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 6

By Joseph (Joe) Wood
7th Oct 05

“Volume six of ten. Volume six of ten.” Say it like that and it feels as if the series is almost over. As we rocket past the halfway point and into the final half of Gundam SEED things, begin to heat up, however there is a price to pay.

Gundam SEED volume six contains three episodes, compared to the normal five episodes per disc. While the back of the box, DVD menu, websites and running time may make you believe there are in fact five, there are only three.

Let me explain, the first two episodes in volume six are in fact review episodes, using footage from the past episodes, these episodes quickly recap in twenty-five minutes what has taken place over the last twenty-five episodes. Episode twenty-six “Moment” is pretty much your standard recap episode you’d find around the halfway point of any anime; this quickly tells the viewer how the Coordinator V. Natural (Zeon V. Earth) war started and how Kira and friends were caught up in it and how Kira had to fight against his old friend Athrun. Now the odd recap episode is not odd, in fact it is something you can expect from most anime, however you don’t often expect their to be another one straight after! Episode twenty-seven “Endless Rondo” is another recap episode although it does contain an insignificant amount of new footage. This mainly focuses on the battles Kira fought in the strike rather than then general plot; however, a lot of the shown footage was also use in the episode before. When SEED was aired it will have been aired one new episode a week for the best part of a year, so in its original context two recap episode in a row is somewhat acceptable but on DVD it doesn’t work

The remaining three episodes on the disc however more than make up for this, as the plot jumps in leaps and bounds, and we make a few farewells to some long serving characters, and this adds fuel to fires that had been burning bright but beginning to fade. I must offer apologies for the rather obscurity of the content of the remaining episodes but I don’t want to spoil anything just to say that this is some of the best stuff in the series since it began. Though I should say that these developments may become more than obvious a good ten or so minutes before the happen especially if you’ve seen a fair share of other Gundam titles. There was one thing (To do with Cagalli and Kira) that totally threw me, I wasn’t expecting it, yet after I found out, I cursed myself for not having seen the potential after having seen quite a few other Gundam titles, although I did expect a similar development between some other characters.

To top this all of the mecha battles in the non-recap episodes are some of the best seen yet, and some of the best use of music so far during some of the more emotional scenes.

Volume six is back on form despite the fact that two of the five episodes recap the series. If you were having doubts about where SEED may have been, heading after volume five then this is bound to blow them away.

R2 DVD Notes

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

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

Notes: Once agian the mechanical/charcter files are a nice touch as are the Production sketches. Included with the DVD is the BEEZ catelouge booklet that includes all of BEEZ's current titles.

-- Joseph (Joe) Wood 7th Oct 05

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