TAB: Tom's Anime Blog

Gundam SEED is one of the best Gundam series I have seen. The only one that even rivals it is the 08th MS Team, which is a very different type of series. SEED is a big show, in every way. It's 50 episodes long, and tells the story of a cast of characters involved in a huge war, fought between genetically-modified space people (Coordinators from PLANT) and normal humans (Naturals of the Earth Alliance).

The first few episodes drop us into the middle of an ongoing war. As the main characters start with little knowledge of the ongoing story, we don't understand it either. It's revealed in a series of flashbacks, or one can cheat and read the timeline at the official site.

The main character is Kira Yamato, a Coordinator engineering student living on a neutral colony, who gets involved when his colony is attacked by forces trying to steal Gundam suits hidden on the colony. While the colony is being destroyed, him and his classmates are forced to take refuge on the Archangel, a ship belonging to the earth alliance (which consists of naturals that live on earth). Quickly, him and his friends agree to fight against the PLANT Coordinators, to protect them and the ship.

This may seem a little like the start of the original Mobile Suit Gundam, and that's probably intentional. This series manages to be quite original while following the basic outline of it's predecessor. As it takes place in a new universe, there's no need to see any other Gundam series to get this one.

I really got into this series. There are just a bunch of characters I was really into, wanting to find out what happened to them next. By episode 11 or so, I was hooked, and I couldn't wait to see more. The next 39 episodes kept me that way, with twists coming just fast enough to be interesting, without being overly rushed (except, perhaps, at the end.)

This show has a huge cast, and while not every character gets a moment to shine, the more interesting ones do. Even characters that start off looking like useless love interests get some depth to them.

There's a few downsides, mostly related to the fighting... namely, there's a huge amount of it. If giant robot combat is your thing, rejoice... because it's in every single episode, whether in space, the desert, on land, or in the sea. It's not so much my thing, and while the battles were good, there were just a lot of them.

The other downsides is that people sometimes survive a giant robot blowing up at point blank when theres absolutely no way they should. Not everything in this series makes sense. You've been warned.

I marathoned this series over the past 3 days, only putting it down when I had to sleep or get work done. It's a very good series, one of the best of the Gundam shows.