This series revives many the characteristically flashy visual and musical elements that gave the first SEED its barrages of pink laser fire and pervasive J-Pop background. Of course these worked much better with a good plot and characters to back them up. Despite its promising start, this series spirals out of control with the reappearance of Kira Yamato from the first SEED. Little by little, the intended protagonist Shinn falls to the way side until the hopelessly perfect Yamato takes his place. The notion of 'real robots' once so central to earlier incarnations of Gundam effectively fades away with the introduction of inexplicably godlike mecha for most of the major characters, reaching the apotheosis of absurdity with the one Kira receives.

There are just so many problems with this show, my mind is boggling as to where to start. Well, I suppose the best place to start is the beginning. The story initially begins during one of the major battles from the previous show, Mobile Suit Gundam SEED. A young boy named Shinn Asuka and his family are caught in a crossfire between two mobile suits, one of them piloted by Kira Yamato, the protagonist from Gundam SEED. Although Shinn survives, his entire family is killed, leaving Shinn aghast. Fast forward two years later, Shinn has relocated to the PLANTs and enlisted in the ZAFT military. This show definitely had a lot of potential during the first twelve episodes, which focused mainly on Shinn and all the other new characters. But then the writers decided to switch gears and bring back Kira and the rest of the old cast from Gundam SEED, and they ultimately save the day. What is frustrating about that is Kira has no struggle to speak of. Yet in the last few episodes of this show, the writers decided to make Kira invincible in his latest mobile suit and the climax was insufferably one-sided. Overall, this show is a disgrace to the Gundam franchise.Yoshiyuki "Kill 'Em All" Tomino, the instigator of Gundam, is definitely the superior director and I would definitely recommend any of his shows or movies over this lame series anytime . They don't call him "Kill 'Em All" Tomino for nothing. No sir.

My first true experience with Gundam was through the Wing series when it was shown in the US via Cartoon Network. From then on I watched the 3rd movie of the original, Double Zeta, Char's Counterattack, Victory, and a few episodes of Turn-A. And I appreciated Yoshiyuki Tomino's ability to tell a good war-based story (despite the lighter mood in Double Zeta and Turn-A). And my opinion of him didn't change after I found out that Tomino had psychological problems.I started watching Gundam Seed Destiny with the hopes of seeing a "Gundam" title return to its roots. But after episode 21, I lost all hope for anything animated in Japan and having to do with war.Mitsuo Fukuda and Chiaki Morosawa are the two people to blame for this series. How many more "re-cap episodes," rewritten specials, and re-usage of base images must they require in order to be satisfied with their end product? Why make a lead character (who had an actually good story to tell) along with a set of new characters when their next step is to shine the spotlight on the old set of characters? I know the lead singer from TM Revolution had a busy schedule, but why does he have to play some "shining cannon-fodder" who lasts less than 5 episodes?I had my opinions of this series booted off of review sites because of my "bias." But isn't it our duty as viewers of media to commit to some "whistle-blowing" whenever we see something wrong? If a director, producer, and/or screenwriter rely too much on lazy re-caps, re-usage of images, and "specials" based on re-used and re-edited scenes; then one wonders why people like them have been hired or are still employed.

Gundam SEED Destiny, the direct sequel to Gundam SEED, got off to a great start. We were thrown into battle that raged on and off for 4 to 5 episodes non-stop, and our hopes were high. There were new characters that had stories to be told, and a new plot to be delivered. But, this all stopped before the series even hit the 20th episode. Instead of the new characters being in the spotlight, Lacus and the crew came in and took it back. Athrun was left in the cold, and it became the Jesus Yamato show. Instead of seeing intense battles, we get to see Freedom strike the same pose over and over again as hundreds of grunt units explode.Gundam SEED retained elements from the older, more war oriented Gundam series, which made it easily watchable and quite entertaining if you could get by the re-use of the same frames. But SEED Destiny became a "super robot" show in which the main characters suits could easily take out an entire fleet without getting a scratch. The new suits, while flashy, are just blatant copies of UC suits. Pumping up a Zaku and giving it a huge backpack doesn't mean you've created a new suit.Destiny had the potential to be as good as SEED, but it ended up destroying itself by becoming a super robot show filled with Gundams.I give it 3 out of 10 stars, because it did have a good start.