Gundam Seed Recommended

Publisher
BEEZ
Director
Mitsuo Fukuda
Production
Sotsu Agency, Sunrise
Country of origin
Japan
Format
Series
Running time
50 Episodes/25 Minutes Each
Year
2002

Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Volume 2

By Joseph (Joe) Wood
4th Jul 05

The war between the Naturals and Coordinators continues to climb, as the experimental battleship Archangel tries to flee it’s attackers, it seems it can find no allies to assist it, regardless of wither their on the same side or not.

The Archangel, after coming under attack by Le Creuset and the stolen Gundams and Kira having to face against Athrun again along with the other Gundams, the Archangel has finally come to rest at Artemis, protected by its barrier. Although even here the Archangel cannot rest as the forces at Artemis are more interested in the ship and “Strike” rather than protecting the people on board. The ZAFT members pursuing the Archangel have found that one of the stolen Mobile Suits the “Blitz” has an ability that will allow it to pass Artemis’ impenetrable shield (in a similar way to how the iceberg had ability to sink the unsinkable Titanic). The Archangel and Kira manage to fend of the ZAFT forces yet again but they are forced to set of once again in search of refuge, and head towards Earth. Deciding to search the Earth’s debris belt for useful supplies to help the ship, Kira comes across an escape pod, which contains Lacus Clyne, a coordinator, daughter of one of ZAFT’s council members, a popular coordinator pop idol, a goodwill ambassador AND Athrun’s fiancé. Athrun with Le Creuset’s help searches for Lacus, whilst hunting the Archangel and attacking the fleet that has come to support it, one of which’s ships contains Kira’s friends Flay’s father which when it’s destroyed Flay is distraught and blames Kira and Lacus, and Flay begins to change. Things get difficult for the crew and they are forced to tell the ZAFT forces they have Lacus aboard and would hand her over for safe passage. Kira is disgusted by these actions and helps Lacus escape handing her over to Athrun, who again asks Kira to join ZAFT, but Kira refuses saying he needs to protect his friends.

The second volume continues to produce the same high standards of entertainment as the first volume with great action sequences, and necessary character and plot development. It’s in this volume we learn more about the Blood Valentine tragedy, which sparked the war. Lacus, being a pop idol for ZAFT, brings with her, her singing, which seems to be taken from Macross rather than a past Gundam series. The music for the series is good, the music used in the action sequences suit them, as does the music used for exposition scenes or character scenes. One problem though is that if you’re watching in English dub, the song Lacus sings at various points is also in English and is not anywhere near as good as the Japanese version, why like other dubbing companies have done in the past, they could not just play the Japanese soundtrack for the song with subtitles I don’t know.

This is another top-notch volume in the Gundam Seed series, and I do happen to know the series gets even better as it progresses.

R2 DVD Notes

Features: English/French/German/Japanese Dub, English/German/French/Polish Sub, Beez Trailers, Mechanical/Chacrcter Files, Clean opening and closing animation.

Release information: Publisher: Beez Relase: Out Now Classification: PG

Notes: I know a few people who have SEED on region 1, and on their second volume they have far more extras than this like the music video for the first openning song "INVOKE". However the extras we have been given are not bad, with the mechanical/charcter files featuring on other chacrters.

-- Joseph (Joe) Wood 4th Jul 05

Gundam Seed Images