!!!MASSIVE SPOILER ALERT THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE REVIEW!!!
The series started out interesting. New characters (immediately committing a massacre in episode 1), new reasons for war (Colonydrop on Earth and a repeat Nuke attack at the PLANTS(exactly same footage as ending of Seed..)) and to my delight returning old characters.
Sadly Cagalli being one of them, who, to make it worse, is even more annoying than in SEED. She first puts Orb in the psychotic Blue Cosmos- led Earth Alliance (EA from now on)(I can understand that, because else the EA will destroy ORB yet again). Yet later when she has joined the Archangel, she's constantly ordering Orb forces to stop fighting, while it is because of her that they have to fight in the first place! But if they stop fighting, the EA will once again destroy them etc. Vicious cycle, make up your mind already!
Even worse is when ZAFT is invading Orb for the SOLE PURPOSE of capturing Lord Jibril. She overthrows Yuna Roma and takes control of Orb, but does she try to STOP THE FIGHTING (like she tried the whole SEED and SEED Destiny series)? Maybe CONTACT ZAFT and tell them: "Hey! We know you want Jibril and he's in Orb, we are hunting him so stop attacking please!"? Nope, she launches an all-out attack on ZAFT killing hundreds more people for absolutely no reason. WHAT?
Then there's Shin, constantly nagging at Cagalli (Which I'd be fine with were it for aforementioned reasons, but nu-uh). According to him his parents died because the EA attacked Orb, seemingly because Orb (Lord Uzumi to be precise, NOT Cagalli) stuck to it's ideals too much. But when Cagalli decides to abandon Orb's ideals to protect the population, and joins the EA, he's still whining because this time they're traitors!... His hypocrisy knows no bounds, as, whereas he's traumatized because he lost his family, instead of following Kira's example of non- killing, he keeps stomping cockpits and shattering hundreds of families himself.
Speaking of hypocrites... Lacus Cleyne. Near the end of the series, when 2 parties keep interrupting each other's worldwide broadcasts(seems to be ridiculously easy in the future), The real Lacus (HypoLacus from now on) is blurting out an amazing amount of nonsense about her fake clone counterpart, WannabeLacus:
-"She and I are 2 completely different people-
No? All the WannabeLacus has been doing the entire series is dampening the rage of the PLANT population with hippie-peace talk and a repeat of the same cheeky songs over and over, EXACTLY what HypoLacus has been doing the entire SEED series. By all means, HypoLacus should be grateful, else Durandil wouldn't have been able to stem the rage tide and the following war could've been much worse.
-and our beliefs are just as different as well"
WannabeLacus stated that their anger should be directed to Lord Jibril, and that everyone should work together to apprehend this psycho racist maniac. So you don't have this belief? Really HypoLacus? You want to bring down Chairman Durandil who is helping innocent people on Earth, directing attacks only at LOGOS (>>THE<< reason for all the wars in world) and preventing as many casualties on the EA as possible, while Lord Jibril went around and:
-Attempted nuking the PLANTS (AGAIN!) -Wiped out Berlin and 2 entire other cities along with tons of innocent people -Conducted horrible experiments on genetically enhanced child-soldiers (Extendeds) -Stated he wanted to wipe out every single coordinator (Including you HypoLacus)
Really? And later on, when Jibril destroys 6 PLANT colonies, killing another few million people, HypoLacus apparently gives sod-all and claims they still have to stop Durandil! JIBRIL IS STILL ALIVE! The ZAFT forces only killed 1 of those EA Beam Reflectors. They still had like 10 left, and could easily move another one in position to slaughter another few million more people. Yes Durandil wants to execute a Destiny Plan, but to install that takes a hell of a lot of effort and time, and it doesn't slaughter millions of innocents instantly, you can stop him LATER!
Rey does that actually... Loyal to the death to Durandil the entire show, but a few words from Kira and he back-stabs him... That's just weak, and lame.
Okay some positive characters:
-Mu Laflaga! I know I know, his death would've had a lot of meaning if he had actually died in SEED. But in HypocritLand it's hard to find someone who isn't Emo and hypocrite, and cool at the same time. Finally a hero, with cool quotes, that doesn't need an overpowered suit that kills entire armies without taking a scratch, to make a difference (like Kira, doesn't even fight anymore when he loses his Freedom... wussy).
-Athren Zala. He grows a lot throughout SEED and SEED Destiny, expresses emotions accordingly, makes sense and fights in whatever suit there's available.
Lastly, I enjoyed most of the battles. Deaths of main characters made quite an impact, especially cause most of their deaths came so unexpected (Like Heine ,very cool character BTW). And Stella, I expected she'd jump on the Gundampilot Girlfriend Bandwagon, mainly due to the Seed Destiny intro clips).
The story could've been a lot cooler were it not for several annoying characters, but if you don't care for that, I think it's worth the effort to watch through both Seed and Seed Destiny. But there are better Gundams out there!
The series started out interesting. New characters (immediately committing a massacre in episode 1), new reasons for war (Colonydrop on Earth and a repeat Nuke attack at the PLANTS(exactly same footage as ending of Seed..)) and to my delight returning old characters.
Sadly Cagalli being one of them, who, to make it worse, is even more annoying than in SEED. She first puts Orb in the psychotic Blue Cosmos- led Earth Alliance (EA from now on)(I can understand that, because else the EA will destroy ORB yet again). Yet later when she has joined the Archangel, she's constantly ordering Orb forces to stop fighting, while it is because of her that they have to fight in the first place! But if they stop fighting, the EA will once again destroy them etc. Vicious cycle, make up your mind already!
Even worse is when ZAFT is invading Orb for the SOLE PURPOSE of capturing Lord Jibril. She overthrows Yuna Roma and takes control of Orb, but does she try to STOP THE FIGHTING (like she tried the whole SEED and SEED Destiny series)? Maybe CONTACT ZAFT and tell them: "Hey! We know you want Jibril and he's in Orb, we are hunting him so stop attacking please!"? Nope, she launches an all-out attack on ZAFT killing hundreds more people for absolutely no reason. WHAT?
Then there's Shin, constantly nagging at Cagalli (Which I'd be fine with were it for aforementioned reasons, but nu-uh). According to him his parents died because the EA attacked Orb, seemingly because Orb (Lord Uzumi to be precise, NOT Cagalli) stuck to it's ideals too much. But when Cagalli decides to abandon Orb's ideals to protect the population, and joins the EA, he's still whining because this time they're traitors!... His hypocrisy knows no bounds, as, whereas he's traumatized because he lost his family, instead of following Kira's example of non- killing, he keeps stomping cockpits and shattering hundreds of families himself.
Speaking of hypocrites... Lacus Cleyne. Near the end of the series, when 2 parties keep interrupting each other's worldwide broadcasts(seems to be ridiculously easy in the future), The real Lacus (HypoLacus from now on) is blurting out an amazing amount of nonsense about her fake clone counterpart, WannabeLacus:
-"She and I are 2 completely different people-
No? All the WannabeLacus has been doing the entire series is dampening the rage of the PLANT population with hippie-peace talk and a repeat of the same cheeky songs over and over, EXACTLY what HypoLacus has been doing the entire SEED series. By all means, HypoLacus should be grateful, else Durandil wouldn't have been able to stem the rage tide and the following war could've been much worse.
-and our beliefs are just as different as well"
WannabeLacus stated that their anger should be directed to Lord Jibril, and that everyone should work together to apprehend this psycho racist maniac. So you don't have this belief? Really HypoLacus? You want to bring down Chairman Durandil who is helping innocent people on Earth, directing attacks only at LOGOS (>>THE<< reason for all the wars in world) and preventing as many casualties on the EA as possible, while Lord Jibril went around and:
-Attempted nuking the PLANTS (AGAIN!) -Wiped out Berlin and 2 entire other cities along with tons of innocent people -Conducted horrible experiments on genetically enhanced child-soldiers (Extendeds) -Stated he wanted to wipe out every single coordinator (Including you HypoLacus)
Really? And later on, when Jibril destroys 6 PLANT colonies, killing another few million people, HypoLacus apparently gives sod-all and claims they still have to stop Durandil! JIBRIL IS STILL ALIVE! The ZAFT forces only killed 1 of those EA Beam Reflectors. They still had like 10 left, and could easily move another one in position to slaughter another few million more people. Yes Durandil wants to execute a Destiny Plan, but to install that takes a hell of a lot of effort and time, and it doesn't slaughter millions of innocents instantly, you can stop him LATER!
Rey does that actually... Loyal to the death to Durandil the entire show, but a few words from Kira and he back-stabs him... That's just weak, and lame.
Okay some positive characters:
-Mu Laflaga! I know I know, his death would've had a lot of meaning if he had actually died in SEED. But in HypocritLand it's hard to find someone who isn't Emo and hypocrite, and cool at the same time. Finally a hero, with cool quotes, that doesn't need an overpowered suit that kills entire armies without taking a scratch, to make a difference (like Kira, doesn't even fight anymore when he loses his Freedom... wussy).
-Athren Zala. He grows a lot throughout SEED and SEED Destiny, expresses emotions accordingly, makes sense and fights in whatever suit there's available.
Lastly, I enjoyed most of the battles. Deaths of main characters made quite an impact, especially cause most of their deaths came so unexpected (Like Heine ,very cool character BTW). And Stella, I expected she'd jump on the Gundampilot Girlfriend Bandwagon, mainly due to the Seed Destiny intro clips).
The story could've been a lot cooler were it not for several annoying characters, but if you don't care for that, I think it's worth the effort to watch through both Seed and Seed Destiny. But there are better Gundams out there!