This review will only cover Gundam Seed Season 1 meaning I won’t mentioning Gundam Seed Destiny at all. Now with that said let’s begin.
Story and Characters.
It is the year 70 of the Cosmic Era, the war rages on. On one side is the Earth Alliance, and on the opposite is the space colonies that form ZAFT (Zodiac Alliance of Freedom Treaty). Mankind is divided over human genetic engineering, with normal humans known as ‘Naturals’ and the genetically altered humans known as ‘Coordinators’. ZAFT has a head start on mobile suit design; the Earth Alliance quickly catches up with its five prototype Gundam’s. With ZAFT having stolen four of the prototypes, young pilot Kira Yamato takes the Strike Gundam and is forced to fight his old friend Athrun Zala. Little do they know that there are sinister forces at work that go far beyond their worst nightmares.
Honestly, the story of Gundam Seed is average at best.
To start off with Gundam Seed, for the most part, reuses story and characters elements in Gundam 0079. Two factions are at war with each other, the first battle is in a colony, the main protagonist and his friends get caught up in the middle of the war etc. While I understand that the creators of Gundam Seed were trying to pay a homage to Gundam 0079 aka the first Gundam series, however, I felt that Gundam Seed played it too safe with this and as a result the show ended up being a poor man’s Gundam 0079.
Another thing that I didn’t about Gundam Seed are the flashbacks. Personally, I don’t mind flashbacks as long they are done right but this show really got carried away with this and it really screws up the pacing of the show. While it’s not as bad here when compared to Seed Destiny it’s still pretty annoying.
The series explores the themes of genetic manipulation were individuals who had their DNA modified before birth struggle to coexist with people who are born with natural jeans. While the idea itself was a great and unique way to go over the themes of racism however the execution was sadly mediocre at best mainly because it ended up being pretty preachy. Not only that I was also not a fan of how they made the actual war more like a good vs evil type of story rather than a battle of ideology. If you don’t count G Gundam the franchise has never been a battle between good vs evil. This also hurts the overall narrative of the show as it quickly became predictable in a bad way thanks to its story structure.
When it comes to the characters of Gundam Seed I thought they were mostly forgetful.
Now I kinda like Kira Yamato in the beginning because I thought he was kinda of character you sympathize with due to him being the only coordinator in the archangel who had no choice to fight against his own people including his best friend Athurn. I personally found that concept to redundant when considering that Turn A the Gundam series that came out before Seed has already used this idea. Now for Kira himself, I actually liked him for the first half of the series despite him being whiny at times. Unfortunately, at a certain point of the series, Kira character development gets thrown out of the window and by the second half, he becomes a full fleshed Gary sue.
Overall Kira had the potential to be a decent protagonist but when he became a Gary sue he became a wasted potential character.
Athrun, in my opinion, was the highlight of Seed season 1 for me due to him having the best character development as well as actual flaws that make sense not to mention he actually a very likeable chararter, unlike Kira who just devolves into a Gary Sue.
Lacus was a decent character in the beginning but Jesus Christ does her Mary Sue levels just sky rocked as the show progressed. Plus it to a point where she becomes kinda insufferable to watch due to her being perfect at everything.
Cagalli is pretty good chararter overall. She may be a crybaby at times but least she is a pretty decent character who gets decent character development.
As for the other characters I honestly don’t have much say about them mainly because of they all pretty forgetful minus Mu la Flaga and Andrew Waltfeld.
Overall the story and characters in Gundam Seed are average at best. While the story has some cool moments that kinda interesting a bit as well as having a couple of characters that I liked, however, would have been a lot better if it was better executed.
5/10
Visuals.
Visually Gundam Seed is okay at best.
It may look very colourful and pretty to look at for the most part but in terms of actual designs for characters I found it to be lacking in a lot of areas.
The CGI not counting the HD Remaster version was pretty horrendous to look at it clearly stands out from the background scenery. The facial structure of the chararters is pretty inconstant as well the chararter models frequently go off model to a point where they look like chararters that came out straight from a hentai production.
The animation itself is mediocre which can also get a bit choppy at times and let’s not forget the fact that is stock footage here and it can be almost as bad as Wing and Build Fighters Try depending how you look at.
The HD remaster of Gundam Seed has fixed some of the issues that I had with the visuals but they didn’t fix everything that was wrong.
The mecha designs were pretty okay for the most part, however, I will admit that many of them were unoriginal especially the Freedom Gundam.
5/10
Sound.
If there’s one thing that I really liked about Gundam Seed it the music.
The soundtrack in the show is flat out amazing that is filled with great tracks left and right that fits well with the overall tone of the series. Not to mention the insert songs were pretty awesome to listen.
All of the opening the ending themes of Gundam Seed are amazing and very memorable to the eye from both the original and HD remaster version.
Now for sub vs dub.
The sub is pretty good for the most part as every Seiyuu did a pretty solid job with the roles that they were given. The dub, on the other hand, is kinda decent however there were some questionable dub performances.
9/10
Final Thoughts.
Gundam Seed may not be the best Gundam series I have ever seen nor do I think it’s one of the worst Gundam series I have seen.
The story while having some pretty good to decent moments was pretty average to overall mediocre execution. The chararters ranged from alright, annoying to forgetful, the visuals were okay at best and the music was awesome.
The Cosmic Era of Gundam may get a lot from hardcore Gundam fans but I don’t think that the Cosmic Era of Gundam was a total disaster. The Cosmic Era had a lot of potential and the original Seed showed some good signs of that potential however it was pretty mismanaged.
Which version should you Gundam Seed? I personally recommend the HD remaster version of the show as its more cleaner, has fewer recap episodes and it fixes some of the animation issues,
I highly recommend avoiding the original versions because besides of having a decent dub it’s has a lot of powerpoint presentation fights, more stock footage than the HD remaster version and no to mention it has more recap episodes.
If you haven’t seen any Gundam show before or if you’re a fan of the modern Gundam shows such as 00, Build Fighters and Iron-Blooded Orphans than this would be a decent watch and enjoyable watch however if you're are a fan of more older Gundam shows such as U.C Gundam, Turn A, X or G Gundam it’s best to approach to this with caution.
After the release of Gundam Seed, the Gundam franchise would sadly fall in the rabbit hole as the next Gundam show I will be covering will bearly have any positive praise but what the original Gundam Seed was it was a pretty alright experience.
Final Score 5/10
