On the 7th day of Christmas, my anime gave to me…

7 Haro PLANTs (highlighted in circles in case you can’t see all 7 😛 )

With 4 episodes under its belt, Tanekyara Gekijo (or Mini Seed and Mini Destiny as I call them), it should be considered a series on its own within Cosmic Era. This is obviously fanservice especially in episode 1 with the gang abusing the power of Seed to the maximum. Personally, I think Lacus has the most powerful Seed of all. She can even control Kira with it… no wonder she’s dubbed Lacus “Darth” Clyne.

Hmm… Is it just me or does this stick Rey produced and proudly called “Gil Edition Time Slip Stick” look a heck lot like Sakura’s (CCS) star wand? The colour and the wings are quite matching with a miniature Dullindal replacing the star crest.

Sunrise really stereotyped each of the characters according to how fans normally sees them. Kira is portrayed as a happy-go-lucky person who cries easily (and quite often) and Athrun is seen as the dependable friend. This holds true in Seed, but I’m not quite sure in Destiny lol. Still, I’m glad they followed what fans thought from Seed.

While the Seed abuse are just too damn accurate of a representation of each how they made use of their Seed in battle, the episode itself is nothing much compared to Dullindal Destiny 1.

The Chibi Destiny Bunch…

Super Tori is… scary…

“Mommy Athrun… Shinn broke Super Tori…”

And they all live happily ever after…

Noticed how there are more and more screenshots as the days goes by? 😀

“12 Days of Anime Christmas” brought to you by your friendly neighbourhood anime lovers:

CCYoshi | Owen | Usagijean | 0rion | Roxas | Quinn | Martin | Michael | DS | CalAggie | Moogy | IKnight | DeathToZippermouth | Kabitzin | Reverse Vampire | CJ & Crisu

12 Days of an Anime Christmas thus far…

• Day 7: Seven Haro PLANTs
• Day 6: Six Scary Crazy Masters (and a pair of boobies for fun)
• Day 5: Five Bullets Deflected by Black Cat
• Day 4: Four Brand New Gundam
• Day 3: Three Shugo Chara Eggs
• Day 2: Two Mokona Modoki
• Day 1: A Chiaki-sama hanging in the air

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I wrote the 7 Reasons why Gundam Seed Destiny Sucked about a month ago and thought maybe I should also give 7 reasons why I liked Gundam Seed Destiny. A warning though, many would argue that some (or maybe even all) the reasons I list here as their reason for disliking the series.

1. Kira rocked.And because Shinn sucked so bad, Kira rocked even more. He has become more than just the Ultimate Coordinator. He is the God of War. There was even an episode dedicated to show just that – episode 39: Kira of the Heavens. Now if that isn’t the declaration that Kira is indeed the ultimate fighting machine in C.E., I don’t know what is. While Kira had to struggle against many opponents in Seed, he pretty much takes on everyone and their cousins with relatively ease, making Destiny and Destroy look like nothing but child’s play.

2. Infinite Justice kicks ass. If Kira is the God of War, then Athrun with his Infinite Justice is, without a doubt, the Melee God. The original Justice wasn’t shown as prominently, and definitely takes far less notice compared to Freedom. But Infinite Justice kicks ass here. Infinite Justice went up against Destiny not once, but twice, allowing Strike Freedom to take on Legend. And every time Athrun decides to get serious, Shinn gets trashed like no tomorrow, making Infinite Justice the hero for many anti-Shinn/Destiny fans. Fukuda was probably taking this chance to make up for Athrun’s uselessness during most of the season. Too bad I can’t say the same for Cagalli…

3. Shinn got owned. Pretty much every scene where Shinn got owned became some of my favourite parts of the series. I hate Shinn ever since he first started to blame Cagalli for his loss. Keeping in mind that I watched this part first before watching Seed, I can safely say that I didn’t start hating Shinn because I supported the old cast. I didn’t even know who were the old cast and who are the new ones. So Shinn getting pwned is fun to watch for me.

4. Return of Fllaga. I’ll admit the idea of Phantom Mask is really Fllaga never occured to me until the episode where he repeated a phrase from Seed about chasing the “cute kittens”. It was a pleasant surprise that Fllaga somehow miraculously survived the Lohengrin blast from Dominion and that he would eventually rejoin the Archangel, piloting the Hyaku-Shiki Akatsuki.

5. Archangel upgraded. Not only can the legendary Archangel dive underwater now, they even built a hot springs bath in the damn warship! It’s no longer just a first-class warship, it also has first-class comfort facilities! The Archangel itself isn’t the only one with upgrades, the crew themselves seemed to be much more skillful and calm than they were during the previous war. Barrel-roll maneuver? Nothing to it. Facing an incoming positron cannon beam? Been there, done that. Twice.

6. Great OST. Even though overall I feel that Seed had nicer songs, I think that Destiny had more songs that are good. I can pick out more songs I liked in Destiny compared to Seed. And of course, T.M. Revolution

7. Better animation. Quality wise it’s definitely an improvement over Seed. The quality of designs and animation are important in any anime, and Destiny definitely performed well here. Too bad I can’t say the same for overall plot.

At the end of Destiny (based on Final Plus) Shinn finally made peace with Kira. That would suggest that if there are to be anymore sequels, the 3 Ship Alliance would actually have Shinn on their side as well. I may hate Shinn, but it would be cool to have him fight alongside Kira and Athrun.

The invincible duo (Kira and Athrun) in Seed became the invincible trio (Kira, Athrun and Fllaga) in Destiny. Would we see the invincible quartet in the next installation of Gundam Seed and the C.E. Universe with Shinn in the mix? Only time would tell but it would be fun to watch that’s for sure 😀

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Before I get flamed, I need to state that I am a fan of Gundam Seed and Gundam Seed Destiny. I actually started watching a few episodes of Destiny first before I went and watch Seed. However, after completing both Seed and Destiny, there are just some parts where I wished Fukuda had done more work with in Destiny. With this in mind, let’s begin:

1. Shinn sucked. Even before I watched Seed, I already liked Athrun better than Shinn. Maybe it’s just his childish and arrogant attitude towards Athrun and Cagalli at the start, but I never really did like him. Granted, he has his good points and is an excellent pilot, but he just doesn’t have that likable personality to me. Him jumping onto Lunamaria the moment he gets the chance after the death of Stellar kinda pissed me off. Maybe he just wanted someone to treasure and support, but the way he did it came across me as a “it doesn’t have to be Luna, just anyone would do really…” thought. I must admit though, I thought he was kinda cool during the first couple of episodes, even if he didn’t do such a great job.

2. Not drastic enough. Seriously, with a few exceptions, most of the time all the forces have it easy. There isn’t really that much sense of urgency compared to Seed. I can only remember 2 instances at the top of my head right now: the fall of Junius 7 and Kira’s race to Eternal. There’s probably a few more, but it just doesn’t feel as desperate, and desperation is always a good way to get characters moving.

3. Little character development. Shinn had been a brat from the beginning until the very end. Lunamaria never does anything important correctly. Rey is always the same. Dullindal almost always wears the same expression. Athrun and Cagalli had been “rendered useless” for most parts of Destiny. Kira pwns all the way, save that one battle against Impulse. Mia had pretty decent development though Rey also had the potential to develop into a very interesting character with his past relation to Kruuze/Rau Le Creuset.

4. Too predictable. Tell me you’ve watched Seed and didn’t see Neo/Fllaga doing his “Strike” thing with Akatsuki in the final battle and I’ll bang my head on the wall. While that is the most obvious, there are also many other instances of being able to predict plots fairly easily.

5. Too rushed. This is especially noticeable towards the ending. The last episode had the 3 ship alliance totally owning ZAFT forces. Luckily, Final Plus rectified this… slightly. Still, it’s much better than the original last episode that was aired

6. Yzak and Dearka. Their role could have, and should have been much bigger other than the few random appearances and in the final battle. It would also be nice if they were piloting mobile suits that were closer to their old units; Duel and Buster. Both suits were still functional at the end of the first war, and although Goufs had better functionality, ZAFT could have easily upgraded the 2 units as well.

7. 3 Ship Alliance. Other than Archangel and Eternal, there were very little about the alliance. Even the Kusanagi was pretty much forgotten although it is one of the main ships of the alliance. Pretty disappointed that Kusanagi’s role was smaller in the final battle of Destiny.

Despite my rambling above, I truly did enjoy Gundam Seed Destiny and hopes that the C.E. storyline would continue. I’m putting high hopes in the C.E. based movie and even more possible continuations after that. Just hope Fukuda doesn’t screw it up.

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Looks like the Gundam Seed Supernova (Mini Seed) has been subbed. If you haven’t watched them, or would like to see just how much you managed to understand the original raws, here they are again 😀

Gundam Seed Supernova (Gundam Jealousy) Episode 1:

Gundam Seed Supernova (Gundam Jealousy) Episode 2:

Buy Gundam Seed & Seed Destiny Fan Disc (Opens in new window)

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Seems that there will be a 2nd volume release for Gundam Seed Supernova Fan Disc (a.k.a Mini Seed), which would be released in Japan on 25th of September this year. The price, including tax, is ¥3,990 (~USD$32.35) and comes with a specially made casing.

The contents of this disc includes:

• Character Song Remix
• Seed Theater (Mission DD)
• World Wide SEED
• MS TRICO STAGE (Mobile Suit Explanation Movie)
• SEED The Live Tour

If you’re planning/already gotten the first volume of Gundam Seed Supernova Fan Disk, you would definitely want to keep an eye out for this as well 😀

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