I would also like to note that I was lucky enough to watch the fan edit that combined the old English dub with the newer HD-remaster. This English dub was very good and, like the standard definition English dub of Gundam Seed, I preferred it over the Japanese voices. If you can watch the show with theis dub, then I recommend you give it a try, assuming you're already familiar with the old dub from Gundam Seed, because this is done by the same people.
There are a lot of issues with Seed Destiny, the most noticeable problem is the absurd amount of animation reuse. The reuse extends even to animation from the first season and only gets more and more annoying as the season goes on, it actively made me roll my eyes regularly. The animation causes most battles to feel identical because of this, I swear there are some battles that mostly consist of reused animation re-edited into a different scene, which is just pathetic. This show will also use flashback animations as much as possible which I found pretty obnoxious, it feels like the anime staff were trying to do anything but animate the fucking show.
The series also has an unbalanced cast of characters, it introduces too many characters and takes far too long to develop them if they even get any development at all. One of the main characters, Shinn, is pretty insufferable most of the time. Much of his ideals are interesting, but his personality makes him anything but likeable. It also feels like Shinn had to be an extremely pathetic person for the plot to even happen in the first place, if he wasn't an obnoxious asshole this season might've been mercifully short. One character in particular was introduced only to die an episode later for dramatic effect, but they use his death to force drama between characters that already overcame this exact same fucking drama in the first season. I found things like this to be insulting to watch as a fan of Gundam Seed, this utterly lacks the tightly written characters and story that show had.
There aren't many things I like about this season, as most interesting things eventually become uninteresting before they finish. I will say that I like the inclusion of chairman Durandal as a character, he is probably the most interesting character in this season. I also think I like the shift in focus to Athrun as the main character, instead of Kira, the last season's main character.
Similar to Gundam Seed, a lot of effort was put into the recap episodes, they edit the recap into the story to the point that it makes sense that they would mention the old stuff while adding new stuff on top of it. This comes as a double edged sword, because it makes the recap episodes not as boring, but also means you can't skip them entirely because there is some new content in those episodes that you will miss if you do. One of the main characters,chairman Durandal, is given a lot of development during a recap episode, which I imagine many people would've missed by skipping the episode.
Honestly, I've seen worse, but Gundam Seed Destiny is still a huge mess. I'm mostly just disappointed because of how great Seed was. It might be worth a watch if you like Seed but don't expect it to be good, I struggle to recommend this in good faith.
