with the actual story.

Overall: To those I offend and to those that think I was to forgiven, here's my final comment that will please everyone: I cannot say enough good things about this show. I just hope that this team will never work on a Gundam project again, because they create a dark spot on an near perfect franchise (okay G-Saviour is the worst). If you want more of the Seed universe, there's various manga like Gundam Seed Astray. I cannot comment on them since I didn't read them, but I heard they were pretty good. There's also this little ONA of three episodes call Gundam Seed C.E. 73 Stargazer. It's very good stuff for a 45 minutes show.
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Rating: 5/10

Read the whole review, and I gotta say GOOD JOB! Nothing really bothered me when it comes to grammar issues and all that stuff (I'll leave it to the next person to say something about this) but a great straight forward review nonetheless.

Alright time to give my insight. Just leaving this out there SEED Destiny is MY FIRST Gundam show and more so the gateway drug that brought me into mecha. The problems stated above are clearly the fine examples why SEED Destiny is the bottom of the bottom in the heap (In my terms next to Stardust Memories). Again taking a page from Gundamn! these problems with Destiny is but a huuuuuge problems with the same used stock animation which when thinking about it was my hugest gripe on the whole show. Durrandal's character fell apart in being the wise top guy of ZAFT, and falling to this corrupt asshole to bring forth the DESTINY plan. Thinking back and will watch again just to see the mistakes in the clear, I think that though not perfect it is still my first Gundam series, not that I'm defending it, but I find some sort of enjoyment out of it. If an anime is called a trainwreck DESTINY is one.

You know what? Destiny is also my first one. When I mean Destiny, I really mean Destiny. Not Seed, Destiny. So yeah... it's kinda retarded what I did, but hey, I was 14 and I didn't know a single thing about Gundam at that time. But unlike you, it's the worst Gundam show that I've watch (noticed show, cauz, G-Saviour is the worst one XD). At first, I kinda like it, but just a little. I found the ending very bad, but I kinda enjoyed the show in its entirely. Then I watched Seed and Destiny started to fall in my heart. And the "coup de grace", I watched a lot of the old one and Gundam 00. Destiny became at this moment, the worst Gundam show. I didn't watch 0083, but I heard it was kinda "meh" and you just confirmed it. So that's the backstory behind Destiny for me.
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TheSuspiciousRedLamp wrote:You know what? Destiny is also my first one. When I mean Destiny, I really mean Destiny. Not Seed, Destiny. So yeah... it's kinda retarded what I did, but hey, I was 14 and I didn't know a single thing about Gundam at that time. But unlike you, it's the worst Gundam show that I've watch (noticed show, cauz, G-Saviour is the worst one XD). At first, I kinda like it, but just a little. I found the ending very bad, but I kinda enjoyed the show in its entirely. Then I watched Seed and Destiny started to fall in my heart. And the "coup de grace", I watched a lot of the old one and Gundam 00. Destiny became at this moment, the worst Gundam show. I didn't watch 0083, but I heard it was kinda "meh" and you just confirmed it. So that's the backstory behind Destiny for me.
XD

LOL! That is awesome man! I guess it's a small world at the other end. I was around 13-14 when Destiny hit in japan, I simply took it as this, DESTINY really did well in mecha designs (IMO) to really draw me in as a newcomer to the series. I think SEED is by far still the best introductory to a Gundam series for your casual anime watcher but I started with DESTINY and I somewhat enjoyed my first run (sorry if I repeated myself there). Yes 0083 is by far the worst UC show (IMO) just because 90% of the characters were unlikeable. But onto DESTINY ended didn't want the whole "SEED" franchise to end until... 00 came out and my GOD did that blew my mind. I was following this up watched it midnight at my cousins place and it was a blast. 00 is still my favorite Gundam of all time!

Yeah me too!! 00 is freaking amazing and just so well paced. I'll say that my second favorite Gundam show is Zeta. Kill 'em all Tomino started with that one XD.

TheSuspiciousRedLamp wrote:Yeah me too!! 00 is freaking amazing and just so well paced. I'll say that my second favorite Gundam show is Zeta. Kill 'em all Tomino started with that one XD.

Didn't Kill em' all Tomino started with IDEON?! The anime that Evangelion was inspired from?

DAMN RIGHT SON!!!
I forgot... doesn't matter... look at zeta and then VICTORY. Those are the precurssor to the "impossible to have a bad sequel" option of Tomino. And then Evangelion just cheaply copied it. I want to watch Ideon, but it's hard to find.
XD