Ranked #990

Mobile Suit Gundam Seed Destiny

Sometimes, sequels to popular series work. Most of the time, they don't. Destiny was one of the latter.

STORY - The fact that this is a direct sequel to a Gundam series already puts Destiny's story at a disadvantage. Think about it -- all Gundam series start with war and end with resolution. Thus, SEED had resolution, and the only way for Destiny to begin is by destroying that resolution. And it has to be a cheap and forced-feeling destruction because there's hardly two year's difference between the end of the first series and the start of the sequel since they wanted to reuse a majority of the cast. So yeah, we're not off to a great start here. Admittedly, it is near-impossible for me to view Destiny as a standalone series, and as a huge fan of SEED, I know I'm prone to being a lot more critical than usual on its sequel. And that's me admitting to my bias upfront.

Moving on. Destiny seems to try too hard in mirroring many circumstances and storylines already present in SEED, making them seem forced, unoriginal, and repetitious. (If SEED already had a few recycled storyline elements, then certainly Destiny has them in spades.) The basis for the new war seems trivial compared to the previous, and all the countries far too eager to participate in the conflict considering their hard-won peace. The twists were too predictable. Surprisingly significant and unexpected character death was one of the greatest merits I found in SEED, and Destiny tried to perform the same tricks. Unfortunately, these attempts all failed as almost all the character deaths in this sequel could be seen a mile away. The final resolution at the end of the series is also weak and rushed.

In all, I can think of very few story element that surprised me or that are worth mentioning on grounds of praise. Even the ones that were kind of interesting -- such as the replacement double for Lacus Clyne -- were overshadowed by the lackluster quality of everything else (and unsubstantial character development as addressed below). I feel like I should maybe elaborate more here, but there really isn't much else to say, and specifics are hard to point out without invoking spoilers.

CHARACTER - SEED had a fantastic cast of realistic and noteworthy characters. Destiny took those existing characters and warped them into sub par, flat versions of their former selves, or else twisted them so badly that they were hardly recognizable. And Destiny's newly introduced characters hardly make up for it. I found Shinn, our brand new protagonist, incredibly difficult to sympathize with, which is never a good thing. His background seemed far too much like a generic sobstory, and his fixation on his own tragedy made him out to be too narrow-minded and self-righteous. Done right, those might have been interesting qualities for a protagonist, but for Shinn, it only made him incredibly annoying to put up with.

Kira, the initial protagonist of SEED, had been flattening as a character since halfway through the first series. In Destiny, he reached the height of one-sidedness. He is self-righteous to the extreme and seems to think that only his morals and way of dealing with things is the correct one. In some ways, this isn't an entirely bad thing -- it just changes his role within the series, I suppose. He transforms from one of the main protagonists into a more secondary character that contributes one viewpoint without variation. Perhaps he'd just reached the point in his development when he doesn't need to change anymore. Still, it may be frustrating for some to see a once-fleshed out character become so generic, even if he remains a fantastic foil to Athrun.

And Athrun? Of the original cast, he is certainly one that retains a majority of his previous characteristics. His multi-faceted personality is intact, and his emotions remain complex. Once again, he is a very interesting character to follow as he is caught between a conflict of both morals and ethics and the alliance (or lack thereof) between his friends. With both Shinn and Kira on their respective high horses with unwaivering opinions, Athrun serves to contrast with the both of them and again offers the same inner turmoil that he provided in SEED. Essentially, Athrun is the same character that he was tossed into a "new" setting, but as the similarity of his situation forces similar reactions, those who've already seen SEED aren't really getting anything new at all. And then there's the matter of romance...

It's almost comical how many female characters are thrown at Athrun in Destiny; indeed, it seems like all the girls except Stellar are utterly in love with him. This might have been more amusing had he not already had a perfectly good and stable relationship with Cagalli, and had they not been "broken up" for no good reason at all. The entire romantic ordeal seemed like a cheap (and completely pointless) shot at riling up all the fangirls and boys and to reject the already canonized pairing established in SEED. Certainly Athrun and Cagalli's relationship was put under stress in Destiny, but I found a lot of it to be rooted in a lack of communication that was entirely unreasonable. In an age of mechas and space colonization, I can't imagine it would have been too difficult to send a quick email now and again. If nothing else, the number of new suiters for Athrun reinforced his feelings for Cagalli, but the entire subplot was a waste of time because we knew that already.

As well, Cagalli is ridiculously out of character in Destiny. She goes from being a headstrong and independent girl to being a political pawn. Certainly she faces some pressuring circumstances, but considering her development in SEED, it would have made more sense for her to tackle them with head-on rather than...anything she decides to do instead. It's extremely disappointing to see her take such a step back and for her to devolve into such a generic "save me, I'm a weak girl"-type character (especially since we already have one of those in Destiny). It just didn't make sense to me. I'd read somewhere that Destiny had controversially employed a mediocre writer that was in a relationship with one of the producers and that much of the poor character renditions were a direct result of this person, but I can't confirm this for sure. Whatever the reason though, Cagalli was among one of the biggest disappointments here.

But finally, there's the matter of all the other characters. The remaining carry-over characters from SEED are casted as less complicated versions of their former selves, though most of this can be attributed to the fact of their diminished significance beyond practical roles (captains, pilots, ship controls, etc). The other new characters introduced in the series are mostly reincarnations of characters that didn't make it to the sequel (Stellar and her companions take the place of SEED's druggie trio, new masked guy takes the place of old masked guy, Captain Gladys is almost identical to Captain Ramius, etc), which further supports the idea that Destiny is just an uninspired rehash of the original SEED. Otherwise, they were generically casted archetypes, including the blindly loyal devotee, the bubbly spaz girl that is willingly manipulated, and the political figure with ambiguous intentions that aren't really that ambiguous. Certainly a few characters are interesting -- Stellar is actually a fairly intriguing character that grows and changes with the story -- but like any interesting story elements, they're largely overshadowed by everything else.

PS - There is also the matter of the resurrection of a character that dies in SEED. This was completely unnecessary and ruined a perfectly touching and emotional death. Come on, no more of this I-survived-but-lost-my-memory bullshit, please.

ARTSTYLE & ARTWORK - Thankfully, the art and animation did not change between SEED and Destiny. I'm still fond of the particular style used in the series, and everything else stayed in that average range that's perfectly acceptable.

MUSIC - Considering the general failure of the above sections, I was especially grateful that the music in Destiny lived up to SEED's, which I absolutely adored. The composer and most of the artists involved remained the same, and thus, beautiful music ensued. T.M. Revolution returns to perform fantastically upbeat and energetic pieces, including the first opening theme ("Ignited"), just like last time. Nami Tamaki also returns to provide its first end theme "Reason," as well as a number of insert songs. And SEED threw young Nami Tamaki into the j-pop spotlight, Destiny did the same for Hitomi Takahashi, who sang my absolute favorite opening for the series, "Bokutachi no Yukue." Additionally, Rie Tanaka, the voice of both Lacus Clyne and Meer Campbell, sings both a super-energized remix of her "Shizukana Yoruni" from SEED and a slow, peaceful, and absolutely gorgeous new song, "Fields of Hope." And last, but not least, Rie Fu, who did the famous first ending of Bleach ("Life is like a Boat") comes in to sing "I Wanna Go to a Place," possibly my favorite ending theme in Destiny. Seriously, I adore all of the vocal tracks used in this series.

And of course, Sahashi Toshihiko once again provides four new soundtracks worth of fantastic orchestral and piano music for the background. These include updated versions of old, familiar tracks, as well as dozens of new themes that are just as fun. And as a piano player myself, it especially pleased me to see the inclusion of more piano tracks that are actually played within the content of the series since Rey Za Burrel takes Nicol's place as your character-that-can-play-piano. Fun stuff all around, guys. :D

VOICE ACTING - All of the actors that reprised their roles from SEED were once again excellent. I still love Akira Ishida as Athrun Zala. Of the new roles, Stellar stood out to me as a pretty awesome performance given the strangeness of her character. Other than that, the rest of the voices did well to fit their part, but weren't anything particularly memorable. As far as I know, Destiny hasn't even been released Stateside (probably because of SEED's strangely dismal failure), but it did have a Canadian release, so I assume there's a dub out there that I haven't seen. I imagine it'd be pretty much the same as the SEED dub though, which was very average.

OVERALL - Almost everything about Gundam SEED Destiny annoyed me, and though I'm not sure how high my expectations were in the first place, I don't think I could have been more disappointed with this sequel. Other than the technical aspects (sound and animation), nothing lived up to the standards set by its predecessor. Maybe if it were judged as a standalone work, it would score a little higher (especially on the character scale), but as a direct sequel to a series, I don't really see the point. It astounds me sometimes that some fans of SEED actually enjoyed Destiny, 'cause in the end, Destiny, for me, only served to reinforce the idea that sequels to perfectly good series are utterly unnecessary. read more

Important: Forgive my english please. As a french guy it's not always very easy for me.

If you're wondering why a review on Destiny before Seed, I will answer. Seed is good and fun. It's not perfect, but it's a good Gundam show. Now, let's jump to the main topic please...Destiny. I'm warning you, I'm spoiling a lot of things, so if you hate that, just skip my review. Oh and also, this review's gonna be much longer than my other review.

Story: Oh boy...Okay let's do this. When I started Destiny, I was hoping that the first half of the show will be more paced that Seed, because there was a lot of time wasted in the first half of Seed. Destiny started with an easy cliché: hijacking of three evil-looking Gundam except the heroic white-blue-red Gundam. But even with that, it was fast paced and very fun. Then the drop of Junius Seven came and what a great idea this team production had. Yeah it's the same old big nasty thing that fashion spacenoids, oops sorry, coordinators want to throw on the evil Earth Federation, oops sorry again, I mean Earth Alliance. But again, even with that, it was making sense and it was thrilling. Then a little bit of the problems started. Those guys who are dropping Junius Seven are not crazy racists, they are more like canon fodder for Shinn and Athrun that get killed in 5-10 minutes. Then, Junius Seven is torn apart, but they are still huge pieces that hit the Earth and cause massive damage to a lot of cities (Québec is one of them. Why Québec, that's not very far from my own house). The Minerva lands on Earth and they get to ORB since it's a neutral country. ORB ally themselves with the Alliance, blah blah blah, they are trying to sink the Minerva, blah blah blah, they can't since Shinn has the Seed Factor and he kicked their asses in a spam of 10 minutes. Quess what? The show is actually very good. From episodes 01 to 12 it's entertaining and I was thinking: If it continues that way, it's gonna be way better that Seed. Boy I was wrong. Kira comes back... in a boring episode of Jesus Yamato with God-modish-Gundam that destroyed a lot of ZAFT junk. This is where everything is drowning. The focus on the main cast (Minerva) is shift to the old cast (Archangel). Some peoples said it's like Zeta when Amuro came back when the A.E.U.G is on Earth. But here's the difference. Amuro got some screentime, but Kamille was still the main character. In Shinn's and Kira's case, it's jumping to one way to the other. When Kira is nowhere fighting, Shinn is the good guy, but as soon as Kira is fighting, Shinn becomes the bad guy. Then a lot of stuff happens, blah blah blah, Kira kills love interest #1 of Shinn, Shinn gets angry, blah blah blah, Shinn obliterates the Freedom and is predictible-tactics-pilot Kira. He obviously survived. Shinn gets a new Gundam and tries to kill Athrun and miss him with an anti-ship sword to a grunt suit. Kira gets a even more God-modish-Gundam: Strike Freedom. Shinn is angry and whinny, blah blah blah, flashback episodes in the last straight of the show. Seed's last battle *copy* and *paste* on the last battle of Destiny: METEOR smashing fun. Shinn got his ass kicked by Athrun like he was nothing and Kira got a perfect on Rey's Legend Gundam. Durandal dies and peace is restore thanks to Kira and the crew of the ship-of-nonsense. Wonderful isn't it. You know what is the worst in all of that, Cosmic Era is one of the few side universe of the Gundam serie that have a huge potential in terms of story and conflicts. Because when you look on paper the story of for example G Gundam and Gundam 00, Seed had more potential. G Gundam: a tournament of Gundam fights. Gundam 00: a group call Celestial Being are making armed intervention to stop all the war in the world. What's the problem with the Seed universe then? Flashbacks everywhere, weird way to develop characters, weird idealogies and clip show episodes. That's the reason why the story of Destiny sucks a lot. Hold on, I have just finish the story part.

Art: If there's one thing that I liked about this show it's the art. Yes, yet again, it's Hisashi Hirai's character design. I know a lot of people had a tough run with him, but I liked his way of doing character and c'mon at least they are very well animated. I know some people had big problems with the Gundam design in this show, but let me say that I like most of them. I will always prefer the Impulse to the Strike. The Saviour was awesome, the three Gundams that got hijacking were cool too. The Freedom is beautiful even if I hate his pilot and the Destiny Gundam is probably next to 00-Raiser my favorite Gundam of all time (good god his wings are f****** great). On the lame note: Strike Rouge is still around (ugly pink painted Gundam), Legend is the Providence of this show and there's nothing original about him. Akatsuki is a Hyaku Shiki with Providence weapons and is kinda lame too. Strike Freedom is a stupid upgrade, the Infinite Justice is...the Justice with few new weapons and the Destoy Gundam(s) are just failed PSYCO Gundam. As for the grunts, I didn't mind the homage to Zeon for ZAFT, but they looked less advanced that their previous design. The CGUE and the GuAIZ are all looking more advanced that the Zaku and the DOM. The Gouf were cool, but again they look less advanced. The Alliance has again their ugly GM and the Windams were just piece of crap. ORB and their mass-produced Zeta, the Murasume, were also cool looking, but they explode like they were nothing.

Sound: The soundtrack of Destiny is good, but it's not the best compared to Kenji Kawai almost perfect score on Gundam 00. The openings of Destiny are high budget music, low budget animation. For the most part, the first three openings are good in their own (the second is the best althought). When you get to the last opening, you have two possibles reactions: you cry in agony or you just laugh with a disgusting face. The endings are great too except the third one.

Characters: Are you ready for it?! Let's start with something, with two words: complete downfall. There's an essential rule in anime: the characters you see in the first-two episodes are the main characters. Let's analyze characters by characters.

Shinn: The greatest idea of this entire show. A trained pilot (not an accidental one). A Gundam lead that pissed you off! Finally something interesting, not one of those whinny-emo kids that are indecisive and don't want to pilot Gundams anymore *cough*Amuro*cough* *cough*Kira*cough* *cough*Kamille*cough*. The problem is that is developpement went nowhere and the show focused on Kira who doesn't change at all. A good opportunity waste by the director and the writer to show a different take on a lead character.

Kira: Oh boy... what a pain in the ass that Kira. He wasn't my favorite protagonist in Seed but he changed and he realize the errors he had done during the run of the show and I liked is developpement. But, I just can't stand him in Destiny. He's the perfect guy who knows everything. Why war is war, why that is way is the better way, blah blah blah, nonsense, nonsense, nonsense. He's Lacus Perfect-Iceman-Bodyguard and they are supposed to be lovers. I'm sorry, they aren't. I always thought that his relationship with Flay was better even know that she was psyco and was using him. The worst part is how he became lazzy with the Strike Freedom. Kira has skills, but he just used the beam spammer button of his mobile suit, which is boring giving the fact it's all stock-footage animations. An other thing that annoys me is the fact that after the war, he's the same guy at the end of Seed. He never changes, so what's the point of having him as the main character after episode 12. Fail idea there.

Durandal: A great leader with the charisma of Char Aznable (Suuichi Ikeda always awesome in everything he does). I know he was gonna be the big boss at the end, but it just seemed way to forced. It's like, oops, now that Djibril is gone, guess we will give him everything. Here... take Requiem and NEO GENESIS and you can start your Destiny plan (wich is the most stupid plan ever). A great character waste again.

Athrun: That troubles my mind also. He obviously wanted to come back to ZAFT after what Durandal told him about what he should do. When he joined the Minerva, Shinn is angry against him for being promoted as a FAITH member given the fact he had just returned from ORB after two years. But they eventually sort go along together and that was great, since it was like a mentor-apprentice friendship. But when Kira appeared, Shinn is angry against Athrun yet again and for no reason at all. Then, after Kira talked to him, Athrun started to questionning the path he chosed. Quess what? Around episode 35, he wants to escape ZAFT for going back to Kira and his amazing friends. Basically, Athrun, in that show, was a punk.

Lacus: I can call her perfect-virgin-Lacus, but maybe I'm to harsh with her. She's not that annoying compared to his "lover" Kira. Nothing really that needs to be mentionned, except one thing. If the director wanted Kira to have the focus, why not killing her. Even if I doubt they're in love, Kira obviously care for her. If she had died, that will have give Kira good reason to fight and discover who wanted to kill her.

Lunamaria: An other great character that doesn't get a lot of screentime. She's a cool tomboy and a kind person. She's not the best pilot, far from it, but she deserved more that what they give her.

Cagalli: Ouf... she was a little bit annoying in Seed, but she wasn't someone who just talked, she was willing to take her courage and fight for what she believed. In Destiny she became a weak-whinny-cry-baby. At the end she redeemed herself a little bit by giving that Yunna-bitch a little lesson of honor, but after she gived the Akatsuki to Neo and she broke with Athrun, which is really weird, since they were the last good couple of this show and they were no reason at all for them to broke. Oh yeah... Athrun needed to go with Meyrin, WTF seriously.

Djibril: Just a cheap racist-vilain and way to one dimensional.
Heine: He was doomed but c'mon give this poor character a chance to shine a little bit. I don't mind him dying, but more like at the end.
The three Extendeds: less effective that the one from Seed, they are just there for filling hole. Stellar and Shinn relationship was kinda bizzare to. One encounter and they are depply in love. I don't buy that. One thing that would have work: Stellar changes side with the help of Shinn and since Durandal is a master in genetic, he could have saved her.
The entire Archangel crew: Just subpar.

Enjoyment: It's though to enjoy something like that. They are just so many things that went wrong in this show. The battle were boring (stock-footage of Seed and new scenes used in the beginning to the very end), anything that wasn't a Gundam was a piece of crap and exploded instantly, time wasted on flashback and clip show. I think that we saw Cagalli's father more in Destiny as a flashback that alive in Seed and how many time that we have to see Nicol getting baseball bat to oblivion even know it has nothing to do with the actual story.

Overall: To those I offend and to those that think I was to forgiven, here's my final comment that will please everyone: I cannot say enough good things about this show. I just hope that this team will never work on a Gundam project again, because they create a dark spot on an near perfect franchise (okay G-Saviour is the worst). If you want more of the Seed universe, there's various manga like Gundam Seed Astray. I cannot comment on them since I didn't read them, but I heard they were pretty good. There's also this little ONA of three episodes call Gundam Seed C.E. 73 Stargazer. It's very good stuff for a 45 minutes show.
read more