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 5

By Joseph (Joe) Wood
7th Oct 05

The halfway point of Gundam SEED shows signs of slowing down the pace, is this a calm before the storm, or a idea of the potential let down that’s yet to come?

Gundam SEED Volume five contains another five episodes of hot Mecha V. Mecha action. The first episode “The End of the Sandstorm” sees us wave goodbye too the “Desert Tiger” in the Tiger and Kira’s final battle rages one thought crosses both their minds “Is there another way?”. After what seems like an eternity in the desert the Archangel final moves on out to the sea, along with Cagalli. Out at sea however the Archangel comes across another bunch of Zeon soldiers who specialize in fighting at sea, how will the Strike fair in its first underwater battle. Cagalli and Athrun meet each other on a small-unoccupied island; they quickly change from attacking each other to helping. As the two enemies get to know one another, both the Archangel and the Zeon forces are looking for their missing members it doesn’t look like things will end well for one of these two youngsters. Then in the last episode on this disc “Land of Peace” all hope seems lost for the Archangel as it comes under fire of the four stolen Gundams just outside of the air space of the neutral nation of Orb (the same nation that hid the development of the Gundams and Archangel for the Earth forces), could Orb be the Archangel’s last hope?

The story finally moves on from the desert and the “Desert Tiger”, a move that is greatly appreciated as this was beginning to feel rather tiresome. The Archangel’s journey on to the sea is a refreshing and welcome change. We’re also not totally devoid of plot development as Kira battles his feelings over his fights in the desert; Flay also begins to battle Cagalli for Kira’s attention. I don’t know what it is about Flay but she’s suddenly come a pain to watch, every time she’s on screen I have to fight the urge to turn off. Cagalli also runs into Athrun, seemingly unaware of his and Kira’s friendship. Athrun seems taken aback by Cagalli, and adding to the already confusing potential love dodecahedron. The plot twists are all fairly predictable, although there aren’t any major ones, except for perhaps at the end of episode twenty-five, which you may have had an inkling of since the first episode.

Volume five is not as emotionally explosive or as action packed as the previous volumes of the series, nor does the plot move more than a few inches from where we were in the last volume. This is to be expected, even great series have poor episodes, this time quite a few of them are on one DVD. Volume five is a bit of a let down, yet as a whole the series so far has been a joy to watch, and it still hasn’t delivered on some of its face down cards i.e. Le Creuset and La Flaga’s relationship.

While the light dims a little on volume five the rest of Gundam SEED looks bright, volume five may not be the best volume but it’s certainly an essential volume due to the continuity of the series.

R2 DVD Notes

Features: English French Japanese Dub, English French German Polish Subtitles, Mechanical/Charcter Files, Production Sketches, Clean Opening and Closing animations, BEEZ Catelouge

Release information: Publisher: BEEZ Classification: PG Release date: October 17, 2005.

Notes: Once agian the mechanical/charcter files are a nice touch as are the Production sketches. There aren't any trailers on this DVD a strange choice, however included with the DVD is the BEEZ catelouge booklet that includes all of BEEZ's current titles.

-- Joseph (Joe) Wood 7th Oct 05

Gundam Seed Images