A lot of people have fears of being drafted into a war, but what if you didn’t have a choice due to your friends being in danger. What if a war was brought to your doorstep and you were forced to fight to survive, to actually see the places you lived and hung out in being destroyed by an unknown threat. This is the universe of Gundam Seed, full of treachery, deceit, heartache, and death.

A war is happening between ZAFT (Super Humans) and the Earth Alliance; there is an attack on a secret colony for reasons seemingly unknown. Kira Yamato and his friends are caught in the middle of an all out attack on the colony. It seems that Zaft has found a hidden facility filled with Gundams, the plan here is to take the Gundams so that the Earth Alliance has no defense. Yet while trying to escape from being killed by it all, Kira stumbles on the last remaining Gundam inside of a secret Facility called the Strike. He pays witness to two people fighting and gets involved between them; he’s thrown into the Gundam by a wounded Earth Alliance soldier. He finds out that the attacker is actually his best friend Athrun Zala, and soon finds out that he’ll have to fight him to protect his friends.

This is the main premise of the show altogether, the other Gundams were stolen from the facility and can do major damage to the faction. Kira is the only one that can really pilot the Strike to its full potential, but what Kira is really fighting for is to protect his friends on the Archangel (Space Battleship) from the other Gundams. You see, the people of ZAFT are Coordinators who were created a long time ago by Human scientists.  They were later on rejected by normal Human beings for the sake of jealousy and not being able to do the special things they can. This brought fear to the Naturals (Humans) so the Coordinators were deemed dangerous and outcasts.

Kira while fighting for the Earth Alliance is one of these Coordinators himself, this is in fact one of the major parts of the whole series. Kira is not immediately accepted as the pilot of the last remaining Gundam named Strike. Throughout the entire series he is ridiculed by both sides for this. Some of the people on the Earth Alliance have disdain for him being a Coordinator regardless of how good a pilot he is. On the Zaft side they wonder why he would fight for people that hate him, and Athrun wonders why he would fight against him over the Naturals who want to kill his race.

The best thing about this series would be the character development; in the midst of all of the combat you will see in this series… the character interaction is the best part. It does not take long for you to get engrossed in the story; it has plenty of twists and turns throughout to keep you very interested. The political aspect of Gundam Seed is actually pretty good; you’ll be interested to see what each Government power has in store for the other. Lot ’s of it involves manipulation, keeping things out of the public eye, deceiving the public, etc.

When it comes down to how the characters interact with each other, I’d say that it keeps you engrossed on what is going on. An example of this is how Flay reacts to Kira, in the beginning she is one of his friends in the colony. When she discovers that he is a Coordinator her whole persona changes towards him, she begins to hate him and everything that he is almost immediately. Yet as she starts to see his strength develop inside of the Strike, she moves to manipulate him and use herself as a means to keep him stable and happy. These type of things lead to some tantalizing drama throughout the series, and if you’re a drama fanatic like I am… that is a great thing.

Now when it comes to how the action goes down, I can say that it can be in the vein of the old Gundam Wing series. Yet I would say that it is much more violent and the scenes don’t repeat as much, but they will repeat some of the action enough that it is noticeable. This show contains a good chunk of blood and gore and usually the Mecha is sliced in half for a crimson splash. It also contains a good amount of collateral damage type of death scenes; you’ll see a few civilians die from the occasional space battle or some kind of political device. This is another one of those things that adds to the characters and the overall plot of the show.

In the sound department this show contains some nice music; the opening sequence has a very nice sound to it in my opinion. Yet I think the most notable thing in the sound department would be when Lacus is singing, it isn’t necessarily good or bad but it is something that has meaning to the people of Zaft. So that will probably stick in your head more when it comes to the sound, yet the rest of the music and sounds are nothing to shout about but they aren’t bad either.

Art wise if you’ve ever seen Scryed or Infinite Ryvius you’ll be right at home here, we have our main man Hisashi Hirai on the Animation, Character Design, and Mecha Animation. So everything is nicely colored and seem to have a unique design, this makes the combat a bit better to watch also. Lot ’s of neon streaming behind the Gundams, and wide arrange of colorful explosions through the more hectic battles. I personally favor his style of artwork so I think that the show has a nice flavor to it, from the clothing to the hair everything seems to be in order here.

Like I said earlier regarding this matter, I don’t agree with the rehashing of the action scenes in some places. In a lot of the later combat episodes you’ll see some of the more highlighted combat scenes over and over again. This is kind of annoying when you’re watching an action involved show of this sort. Because you’re trying to stay focused on the action scenes to see what is happening, yet when you see the same combat you saw in three or so episodes prior… well it isn’t all that appealing anymore.

To sum things up, I would like to say that Gundam Seed is a very enjoyable show. If you don’t mind having your action injected with Drama, this is one for you to go out and grab immediately. It has enough plot twists inside of it to keep you interested for the long run; the battles in Gundam Seed while sometimes heavy on the tedium… will still keep you interested here and there. I suggest going out and grabbing this one in any form you can, because nothing beats a great Drama in the long run.

Final Grade:

Story: There is a lot here that you can enjoy, from the political aspects to the character development. Everything seems to be properly done here, and it makes the anime stand out on its own feet from other Mecha series.

Visuals: Very colorful characters and Mecha make this one a joy to watch, but if you don’t like Hisashi Hirai’s art style… probably best you keep away. This and some of the scenes will repeat here and there, especially when the Strike is evading multiple blasts.

Sound: The typical orchestrated stuff is posted throughout this Anime, with the exception of the beginning and ending themes. Mainly, you won’t be missing much here after the series is finally over.

Overall: 4 Oro’s out of 5