The Official Gundam SEED FREEDOM Anime Thread Mk I

[yugioh54]

When will mahq review the movie?

[Chris]

When will mahq review the movie?

When the movie is available.

[yazi88]

Yep. Sadly it is not available officially outside of Japan on streaming services. Home release I believe is coming at the end of the year. Right now it is available on Nerflix Japan and Amazon Japan only.

[Mafty]

Well the Home Video Release is something to look forward to at least, I figured it would get one after the international screenings.

[Seto Kaiba]

Well the Home Video Release is something to look forward to at least, I figured it would get one after the international screenings.

Bandai Namco Filmworks's official website for the Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Freedom movie says that the DVD, Blu-ray, and 4K UHD Blu-ray of the film will be released in Japan on 25 December 2024.

https://www.gundam-seed.net/freedom/new ... p?id=21545

[Mafty]

Happy Holidays, though that's the Japanese release, it seems the international will probably be 2025, though Crunchyroll streaming may well be earlier.

[yugioh54]

Also, did the SEED eclipse manga end? wondering as it hasn't got any press recently?

[Kuruni]

Also, did the SEED eclipse manga end? wondering as it hasn't got any press recently?

They released a new episode just the last month, with Boost Raider as a new MS

[seppe]

It is, sorry to say, more than a bit of an Idiot Plot... and in a way that honestly feels more than a little sexist. Kira's whiny indecisiveness and refusal to just talk to Lacus didn't help matters, but the whole situation would not have been possible if Cagalli and Lacus hadn't both made multiple conscious decisions to ignore red flags in their dealings with Foundation. Lacus in particular could've foiled a substantial chunk of Foundation's plan by simply staying with her bodyguard detail during her visit to Foundation's capital. Part of that's the bodyguard detail's fault too, since they were vastly more interested in picking fights with the local security forces, their relationship drama, and chowing down at the buffet than they were in making sure the head of state they were ostensibly escorting was safe.

I had to make an account to thank you for saying this, I've been debating for a while on Youtube about FREEDOM and how it makes Lacus a complete idiot for the sake of plot, an unfaithful lover to Kira with the emotional intelligence of a child, an incompetent politician and has her sexually abused and almost raped.
I feel like nobody cares about her character other than the "waifu aspect" and having a movie about her relationship with Kira with both of them being out of character was a terrible choice. Every rebuttal I see is that "Kira thinks he's not good enough for Lacus" and "Lacus has to deal with politics for the first time and feels guilty about Kira fighting" which are made up things that can be easily discredited by watching every interaction they have in Destiny.
Also, in a 2 hours movie about their relationship they have 5-6 scenes together, 2 conversations (that aren't really conversations, one is just the I love you scene to make shippers stop complaining) and they hardly add up to 5 minutes.

[MythSearcher]

I had to make an account to thank you for saying this, I've been debating for a while on Youtube about FREEDOM and how it makes Lacus a complete idiot for the sake of plot, an unfaithful lover to Kira with the emotional intelligence of a child, an incompetent politician and has her sexually abused and almost raped.
I feel like nobody cares about her character other than the "waifu aspect" and having a movie about her relationship with Kira with both of them being out of character was a terrible choice. Every rebuttal I see is that "Kira thinks he's not good enough for Lacus" and "Lacus has to deal with politics for the first time and feels guilty about Kira fighting" which are made up things that can be easily discredited by watching every interaction they have in Destiny.
Also, in a 2 hours movie about their relationship they have 5-6 scenes together, 2 conversations (that aren't really conversations, one is just the I love you scene to make shippers stop complaining) and they hardly add up to 5 minutes.

The main reason why their relationship can at least be more relatable in SEED and SEED-D was because Fukuda's wife was still alive.
Kira and Lacus were their own projections, that is why Kira became that invincible best of the bestest best character once Fukuda admitted it is his own projection(ironically he claimed the crybaby was his own projection, that is also probably true and that is his true projection, while the best of the bestest best is him trying to compensate for his lack of actual ability and responsibility and imagined he can do anything if he wanted to)
Morosawa was inexperience in writing Gundam stories, but at least had the experience in writing scripts so she probably was the one keeping things in check and for gender stereotyping, female usually get emotion depictions better.
She died after SEED-D(that is pretty much why it took so long for the movie to come out), and no one can control Fukuda any more, the truth is, he is the worst kind of anime director with his affluenza. He just randomly add stuff he thinks is cool(which a lot of them were from the 80's and 90's that little audiences of SEED will get because of the demographic of the audience), hates to lose and so if some other show(especially Gundam) has some kind of cooler gadget he will want to add it in without caring for the world building and coherence to the story.

[Seto Kaiba]

I had to make an account to thank you for saying this, I've been debating for a while on Youtube about FREEDOM and how it makes Lacus a complete idiot for the sake of plot, an unfaithful lover to Kira with the emotional intelligence of a child, an incompetent politician and has her sexually abused and almost raped.

Lacus is far from the film's only victim. Kira, Shinn, Cagalli... they all have to behave like complete and total idiots in order for the story of this totally unnecessary movie that adds nothing to any of their characters work.

The plot-convenient stupidity the story requires of Lacus has more sexist consequences than anyone else's because she's the token non-action girl of the Gundam SEED cast. She has to be endangered by more roundabout means because she's not a fighter. So that means kidnapping and being SA'd instead of being shot at like everyone else.

I feel like nobody cares about her character other than the "waifu aspect" and having a movie about her relationship with Kira with both of them being out of character was a terrible choice. Every rebuttal I see is that "Kira thinks he's not good enough for Lacus" and "Lacus has to deal with politics for the first time and feels guilty about Kira fighting" which are made up things that can be easily discredited by watching every interaction they have in Destiny.
Also, in a 2 hours movie about their relationship they have 5-6 scenes together, 2 conversations (that aren't really conversations, one is just the I love you scene to make shippers stop complaining) and they hardly add up to 5 minutes.

Well, that's the thing about Lacus... she's the token non-action girl. The chick. The love interest. She's there to be a macguffin and a "waifu" because otherwise there's not really a lot for her to do in the story. One of the few things that really sets her apart from the other macguffin princesses in the Gundam AUs is that she's got more going for her than just being The Princess and people actually respect her political nous where others like Relina Peacecraft, Marina Ismail, Kudelia Aina Bernstein, etc. are mostly just there to reflect on how inhumane war is and have someone else do all the heavy lifting in actually achieving peace.

The main characters have to act stupid and out of character and communicate incredibly poorly to make the plot work because nothing about how the previous story (Gundam SEED Destiny) ended really required another story to resolve. Destiny already gave the characters an ending to their various story arcs and there weren't that many dangling plot threads left, so they had to come up with somewhere new for the characters to go in the movie's plot and that change feels tacked-on, forced, and unnatural because it is. The writers of the previous installments had allowed the story to change organically as the characters developed, which has a very different feel to this all-in-one-go serial movie format even without the way that the story has to derail or reverse the previous character and story development to get one more story out of the characters.

[yugioh54]

I wish Fukuda got some of the Cross Ange writers to work on the movie or the SEED/Destiny writing staff, it might've made a difference

[Seto Kaiba]

I wish Fukuda got some of the Cross Ange writers to work on the movie or the SEED/Destiny writing staff, it might've made a difference

Well, yes... but why would you want to make the film worse than it already was?

It already had an idiot plot, a creepy incel-esque main antagonist who spends most of the story simping for the female lead, a sexual assault scene, and some questionable-at-best fanservice. There's not much which the team that wrote Cross Ange could add.

[yugioh54]

Probably have more back and forth with Fukuda on some new ideas, with the original scriptwriter passing on it'd make sense to get a fresh perspective, Liu Goto made sense. But there probably should've been more writers on this movie. Considering Fukuda blended what he learned on his early shows visually into the movie, He should've utilized more story people, maybe the Destiny crew had some ideas Chiaki shot down because of the drama behind the scenes that could've been used. They might've even turned the story back to the Earth Alliance and Blue Cosmos instead of using throwaway movie bad guys. Cross Ange head writer Tatsuto Higuchi wrote some Grendizer U scripts, weird he wasn't called to work on the movie. I think the Cross Ange writers might've wrote the female characters better, they did work on an all female cast.

[Mafty]

"Seto Kaiba Wrote"It already had an idiot plot, a creepy incel-esque main antagonist who spends most of the story simping for the female lead, a sexual assault scene, and some questionable-at-best fanservice. There's not much which the team that wrote Cross Ange could add.

IMO, Cross Ange's misanthropic worldview , shock value sexual assault scenes, and gratuitous violence turned it into an Anime version of a Exploitation film, at the very least Freedom didn't go that far(though it still went a bit too far in some cases). If anything parts of Freedom seem rather like a toned down and much less cynical version of Cross Ange.

"yugioh54 wrote" Liu Goto made sense

What is Goto's writing like in the novels? None of the novels have been released internationally, does Goto add any new directions in the Novelization?

"yugioh54 wrote" They might've even turned the story back to the Earth Alliance and Blue Cosmos instead of using throwaway movie bad guys.

Spoiler

A last stand against Blue Cosmos might've worked a bit better than the throwaway faction from nowhere, but they would still need to introduce new members of that faction

"yugioh54 wrote" Cross Ange head writer Tatsuto Higuchi wrote some Grendizer U scripts, weird he wasn't called to work on the movie.I think the Cross Ange writers might've wrote the female characters better, they did work on an all female cast.
Top

How is Grendizer U doing so far? It looks neat, but it isn't streaming internationally? Could Higuchi's absence be due to working on Grendizer?

As to the second point; while Cross Ange went too far in some of it's content, several of the characters did actually get some decent development (Ange and Hilde became a both more cynical to people at large, yet caring to their comrades, Sylvia became self reliant while Ersha had one of the best character arcs and managed to actually always put others first which sets her apart from the rest of the cast). And Freedom defenitly could have used a bit more development across it's new cast.

[Seto Kaiba]

IMO, Cross Ange's misanthropic worldview , shock value sexual assault scenes, and gratuitous violence turned it into an Anime version of a Exploitation film, at the very least Freedom didn't go that far(though it still went a bit too far in some cases). If anything parts of Freedom seem rather like a toned down and much less cynical version of Cross Ange.

Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Freedom didn't go that far, true... but all of that stuff IS still there in the movie, just to a lesser degree than it is in Cross Ange. That's why I said that the Cross Ange writers wouldn't have anything to add.

Adding more bad writers to an already badly-written film would not yield a better film.

[yugioh54]

IMO, Cross Ange's misanthropic worldview , shock value sexual assault scenes, and gratuitous violence turned it into an Anime version of a Exploitation film, at the very least Freedom didn't go that far(though it still went a bit too far in some cases). If anything parts of Freedom seem rather like a toned down and much less cynical version of Cross Ange.

Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Freedom didn't go that far, true... but all of that stuff IS still there in the movie, just to a lesser degree than it is in Cross Ange. That's why I said that the Cross Ange writers wouldn't have anything to add.

Adding more bad writers to an already badly-written film would not yield a better film.

Cross Ange was still pretty decent, I found the characters developed and never understood the violence criticism the show was being edgy like Eva, granted the rest of the show never is as brutally as the first few episodes, it does have a disturbing main bad guy. But overall It actually had pay off even if a few plot threads get ditched in the second half. I don't feel Cross Ange was a one trick pony show and had some fun visuals. characters and a lore worth expanding on. It was fun. I though the writing staff did a decent job and I don't think retreating to tricks like sexual violence was the point of the show rather just to show the brutality of the setting. FREEDOM doesn't really have that because the approach of the setting was way different, but I still believe the Cross Ange writers could've made something more in there wheelhouse as the character arcs in cross ange were quite well done and some of the lore.

EDIT

FREEDOM is getting two special edition versions!! made sense, the transtion between scenes could've been better, it's been getting Evangelion treatment without being eva. I wonder how many minutes is 500 cuts! I except it to add 40 minutes like FINAL PLUS and we get too choose our own epilogue!

https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2 ... ed/.214752

[Seto Kaiba]

Cross Ange was still pretty decent, [...]

Between the criminally bad writing, rampant and exploitative misogyny on display throughout, the iffy quality of the animation, and the generally poor reception the show got in broadcast... I don't think that's a widely held or particularly defensible view.

Matters of taste are, of course, highly individual... but I don't think you'll find many people holding Cross Ange up as anything but a train wreck.

I don't feel Cross Ange was a one trick pony show and had some fun visuals. characters and a lore worth expanding on. It was fun. I though the writing staff did a decent job and I don't think retreating to tricks like sexual violence was the point of the show rather just to show the brutality of the setting.

I'd agree the series isn't a one trick pony, though I'd say it's because you have to have a trick to be a one-trick pony.

WRT the sexual violence, considering how central it is to the plot w/ Embryo expending a LOT of effort to break and possess Ange physically/sexually throughout the story, I don't think there's any valid argument that the sexual violence so prominently featured in the series was incidental.

FREEDOM doesn't really have that because the approach of the setting was way different, but I still believe the Cross Ange writers could've made something more in there wheelhouse as the character arcs in cross ange were quite well done and some of the lore.

The point being made by myself and others is that many of the things that make Cross Ange what it is - the rampant misogyny, the exploitative fanservice, the misanthropic worldview, the extreme violence, etc. - are already present in Mobile Suit Gundam SEED FREEDOM. They're not as prominent, thank goodness, but that problematic content is still very much present. It drives some of the film's worst aspects, like the idiot plot that requires everyone (but esp. Lacus) to behave like a complete idiot so Foundation's plan can go off without a hitch, Orpheus's creepy incel ranting on how he's entitled to Lacus (because his mommy said so!), a second set of antagonists who believe Free Will is evil and genetic predestination's the only way to create a stable society that will just "coincidentally" make them a Master Race, and so on.

The involvement of writers from Cross Ange, who tried to build an entire series around those things, would only be detrimental to a film that had enough problems on its own. Piling more bad writers into a bad script will just make the bad script worst.

[yugioh54]

I liked Cross Ange, it was like a wonder woman type story, except it was an MC coping with new rules of the world around her. Being on an island of women, Hating the outside world, gender politics, some swaths of Code Geass with the lineage of Ange's country and bloodline. You can disagree, sure it was a somewhat smutty show but I thought it was fun and solid show.

[tHeWasTeDYouTh]

Just saw the movie
I give it a 6 out of 10

I'm pretty disappointed with the villains and the story, feels like a retread of Gundam Seed Destiny

At least now we have the second Gundam Hathaway movie to look forwards .