- Title (English): Mobile Suit Gundam SEED HD Remaster
- Title (Japanese): 機動戦士ガンダムSEED HDリマスター (Kidō Senshi Gundam SEED HD Remaster)
- Year(s): 2011-2012 (originally 2002-2003)
- Studio: Sunrise
- No. of Episodes: 48 (+1 OVA)
- Streaming: Crunchyroll, Netflix
Mobile Suit Gundam SEED is the ninth main TV series in the long-running Gundam franchise. While a somewhat divisive installment overseas, the show was and still is very popular in Japan. It enjoyed high ratings during its initial broadcast and it sold a lot of merchandise. Even after 20+ years, interest in SEED remains high, with a movie sequel released last year currently standing as Gundam‘s highest grossing film. Along with its sequels and spin-offs, SEED is arguably one of the most iconic Gundams, possibly second in Japan to the Universal Century entries. Curious about its success, I decided to watch SEED after I finished my episode reviews for the more recent Witch from Mercury. While I find that the show is not without its fair share of flaws, I still find it to be an enjoyable iteration of Gundam.
SEED establishes the Cosmic Era timeline. In this sci-fi future, humanity has divided into two subspecies: Naturals and Coordinators. Naturals are regular humans who largely reside on Earth. Coordinators are genetically altered humans with enhanced bodies and intellect, that have mostly migrated to space colonies called PLANT to avoid discrimination from the Naturals. Following a nuclear strike on one of the PLANT’s space stations, a war has broken out between the Earth Alliance and the PLANT’s military organization, ZAFT. Both factions primarily using mechs called Mobile Suits to combat each other. Meanwhile, a third major faction headquartered in Earth called the Orb Union maintains neutrality.
At the start of the show, ZAFT attacks one of Orb’s space colonies, Heliopolis, to steal five special Mobile Suits secretly developed by the Earth Alliance. While ZAFT manages to obtain four of them, the fifth one, the GAT-X105 Strike Gundam, is secured by a young Coordinator named Kira Yamato (Sōichirō Hoshi). Despite being a Coordinator, Kira initially sides with the Earth Alliance, in order to protect his friends and the ship they’ve taken refuge in, the Archangel. This puts him at odds against his childhood best friend, Athrun Zala (Akira Ishida), the son of PLANT’s supreme chairman and a ZAFT soldier who pilots one of the stolen Gundams. During his adventures, Kira also encounters two girls who become major figures in the war: Cagalli (Naomi Shindō), a resistance fighter with a big secret, and Lacus Clyne (Rie Tanaka), Athrun’s fiancé and a beloved spokesperson and singer from PLANT who advocates for peace.
There’s plenty to enjoy about SEED‘s narrative. The show does a solid job in giving nuance to the war between the Earth Forces and ZAFT, articulating why the two sides fight each other and how they’re becoming too extreme and too hateful to be justified. The overarching conflict between Kira and Athrun offers a compelling, interpersonal angle to the war. There’s also a couple of romances, some of which involve the main four characters, that successfully grabs the viewer’s attention and adds further weight to the plot. I do find that SEED has some very obvious highs and lows with its narrative. Episodes 28-37 are easily the best stretch of episodes in the show, offering terrific payoff to Kira and Athrun’s feud as well as some of the best scenes involving all four main characters. Conversely, the last six or so episodes were some of the weakest in the show, mainly due to a slight lack of compelling opposition for our heroes. Some of the characters do make some really interesting choices in these episodes, however.
What plagues the story the most is the dialogue. SEED is very heavy with exposition. Characters really like talking about either their own characterization or someone else’s. The most egregious (albeit most hilarious) example is when one of the supporting characters dies and the show literally sums up that character by stating their age and their favorite hobby. Plenty of scenes do work in spite of this issue but it’s hard to deny that characters come across as very wooden. Exposition is also prevalent due to the amount of backstory and jargon the show needs to explain to the viewer. This can be excused by how much lore there is but it does get tiring. And what’s really baffling is that some concepts aren’t even explained at all so even when you do want the show to info dump, it sometimes doesn’t.
I admit that I didn’t always like Kira as I was watching SEED. For most of the story, Kira’s one and only emotion is being sad that he has to fight in a war. In a 48 episode TV show, it frankly does get tiring to sit through. That said, Kira has every right to feel that way. He’s a civilian forced into the role of a soldier and he doesn’t know at first how to deal with the gravity that comes with killing an enemy soldier or when he fails to save others. Almost everyone around him either tells him to suck it up or they just don’t know how to console him and that only increases his turmoil even more. Kira can be an exhausting character to watch but he is at the very least a human one and it is rewarding when he is able to overcome his anguish. Part of me does think Kira becomes overpowered once he receives his second Gundam but I give that a pass since it takes a lot of episodes for that to happen. Plus, I’d argue the lack of a solid antagonist is a bigger issue for the final stretch’s action. Really, the only big issue I have with Kira is that he’s overshadowed by his co-stars.
Out of the four main characters, I like Athrun and Cagalli the most. Athrun in particular overshadows Kira, to the point that I almost would rather follow him than his best friend. His struggle to do his part for ZAFT’s cause as he repeatedly fights Kira and becomes disillusioned with the war is the most riveting and most satisfying arc in the entire show. Add on some really cool Gundams in his possession and a quality performance by Akira Ishida and it’s easy to see why Athrun is a fan favorite. As for Cagalli, I really enjoy her growth from a stubborn and naive freedom fighter to a capable leader. She also shares some great scenes with Athrun and a couple of riveting twists regarding her background. My only issue with Cagalli is that SEED really likes giving her the short end of the stick during the action scenes, including giving her one of the laziest mobile suit designs in the show.
By far, the most baffling main character in the show is Lacus. There’s actually a lot to like about this girl. When she’s first introduced, Lacus comes across as an airhead, oblivious of what’s going on around her. As the show progresses however, Lacus proves to be a charismatic and determined leader trying to put an end to the war. Ultimately, part of the fun in watching SEED is figuring out what she’s up to. What’s vexing then is how limited Lacus’s screentime is. There are long periods in SEED where she is completely absent and it’s only until the very end that she’s consistently at the foreground. This also becomes problematic as the show positions her as Kira’s love interest. On paper, Lacus is actually perfect for Kira. She’s the only character in the show who manages to navigate through Kira’s turmoil and help him deal with it. But because Lacus rarely appears in the show, she and Kira only share a handful of short scenes together. I can buy these two being friends but lovers? I honestly think Kira has more romantic chemistry with Athrun and Cagalli and that is definitely not what the staff intended.
In addition to the main cast, SEED has a very sizable roster of supporting characters. I will admit that a lot of these people are kind of just there, sometimes later used as cannon fodder even. One very egregious example that comes to mind is the final group of rival pilots, who the show hypes up, only to then give them nothing besides waste our heroes’ time. Conversely, there’s a number of great standouts. I particularly like the Archangel’s top three officers: Captain Murrue Ramius (Kotono Mitsuishi), Ensign Natarle Badgiruel (Houko Kuwashima), Lieutenant Mu La Flaga (Takehito Koyasu). There’s a very compelling rivalry between Ramius and Badgiruel, where the two frequently differ on how to handle Kira, the Archangel, and the war in general. Flaga meanwhile is just this super likable dude with terrific chemistry with Ramius and a decent mentor-student relationship with Kira. I also enjoyed Athrun’s teammates, Dearka (Akira Sasanuma) and Yzak (Tomokazu Seki). Both are fun likable rival characters who go through an arc almost as dynamic as Athrun’s. Yzak’s arc is a little harder to buy compared to Dearka’s, primarily due to some of his actions early in the show, but the show pulls it off by wisely making it a slow burn.
Surprisingly, Kira’s circle of friends get the short end of the stick. You’d think since Kira’s fighting to protect them, these guys would do a bunch in the plot but some of them get pushed to the wayside. About the only ones who are particularly relevant are the two girls in the circle, Miriallia Haw (Megumi Toyoguchi) and Flay Allster (Houko Kuwashima). For a while, Miriallia suffers the same issue as her friends but she does get a solid arc towards the end that adds to SEED‘s discourse surrounding the war and the tensions between the Naturals and Coordinators. As for Flay, she is actually a notoriously divisive character among fans. This is due to her cheating on her boyfriend and manipulating Kira into a very toxic relationship so that he’s more motivated to fight ZAFT and indirectly avenge her father’s death. While I do agree that Flay is not a very likable person, I honestly found her to be one of the more effective characters. There oddly is something compelling about how unstable and monstrous she can get.
SEED‘s 2011 HD Remaster provides a decent glow-up to the show’s presentation. The aspect ratio is expanded from 4:3 to 16:9 and some shots are redone entirely without betraying or deviating too much from the original art. If you look up the comparisons, the difference can be night and day. But being over 20 years old, you can still see some age to SEED‘s visuals. There’s a ton of solid action scenes in the show, especially in the middle and towards the end, but they can be guilty of repeated frames of mechs attacking. SEED also really likes to flashback to old clips. The HD Remaster does remove two entire clip shows but even then, you’ll still run into a mini recap every couple of episodes. What does hold up is the art direction. Almost every major character in this show has a solid design and the vast majority of vehicle and mobile suit designs look sick. Honestly, it’s no wonder that the show sold a lot of merchandise. SEED also boasts some solid music including a soundtrack that often elevate the scene, a couple hyped theme songs, and two memorable insert songs sung by Rie Tanaka as Lacus.
One aspect of SEED‘s visuals that’s hit or miss is how gosh darn horny the show gets. I know I’m talking about an anime here but for a show about a violent war in which a lot of people die (often in very graphic ways, I might add), fanservice is the last thing I expect to see. But surprisingly, this show has a lot of shots where a character (usually female and often also underage) is either in their underwear or straight up naked. If an episode doesn’t have any eyecandy, the OP provides at least one no matter what so SEED more or less stays horny all the time. I’m normally whatever when it comes to fanservice but even I find the majority of SEED‘s to be out of place and I can see some viewers feeling uncomfortable about them.
Should I experience more Gundam series, I can see SEED ranking somewhere in the upper middle for me. The story can go up and down in quality, does a couple of odd things with the characters, and it suffers from some general flaws such as its heavy use of exposition. Some viewers may also dislike the amount of fanservice in the show. That said, the show managed to keep me invested, offering some overarching plots and characters that I quite enjoy while also delivering some fun giant robot action to boot. While SEED is not without its faults, I can see why it’s endured as one of the more famous and popular entries in the franchise.
Score: 7/10
Pros (+): A number of fantastic characters; strong overarching plots and middle act; art direction still holds up.
Cons (-): Story has some weak points; heavy on exposition; fanservice feels out of place; not enough Lacus.
Xenodude Scribbles 