CE Gundam and the American Gundam Fanbase.

[Zeino]

Why are Gundam Seed and Seed Destiny such a "love it or hate it" series among American Gundam Fans? In Japan, it pretty much revitalized the frachise which had been in something of decline in the late 90s and is still pretty popular there to this day, while in America for the most part, it was not very well received by the fandom and probbly gets the most hate of any Gundam series on the internet. The question is why does it inspire such animosity in great deal of American fanbase?

[tHeWasTeDYouTh]

I really enjoyed Seed the only problem I had was the REUSED combat footage, was Bandai that broke that they had to use the same footage and mobile suit shooting over and over and over again???

GSD, that series had some really serious political undertones with the Atlantic Federation(US under Bush), President Copeland(Bush) and Logos(big company conspiracy)

I think people in the west tend to see this plus the english dub sucked and still REUSED combat footage

You can also get 0083 and 08th MS Team pretty easy and when you see that you realize how crapy GS GSD is

[Dark Duel]

What sucked about GSD wasn't so much the political undercurrent.
It was the rampant use of stock footage, and even more frequent use of flashbacks - Uzumi Nara Athha shows up more in Destiny than he did in Seed, and in the former he's been dead two years.
It was also the fact that apparently the writers are incapable of consistent portrayal of their characters, and about halfway through seem to decide they're not sure who the main character is anymore, until you hit about the two-thirds mark and they decide to make everyone not serving under Lacus Clyne evil and/or stupid.

In other words, it's the piss-poor writing.

I liked Seed. I hate Destiny because it had so much potential, and it squandered it.

[Mu La Flaga]

I actually discuessed this with a mate of mine.
And he reckoned Fukuda likes to use stock footage or stuff since he is used to directing super robot shows more and all that.

I don't know if it is that or maybe it was cost cutting or lazy animators or what.

Oh and I don't count as part of the American fanbase I still liked SEED and SEED Destiny, even though Destiny has some huge flaws with it.

Like the character derailment, show hijacking by Kira and co and the back and forth and not 100% solid plot for the last 1/3rd of the show pretty much after the Freedom gets taken out is when it totally goes downhill.

[krullnar]

Seriously guys yet another of the why CE fails topic I can't take the repetitiveness.

[Murra]

In Japan, it pretty much revitalized the frachise which had been in something of decline in the late 90s and is still pretty popular there to this day

Not that popular actually, the big fans of it's day have probably long since moved on, and the die-hard Gundam fans are still all about the UC. The average Gundam Ace volume too is mostly UC, with some 00 thrown in, little if any CE. Some of the characters retain popularity, and the Strike Freedom still places highly in popularity polls, but not the series as a whole.

[DuelGundam2099]

the english dub sucked

Wait, what?

It was also the fact that apparently the writers are incapable of consistent portrayal of their characters

the character derailment

the last 1/3rd of the show pretty much after the Freedom gets taken out is when it totally goes downhill.

Would someone like to describe this in a little more detail with this, please? 'Cause I don't remember reacting this way when I was seeing it.


Anyway, my theory? People don't like change and needed a whipping boy. SEED/SEED Destiny were new so why not? 00 didn't get it 'cause a ton of US Gundam fans saw some of Gundam Wing in it.

[ShadowCell]

I left this one open because it didn't have the overt "Cosmic Era sucks balls, who's with me? WHO'S BLOODY WELL WITH ME?" tone that the last one had, but then that tone wound its way in here anyway, so, uh, yeah. Probably should've known.

Guys, instead of telling us once again how much you totally hate Gundam SEED DESTINY because it shot your parents one night and so you became the Gundam fan version of Batman or something, let's just leave the decayed remains of that horse alone and talk about the actual question of this thread: why do North American Gundam fans hate these shows so much and Japanese fans don't.

Here, I'll go first. I think it's safe to say that DESTINY was rewritten halfway through to accommodate Japanese fans' desires to see Kira and Lacus back in the saddle. So DESTINY was rewritten. Of course the Japanese fans like it; they got what they wanted.

The other idea I have is that it's mostly the hardcore Western Gundam fans who have so much sand in their vaginas over SEED and DESTINY, and it's been my observation that they actually hate Gundam--at least when it hearkens back to the spirit of shows like Mobile Suit Gundam and Zeta, and they would rather have it hearken back to the spirit of the OVAs, like 08th MS Team and 0083. Take a look at the "what would you want in the next Gundam series?" thread on this forum, for example, and then compare that to shows like Zeta and SEED, and you'll see what I mean. SEED and especially DESTINY don't do that. In the spirit, tone, pacing, and structure of their stories, they are far more similar to MSG and Zeta than they are to 08th MS Team or 0083. That's cool for Japanese fans, because they like those shows; but the hardcore Western fans, um, don't. Despite their claims otherwise, evidently. After all, it's those two OVAs that they hold up as what Gundam "should" be.

I suppose that's sort of to be expected, since it was the Gundam TV shows that for the most part did so badly in the US and that's where the lion's share of the fans are, and the OVAs did the best. And it's not as though it's illegitimate to take your Gundam with what the OVAs are cookin' over the TV series. But it does, I think, explain why there's so much vitriol from the hardcore Western fans over SEED and DESTINY, when those shows are so popular in Japan: SEED and DESTINY are the antithesis of what those hardcore Western fans want Gundam to be.

[tHeWasTeDYouTh]

the english dub sucked

Wait, what?

It was also the fact that apparently the writers are incapable of consistent portrayal of their characters

the character derailment

the last 1/3rd of the show pretty much after the Freedom gets taken out is when it totally goes downhill.

Would someone like to describe this in a little more detail with this, please? 'Cause I don't remember reacting this way when I was seeing it.


Anyway, my theory? People don't like change and needed a whipping boy. SEED/SEED Destiny were new so why not? 00 didn't get it 'cause a ton of US Gundam fans saw some of Gundam Wing in it.

The dub for Seed was very good, I was talking about about GSD. The voice actors for the three new extended pilots suck big time.

The voice for Azrael on the original Seed fits perfectly

[Murra]

Anyway, my theory? People don't like change and needed a whipping boy. SEED/SEED Destiny were new so why not? 00 didn't get it 'cause a ton of US Gundam fans saw some of Gundam Wing in it.

Except they weren't new, until the disappearance of Kira, SEED was a play by play remake of 0079. Then Destiny pretty much gave up on designing new suits and straight out recycled 0079 suits. They were the least new Gundam series in the history of Gundam.

Also to reiterate, everybody in Japan has already moved on from SEED and Destiny, my local hobby store doesn't even stock the HG kits anymore. They are not popular series in Japan anymore. Really, the majority of Japanese fans I've spoken to are every bit as much about the everlasting UC love as western fans.

[DuelGundam2099]

SEED was a play by play remake of 0079.

Really? Didn't feel like it all that much.

Then Destiny pretty much gave up on designing new suits and straight out recycled 0079 suits.

Gotta disagree with you there, they only recycled Zakus, Goufs, and Doms.

The voice actors for the three new extended pilots suck big time.

Hmm, real shame, I kinda liked them, but one size doesn't fit everybody.

[Chris]

I have to say I don't get what the point of this thread is. Who cares who like or doesn't like something. As long as you like it, what does it matter what other people think?

[Murra]

SEED was a play by play remake of 0079.

Really? Didn't feel like it all that much.

All the points were there, from the colony attack to get the secret weapon, right down to the journey across the sea and the desert ace.

[mcred23]

Seriously guys yet another of the why CE fails topic I can't take the repetitiveness.

Probably because the person who posted this wasn't around for the older ones, and with the broken search funtion, it's hard to find them if they are buried 10 pages back (That would be from a year ago, FYI). I'll dig around and post links to a few of them, but might as well point out just a few quick things.

For SEED, part of it was that Cartoon Network really ruined their airing of it. It was aired only on Saturday nights at 10:30, which was not normal for Gundam, and later moved even later (IIRC, 1 AM) because of the gore in the last episodes. It had a ton of edits, in what seemed to be an over reaction to Super Bowl XXXVIII's halftime, which IIRC a lot of shows did at the time. However, unlike previous Gundam shows that had very good editing (IMO), the edits in SEED were just badly done, like the 'Disco Guns', or the "water" dealer, among many others. Even things as weird as changing the sound effects of the GINN's machine gun to something very un-machine gun like, and reducing the amount of background gunfire in the first episode. There were websites at the time posting comparisons of the bad edits and the original show, many of which had people wondering why something seemingly unoffensive was being taken out.

And on top of things like that, you have the flashbacks and the seemingly pointless non-action episodes that alternated early on in SEED. The reused stock footage and numerious clip shows, and wasn't there also an episode that was partly a music video clip show? While the Japanese fans seemed to either like all that stuff, or at least were able to look past it, for many American fans (Or rather, what Gundams fans were left, as Gundam was already well on it's way down the drain here in America), it was just further issues they had with the show. SEED Destiny, which had many of the same issues, and quite a few others, took it all to another level, and with the American fan community already very split on the issue of SEED, Destiny just dumped a tanker full of gas on the fire, which is partly why the issue still keeps popping up all these years after the show aired.

Plus pretty much everything ShadowCell said, which is another source of the issues many American fans had with the CE shows.

As for some threads that may touch on the subject, here are a couple of threads related to the subject. Most of these are on the "Why Did Gundam Flop" subject, but I think they at least touch on the effect SEED had over here (And even if they didn't, they are interesting reads).

Thread from last November.
Similar thread from a year earlier.
Thread on 00 not reviving Gundam in America.
Thread on the difference between Japanese and Western fans, which SEED/Destiny plays a role in.

I know there are others, but I can't find them and don't feel like looking anymore. Plus, there are ones where the discussion of why people liked/disliked SEED/Destiny developed in threads not for that purpose, so just looking at thread titles doesn't help there. Needless to say, that fact that opinion on the show still seems to be somewhat sharply divided between loving or hating it is why this subject keeps returning.

EDIT: One other thing...

Really? Didn't feel like it all that much.

The first half of SEED follows the same basic path that MSG (And to a much lesser extent, Zeta and ZZ, elements of which SEED also used) took: Kid at a neutral colony, trip to friendly base with Commander who dislikes the white ship the Good Guys are on, battle there, battle at re-entry (More a Zeta thing due to the size of the battle), Masked enemy goes away for a bit, trip across desert fighting sympathetic enemy, trip across water fighting more enemy units, arrive at big friendly base that gets attacked by the bad guys, good guys break out their own mass produced MS. At that point, the story pretty much goes off on it's own.

Some elements of it are certainly Gundam cliche by this point, like the re-entry battle, but SEED was doing them in the same exact order as MSG and it made the first half of SEED very predictable for a lot of people when they first saw the show. That was another thing about the show that turned some American fans away as well...

[Zeino]

I'd just like to make clear that I was not try to make this a bashing thread. Seed was the series that got me in Gundam in the first place. I was just wondering why it so much flak from the fandom here. Also I have another question that in relation. Is it true that back in the early 2000s, the fandom was fiercely split between the fans of G Gundam and Gundam Wing and the older fans of UC?

[Mu La Flaga]

@DuelGundam2099's earlier post reply to quotes.

To me it just seemed odd and more so annoying Kira had taken the lead from having a couple of on and off episode appearances and the fact this happened because the Japanese fans didn't like the new characters.

It derailed Shinn's development in doing this.
There were a few okay episodes in this time when the focus was on Shinn and not fighting Kira and becoming the villian every time he fought Kira.

I mean it culminates in the point of the Destiny plan and the whole final showdown in space of Three Ships Alliance vs ZAFT.

Yet only a few episodes before they had taken out REQUIEM.
As I said again it's the whole back and forth thing in that part which never did sit well with me.

As for the dub thing, to me the dub is good, it's not perfect but still good.

[mcred23]

Also I have another question that in relation. Is it true that back in the early 2000s, the fandom was fiercely split between the fans of G Gundam and Gundam Wing and the older fans of UC?

It was more Wing and UC, with G Gundam not being as popular at the time due to few people having seen it prior to it's TV airing, and its different nature, so it wasn't as heavily involved in those old splits. For more on that subject, check this thread.

[yazi88]

Dang, I haven't seen any of these threads in a while, understandingly why, as controversial as it is to a lot of regulars here at mechatalk especially about Destiny. I kinda surprised it isn't locked down yet as it has yet to unleashed the power of pandora's box. Thankfully these (CE plot and fan discussion) threads are becoming less and less frequent.

[Toxicity]

Here, I'll go first. I think it's safe to say that DESTINY was rewritten halfway through to accommodate Japanese fans' desires to see Kira and Lacus back in the saddle. So DESTINY was rewritten. Of course the Japanese fans like it; they got what they wanted.

This has always been something that baffled me a bit. Could you elaborate on this a bit more? They re-wrote the second half of the show for this reason alone? I don't watch much television, but are writers giving into their viewers demands like this something that happens often?

[ShadowCell]

I don't think it was for that reason alone, if all the apparent backstage drama between Morosawa and Cagalli's seiyuu is any indication--but yeah, it happens. Kira and Lacus were way more popular in Japan than the new cast of DESTINY. It's happening to other shows too. Gundam 00, according to Mizushima and staff, got so much hatred on the Internet in Japanese fan circles that it started to be a drag on the staff--and so then came S2, which was popular enough to support a full-length theatrical film.

I don't know if this is something going on with North American television or not.