Cosmic Era 71. A war is under way between genetically enhanced Coordinators and unmodified Naturals. The Natural-dominated Earth Alliance, struggling to catch up with the Coordinators' superior technology, has secretly developed its own Gundam mobile suits at a neutral space colony. Through a twist of fate, a young Coordinator named Kira Yamato becomes the pilot of the Alliance's prototype Strike Gundam, and finds himself forced to fight his own people in order to protect his friends.
Story & Characters
I know what you think... blah, yet another Gundam SEED review, don't these people have something better to do?
However, after having seen the series and having read some of the reviews and opinions here, I really feel like stating
my point of view as well... so read if you like and comment if you feel like it. On with the review! :)
In my view, the story is the main weak point of the series. I haven't seen any of the other Gundam series (except
for Gundam SEED Destiny), but even so I couldn't help but notice the acute lack of originality. Basically,
it's just 'another' war story, with the hero who doesn't want to fight, but has to do so in order to
protect those he care for, the other hero who knows what he fights for, but after encountering his friend on the
battlefield begins to question the reasons he fights for, the innocent people that suffer because of the war and so on.
Basically everything in the story left me with a strong 'been there, seen that' impression'.
Rating: 5
Art
There's no arguing that the art is one of the strong points of Gundam SEED. The characters are pleasant enough,
even though one might think they look a bit *too* similar at times and the only way to distinguish between them is the
unusual hair & eye color. Also, throughout the series their looks and their expressions fit well with their
personality and their feelings at a given time. However, the 'extra cast' - random Earth Alliance or ZAFT
military, or, in other words, the people who show up in order to be killed to heighten the dramatic effect of the series
- are strikingly similar... but since they usually die after five to ten seconds from being seen in the first place, I
guess it doesn't matter much. The ships and the gundams are drawn with a remarcable attention to the details and I
don't think I'm mistaken when I say that they're the best-looking... erm... things from the entire
series.
One disturbing thing though is the large amount of footage that's being 'recycled', so to speak. There
are many sequences that are being re-played, from the launching sequences to ships or units being blown up during
battle. That can be quite annoying at times and gives a nasty impression of deja-vu.
Rating: 9
Sound
I liked the opening and ending themes, even though the opening themes were quite similar to each other. The ending
themes, on the other hand, were quite remarcable, especially the last one. The voice acting was good (I'm talking
about the Japanese voices here - I've only gotten to see the first five episodes of the dubbed version and I was
sadly disappointed, especially by the part sung by Lacus) and even remarkable for some characters like Cagalli and Natal
Badgeroule (<--I don't know if I spelled that right... I never knew how to spell that name :( ). The only voice
that didn't quite fit was Raw le Klueze's voice, which seemed like a total ripoff of the voices of villiains
from other series.
Rating: 8
Presentation
There are a few points that lower the quality of this series. First, certain scenes seem fake and artificial, and the
way certain characters just 'happen' to be at the right place and at the right time for the right thing to
happen becomes quite irritating at one point. Also, I've never been able to understand how did soldiers belonging
to different factions manage to communicate through radio. I mean, it would seem logical for them to use separate
channels, right? That didn't make sense. Some characters were characterized in detail, while others were not
characterized at all, like the three pilots of the Earth Alliance's new units. I truly think there was more to them
than those "Annihilate! Obliterate! Kill!" sort of lines. Same goes for Orb's pilots (the three girls).
Finally, there were certain points that weren't explained properly in the end, which left the impression that the
story was patched up together and the writers didn't mind that some things didn't fit in.
All in all, this series is enjoyable enough, but I've seen better ones. You should watch it if you have the chance
though ;)
Rating: 7
Final Verdict
6.8333 (above average)
Reviewed by Odeena, Feb 24, 2006
