Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny

...there is finally an "alternate universe" worthy of the Gundam name - that was founded in "Mobile Suit Gundam Seed", and now carries on in "Gundam Seed: Destiny".

Both Seed and Seed: Destiny take place in the "Cosmic Era", as opposed to the original series' "Universal Century". Still, despite the imposition of *this* universe's legal and creative realities, the CE draws much of its appeal from a similar vein as the UC.

To my mind, the Seed series has brought back much of what made Gundam a legendary franchise in the first place: technical realism (within its own framework, of course - I unfortunately still cannot buy my own Quebeley or Freedom); fun, interesting characters and attention to their development; and the underlying obscenity of war. (but mostly I just like the floating pink robot with funny semi-random phrases)

Bind this up in a glossy, model selling package, complete with newfangled animation techniques (a little cg, some cool motion effects and camera work), bitchin' JPop goodness and a commanding budget, and Seed and Destiny have brought Gundam BACK.

At the time of this writing, just over half of Destiny has aired:

Destiny picks up a few years after Seed. It wastes no time in establishing a new protagonist, but also re-acquaints us with old friends.

There are those who have complained that Gundam Seed moved too slowly. (please, kids, take your Ritalin. It's called a 'story'.) Destiny has a quicker pace; the action to episode ratio seems to have increased.

While the underlying story may seem painfully familiar at first, it does gain intriguing (and addicting) twists along the way, and the new faces keep you watching.

While it remains to be seen if this sophomore series will truly live up to Seed or its Universal Century predecessors, it's off to a damned fine start - and I'm glad to know that there are still producers and directors who care enough to *try*.

This series revives many the characteristically flashy visual and musical elements that gave the first SEED its barrages of pink laser fire and pervasive J-Pop background. Of course these worked much better with a good plot and characters to back them up. Despite its promising start, this series spirals out of control with the reappearance of Kira Yamato from the first SEED. Little by little, the intended protagonist Shinn falls to the way side until the hopelessly perfect Yamato takes his place. The notion of 'real robots' once so central to earlier incarnations of Gundam effectively fades away with the introduction of inexplicably godlike mecha for most of the major characters, reaching the apotheosis of absurdity with the one Kira receives.

Probably my best anime of all time. Well I kinda do like Gundam seed better than Destiny, but this was pretty much my Star Strek. I really like this era although most hardcore Gundam fans out there probably hate it since most Gundam shows are from different eras. If you're trying to get into Gundam/Mobile suits anime, this is a good start. Start with Gundam Seed though. Loved the story line, the twist and turn between the good guys and bad guys. There are some parts that irritates me a bit and those are the repetitive scenes, especially the fight scenes. Love the models, the characters, the songs, and I sometimes wonder that if any Gundam series out there that could happen in real life, I think that this is probably the closest.

When I saw the show, it was THE most amazing Gundam series I have seen in years, even more so than Gundam SEED. The new machines in SEED Destiny is more well designed than the others; even some that weren't seen in SEED (I'm talking about SEED-MSV) made it into SEED Destiny. Of course, even though Freedom is destroyed, a new Freedom stands up to take its place; I'm talking about the ZGMF-X20A Strike Freedom. There's even a new Justice Gundam on the block; ZGMF-X19A Infinite Justice. But, one thing has now caught my eye; a new mobile suit called the Akatsuki; it looks like Zeta Gundam's Hyaku Shiki in both appearance and color. Anyways, besides the machines are the characters; Shinn Asuka, orphan boy, ZAFTs top class, hates Kira, pilots powerful machines, etc. Then again, some old characters come back; Kira, Athrun, Cagalli, Lacus, Andrew Waltfeld, Murrue, etc. This show completely is a revolution in the Gundam series. Let there be GUNDAMS!!!!!

Gundam SEED Destiny, the direct sequel to Gundam SEED, got off to a great start. We were thrown into battle that raged on and off for 4 to 5 episodes non-stop, and our hopes were high. There were new characters that had stories to be told, and a new plot to be delivered. But, this all stopped before the series even hit the 20th episode. Instead of the new characters being in the spotlight, Lacus and the crew came in and took it back. Athrun was left in the cold, and it became the Jesus Yamato show. Instead of seeing intense battles, we get to see Freedom strike the same pose over and over again as hundreds of grunt units explode.

Gundam SEED retained elements from the older, more war oriented Gundam series, which made it easily watchable and quite entertaining if you could get by the re-use of the same frames. But SEED Destiny became a "super robot" show in which the main characters suits could easily take out an entire fleet without getting a scratch. The new suits, while flashy, are just blatant copies of UC suits. Pumping up a Zaku and giving it a huge backpack doesn't mean you've created a new suit.

Destiny had the potential to be as good as SEED, but it ended up destroying itself by becoming a super robot show filled with Gundams.

I give it 3 out of 10 stars, because it did have a good start.