rating: 5.5/10
Every generation has had a definitive Gundam franchise: obviously we start with 0079 in... well, 1979 and through the early 80s. Gundam Wing dominated the 90s market, making a breakthrough to the West. And then we hit the 00s. Digital animation began to slowly overtake traditional handdrawn cel animation, and Sunrise was making the technological shift. However... they didn't do a very good job with it. Gundam SEED first aired in 2002, followed by SEED Destiny in 2004. Back then, seasons and sequels didn't take 3+ years to come out, for better or for worse. In SEED's case, it was all for worse from the get-go. Despite being Sunrise and Bandai's money maker throughout much of the 2000s and into the 2010s via the HD remasters, you can tell that's what it began to boil down to. The SEED franchise is rife with animation errors, poor storytelling, wasted character potential, and productions disasters. And you'll certainly feel it.
Story:7/10
Gundam SEED once again starts its own timeline in the Gundam Universe, the Cosmic Era (C.E.). Humans are once again divided between Earth and Space, but this time with some extra predjudice. Most of the people living in space are "Coordinators", that is people who have been genetically modified; think designer babies and CRISPR to an extreme. The "Naturals" fear the Coordinators and, in order to escape persecution, they flee to space and live in the Plants. Off the bat, you do get some pretty interesting commentary and an obvious race allegory. Too bad it barely ever goes anywhere. It reaches a point after Blue Cosmos is introduced where it all just falls flat and holds no real stake in the story once you learn that the Naturals were trying to produce their own Coordinators. I guess you can talk about how "Oh, well, it was all fear mongering by the Earth Alliance to take away attention from their own unethical experiments" which like, yeah, I guess. But again, nobody seems to GAF about the Biological CPUs. The contined arc of them in Destiny is also just whatever. Same for the clone characters, which I'll discuss in the next section. Every interesting plot point in SEED is almost always ruined because of the lack of direction for the franchise. And that's not just me saying that. There's been discussion for now decades that the production of SEED is both rushed and takes it's sweet, sweet time. In fact, it's why Cagalli's seiyuu did not return for Freedom, among rumoured personal beef between Shindo and Morosawa. Don't even ask me to discuss the plot of Freedom. Talk about a triology that did not need to exist, but the open ending of Destiny required it (sort of), even though SEED never needed a sequel. SEED also tries to make itself the next gen 0079/Zeta. And they do a poor job at it that just comes off as corny, a knockoff, lazy, or all of the above. It's also a mecha that focuses too much on the characters. It really feels like a bad soap opera at times and a show that Shinzo Abe probably had his hands in creating.
Characters: 4/10
What the fuck ever. I've said this on my story hundreds of times that I don't like any SEED characters beyond Athrun and Cagalli. Every episode I watched I think I posteed about how much I hated Kira, all the way through to Freedom. Yall I Do Not Like Him. In SEED, he is whiny, an asshole, and has a superiority complex all at the same time. In Destiny, he is non-committal and all like "cmon guys why are we fighting :( i know i got to retire and live with my hot girlfriend but woe is me". And in Freedom he is getting a taste of his own medicine and getting cucked and throwing his arms up in the air and whining that Lacus doesn't love him anymore. Genuinely the worst protagonist ever.
Athrun should have been the main protagonist through the whole series. His character motivations are actually interesting, he has recurring genuine troubles he must face and overcome in SEED and Destiny, he has an interesting relationship with both Lacus and Cagalli. Ahtrun gets the character development nobody else got. His struggle with his loyalties and indoctrination into ZAFT lead him to make difficult decisions and how exactly he should define his life. Destiny, to me, is a story about military/government indoctrination, and even grooming, more than anything else. Which is a very interesting storyline to me.
The female cast largely sucks. Sorry, I said it. Much like any 2000s anime production, we got misogyny galore. Sure, we have Murrue and Natarle, two high-ranking female military figures, but the two are pitted against each other often for reasons that are not entirely clear. Flay is... Flay, Miriallia only becomes an engaging character after the death of a man and then becomes a vessel for another man's development (her independence in Destiny is much appreciated), Lacus is interesting in SEED but becomes a do-nothing character for 90% of Destiny and is nearly pure fanservice in Freedom, and Cagalli's character is gradually degraded over the course of Destiny. Meer is one of the few female characters that strikes a very, very thin balance between pure fanservice and genuine character development. She is heavily entwined in the theme of indoctrination and grooming, but there are plenty of bare breast and up-close boobs and butt that make me side eye the staff. The rest of the tertiary female cast either have no substantial screentime to contribute to any development or attachment, or are purely for the development of the male cast. Sorry Lunamaria.
Pacing: 5/10
It's got too many recaps for the amount of real story there is. There is a lot of reused scenes to pad out episodes. It's fine to be frugal, especially when this was a learning curve for digital animation, but it does reach a point. Plotlines are generally wrapped up well, aside from the aforementioned overarching themes. It's just fine. I don't have a terrible amount of stuff to say here.
Visuals: 6/10
God this show has same-face syndrome galore. If you showed me Flay and Lacus without their hair side by side I don't think I could tell you which was which. I thought Shinn and Kira were the same character before watching. It gets worse as the series goes on. Freedom's artsytle is atrocious. I think Destiny was probably the best. Even the HD remaster has its share of "okay... that was a choice" moments. The mobile suit designs are not the worst. As I already touched on, because of the influence it took from U.C. Gundam, all the suits are the general ZAKU and Gundam archetypes, with the exception of like BuCUEs/LaGOWE and the Biological CPU suits, which make them the most visually interesting, but their battle abilities are nothing special despite that. I will say that the battle sequences are nice to look at. It's the right amount of flashy and high action while also not making it all a blur of colors. Again, I think Destiny wins for the majority of mobile suit designs. I don't think I would ever buy a SEED kit though. Maybe Rey's ZAKU Phantom, but I can't think of any others.
Final Thoughts
I don't like it and I can't ever be forced to.
Mobile Suit Gundam SEED gets the vorepride stamp of disapproval.