Burke's First Impressions of Gundam Seed!

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mcred23
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Re: Burke's First Impressions of Gundam Seed!

Arbiter GUNDAM wrote:Did CN honestly think SEED could succeed at one in the morning? Were they counting on the stoner college crowd?
It wasn't originally on that late. Initially, it aired earlier, at 10:30 or 11. The claimed reason for it being moved later was to allow more of the gore and stuff in the later episodes to be shown, but in any case, I doubt they expected much from a Gundam show that was airing once a week anyway (Gundam was already in steep decline by that point and the wiriting was probably on the wall).
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Re: Burke's First Impressions of Gundam Seed!

I think they were obligated to air Seed but by that point Gundam was already on the outs in the US, so they did the bare minimum required to keep from offending Bandai.
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Re: Burke's First Impressions of Gundam Seed!

As a result you also had disco guns vanishing and reappearing on the same weapon in the same scene.
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Re: Burke's First Impressions of Gundam Seed!

Wingnut said:
As a result you also had disco guns vanishing and reappearing on the same weapon in the same scene.
At least we have the gratuitous shower scenes. :mrgreen:
By the way, my North American friends, what did they do with the splurting innards caused by Cyclops? Guns are not cool but walls decorated with "hint of brain" is A-OK? :P

At the risk of getting an official reprimand for dragging this back up, I will very briefly comment on the idea of Coordinator as Homo Superior and Natural as Homo Sapiens. No, it's not visible in the series beyond a few peripheral examples like Kira's programming feats and so on, but it is a valid point that the the two most notable genocidal crazies of the show, Patrick Zala and Muruta Azrael, seemed to be particularly obsessed with the idea of an impending and unavoidable evolutionary struggle taking place.

This juxtaposition is not at all rare in science fiction. Looking at Babylon5 and how it treats telepaths especially in J. Gregory Keyes's books, and you have the same societal dynamics but much more elaborately explored (I should know, I did a paper on it last year). It is an interesting extrapolation of how societal power structures react and seek to legitimize their actions.

There is the idea of an evolutionary struggle taking place in Seed, but it does not get leveraged, really, at all, to the point Izayuukan mentioned. It is possible of course to see and appreciate how the human history of extermination gets replayed in sci-fi, but this is not necessarily the most suitable forum to do so. :) If you want to discuss this point with me further, my Inbox is always open.
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Re: Burke's First Impressions of Gundam Seed!

Antares wrote: By the way, my North American friends, what did they do with the splurting innards caused by Cyclops? Guns are not cool but walls decorated with "hint of brain" is A-OK? :P
It's all edited out. All you see are mobile suits exploding, and the one in cockpit shot of a ZAFT pilot that Kira saves, but not a single drop of blood is shown. Even when CN reaired all the episodes at the later timeslot, all the episodes were still shown in their heavily edited forms (Save the last four or five that were the reason for the show being moved later, which were slightly less edited to show some of the gore).
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Re: Burke's First Impressions of Gundam Seed!

Morgenroete women from D'Agostini perfect file:http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5kVO-k2EGwA/T ... 1600/3.jpg

Maybe there are some new info there.
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Re: Burke's First Impressions of Gundam Seed!

It appears that the HD Remaster version will start airing from 1st January 2012. It will be in 16:9 aspect ratio along with recompiled episodes and new cells for existing scenes.
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Re: Burke's First Impressions of Gundam Seed!

The astray novel has about ~1/2 a chapter on Erica, including her background.
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Re: Burke's First Impressions of Gundam Seed!

I wonder if this airing of the SEED HD remaster is kind of the same thing they did in October with Ghostbusters. I.e. they might be testing the waters, seeing if SEED still gets a good response from the Japanese viewers? Maybe for that vaporware SEED movie?
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Re: Burke's First Impressions of Gundam Seed!

Ah Gundam SEED, the first of the new series that I saw (before that and like most of you, I watched mainly the older shows that came to America).

Reading the reviews that Burkes did on this show brought back memories of my own viewing of this show. It did make me a bit wistful and in my more insane (slap myself to come to my senses) moments, I thought about taking a crack at this series again, then I remember my own memories of the show and what came afterwards (which will be dealt with on that respective thread). I still wonder how I could like a show such as this and wonder how it could be popular with all of the detriments that I have. In fact if I were to list examples of the does and don'ts of a Gundam show, SEED would fall to the don't category although not the extent of its sequel.

For the mecha, they were a mixed bag. The Earth Alliance mass-produced MS were mainly of the dull variety. I did like the ships though.

As for the ZAFT MS, while the GINNs, CGUEs, and GuAIZs were fine, I did not like the aquatic mobile suits very much, not to mention despising those BaCUEs and their variants.

As for the Gundam suits, the first five were fine with me (particularly when I've seen the lineart of them designed by those not named Kunio Okawara). As for the remaining mobile suits, (except for the fact that it had too many guns that were used cheaply that its pilot used in a disgusting manner) I did like the design of the Freedom Gundam and as for the Justice Gundam, I liked the suit design but did not like at all its detachable backpack.

The druggie suits, well the only that that I could somewhat tolerate was the Raider Gundam while the other two, well (shudders). To sum it up, I did not like those suits at all.

My thoughts on the Providence Gundam has somewhat changed. Although it is a bulky design (and well perhaps ugly anyway you looked at it). In the hands of a pilot like Rau Le Creust, it is one deservingly dammed lethal weapon.

For the music side, while the instrumentals are somewhat fine, I did not like most of the vocal singings in either opening or most of the ending. The only songs that I liked were those done by Yuki Kajiura (and ironically enough, SEED would be my introduction to the composer).

As for the story, I really wasn't too hot at first that it seemed to be mostly following the original MSG. Furthermore I had some very questionable feelings on how it conducted the relationships and backgrounds of certain characters and to the story as a whole. However I did like it when SEED attempted to become its own show until mostly near the end (YMMV on whether you think that it succeeded and I'm still on the fence myself as I felt that there were some things that should have been done instead of what we got).

Now as for the characters (I apologize if I get my recollections wrong and well this is me trying to write this while I guess trying to write it without going to extremes):

Mu La Flaga: By all acounts one of the best characters in this particular series. Jovial and funny guy yet willing to do the job to the best of his ability. Like many others, his death at the end was one of the big impressive events of the show (in fact I had thought of a funny comment that if the CE universe had something similar to Star Trek Klingon's Sto-va-Kor, that he would be infinitely welcomed into its halls due to his incredible exploits). Also he and Murre had excellent chemistry as well.

Murre Ramius: I'm iffy on her as well she was an alright captain though I feel that there were some things that I take issue with her mainly of her being too easygoing and lenient. Furthermore, I really did not like those repeated scenes of her on the bridge and what happens when the bridge shakes once the Archangel comes under attack.

Nartale Badguriel: Although perhaps too much of a stickler to military protocol, she knew what she was doing and perhaps I wished she was in command instead of Murre.

The druggie trio: While they were suitable as pilots, I really didn't like the fact that after a certain time limit, they would go haywire and need to return. Furthermore (aside from what small information the supplementary materials provide) we learned nothing about them. I had no problems with them getting killed off and it allowed some of the characters to truly shine when they took out the druggies.

As for the main four, well I preferances was that I liked Athrun and Cagalli and how they worked in SEED (which makes me more depressed what would happen later to those two (from a show production viewpoint). Thus well mostly I wished that she also had not worked so well with Kira (particularly to the point where she showed some inkling of a romantic interest in Kira (this was before they found out their true relationship to each other).

Flay Alister: This is a complicated one for me as although she did things that were at times despicable, she at least seem realistic in comparison to several other characters. She did change and grow over the course of the series and while I did not like her, I wished that she had not been killed off (particularly in the way that she did). Due to that though, it is a scar that should have haunted Kira forever for I feel that he was still in love with her. If it wasn't for her actions, Kira would not truly have become the pilot needed to survive.

Kira Yamato: While he did have a horrific wrenching way to cry, I thought that he was alright and somewhat acceptable for Gundam pilot and liked him for a bit. Then the Desert Arc and then what happens up to his fight with Athrun somewhat decreased my opinion of his further. It wavered between apathy towards him as well as disgust as some of the events that happened in the series (the death of Flay's father as well as that of Tolle and finally Flay herself) were entirely his fault and he should have taken full responsibility to it. In fact when Kira engaged Rau again, I felt at times that the combined elements of the scene felt that Kira had (to use a Star Wars term) gone to the dark side. To add to that I did not like that he had taken the viewpoint of not killing while on the battlefield and felt that had he discarded it, certain events would have been avoided. It also doesn't help that the pacifist stance that Kira takes set a infinitely bad example for other later shows to follow. As a result of that as well as what happened with Flay, well I felt that he should have bought the farm in SEED (at least he would have died somewhat well) or in my darker thoughts on the matter, well he should have died in the interlude between SEED and SEED Destiny for what happens to him at the end and his mental state (well it would have reminded me a bit of those that have come back from the more morally questionable wars of history).

Lacus Clyne: At first well I was taken aback and felt that she would be a hinderance to the show. However her actions in episode 10 did persent something that I liked much and well wished that they had spent more time to actually develop her (unfortunately that did not happen and that I feel was an enormous detriment against her.) I wish that they didn't make her the naive girl who is also a singer (as it brought bad vibes of Lynn Minnmey of Macross) that she was when she was first introduced. Pretty much like with the case of Kira, I have a low opinion of her.

As for the relationship for the two, I can't seem to understand why it is so popular, it could have had they done things differently between the two to sell it better.

Rau Le Creust: A ruthless, brutal, scheming villian of the show who happens to be right about the war and what it represents and the fact that due to how he came into being that he was correct in his judgement about humanity and that only he had to right to judge it and judge it guilty and therefore deserving to die. After the events of the sequel, I had wished that he had triumphed if at least in taking out Kira.

Azrael and Patrick Zala: Both dictators that served their purpose on the show although the situation of Patrick losing his (if it is true about his feelings for her) wife and that corrupting him into a monster, reminded me a bit much of Gendo Ikari of Evangelion. To bad he didn't have Gendo's self control over his temper during the scenes at the end of the series and instead tumbles into (what someone else mentioned here) a Disney-style villan.

Uzumi Nara Athha: I guess my opinion of him would be the same as that of Shinn in that he talks big but does things that are morally questionable and doesn't have the guts to face up to what he has done and instead commits hara-kiri, which puts his adopted daughter into a position that she is totally unsuited for by any standard.

Well there it is on my thoughts on this particular show. I thought I might as well put it down anyway.
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Re: Burke's First Impressions of Gundam Seed!

I was re-reading my Gundam Seed manga and was on volume three when I noticed something. From episode 30 until episode 38 Dearka is on board the Archangel. Now I know that the Earth Alliance doesn't like coordinators, but why leave dearka on the Archangel? The ship was docked at Alaska with the Buster Gundam on board even, and yet the Earth Alliance doesn't take the Buster off the ship. They could of taken the buster with them when they evacuated josh-a, and overwritten the OS with their own allowing them to use it against ZAFT. For some odd reason they just leave it with the Archangel. Its possible if they had the Buster at panama they would of never of lost it to ZAFT, and the battle of Orb could of been avoided.
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Re: Burke's First Impressions of Gundam Seed!

@Evex on Buster and Dearka:
My understanding was that the EA already had bigger plans in motion. The Buster was 1st gen Gundam, and one that they didn't want back all that badly. The Buster would've served the same role as the Calamity, and with the Daggers the EA (or the Atlantic Federation) thought that they would be winning the war without the Buster. I don't know who they didn't take it out at all, though, the Buster might've served as additional bait in the trap. As for Dearka, the Archangel, alongside its Coordinator prisoner, was supposed to go up in smoke in Alaska anyway. Don't see why they wouldn't have tortured Dearka for some info, though, before letting him fry.

Or, one could also hypothesize, that Murrue Ramius had decided not to report Dearka's presence to the bigwigs, or was otherwise preoccupied. Natarle probably would've tattled, though, which leads me back to my first guess. But it's a plothole sure enough, unless someone can think of a more convincing rationale behind the decision to ignore the Gundam and the pilot.
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Re: Burke's First Impressions of Gundam Seed!

They simply wanted the Archangel to go down as a 'valiant sacrifice' with all hands and neatly 'clean up' all the potential political embarrassment that the ship, crew, prisoners, and mobiles suits represented. Basically, since discovering Kira was a coordinator, Blue Cosmos just wrote off the whole thing while letting the Archangel serve as a nice distraction while the Cyclops was readied.
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Re: Burke's First Impressions of Gundam Seed!

Oops, wrong thread. Post deleted. :P
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Re: Burke's First Impressions of Gundam Seed!

Burke Rukes wrote: Alright, time to talk about the Char-wannabe, Rau La Creuset. Many Gundam shows have had "Char clones," to varying degrees of success, but this Rau guy seems to be trying a little too hard to be Char, beyond the blonde hair (*sighs in annoyance at the long pretty-boy hairstyle*) and the metal mask. It's the voice. He sounds and talks too much like Char in mannerisms. It just annoys me. However, in other ways, he's not like the real deal Char. He doesn't have a cool, custom-colored mobile suit. When I watched him the -one- time he sorties in the first 5 episodes, I honestly thought he was in a GINN, in standard colors. I had to look around on the MAHQ mecha profiles to find that he was, in fact, in a CGUE and not a GINN. Just goes to show that the GINN and CGUE are so Okawara-generic that at first glance they're unimpressive and indistinguishable. And he only sorties the one time, has a pretty good (and obviously long-time-rivalistic) dogfight with Mu and his Mobius Zero. But otherwise, he spends the rest of these 5 episodes sitting on the bridge, spouting orders... feeling like yet another ordinary ship captain. He doesn't -feel- like a Char-level threat yet. So far he's pretty unimpressive as a "mysterious villain."
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Re: Burke's First Impressions of Gundam Seed!

Umm, you know celestia95 that this thread was made months ago (back around October 2011 if i remember correctly) Burke has not only finished Gundam Seed, but he has also finished Seed Destiny. Just a FYI so you don't start randomly commenting on this thread for no reason.
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Re: Burke's First Impressions of Gundam Seed!

I didn't notice this until today but CALLING MECHS FROM KUNIO OKAWARA GENERIC! GAH! *shakes fist* Okay, there's my joke rage.
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Re: Burke's First Impressions of Gundam Seed!

I rather like the GINN. Strikes me as being a Zaku with the 20 odd years of experience learned. Which is why I was so dissapointed when Destiny just flat out copied Zeon stuff, including the exposed cables. The cleaner style of the GINN really helped sell the idea the Coordinators were in advance of Naturals.
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Re: Burke's First Impressions of Gundam Seed!

HellCat wrote:I rather like the GINN. Strikes me as being a Zaku with the 20 odd years of experience learned. Which is why I was so dissapointed when Destiny just flat out copied Zeon stuff, including the exposed cables. The cleaner style of the GINN really helped sell the idea the Coordinators were in advance of Naturals.
If you thought that was bad then well don't forget the Goufs and to an infinitely greater extent, the Doms. What they did to the Doms was utter disgusting in my eyes on that front.
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Re: Burke's First Impressions of Gundam Seed!

Well as long as the topic is up, Anime Overviewer still hates SEED n Destiny with a passion:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTXcvTPpn9M

And apparently despite a regular review, constant hate comments while addressing Age's announcement, a full on debate with Otaku No Video just to tell him he's wrong for defending it, and this he intends to go Plinkett style on Destiny. I don't hate this guy and I can understand not liking an entry in a franchise, but isn't this.......... Overkill? :| I mean I really despise stuff like Mai-Hime, Madoka Magica, and Nanoha, but at least I don't go around slamming their fans and throwing them under the bus.
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