Gundam Seed Destiny ep. 1-26

How many of you are suffering Gundam Seed withdrawal with no new Gundam on this week? Don't worry; here is a mostly spoiler-free preview of Gundam Seed Destiny that might be airing later this year on CN (even though it’s just a little bit half over now).

It's been a year and a half seen the end of Seed and our heroes now reside on the rebuilt Orb, but war seems to be building on the horizon again. Zaft has begun to build up their military with Zakus (Hooray!) so Cagalli and Athrun travel to PLANT to talk to the new Chairman Gilbert Durandal. Mere hours after their arrival, Blue Cosmos, lead by a very familiar looking masked man called Neo, attacks and steals three proto-type Gundams that can transform for special environments: Gaia (becomes a wolf for land), Chaos (a ship), and Abyss (a sub). Luckily the fourth Gundam, Impulse, is safe and the whole group follow the stolen suits with Zafts new ship, the Minerva. However, they are interrupted as a rogue group of Coordinators try to drop a destroyed space station on to Earth.

Now the Alliance can no longer trust Zaft and a war seems inevitable. Athrun travels to Zaft to try and convince Gilbert not to fight, but is instead offered his own Gundam, Savior, and a position in FAITH that would allow him to create his own missions to end the war as soon as possible. Athrun slowly warms up to the idea and accepts. He decides to serve with the Minerva and soon begins fighting with the Impulse's pilot, Shin, who was a citizen of Orb until the Blue Cosmos invasion that killed his family. Now Shin walks a path that could put the whole ship in danger.

Then an attempt is made to assassinate Lacus by a group of Coordinators, which forces Kira and the rest of the Archangel crew to go into hiding. Is Zaft after Lacus or is it someone else? With the war forcing them onto different side, Kira and Athrun might be forced to battle again.

While I enjoyed Seed, Destiny seems to elevate the drama since we now know these characters pretty well. It’s nice to see Kira evolve from a cry baby to a cool and controlled presence that always takes command. The series mostly spotlights Athrun, Shin, and the rest of the Minerva crew, but also seeing the Archangel deal with the crisis always keeps things moving. We still get an episode or two without any action, but the politics are always moving to keep it interesting. While Cosmos seems to be the villain here, Gilbert always has a sly smile that makes me think he is planning something. Plus Neo is obviously up to no good (he has a mask, people!), so he probably has a final hand to play as well.

Also the animation budget seems to be higher as we get battles that look very dynamic and not as stilted as most of the first series. There just seems to be more movement, like Bandai knew Seed's popularity meant they had good sized audience from the start, so they should up the budget. Just bravo on the visuals.

So if you liked Seed, Destiny ramps it up to 11. The third opening that started with episode 25 hints at the return of more classic suits (Goufs and Doms!), new gundams, and even spoils the apparent return of a character you would swear was dead at the end of Seed! (and it’s not Rusty) It just keeps getting crazier people.

Added: April 23rd 2005
Reviewer: Sam Kilbreath
Score:
Related Link: Check out the new Gundams here!
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