Kidou Senshi Gundam SEED Destiny

Sometimes, sequels to popular series work. Most of the time, they don't. Destiny was one of the latter.

STORY - The fact that this is a direct sequel to a Gundam series already puts Destiny's story at a disadvantage. Think about it -- all Gundam series start with war and end with resolution. Thus, SEED had resolution, and the only way for Destiny to begin is by destroying that resolution. And it has to be a cheap and forced-feeling destruction because there's hardly two year's difference between the end of the first series and the start of the sequel since they wanted to reuse a majority ... of the cast. So yeah, we're not off to a great start here. Admittedly, it is near-impossible for me to view Destiny as a standalone series, and as a huge fan of SEED, I know I'm prone to being a lot more critical than usual on its sequel. And that's me admitting to my bias upfront.

Moving on. Destiny seems to try too hard in mirroring many circumstances and storylines already present in SEED, making them seem forced, unoriginal, and repetitious. (If SEED already had a few recycled storyline elements, then certainly Destiny has them in spades.) The basis for the new war seems trivial compared to the previous, and all the countries far too eager to participate in the conflict considering their hard-won peace. The twists were too predictable. Surprisingly significant and unexpected character death was one of the greatest merits I found in SEED, and Destiny tried to perform the same tricks. Unfortunately, these attempts all failed as almost all the character deaths in this sequel could be seen a mile away. The final resolution at the end of the series is also weak and rushed.

In all, I can think of very few story element that surprised me or that are worth mentioning on grounds of praise. Even the ones that were kind of interesting -- such as the replacement double for Lacus Clyne -- were overshadowed by the lackluster quality of everything else (and unsubstantial character development as addressed below). I feel like I should maybe elaborate more here, but there really isn't much else to say, and specifics are hard to point out without invoking spoilers.

CHARACTER - SEED had a fantastic cast of realistic and noteworthy characters. Destiny took those existing characters and warped them into sub par, flat versions of their former selves, or else twisted them so badly that they were hardly recognizable. And Destiny's newly introduced characters hardly make up for it. I found Shinn, our brand new protagonist, incredibly difficult to sympathize with, which is never a good thing. His background seemed far too much like a generic sobstory, and his fixation on his own tragedy made him out to be too narrow-minded and self-righteous. Done right, those might have been interesting qualities for a protagonist, but for Shinn, it only made him incredibly annoying to put up with.

Kira, the initial protagonist of SEED, had been flattening as a character since halfway through the first series. In Destiny, he reached the height of one-sidedness. He is self-righteous to the extreme and seems to think that only his morals and way of dealing with things is the correct one. In some ways, this isn't an entirely bad thing -- it just changes his role within the series, I suppose. He transforms from one of the main protagonists into a more secondary character that contributes one viewpoint without variation. Perhaps he'd just reached the point in his development when he doesn't need to change anymore. Still, it may be frustrating for some to see a once-fleshed out character become so generic, even if he remains a fantastic foil to Athrun.

And Athrun? Of the original cast, he is certainly one that retains a majority of his previous characteristics. His multi-faceted personality is intact, and his emotions remain complex. Once again, he is a very interesting character to follow as he is caught between a conflict of both morals and ethics and the alliance (or lack thereof) between his friends. With both Shinn and Kira on their respective high horses with unwaivering opinions, Athrun serves to contrast with the both of them and again offers the same inner turmoil that he provided in SEED. Essentially, Athrun is the same character that he was tossed into a "new" setting, but as the similarity of his situation forces similar reactions, those who've already seen SEED aren't really getting anything new at all. And then there's the matter of romance...

It's almost comical how many female characters are thrown at Athrun in Destiny; indeed, it seems like all the girls except Stellar are utterly in love with him. This might have been more amusing had he not already had a perfectly good and stable relationship with Cagalli, and had they not been "broken up" for no good reason at all. The entire romantic ordeal seemed like a cheap (and completely pointless) shot at riling up all the fangirls and boys and to reject the already canonized pairing established in SEED. Certainly Athrun and Cagalli's relationship was put under stress in Destiny, but I found a lot of it to be rooted in a lack of communication that was entirely unreasonable. In an age of mechas and space colonization, I can't imagine it would have been too difficult to send a quick email now and again. If nothing else, the number of new suiters for Athrun reinforced his feelings for Cagalli, but the entire subplot was a waste of time because we knew that already.

As well, Cagalli is ridiculously out of character in Destiny. She goes from being a headstrong and independent girl to being a political pawn. Certainly she faces some pressuring circumstances, but considering her development in SEED, it would have made more sense for her to tackle them with head-on rather than...anything she decides to do instead. It's extremely disappointing to see her take such a step back and for her to devolve into such a generic "save me, I'm a weak girl"-type character (especially since we already have one of those in Destiny). It just didn't make sense to me. I'd read somewhere that Destiny had controversially employed a mediocre writer that was in a relationship with one of the producers and that much of the poor character renditions were a direct result of this person, but I can't confirm this for sure. Whatever the reason though, Cagalli was among one of the biggest disappointments here.

But finally, there's the matter of all the other characters. The remaining carry-over characters from SEED are casted as less complicated versions of their former selves, though most of this can be attributed to the fact of their diminished significance beyond practical roles (captains, pilots, ship controls, etc). The other new characters introduced in the series are mostly reincarnations of characters that didn't make it to the sequel (Stellar and her companions take the place of SEED's druggie trio, new masked guy takes the place of old masked guy, Captain Gladys is almost identical to Captain Ramius, etc), which further supports the idea that Destiny is just an uninspired rehash of the original SEED. Otherwise, they were generically casted archetypes, including the blindly loyal devotee, the bubbly spaz girl that is willingly manipulated, and the political figure with ambiguous intentions that aren't really that ambiguous. Certainly a few characters are interesting -- Stellar is actually a fairly intriguing character that grows and changes with the story -- but like any interesting story elements, they're largely overshadowed by everything else.

PS - There is also the matter of the resurrection of a character that dies in SEED. This was completely unnecessary and ruined a perfectly touching and emotional death. Come on, no more of this I-survived-but-lost-my-memory bullshit, please.

ARTSTYLE & ARTWORK - Thankfully, the art and animation did not change between SEED and Destiny. I'm still fond of the particular style used in the series, and everything else stayed in that average range that's perfectly acceptable.

MUSIC - Considering the general failure of the above sections, I was especially grateful that the music in Destiny lived up to SEED's, which I absolutely adored. The composer and most of the artists involved remained the same, and thus, beautiful music ensued. T.M. Revolution returns to perform fantastically upbeat and energetic pieces, including the first opening theme ("Ignited"), just like last time. Nami Tamaki also returns to provide its first end theme "Reason," as well as a number of insert songs. And SEED threw young Nami Tamaki into the j-pop spotlight, Destiny did the same for Hitomi Takahashi, who sang my absolute favorite opening for the series, "Bokutachi no Yukue." Additionally, Rie Tanaka, the voice of both Lacus Clyne and Meer Campbell, sings both a super-energized remix of her "Shizukana Yoruni" from SEED and a slow, peaceful, and absolutely gorgeous new song, "Fields of Hope." And last, but not least, Rie Fu, who did the famous first ending of Bleach ("Life is like a Boat") comes in to sing "I Wanna Go to a Place," possibly my favorite ending theme in Destiny. Seriously, I adore all of the vocal tracks used in this series.

And of course, Sahashi Toshihiko once again provides four new soundtracks worth of fantastic orchestral and piano music for the background. These include updated versions of old, familiar tracks, as well as dozens of new themes that are just as fun. And as a piano player myself, it especially pleased me to see the inclusion of more piano tracks that are actually played within the content of the series since Rey Za Burrel takes Nicol's place as your character-that-can-play-piano. Fun stuff all around, guys. :D

VOICE ACTING - All of the actors that reprised their roles from SEED were once again excellent. I still love Akira Ishida as Athrun Zala. Of the new roles, Stellar stood out to me as a pretty awesome performance given the strangeness of her character. Other than that, the rest of the voices did well to fit their part, but weren't anything particularly memorable. As far as I know, Destiny hasn't even been released Stateside (probably because of SEED's strangely dismal failure), but it did have a Canadian release, so I assume there's a dub out there that I haven't seen. I imagine it'd be pretty much the same as the SEED dub though, which was very average.

OVERALL - Almost everything about Gundam SEED Destiny annoyed me, and though I'm not sure how high my expectations were in the first place, I don't think I could have been more disappointed with this sequel. Other than the technical aspects (sound and animation), nothing lived up to the standards set by its predecessor. Maybe if it were judged as a standalone work, it would score a little higher (especially on the character scale), but as a direct sequel to a series, I don't really see the point. It astounds me sometimes that some fans of SEED actually enjoyed Destiny, 'cause in the end, Destiny, for me, only served to reinforce the idea that sequels to perfectly good series are utterly unnecessary.

Destiny is a tale of two shows, the show it could have been versus whatever the hell the staff of the show presented it as. To get to the point, I’ll point out the shows main problems immediately. The show’s pacing, character development and plot I felt were all horrible and on top of that unoriginal.

Destiny started off better off than any Gundam series I’ve watched so far. While most series in Gundam canon usually start off slow and tedious. Destiny gave you some brief, but useful enough introductions. The age old practice of stealing Gundams right from under the ... enemies' noses was fine, I chalked that up to them paying homage or going with a tradition. And then you were thrown headlong into the action. Pacing was pretty good throughout the first half, while they developed this somewhat annoying formula of action, followed by character development episodes, the action was good enough to make you put up with the way stuff was spaced out. A particularly enjoyable part of the show was the interaction between Athrun and Shinn. Though whiny, generally ignorant and pretty arrogant, he showed signs of hope, realizing at times that Athrun’s advice and tutelage had helped him for the better.

In the second half of the series, the trend continued, but with far less interesting action. The Gundams became over powered and the later battles seemed inconsistent and unfair at times. Also, the change in focus about half way through meant that you had to sit through the same babbling that permeated the original SEED, but this time its just a rehash of their already stated opinions and can’t be counted as character development. Clip shows and flashbacks were also used EXCESSIVELY and killed pacing. The worst pacing came towards the end, as entire episodes seemed wasted on minor characters or minor developments and MORE flashbacks, only to have a very short, rushed feeling ending that seemed to have a lot of out of character moments, but that’s an issue for the next paragraph.

Destiny showed signs of good characters and good character development. Instead of getting a patchwork group of out of place soldiers and refugees, you get professional soldiers in their element, facing extreme challenges (except for Arthur, I don’t know how he became an XO). Durrandal started to become my favorite character that, even though he showed signs of being evil, was just a very smart, sharp character with a lot of charm and who made a lot of sense. Shinn though a professional soldier is whiny and arrogant. Captain Gladys seems like a character with logic and a good amount of insight into the world. Athrun shows up as a conflicted character, who ends up being a mentor to Shinn. And tries to show him what is wrong with his impulsive and arrogant attitude.

Unfortunately, the interesting characters of Destiny are replaced halfway through with the much less interesting characters of the original SEED. And then the previous cast gets a serious downgrade in on-screen time, skills and even intelligence. The characters from SEED seem like less than objective observers, until they start meddling and screw everyone over. The characters of Kira and Lacus show no change, nor room for it. Athrun changes, but only in the way a pendulum does. It takes him an entire series to come to the same realization he had in SEED, war is bad, no one should be killed and hatred will destroy the future. The characters come off as almost god-like, knowing all, looking down on the world and generally being untouchable, literally.

As for the new cast-away cast, once they are pushed to the side, you don’t know whether the director wants you to root for them or not. They go from saving the day, to be viewed as oppressors in the span of an episode. On top of that, their skills and intelligence seem to change as the episodes go along. In one episode, they are able to practically fight off the entire Orb military by themselves, later in the series they are unable to take down Orb even with the entire ZAFT military behind them and with Shinn and Rey using upgraded, super powerful Gundams. The Alliance was able to take down Orb in the original series even with Kira, Athrun and the Archangel present, yet ZAFT receives a brutal punch to the nose and retreats. This is also in contrast to when they fought the Alliance earlier at Heaven’s Base. With no less than 5 Destroy Gundams (mountainous Gundam death machines with more weapons and armor by itself than most militaries), they pretty easily take their objectives. Even earlier than that in the series, one Destroy Gundam was enough to hold off both Kira and Shinn by itself.

The worst case is the final battle, where everything comes to a head. The same ZAFT that pretty easily defeats the entire Alliance, and takes their super weapon for themselves, gets a resounding defeat by a pretty small Orb force in what has to be the worst Gundam ending ever. Their ace pilots are easily chopped up, the Minerva is defeated, not by the Archangel, but by a restored Mu La Flaga in his overpowered (Hyaku Shiki rip-off) mobile suit. And in the end, three major characters on the ZAFT side decide to cash it in and commit suicide, while two more lie on the surface of the moon, next to their destroyed mobile suits crying.

My final gripe is with the overall plot of the show. Sure it started off pretty simple, but it then threw a pretty nice twist at viewers, by dropping a massive celestial body (Junius Seven) on the Earth at the beginning arc of the show instead of during the last two episodes like most shows. Great! Then the plot goes into the basic war itself between the Alliance and Z.A.F.T. Once the Archangel starts screwing with things though, it becomes a slower more convuluted plot. And when it gets near the end, it just seems to become nonsensical and chaotic. It really isn’t that complicated and there aren’t many surprises.

If the point of the show was to show that repeating one’s mistakes was foolish and stupid, then this show proved that perfectly. Then didn’t just repeat the stakes of the original SEED, which was a good show in its own right, it doubled them. Great character and mecha designs and potential are wasted by the flawed plot and logic. And this show has left me disappointed to say the least.

The Gundam meta series is colossal in size, and the fanbase splits are arguably even bigger than the franchise itself. Get any two Gundam fans into a room, and you're bound to find some difference or another that would make a big enough difference.

You have fans of Universal Century, 00, Wing, G, Turn A, SEED and X, all of whom like something about their respective series/timelines that they feel other fans cannot see.

Most/almost all of the above fans, however, including fans of SEED, have a notorious reputation for particularly hating Destiny, which is rather surprising since Gundam fans are notorious for not really being able ... to agree on anything.

Why is this the case in such a fanbase?

Well, the story is incredibly unoriginal. Gundam storylines don't tend to have much in the originality department as far as themes are concerned, but SEED Destiny takes it to a whole new level. The story is a cheap rehash of SEED and Zeta, the characters are clones of the Zeta cast, the mech designs are unoriginal and uninspired, almost all of them taking something from a mech design found in some other Gundam anime, and the characterization that the characters went through in the first SEED is out the window for the sake of the plot...and it doesn't work. At all.

Oh, and the characters are equipped with enough plot armor to (literally) survive a nuclear explanation, in what is easily among the most immersion breaking aspects I've ever seen in anime thus far. This makes absolutely no sense in a war story, much less one that takes itself as seriously as SEED.

The war aspect in this story is a walking joke. The characters are rather petty, shallow and immature, and none of them feel or act like actual soldiers in the slightest. The first SEED had some incredibly slow but subtle development in the form of Kira slowly but surely maturing of the course of the show, slowly becoming more composed and natural in battle. This disappears very quickly, and the characters reset to their former characters, except that the flaws which were so prevalent and the characters worked hard to fix in the first SEED are out the window.

The animation quality looks awful, and repeated frames from both SEED and Destiny are present here. Yes, there is footage practically stolen from SEED and it is incredibly painful and intolerable to look at. The flashbacks were already a problem in the first SEED, but this is taken up to 11 here and every 5 minutes (on average) a flashback to someone or something has to be there. Particularly notorious is Shinn's tragic past which gets repeated so many times that I would just roll my eyes when it shows up.


The soundtrack is the only thing I loved about SEED Destiny, with tracks from TM Revolution, See Saw and so on, giving us one of the best soundtracks out of anime. The fourth opening deserves particular mention (in the original version of SEED Destiny) for being among the most awful and ill-fitting openings of all time, and the character models in the opening are not dramatic but rather hilarious to look at.


Honestly, why anyone likes this broken mess is beyond me. I can rag how this breaks the themes of the original SEED, how this ruins the resolution to SEED and the reasons for the war starting are plain damn stupid compared to SEED, but honestly, if there is one thing I can say, it's that you stay as far away as humanly possible from this.

This is bad. I cannot stress enough how far away you have to go from this. The only reason anyone would watch this is if they hated the original SEED and simply decided to have a laugh at this...thing.

For everyone else, avoid this like the plague.

Gundam SEED Destiny is a direct Sequel to Gundam SEED. It's been rated as the worst Gundam anime ever. I highly beg to differ. It's not much as a sequel, but as its own anime, it's outstanding.

STORY - 8/10
To be honest, you shouldn't under any circumstances watch Destiny directly after finishing SEED. You'll see nothing but the same, and with SEED always stuck in your head, the good parts of Destiny's story are going to be left out. In fact; forget everything you know about Gundam SEED except for the coordinator-natural stuff, as well as the guys who played some large roles in the ... first series.

Once all that's out of the way, Destiny is a blast. It managed to maintain a fair amount of action while giving it what could be called a more "lively" story. Half of SEED was just a bunch of guys in a ship trying to get resupplied, Destiny did that differently, in the way that the main characters are on the offensive this time. Ok,the story was above average, to put it simply. It's not as terrible as many think.

ART - 8

The mecha designs were unique and memorable, as expected from SEED. The animation style was easy to look at and settle into, and the character designs for the new characters aren't 100% generic and cliche.

SOUND - 10

I'll come out and say it right now: The soundtrack was the biggest pro of Destiny. I've never gotten so much enjoyment out of a Mecha OST that I did in Destiny. And it did something pretty unique here: It made the ending songs better than the opening themes while keeping the OPs excellent. Sound effects and etc is something nobody really pays attention to, so I'm going to ignore that part. Voice Acting is in the same section.

Characters - 6

By far, Destiny's weakest aspect. Some teenager's family dies (because of his sister's cell phone (which he blamed on the federation), dedicated his life to taking vengeance for his family (Narutards should recognize that character setup) and joined the Z.A.F.T military, the SEED version of Zeon. The rest of the characters were left half-developed, and were all uninteresting from the start. The only character worthy of note was the new Chairman of Zeo- Z.A.F.T, who was one of those characters who acted like a living saint, but was really just preparing a plan that would trash people's lives for the greater good.

Enjoyment - 10

I enjoyed it a lot. I don't know why I enjoyed it so much, but I did. Certainly more than a lot of other people did.

Overall: I was left wanting more. A lot more. So many predictable plot twists were left unsolved, and the ending didn't particularly feel like anything had been solved.

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.

When I finalized this review note that I have watched Gundam Seed 5 times and Gundam Seed Destiny 4 times.Actually I watched GSD first so I know both the point of view of those who have watched the prequel first and the ones who have watched the sequel only.

Story (7/10)

Okay, GSD's story is definitely a sequel, so instead of the setting being introduced the we are just given the background of the time skip.

It is basically a continuation of the Cosmic Era and here are the questions:

Who are the new characters and what will they play?
Where are the old characters and will they be ... part of the story?
What will be the new conflict since much of it was resolved already?

There are many questions that was left from the prequel and many more arises from GSD. Yet I think it did very well in making an exciting extension story and the characters' interactions make the series very interesting.

It again tackles the issue of war-its effects and its very existence. And the strong dialogue make way for philosophical clashes and the continuous conflict of duty and humanity. The characters were pretty much torn in between many things, so not only the action and battles make way for suspense but definitely the drama too. Most of the time, mecha actions are enjoyable and excellent.

It has many positive attributes but its flaws outweighs its goodness or vice versa. In short, many fans found it disappointing: The story was strong at first, but it was degraded by incoherence and drag- the weak characters greatly contribute (will be explained later).

The story that was supposed to be two sides with good ideals fighting for a good cause amid some really evil guys turned out to be a "fan war" where the more loved characters are the ones glorified. The sides were once equal and then suddenly the loved ones are made goody-goody while the other is being made "evil." Then the worst part is the dragging anti-climatic lines (or endless flashbacks) of characters where they justify why they fight and why they oppose the other. Its purpose is to explain what they think- but as a critic, too much destroys the character of the show itself, add hypocrisy and were just made to really emphasize the supposed to be "good guys" of the show.


Art (9/10)

Surely the animation of this sequel is impressive especially to the fans of Seed. It has higher quality and more consistency. It did not fail in imaging a lot of memorable and dramatic scenes..The machines here are so much cooler and it has less reused action scenes. Still, like Seed, there are times where characters look like each other.

Sound (10/10)

GSD's sounds are in my top list; for me, its music is one of the best in anime, almost seemingly comparable to Cowboy Bebop in terms non repetitiveness. The sounds are so mecha and transports you to a different dimension while in dramatic scenes the music creates the perfect mood. All its opening and ending songs suit the series at all aspects. Also, it variates its songs and image music so well that the melody stays in your head though it creates different moods. Most of my favorite soundtracks came from this anime.

Character (6/10)

For me GSD is one of the series that disappoints a lot of viewers. It failed to portray its philosophical themes because of its weakness in its characters.

The character of the show itself (as explained earlier) becomes weaker after the middle- it is degraded by fan service and "god-wisdom" lines. It has the most unnecessary flashbacks I have seen in my anime watching life,flashback episodes, flashbacks from Seed and itself. Because of that, it looks so "trying hard" to be deep and psychological.

The NEW characters are clearly introduced at the beginning and the viewers expect their development and role. But GSD failed miserably at this: the main character lacks strength and growth which is very necessary for a drama plot. Most of the secondary characters don't pretty much add up to the overall drama and many find them insignificant. Of course, there are very interesting and lovable characters (like Stellar and Dullindal) and it seems that they were the ones that are saving GSD from doom.

I must also note that the connection of the main protagonist, Shinn, and Stellar is probably the best asset of the series and is a very good psychological drama story.

The RETURNING characters are pretty much developed already but their conflict with the new ones is interesting. They are supposed to be only part of history, but the writers made them the makers of history because of their popularity. Many fans will expect to see their loved characteristics again but GSD failed those fans by either adding angst or perfecting them to the point that they are annoyingly unrealistic. And lastly, if the viewers are not familiar with them they will ask : When did they become the main characters?

Moreover, new mobile suits just sprout out of nowhere just to create a "cooler model"

Enjoyment (7/10)

For Seed fans it is quite enjoyable but disappointing.This sequel was made to make the audience anticipate the appearance of the Seed characters and how they will affect the new characters' lives, and it did succeed it a way. It may quench the thirst of hungry Gundam Seed enthusiasts but may make them hate the sequel for tampering with their favorite characters happy lives.

Originality is also an issue, for by reading about Zeta Gundam I was disappointed by the "copying and making it a lot better."

Personally I really love Stellar and I just can't forget her and this series is a little bit more romantic and political than Seed.

OVERALL: 7

Potentially one of the best turned to easily one of the worst; the best description for Gundam SHITTO Destiny.

*SPOILERS FOR MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM SEED DESTINY! I WILL COVER THE HD REMASTER.*

It's not a secret that I'm not the biggest fan of SEED. Even still, there's no doubt that the SEED series as a whole could`ve been epic. Season 1 laid the foundation for an even more dramatic and depressing Gundam series to spring up, on the level of Zeta, in more ways than one. This quote represents this perfectly. SEED Destiny in particular also made itself an interesting template that, under the right hands, would`ve ... made one of the most critically acclaimed Gundam shows of the franchise. However, it failed on that massively (something the score on this review and the show`s MAL score can attest to), and instead, we ended up with one of the most commonly loathed series of the franchise, among other infamous Gundam series like Victory and G-Reco, and considering the Gundam fandom`s infamy for holding internet wars about whether SEED, Wing, 00, Original, or Zeta is the best Gundam series, on the level of Star Wars v Star Trek, that is both impressive and depressing. So, what makes this series so bad? What the hell happened to make us hate this one so much? Well, let's find out, shall we?

STORY: 1/10

This is the most depressing part. Keep in mind, that doesn't mean there is nothing redeemable to the story. Moments like the reunion of Athrun, Yzak, and Dearka, are powerful, and the Kira crashing the wedding scene, the arresting Yuna scene, and the killing Djibril scene are glorious. It's just a shame that those moments are SEVERELY outnumbered by moments of bad decision making, contrivances and plotholes, and plagiarism, often in moments where the series tries to be at its most dramatic. I can't respect a story that has me shouting the obvious answers at the screen demanding that these dumbasses do something right for a goddamn change, and episodes 28 and 32 are the prime examples of this, and I`ll touch on that in the characters section.

The war here is started for stupid reasons: assholes from Earth and ZAFT ravaging Earth and the PLANTs respectively via terrorism because of a stupid grudge held by Blue Cosmos and certain ZAFT goonies from the war prior. Characters start existing to die or constantly fail, others make stupid decisions that result in lots of death, and the ZAFT guys start thinking that interfering between the two sides is stupid, despite the fact that that was how the heroes in SEED ended the war, and how they'll do it here. The first and last few episodes directly rip off from SEED, like how the heroes resolve the war in the last few episodes, and how Mu La Flaga stops a giant beam from destroying the Archangel. We also have Kira and Athrun fighting in rage due to a misunderstanding, how Athrun loses a friend and immediately starts fighting Kira again afterwards, and Kira disarming someone who was about tho blast through the Archangel`s front, all of which rip off from the same scenarios that happened in SEED. Back to Mu. He died in SEED, like, deader than dead. Apparently he's back as an amnesiac villain known as Neo, and there is no decent justification for this, as this is the worst case of Studio Sunrise's trademark character revival, as they brought back someone who died in one of the more emotional moments of the previous series.

It`s crap like this that makes this story impossible for me to care about. Fatal blows to cockpits of mechs fail to kill (BULLSH*T) (happened 3 times), and seemingly non-fatal injuries result in death just to make Shinn have feefees (said mockingly). The Kira v Shinn fight is the dumbest Gundam fight I've ever seen for reasons that I won't cover here; this review is long enough as it is.The ZAFT guys for some reason cannot understand what the Archangel crew is trying to do despite the fact that it is literally the same thing that they were doing in thr latter half of SEED, which is even worse considering that Athrun can`t make it out either despite being part of what happened immediately above! Episode 32 (the death of Stella) and to some extent, the Shinn x Stella subplot is a direct ripoff of the Four death and Four x Kamille subplot from Zeta respectively! ONE OF THE MOST EMOTIONAL MOMENTS IN THIS STUPID ASS SERIES IS A GOD DAMN RIPOFF!!!

Plus, the ending is so unsatisfying, that they had to remake it for us almost immediately afterwards! Plus, for some asinine reason, they give us 3 RECAP EPISODES! 3! Sure, they have increasing amounts of relevance and new footage, but 3 of these in a 50 episode series is inexcusible! It was close to a 2, but the ending was the final nail in the coffin to the destruction of the story`s credibility.

CHARACTERS: 2/10

Looks like we're not out of the cavalcade of cum-stained crap! Let's talk about the characters! Let's start with the returning guys. Kira is basically a meh protagonist who basically got PTSD at the finale just to give him some depth aside from the fact that he at one point has to find his friend again. He isn't as infuriating as he was in SEED, but he isn't interesting or complex either, probably because he's just a boring Gary Stu now instead of an insufferable hypocrite Gary Stu, though he is still a terrible character nonetheless. For the first 20 episodes, Athrun kept his role as the best character in SEED, until he starts assuming that Cagali isn`t even trying to do her job, acts like a bigot in the middle episodes (about as much as his ZAFT allies), and becomes wishy-washy. Lacus and the other guys are the same though, except for Mu, or rather, Neo. He is a sympathetic villain who cares about the subordinates he has that were genetically engineered for war (Auel, Sting, and Stella), even though he often relies on shady equivocations, and when captured, he slowly remembers his real past after being hounded about it by the Archangel crew. Yzak was at least more humorous and interesting than in SEED, and Dearka's basically same as always.

As for Cagali, she is downgraded the worst! Now, all she does is while, spout her ideals, fail, and repeat until she finally does something to take down a douchebag (named Yuna) in episode 40. She has the weakest will of the whole series, and hat`s impressive considering the new cast. Plus, for some reason, whenever she tries to intervene, she doesn't try to disarm despite how easy and obvious it should be for her to do so, and how badly IT BITES HER AND HER ALLIES IN THE ASS WHEN A LOT OF THEM DIE AS SHE CRIES TO THEIR DEATHS DUE TO HER SHEER STUPIDITY!!! In season 1, she at least had a strong resolve, and there, she was less incompetent. Now, she sucks! Way to go, Destiny!

Shinn takes the award for worst Gundam protagonist ever, and given that we have Kira Fucking Yamato, that says a lot! His family died in the previous war (when he was stated to be 12) over a year ago, and because of it, he is a total sh*t-stain who blatantly disrespects idealists and his superiors (age 16, and yes, this is a knock against the story). He acts especially horrible to Cagali, and as such, as has earned the sheer hatred of many, including myself. Lunamaria started out as the fun, quirky, and cute one, until episode 22, and she basically becomes weak. Lame. Rey was never that interesting, but at the beginning, he was a good friend to Shinn, and ends up being the mediator often, becomes a crazed devotee towards the end. Auel is some douche who goes through one breakdown 2 episodes before dying. Sting was the more reasonable one of his trio who had a cocky side, until he becomes a generic crazed loon in the same episode he dies in. Stella is psychologically broken (going insane at mention of possible death), yet surprisingly innocent, especially when around Shinn. Too bad she had to die.

Heine only exists to spout some jovial dialogue and die in battle due to poor decision-making. Yuna is a pathetic cowardly loser who eggs on Cagali and is a total tool, and I`m glad Cagali arrested him. Djibril is probably the most horrible person in all of Gundam, trying to kill every single Coordinator (especially civilians) for no reason other than selfish desire for profit, and commits major atrocities against entire civilizations in episodes 32 and 43, until he gets eradicated epically in episode 43. Chairman Durandal is a man with a realistic and bleak outlook on war, but becomes the final villain of Destiny who decided to take a stupidly unrealistic approach to ending the war. What a waste. The Minerva crew members I didn't cover are meh. They don't harm much, but aren't that interesting. Meer on the other hand, IS interesting. She went through surgery in order to have a job impersonating Lacus, including singing, and personality, but is ditzy, and can get annoying at times, aside from her sad death. Funny enough, most deaths in this series are still competently tragic, but even then, this cast of characters still sucks.

ART: 3/10

The artstyle isn't much better than it was in SEED, but the faces and facial expressions are at least somewhat more tolerable overall. Plus, Lunamaria has some priceless facial expressions in episode 22. The CGI is as bad as ever, albeit mercifully less prevalent, and the mech designs a d fights are as solid as ever. Plus, the lasers are still great. It`s basically everything I've said about SEED, only slightly better. At least it uses orange and fiery environments better for some well done and varied mech shading. The reused animation is festively bad since not only do they reuse animation in the OPs and many battles like SEED does, but they sometimes directlhbrip stock footage from SEED, including during the OPs! Just...what the hell?!

SOUND: 6/10

All of the OPs in this show were great, and that is one advantage this has over SEED. OP 1 (Ignited) by T.M. Revolution is a fun OP to start off the series with. It`s kickass. OP 2 (Pride) by High and Mighty Color isn`t as good, but is catchy enough. OP 3 (Bokutachi no Yukue) by Hitomi Takahashi is definitely a great one as well. OP 4 (Wings Of Words) by Chemistry is a soothing and catchy OP, even if it has no business being the OP of a serous mecha war drama. HD OP 4 (vestige) by T.M. Revolution is a great one yo cap off this series with, due to how climactic it feels. All f the EDS (except 3 and including the HD ones) were great and catchy, and in some cases, rather emotional too, like Life Goes on (by Mika Arisaka) and Kimi wa Boku ni Niteiru (by See-Saw). The OST isn't amazingly memorable, but can be emotional and fit the scenes really well too, with some really well used tracks (like the one used for liftoff)

The dub still isn't good. The equipment got better, but the returning VAs (especially Athrun`s) didn't, and the new guys didn't feel right either. It`s not as horrid as the one for SEED, but it's not good either. I wonder why they decided to dub both this and the original, since many of the actors did not suit their roles or sound right even in suitable roles.

ENJOYMENT: 4/10

The action in this series is as solid as ever, and there are still some funny and even powerful moments in this series. Too bad it likes to piss me off more and make many of its episodes feel double length. Cagali and Shinn make some boneheaded decisions that make some deaths excruciatingly panful to watch due to how easily they could've been prevented. The contrivances, plotholes, and etc. were downright aggravating as well, as I mentioned in the story section. It makes it so disappointing to watch, as with even the slightest of logical tweaks, many of these moments would've been so much better, and for all other reasons above, this series gets upsetting really often.

OVERALL: 4/10 RAW SCORE: 34/100

This is one of the worst Gundam anime I've seen to date, and that in and of itself is a tragedy considering how epic this series could`ve been. At this point, I have nothing new to say, but I hope this makes you understand why this show receives such a bad rep. It may have also left a blemish in SEED's reputation that probably led to some guns pointed in SEED`s face. It fails as everything it tries to do, aside from having some fun mech action, which isn`t enough to carry a mech show, let alone a dramatic one that tries to show just how amoral and depressing war can be. Well, with all that said, I bid you adieu.

Gundam Seed Destiny is sequel to highly popular Gundam Seed and takes place in same universe.

Story:
GSD story is basically same as its older brother. Again Cordinators and Naturals have war though the reasons are little different from Seed. Story was almost direct copy from Seed and it takes my points down, although I still liked it because CE universe has so good athmospehere and lot of potential. If you are not fan of Seed story you probably don't like Destiny story either. On the positive note in my opinion Destiny had better pacing than Seed. Not so slow start. Although this may be influenced ... trough that I watched this straight after seed so I was settled with universe and with most of the characters.

Art:
Art is truly phenomional. Gundams looked again cool like in Seed and everything was well animated. No complains

Sound:
This is easily best part in this series. Best anime OST ever in my opinion. All opening and ending songs were really well fitted in the series and insert music was really amazing. I almost recommend to watch this series for its music even if you don't like any other thing in the series.

Characters:
I had really mixed feelings about this series characters. I of course liked all old characters and even some new ones were great (like dullindal and meer) but then again I almost hated some like Shinn and Stellar. Altough because I hated shinn I wanted to see him ketting his ass kicked so it was in a way good for the series. Still I will give this one point lower than seed because most of the new characters were shallow and couple of them were annoying.

Enjoyment:
In spite of all negative sides in this series compared to Seed I still enjoyed this series a lot. It had very good action scenes and even some likable drama. First half of the series was again worse than later one like in seed but especially the last 10 episodes were great again. I would have complained about the ending but luckily Final plus ova gave me better ending.

Overall:
Even though this series didn't rose at the same level as Seed I still liked it a lot and now I am hoping that they some time in distant future will make that movie. =D (probably won't =( )

After the success of "Gundam Seed", the follow up series "Gundam Seed Destiny" is often seen as a bit of a flop. However, there does exist a handful of people who think it's a very under-rated anime... and it just so happens that I'm one of them. In fact, I'm actually ASTOUNDED by how under-rated this show is, so here's my long winded take on "Why Gundam Seed Destiny Is At Least As Good As Gundam Seed", in which I shall attempt to bore anyone with opposing views into submission with the sheer weight of my wall of text :D

I can think of several reasons ... why this sequel proved to be so unpopular. One of the main ones is that, despite the superficial similarities, "Gundam Seed Destiny" is very much a different kettle of fish to its predecessor. A lot of people who enjoyed the action packed, exhilarating nature of "Gundam Seed" no doubt came away from this more subtle, politics heavy sequel disappointed that they didn't get more of the same. A friend of mine made the statement that if you take the "Gundam" out of title "Gundam Seed Destiny", it'd probably suddenly become a lot more well received, and I'm inclined to agree with that. One of the primary things you'd look out for in a Gundam series (and this is something "Gundam Seed" does very well) - explosive mecha battles - are done rather shoddily in "Gundam Seed Destiny". The action leaves a lot to be desired - it's mostly a rehash of what we've already seen a million times already in the 50 episodes of "Gundam Seed", except not as good; nearly every battle boringly ends with someone going berserk and annihilating everyone else on the battlefield, and there's a shocking amount of reused animation, as though it's made on about a quarter of the budget of "Gundam Seed", which would be very strange, considering the commercial success of that show. What all this amounts to is that, with a few notable exceptions, the battles in "Gundam Seed Destiny" are mostly snorefests.

What "Gundam Seed Destiny" lacks in aesthetic values however, it makes up with something arguably more important - substance, because it's an anime that excels in areas of story and character development. The story, it has to be said, does not get off to a great start, with the whole copy cat Gundam stealing plot opening feeling a bit too similar to what happened in "Gundam Seed" (as well as about 1321 other Gundam stories) for comfort. Perhaps it's trying to convey some kind of "history is repeating itself" message, but the whole thing feels stale rather than thought provoking. Once the first few episodes are done, the series really starts to shine as the plot thickens and the strands of political intrigue are slowly woven together.

In comparison to its predecessor, there is a significant shift in the focus of the story here. People who are expecting the story to continue to feature heavily on Kira and Athrun will be disappointed (and no doubt many of them were, as Kira is reduced to almost cameo appearances). The focus of this sequel is spread across quite several different characters, with none of them getting enough screen time to be justifiable labelled as *the* main character. The one that comes closest would probably be Shinn, and Shinn is one heck of a big talking point of "Gundam Seed Destiny", as he is both one of the most popular reasons for hating this series, and, in my opinion, by far the best character in both series combined (a claim that's probably nearly as controversial as the claim that "Gundam Seed Destiny" is at least as good as "Gundam Seed").

The reason Shinn is so unpopular probably has something to do with the fact that he's a teeth grindingly annoying character. While many would argue that Kira is also annoying because he cried so much while in his role as a main character in "Gundam Seed", that's nothing compared to Shinn. Because, ultimately, Kira is still taken from the "hero" character mould, and mostly does a good job of following his moral compass. Shinn isn't like that. Shinn is a cocky, rebelling, misled brat. Like a similarly named character from "Neon Genesis Evangelion", Shinn possesses a natural talent for pissing viewers off. However, unlike that other character, I don't find Shinn so extreme that I have difficulty understanding him. In fact, it's exactly because his personality and character progression are so effortlessly natural as well as interesting that I rate him as one of the finest anti-heros around. For instance, he does do a lot of angsty whining, but considering his personal loss, it'd be quite odd if he's some happy-go-lucky chap instead. On top of all of that, he's a character with intense emotions, but he's no good at hiding them, and this gets played upon as he is caught up in all the intricate political power play. He has a lot of redeeming features, such as a strong sense of justice and a desire to use his power to protect the weak, but even these end up being used to manipulate him. This wouldn't be so bad if he wasn't so talented as a Gundam pilot, and it doesn't help that his cockiness goes off the charts as his skill increased, blinding him to reason. His relationship with Stella is particularly fascinating even though Stella herself is annoying and one dimensional, with the whole crappy love story smells suspiciously like a shoe-in that happened simply because cliche demanded it. What's interesting about this relationship is the effect of it on Shinn as he is driven to extremes, consumed by a burning desire to protect what he couldn't protect before. Throw this in along with his fiery temperament and misguided feelings of disillusionment and betrayal for someone he looks up to, and you end up with a very multi layered and explosive powder keg of a character, even if he is very dislikable. I'll admit that I don't like him either, but I do recognise that he's a a fantastic character as everything about him "fits" and makes perfect sense. And in fact his annoyingness does end up giving rise to some of the most exhilarating battles in "Gundam Seed Destiny", due to the fact that I just wanted someone to kick his ass so badly lol.

In addition to the most central character being an anti-hero, "Gundam Seed Destiny" also has an anti-villain counter part. I like the fact that he has a lot of subtlety and charm. Though he may not quite be on the same level as the awesome villains from "Berserk" and "Gankutsuoh", he's at least cut from a similar cloth. When all is revealed, it can be argued that, rather than being evil, the "villain" has simply walked down the wrong path in his desires to achieve what he perceives to be the greater good. His frequent musings is very much at the heart of the main theme of "Gundam Seed Destiny" which, incidentally, suits its title much better than "Gundam Seed" - "Gundam Seed" barely devoting any time explaining the whole "Seed" thing whereas this sequel does a pretty serious exploration of its theme revolving around destiny, asking questions such as whether we would actually be better off with our life already laid out for us.

A lot of characters from "Gundam Seed" makes a return in "Gundam Seed Destiny". Most of them have changed for the better. In particular, Athrun seems to have acquired quite a dignified aura. Kira's time on screen has been drastically cut down, but this has actually given him an enigmatic air, like he's some kind of masked crusader for justice, which definitely makes him more interesting as far as I'm concerned. Both Athrun and Kira have a greater feeling of maturity about them, which makes sense considering all they had to go through.

I do have some complaints about the characters though. There are some parts about the characters' progression didn't make sense. For example, Rey's change at the end of the show feels totally out of the blue. I don't see how he can deviate from something he's committed to for so long just because someone said a few words to him (words that I even didn't feel was that persuasive or stirring to begin with). Also, I don't really like those youth pilots like Stella who were pumped full of drugs. I think I'm supposed to feel sympathy for them, but I found them irritating instead as the anime tried too hard to make them "edgy" for the sake of melodrama. Speaking of melodrama, it's actually pretty well done in "Gundam Seed Destiny" for the most part. I remember a scene between Stella and Shinn that was particularly memorable. Admittedly, it was a blatent rip off of one of the best cut scenes in "Final Fantasy VII", but since it's a very worked rip off, I didn't mind.

Despite me rating "Gundam Seed Destiny" very highly, I must admit that I found watching it somewhat hard going towards the end. It was probably a mistake to watch it so soon after "Gundam Seed". With the two series both suffering from the franchise's obsession with making TV series that are about 50 episodes long, watching them back to back not surprisingly caused a bit of a burn out in me. The original series already felt a bit dragged out, and the feeling is even more prevalent here. Maybe it simply feels this way because this series is built on an already overstretched first series, but honestly, does it really take a whooping 100 episodes to tell this story?!

There are other things that "Gundam Seed Destiny" inherited from "Gundam Seed" and the Gundam franchise in general that contributed to my fatigue with watching it. Most of these elements are either stuff that are inherited badly, or stuff that I wasn't keen on to begin with. Aside from the action which I already mentioned, there are the distinctive character designs (which I never particularly liked); the miraculous ability of some characters to survive through seemingly impossible situations (with no follow up explanation as to HOW they managed it); and the obligatory man in mask cliche etc. There's even an attempt to re-create something comparable to the enchanting eye-catch from "Gundam Seed"... an attempt that failed as it came off looking like some cheesey ad for a Barbie & Ken doll set instead. Thankfully, one thing that "Gundam Seed Destiny" has inherited that's actually good is the epic music. It is every bit as good as the music from "Gundam Seed", and the huge OST that spans across quite a few CD's is still one of my favourites to date.

So there you have it, whether you'll enjoy "Gundam Seed Destiny" will depend heavily on how open you are to the changes found in this rather unorthodox Gundam series. For those who don't crave the polished action found in "Gundam Seed" and who enjoy some subtle politics and solid character development, you might just find "Gundam Seed Destiny" to be a shining gem beneath all its surface roughness.

Gundam Seed is one of the most beloved Gundam series of all time. Ever since it’s a success back in 2002 it has gained a big following especially in Japan where it was most successful. The series has been praised for amazing music, engaging plot twist as well telling an intriguing story where two close friends are in the opposite side of the battlefield fighting each other. While Gundam Seed Season 1 didn’t impress me all that much with its storytelling and characters it was still a fun watch despite being average. Once I was done with Gundam Seed I decided to check out the ... squeal called Gundam Seed Destiny. Now unlike the original series many people especially hardcore Gundam fans seemed to have a polarizing reaction of Seed Destiny where it’s very diverse. Camp A is the people who loved it consider it to be one of the greatest Gundam shows ever made while Camp B are the people who despise it with a burning passion. What camp am I in? Well after watching Seed Destiny twice I can say that I am camp c the people who were fine with it however despite my being in Camp C I still don’t Seed Destiny to be a good whatsoever, however, I don’t think is as bad something like ZZ Gundam and Gundam Build Divers.

Story.
It is the year Cosmic Era 7.3 the leader of orb Cagalli arrives at armoury one to discuss the construction of new mobile weapons with the chairman of the plants Gilbert Durandal. During the discussion, the earth alliance phantom pain special forces completely raid an armoured base and steal three new Gundams. In response to that Cagalli bodyguard, Alex Dino aka Athurn takes one of the new Zakus in attempt to fight back against the stolen Gundams. During the conflict, a brand new mobile suit named the Impulse Gundam mergers from the sky to join the fray piloted my Shin Asuka who has a massive hatred of Orb of what happened to his family during the Bloody Valentine war where they got killed. After fending them off Cagalli, Athrun, Durangel board the Zaft warship called the Minerva where continue the fight against the phantom pain in space, During all this, a group of radicals remain loyal to Patrick ideals commenced a vile plan to drop Junius Seven drop into the earth. Minerva and ZAFT tried they best to stop it and managed to break it into small pieces. Unfortunately, the small pieces that they made still caused massive damage everywhere on earth. So after the earth alliance retaliated by ditching out nuclear missiles, the second war commences between the factions only this time orb teams up with the earth alliance. Kira, Lacus and the archangel gang shows up to try to prevent the fighting. Athrun returns to Zaft to fight once more and Shin, Rey Luna and the rest of the Minerva crew must now fight against the Earth Alliance as well deal with the Archangel to survive and succeed in the new war.

Since the creators of the original seed decided to take elements of the original Gundam series the creators of this decision to take story elements of Zeta Gundam. There was a quite a lot of parrels between this show and Zeta Gundam. Shin and Kamile lost they parents due to the hatred for a certain faction, Four and Stella are unstable subjects that fall in love with the protagonist of the respective series, the first battle is in a colony, veterans from the previous series return to help the new cast grow and so and so though. However, despite the show borrowing a lot story aspect from Zeta Gundam I feel like they were executed very poorly as not only Gundam Seed Destiny is a poorly directed piece of shit that is filled with terrible writing but the show seemed to not understand of what made these elements of Zeta Gundam so good in the first place as the show especially the final quarter seemed to a complete reversal of these elements to a point it’s become cringe-worthy to watch.

Unfounally this is just the least of my problems of Seed Destiny there’s a hell of a lot more wrong with Seed Destiny story wise.
One of the first biggest mistakes that Seed Destiny makes is how it’s very similar to its prequel. Yes, there were differences every now and then but a lot of the time I get the sense of familiarity. It’s is embarrassingly notable in the final quarter of the series which was a rehash of the final battle of Seed but downgraded thanks to the shitty ending.
The flashbacks from the original seed but it’s somehow even worse as half of the episodes of the series contain least one or more flashbacks scenes and because of all the pacing is at best incompetent as hell where the show could have greatly reduced its flashback in favour of probably establish it’s plot elements correctly which this show does not do that at all.
On top of this show preachy themes that for the most part barely mattered in a long as well the shows terrible directing, script and even dialogue then you got on hell of a bad show in your hands that doesn’t know what it’s doing half of the time. While the first half was at best mediocre and at worst incompetent, it’s the second half especially the final 11 episodes is where the show competently shits the fan writing and directing wise to a point it comes insufferable to watch and it actually gave me a headache…
Let’s not forget about the disgusting plot armour in Seed Destiny because of you see any chararters from the original series would not die any circumstances because the plot has to screw over the new characters by making do dumb things that would likely get them killed or my personal favourite have the chararters survive explosions for no reason that is never explained in the plot whatsoever.
This is all because Gundam Seed Destiny is a horribly written fanfic has no idea of how to use it’s a new cast in the plot let alone having a function that doesn’t contain character wish-fulfilment aka Kira and Lacus.
2/10

Characters.
When it comes to the character cast for Seed Destiny I have almost nothing positive to say about them due to them being poorly managed.

Let’s start with the new characters first. I will save Shin aka the so-called protagonist for last.
I start with the Phantom Pain trio.
Sting may be the most clam of the three but his also the blandest of the three.
Auel is a crazy girl who has mother issues. That’s all I can say about him
Stella is a decent character overall as she has quite a bit of character development thanks to Shin. She may be a poor man’s version of Four but the end of the day I rather have her than almost any character in Seed Destiny. Too bad were at a certain point of the series something nasty happens to her that ultimately cause the downfall a certain character that I will mention in a bit.

My favourite in Gundam Seed Destiny is without the question is Talia. Talia is basically Murrue done right as she’s a not only a competent captain for the Minerva where she’s is a brilliant combat strategist but she actually has guts to punish her crew members if they did something wrong. The thing that puts her in my favourite Gundam chararters list is that completely immune to Lacus Clyne Mary Sue bullshit. After that speech on Orb that Lacus gave everyone in the Minerva crew was in a panic everyone in their mother was going around that ”Oh my God there’s Lacus Clyne who the real one holy shit” while Talia just came out with a dead serious face and said ” ah guys what the hell it’s the big problem it’s not like Lacus Clyne is our commanding officer or anything” Thank you Talia for putting that stupid situation to rest.

She’s easily the best thing to come out from Seed Destiny and her presence along really made the show less tedious to watch.

My second favourite chararter in Seed Destiny is Meer. She is basically chosen to be the next Lacus Clyne in replace of the old one who went missing in the first Bloody Valentine War and she ended up getting corrupted by her own fame where she starts to realise that she just needed to follow her own dream and not the dream of another.

Now start talking about the big 3 of the Minerva crew starting with Lunamaria.
Wasted Potential is the best word to describe Lunamaria.
When I first saw her I thought she will be a badass Gundam pilot that has a love interest for the protagonist. I wanted her to be great but no instead what I got is a subpar Gundam chararter who for no reason likes to fanboy to Athurn as well being irrelevant to the story. Such a shame because she should have been great.

Rey, for the most part, is just there. Apart from being Shin’s voice of reason he barely anything in the overall plot as the same chararter from start to finish. He may be connected to the previous villain from the original seed but the plot element was so badly directed and uninspired that you couldn’t frankly give a shit.

Finally we have Shin himself and to be honest he’s probably the favourite new chararter in the show outside of Talia and Meer. I know that’s an unpopular opinion since, after all, he was an immature douchebag through half of the series but I don’t he is bad as everyone says he least for the first half. I mean I prefer him over the likes the old chararters that return for this show aka Kira, Lacus, Cagalli etc.
In the first half, we see Shin developing as a character as he not only learns to control his anger but he slowly starts to develop relationships with his crew members.
Unfortunately as the series progresses my opinion of Shin takes the turn for the worst and by the final quarter of the show he devolved into unsympathetic one dimensional manic where the series completely shits on Shin chararter development from the first half.

Now with the new chararters out of the way let’s talk about old characters because I have nothing positive to say about them whatsoever starting with my favourite girl from the original seed Cagalli.
What the hell happened to you went from being this badass tomboy girl in the original to this borderline useless Damsel in Distress who loves to cry and whine a lot.
My disappointment doesn’t end there Athurn from being a cool character in the original to this clueless idiot who doesn’t know what he’s doing halftime as he constantly likes to switch sides because of plot reasons.
I also never forgive him for ditching Cagalli over Luna sister Marie who btw who barely anything in the narrative other to a fangirl of Athurn.

Now we get the worst things about Seed Destiny as a whole. Kira and Lacus. I didn’t care for them all the much in the original seed but I thought were meh chararters in the original however in Seed Destiny Kira and Lacus are nothing but shallow and preachy mary sue idiots. Not only these two were annoying as hell which they wried preachy dialogues bur overtime theses two slowly to take overthrow the protagonist after episode 39 Lacus and especially Kira seemed to the main chararter staus while Shin and the rest of the Minerva crew seemed to devolve into a villain role…
Because of these two idiots, I despise Kira and Lacus in Gundam Seed Destiny.
Overall the chararters in Gundam Seed Destiny were badly managed and poorly executed.

2/10

Visuals.
When it comes to the visuals of Seed Destiny is almost identical to the prequel but downgraded.
The art may look a bit cleaner and sharp compared to the original seed buts all I can say about it.
The character designs haven’t really improved at all as most of the characters facial wise look identical to each other when you take off the hair and eye colour.

The mecha designs in Gundam Seed Destiny let’s just say uninspired as many of the Gundam seed destiny seemed to either taking straight from the U.C timeline aka the Zakus or shamelessly just adding a few features to preexisting mobile suit from original seed and calling them new mobile suits. Cough Strike Freedom and The Saviour.
Don’t get me started with the train-wreck that is the Destiny Gundam good god this is second worse Gundam I have ever seen only losing to Gundam 00 Diver from Gundam Build Divers. Not only Destiny was inspired by 6 other mobile suits from past Gundam series but its portrayal in the story is hot garbage as it was piloted by an angsty pilot Shin Asuka. Also, let’s not talk about how Shin tried to use palma fiocina hands to catch beam savers in the second last episode. That shit was so infuriatingly dumb to watch it gave me physical pain…
The only Gundam design that I actually liked from Seed Destiny is the Infinite Justice because not it’s was very original in terms of design but portrayal in Seed Destiny was amazing. The Infinite Justice was so good that I consider it one of my favourite mechs from the Gundam franchise.
Outside of the Gundam designs, the ship design for the Minerva is one of my favourite ships in Gundam because not only it was a very well designed shit that is filled with life and identity but the interactions in the ship were so much better than the White Base of the cosmic era aka the Archangel. Also, the security of the Minerva is so much better than the Arcangel.

Now lets to the actual animation which is by far the second worst thing about this show right behind the god awful story.
If you thought the likes of Gundam Wing, Macross 7, Sailor Moon as well it’s prequel series was bad with stock footage. Oh man, you’re are in a real treat when you watch Seed Destiny.

I personally don’t mind if the show uses recycled footage from previous episodes. But no. Oh no no no.
They actually it to a whole new level where they take footage from the prequel and slap it to this show with no changes whatsoever. THAT IS FREAKING LAZY!!!
It’s so bad they had to recycled footage for some of the god damm openings sequences.
It’s like the staff of Seed Destiny blew the budget so can get highly talented voice actors. If you’re planning to watch Seed Destiny make sure to bring a group of friends, beers and make you have a drinking game where you take a shot for every recycled footage in the show inducing when the show has a new opening sequence. If you can do that then you are going to have a great drinking session while watching this shit feast of a Gundam show.

As for the overall formula is it’s now at its all-time worst as most of the fights the Gundam just destroy the enemies suits likes flies and because of that not only that most of the battles are tedious to watch they are also not fun at all.
Overall the visuals were very disappointing when compared to the original and the animation is without a doubt one of the worst I have ever experienced not just for a Gundam but in a mecha show period.
3.5/10

Sound.
Thankfully the soundtrack is still the best part of Seed Destiny. I really loved all the tracks that play in the show especially the interest songs that play in certain episodes.
All the opening and ending themes are still good as ever minus Wing Of Words aka the 4th opening.
Now for sub vs dub.
The sub is still good as ever as both the new and returning Seiyuus did a solid job with the roles they were given.
The dub of Seed Destiny was average but it’s didn’t really stand out all that much compared to the subbed.
9/10

Final Thoughts.
Overall I can safely say that Gundam Seed Destiny is not only a bad Gundam show but it’s just a plan bad anime in general.
The plot was awfully written, most of the characters were utter shit and the visuals, for the most part, were lacklustre. The only good things about Seed Destiny are the music, voice acting and the few characters that are in it. Everything else was a mess that was filled with poor directing.
While I don’t think that Gundam Seed Destiny is the worst Gundam series thanks to the existence of ZZ Gundam and Build Divers it’s still a pretty terrible Gundam show you should avoid unless you are a fan of the original Gundam Seed.
Final Score 3/10

GSD tells us a humanistic truth that one's fate is not predetermined but rather, it's in the individual to create his future.
directed by mitsuo fukuda, GSD is the sequel to GS. With a sequel comes new characters and new mobile suits balancing mecha action with the plot development.
character artwork was above average to good at some point, you can easily spot differences when the characters turn at some angles although this is only a minor. mobile suits can be commended for those intricate parts and structures. the only majow flaw one can easily comment was the repetitive mobile suit action scene you see from one ... episode to another.
GSD is a fine addition to the ever-growing and popular gundam saga. i must say that my heart really aches to see the drama and despair that war brings to the lives of every individual, despite being fictional, especially to the characters. this series greatly conveys that there are no wins in a war but a lot of loses and a hope for a peaceful future..

I said i hated the first seed, but that had a few points which were bearable as a Gundam fan. To speak of it simply this is a show you would buy on DVD just so you can have the pleasure of stomping it into a million pieces then watch it burn in a fire.

there is nothing to speak of in terms of characters and story. Going straight into one of the worst things they could have done to Gundam as a franchise are the flashy war machines which seem to work on magic and pixy dust. In any of the older gundams everything felt ... mechanical and at some points in the show they show the inner workings. (the 8th MS team being a good example for when Shiro was doing a field repair on his RX-79's feet)

Gundams are not meant to fly, the UC universe addresses this with suits that transform into planes and flying platforms purpose built to act as a carrier. In Wing they have...well massive wings and a ridiculous amount of thruster nozzles mounted on the flying suits. They also address the power issue by making each mobile suit carry it's own nuclear reactor. This is not the case here.

Now uber pwnage machines are not an issue with me, the only problem is how much. In any other mecha show and the rest of the gundam series, a super powerful machine has draw backs and are usually very difficult to operate. in some cases they are downright unreliable. In many cases as well the "prototype" uber special unit which our main character has is quickly dwarfed by something the antagonists build to counter it. When we see the gundams in Seed Destiny it's simply unfair to everyone else in the world, the disparity in power is simply too great and the main characters as a result never seem to be in any real danger which would motivate them to act as they do. If we were to throw Shiro Amada, and Kamil into a MS fighting ring against Kira and Athrun sporting the same standardized suits it is fairly obvious which side would win. While team 1 would quickly decide on a course of action and act upon it, team 2 would spend several episodes whining about how they don't want to be involved in this conflict. Once they get their faces pounded in and they are at the end of their rope, team 2 will enter "seed mode" in desperation for their survival and the well being of their bestest friends. However at this point since they are all using the same suits, would not be able to perform any miracle maneuvers and lose.

character development is very little if at all. The sound track is ok and the op and ed music is pretty good. The animation is limited and weak but that can be said for most shows of it's time. the art is decent however i do not enjoy the pretty boy with long thin arms and legs styles much in any series. The action sequences were cool for a while, but then it seems like the same moves are recycled over and over where a character charges into the fray, locks onto a gazillion targets really quickly while glancing across their display screen, and subsequently blowing up everything he just locked on to.

a terrible terrible show you should simply not watch if you have any form of respect for mecha anime of any kind. Go watch any other gundam, hell go watch Macross thats actually good if you can get over the idea of music solving galactic problems.

Some people hate this , some people love this, but i'm in the middle , I can't love this like seed but I can't hate I it either.
What I love and hate !!!

Characters :Although most Gundam Seed fans seem to worship at the temple of Kira Yamamoto , I found myself hating him not only in GS but in gsd , there no character development with him , in GS all he did was get stronger with more battle and whine ,and in gsd all he did was fight and sprout his idealistic crap . not sure if this is ... the right word for this but he very generic , super hero main character , he not relatable nor is he realistic . I mean who would date there best friend ex fiancée ?

My favourite character is Athurn one of the redeeming features that save this anime , he realistic , relatable , he seem more human than kira .

Than there's Lacus seems at first to be nothing but pretty decoration to redress a typically male cast. Instead, she is admirably strong in difficult situations and posesses a sharper political mind thadisappointed
dit for. I have to say I can't understand why the creator would make her go to kira , if they left lacus and athurn together they could of avoided all the troublesome relationship in gsd ,I personal think they make a great couple

Shinn really one of the worse main characters I seen , he make too many mistake , he not fit to be a main characters .

Unlike the other gundam series I seen the characters are not very loveable with a few exceptions Of athrun and Cagalli in gundam 00 I found my self crying when the villain die that how loveable their character were .
Relationship:
To be honest this would of been better without romance , since it was point less , trying not to spoiled this for you but if your hoping for a romantic endind your going to be disappointed

Overall it was a great anime full with out ups and downs I'm giving this a 7.6\10

Story: Poor, because during a scene, they reuse SEED scenes.
Art: Nice, just like SEED.
Sound: The music was good.
Character: There was good SEED Chara devolopment but most of the new chara are bad.
Enjoyment: Dreadful, because, the reused scenes and poor new Characters make it bad.
Overall: This is dreadful.
Notes: This is possibly the dullest anime you can see. This is not worthy of being the sequel to SEED.

As the name suggests, Gundam Seed Destiny is a sequel to the popular Gundam Seed. Now Gundam Seed was the first Gundam series that I ever watched, so I was happy to find out that there was a sequel for it. Sadly, the sequel disappoints greatly with regards to the plot and characters.

Story: 4

The plot revolves an anti-coordinator group known as the Blue Cosmos/ Logos (Think KKK) that happen to be in charge of the Earth Alliance forces (Who thought that would be a good idea?). Due to a series of incidents that were caused by this group, the Earth Alliance ends up going to ... war with Zaft. At this point it's difficult to separate Seed and Destiny anymore since almost everything has been rehashed; Earth and Zaft go to war over certain incidents, there are 3 druggies who end up being competent pilots, the Minerva looks almost like a clone of the Archangel, Strike has been given a face lift and given a new name, a destructive weapon capable of destroying part of Earth and hell even the captains of the ships look alike.

Now I wouldn't mind them taking out the parts that made Seed good, but blatantly copying everything is just stupid and unenjoyable.

Art: 5

The amount of stock footage used is staggering. Granted, this was also a problem with Seed but in almost every fight, stock footage is reused at least twice. Apart from that, the animations are not particularly eye catching but they serve their purpose.

Sound: 8

Seed had really good music, and Destiny didn't disappoint on this. In fact, I found myself enjoying certain songs from Destiny more than Seed.

Characters: 3

Here is the crux of the problem. In Seed we had the POV of students thrust into a war and them learning to adapt and deal with the horrors of war. In Destiny however, almost all the main characters seem to be John Does.

Shinn - Shinn's back story is a typical sobstory that makes zero sense when we stop to actually think about it. He's angry at a country for the death of his family because they were too stupid to evacuate early and were running into a battlefield? There are limits to how stupid a character's backstory is. Also, there seems to be zero development for him. He still acts as an annoying prick throughout the entire series.

Kira - Kira was an interesting and realistic character in Seed who had to deal with multiple issues such as the loss of Fray(sp?) and Todd, going against his ideals to fight and fighting against his best friend. In Destiny he is frequently referred to by viewers as Jesus Yamato because he acts exactly like how Jesus would. He is always taking the moral high ground (No killing, stop fighting) and has zero variation at all.

Athrun - Out of all the MCs, Athrun was the most realistic one to watch. His conflicting emotions from Seed carried over to Destiny as he has had to make choices between his allegiance to his homeland or to his friends. His relationship with Cagalli was just annoying to watch because it could have been solved if only they had communicated.

Overall: 5

Perhaps Destiny was spoiled because of my expectations, but as a sequel Destiny falls flat. If it was a stand alone perhaps the characters could be excused for what they were, but taking what made those characters interesting in Seed and twisting it around to make them extremely boring John Does mean that it just isn't a worthy sequel to Seed.

Gundam SEED Destiny stronger than the first series — Gundam SEED. In it we meet again, so beloved by us earlier, but have grown up characters, and new.

Characters, and mecha are the same as we left them in the first season. But as time passed. Our friends have matured. Although, not all, as turned out to be something taken out of the lesson of their former errors. Every word, every action — before the eyes of that same Gundam, just changed the appearance of new characters and the idea that I was sick Chairman. We see events through the eyes of others, on the other ... side. And now, with the fall of fragments of the colony Junius 7 on Earth begins a new battle for the characters, a new war. Some may sigh, but provide no Gundam battles impossible. It is impossible not to fight, while living in the world, and especially in war. And returning to the roots of one is not encouraging. Again, continuing the battle will resume again the policy will spit on people, rivers stained red, and the music will be muted groans of the dying and losing everything in the fire of the most expensive. Again, seeing no one wants suffering. And who prefer something like that?

Only those who profit from this, who makes a name for himself. They talk about a world without a warrior for justice, for some incredible plans sverhideyah, projects that can idealize the human race, the future — to write on a blank sheet of destiny. And these people believe. They want to believe. For us, the audience, the idea of the plan the Chairman «Destiny» just another idea to enslave the entire world. So those who would believe it, who? Fools? There world is filled with billions of fools? No, I guess. We were not in a situation like they are even. We were not in place of those desperate people that are not able to fight for the salvation of the words which the Chairman and Lacus Clyne, that the image, clean and beautiful. People do not live in order to fight and cry. As Kagalli said, «Life — is not just a battle». But we have to fight. Fight to one day all can live happily ever after. We must fight for their future, their future, being able to endure all the hardships and difficulties. And it is easy to do if you are not alone. When you're surrounded by friends when you are hoping hundreds of people, when someone sacrifices their lives for, even if it sounds pathetic, but the future, how can you try to escape from the battle, how hard is not it? So, for example, Athrun again lost. Not wanting to continue the war and fleeing from the past, he disappeared into the Orbe. And then he just felt useless, unable to do anything. He returned to the same doubts that plagued him in the first season.
In Athrun have the power, wisdom, understanding, but he again began to look for an answer, for what need to fight, for whom and why. One of the characters Gundam SEED Destiny said: «Why are we fighting for?.. When we start to think about it — it will mean that we lost». Athrun lost himself, his past.
Everyone knows that at any moment death can resume. Nobody wants that. To live, expecting at any moment from heaven may fall upon the stones — it is almost impossible. I do not want to fight, you do not want to be afraid. I want peace, but what is it? Kira, Lacus, Kagalli, Athrun — they are too experienced to treat all without trepidation, fear, despair, and not wanting to admit a single mistake. Suddenly it will become a cause for a new battle. Kagalli was ready to sacrifice everything for his country. Kira wanted a world without war, where no one will have to endure what he endured, and many other participants in the battles. For this he was ready to fight for the sake of those who are dear to him... A Athrun... After escaping from the past, he was lost in the present with no hope for the future. The feeling of helplessness weighed on him, and Chairman the words were so believable...

But, of course, the entire generation of past battles would like to be deceived by stories of a world without wars. Particularly susceptible to this, those who saw the horror of battle with my own eyes and in that moment he could not do anything. Having lost everything, how terrible the idea that no matter what you do not pass, that the world is too cruel, and all around are wrong. Only you, as it were, seen it, only you lost and wept over the dead bodies of his parents and little sister. And such a person continues to confirm the validity of Chairman and cheering words, even without knowing its purpose and thus they mock and insult people whose ideals are somehow different from their own. And that Shinn — the protagonist Gundam SEED Destiny....

This show is the second Gundam I have watched and its not very good, you know why? Its the same as Code Geass and Bleeach if they had a baby, only not as good! I am not sure where they hid the instruction manual for this thing. Let me tell you about this confused show!

First off its just like Code Geass because it starts off as if theres some back story your supposed to know! There were characters and events everywhere I didn't understand, but basically it's the story of revenge from a kid who's mad at other kids for killing his family in a ... war. It's not much special and you know the villain from the start, even though they flash back to stuff I never seen and other parts over and over again. How did these people even get these robots? They just want to sell Happy Meal action figures!

Art is pretty crap, I'm sorry but Im true. All characters have the same face all the time and its way too colors. Compare it to Bleach's interesting art derection and you have nothing. It may be better than Code Geass, though, because some characters look like they eat meals.

The music in this show is great and openings are fantastic. Its on scale with great live action epic shows like Star Wars and The Lord in The Rings as well as Chicken Run. I am kidding, but the first two.

The characters are just terrible and often reference things I never understood or saw. Some characters are in love even though they're enemies or clones! Then they pretend like they died or something! I don't get it, nobody does!

Over all, I can't recommend this series to anyone because nobody will know what's going on like me. Stick with Bleach, or if you want something just as stupid but better, look on Code Geass. Thank you!

Destiny is honestly a really good sequel that addresses the issues that were not complete covered in Seed. I find both series very different, which also makes Destiny a success. If both were similar, it's really hard to expand. People who are expecting a same kind of genre/presentation from Seed will probably be disappointed, or at least shocked.

Story (8/10):

The way the story is presented was really mind-boggling. For the moment, you think things are this way, the next moment you are confused whether is it really the way it looks. I liked also how the dialogues and philosophical issues really make you think and reflect, ... without being too morbid/psychotic. It was so exciting that I was literally watching more and more episodes. I think this may be the fastest I've ever watched an anime.

Art (6/10):

The art style is the same as Seed's. I like Seed's artwork, so I'll explain why I gave destiny a 6/10. Destiny had a whole new range of new characters, not to mention the old characters, and because of that I think some of the characters were poorly designed, or even look re-used. The mobile suits were also hardly distinct, and did not leave as much of an impression as Seed's mecha. Inspite of that, there were a few good character/gundam designs. I especially liked the Hawke sisters.

Sound (8/10)

The BGM blended pretty subtly with the series, which was nice. The OP/ED of Destiny was really good in my opinion. The way they integrate the ED with the last few seconds of the anime really set the mood to make you want to watch another episode. The See-Saw endings were the best and most appropriate for the entire series. And changing the OP/ED every 12-14 episodes retained the freshness of the songs.

Character (9/10)

The strongest point of Destiny. My favourite part of the series were the episodes when the characters had a destined/special encounter with each other face to face (not robot to robot). I think these special conversations make a huge difference in the whole show (to me at least) and makes it more interesting. There were a few characters that really touched me as a viewer, and I thought it they were very adorable. Generally, the new cast were good, and the developments of the old cast were improved too.

Enjoyment (8/10)

I thoroughly enjoyed Destiny. It's definitely the better series I've watched in a while. For those who want maximum enjoyment, instead of watching episode 50 (last episode), watch the OVA Final Plus instead. It's essentially a revamped last episode that has a much better ending.

Overall (8/10)

I gave Destiny an 8 because 8 to me is really good. It's a quality series and a proper ending to the entire series.

...or we can all agree that there are people in the world who just don't know how to write good stories.

Gundam is "one of those franchises;" like Macross and Transformers. The toys are usually the main money-making machine. But the (animated) stories behind it are usually what sends said franchise to either "legendary status" or it's own funeral.

Seed Destiny, which is more like a badly-written repeat to Seed than a sequel, nearly BURIED it for Bancolding$ (Bandai Namco Holdings / $unrise) in terms of anything Gundam. Here's a list of what went wrong:

* Mitsuo Fukuda and his "ball-&-chain" wife (whose the head ... of storyboarding). (And to answer the question, "no. Having atleast SOME since of creativity and originality can save your life, as well as others.")
* Too many Gundams. (Char's Counter & Unicorn were way better.)
* "Moe Gundam." ("Hot chicks everywhere" means "the show is meatless overall." Ikkitousen atleast had something.)
* Too much "boot-slurping" for Seed's original cast. Kira, Lax, Athrun, skip-a-few, what's your point?
* No love for Shinn Asuka (NOR his voice-actor; with rumors of him being spat on).
* Bancolding$ in general. (The people who run it NEED to be told that "The US Is NOT Japan And It NEVER Will Be.")

But, you know. It's been proven by the "Writer's Strike" we had some years back, and the slop movies that came out of it: Good writing is what usually holds something together. Without it, you might as well just throw what you made into the garbage can.

In life, there are examples to follow and there are examples to avoid. Gundam Seed Destiny (GSD) is definitely an example of how not to produce an animated weekly television series.

The premise isn't bad in and of itself: What if, as the emo hero from series 1, you destroy the family of a completely innocent person and turn him into an anti-hero?

That's fine, that's well and good, but this is Gundam. Gundam regularly deals with things as big as diplomacy and intrigue between powerful alliances in addition to the personal stories of the individuals caught up in conflict involving giant robots. The problem with this ... show is, it didn't do a particularly good job of writing a large-scale conflict convincingly. Rather, it handed everyone but ZAFT The Stoopid Ball (TM) and they blundered into a new conflict despite all the lives slaughtered in the previous one. I know humanity, particularly the bigoted folks, aren't particularly good at learning from mistakes, but seriously?

But that's not the only reason I'm hammering this show particularly hard. Oh no, it gets better. So at a cursory glance, you'd think this show is looking to Zeta Gundam as its model, just as series 1 of the Cosmic Era looked to the first Gundam series. So Shinn is the hero of the series, right? Well, you'd be dead wrong. Just after the first cour, the hero from series 1 dusts off his Gundam and proceeds to deliver his patented Beam Spam of Justice as a sort-of freedom fighter. Here the militaries react rather realistically for once-- they both treat him and his faction as hostile instead of having an instant lobotomy and sitting there shocked that this guy would only destroy their weapons systems.

So the series 2 protag, having his thunder well and truly stolen and his love interest Four, I mean, Stella, killed, loses his marbles and goes on a killing spree, and it was all downhill from there. Yes, Shinn became one of the main villains of the series largely for revenge, and it was more cringeworthy to watch and hear him whine to the end than to watch Anakin in the Star Wars prequels.

Actually, I don't blame the characters, I blame the people in charge of the story: the series director and the scenario writers. Re-introducing Kira into the conflict without a sufficiently coherent plan was a little like jumping the center divider on a busy highway and flooring it in the wrong direction. Bold, sure, but boldly slamming into an oncoming semi truck just makes you look insane, stupid, suicidal, or some combination of these. Now, I understand why they brought him back: the scene where he rescues his "family" from spec ops carrying out Stupid Ballz orders (you know, killing civilians, the usual war crime stuff) is quite good. The problem, however, is that the show didn't know what the hell to do with him and the Archangel once they started their one-ship-and-one-Gundam circus.

Because no one, including the director, had a clear or believable answer, the remaining 3 cours were either a slow-motion train wreck or a scramble to try to hit plot points by a certain schedule, and you know they were failing hard because there were, I believe, 3 recap clip shows. Normally you'd see 1 recap episode in a good 4-cour anime (and no, A-1, you don't do it in a 2-cour series); 2 wouldn't be terribly unusual, but 3 or more is a sign that the production is really struggling. I wouldn't be surprised if high-level production crew like the episode directors or line producers weren't happy with how the show was going. I know I and many other viewers at the time were going, "What the hell is going on in Sunrise??" By the final cour, the plot twists were so ridiculous ("Ohai I wuz vaporized in series 1, but I'm alive!" "Ohai, I'm a clone!"), I was calling this the most ridiculous Gundam since Double Zeta or G Gundam. AGE was better planned and executed, though I'm sure fans of this show will disagree.

And considering the star-studded voice cast and the theme songs sung by hit artists of the day, it's simply a crying shame to see all that talent wasted on a show whose sole entertainment value was seeing how hard it would fail and how many times they would recycle the same exact animation sequences in the fight scenes. Except the first OP. I could never understand why TM Revolution is so popular when he looks and sounds like a screaming drag queen when he sings his own songs in concert (when he sings normally, he's actually fantastic); Nishikawa voiced a high-ranking officer in the show and was promptly written out because Reasons. Was I supposed to care?

They tried to salvage the series through the movies, but as Jerry Lewis is alleged to have said, "You can't polish a turd".