Mobile Suit Gundam SEED

From Free net encyclopedia

(Redirected from Gundam Seed)

Template:Infobox animanga/Header Template:Infobox animanga/Anime Template:Infobox animanga/OVA Template:Infobox animanga/Footer Mobile Suit Gundam SEED (or "Gundam SEED") is an anime television series from Japan. It is a part of the Gundam franchise that started in 1979, but takes place in an alternate universe called the Cosmic Era. The series has 50 episodes, aired in Japan from October 52002 to September 272003 at 6:00 PM on the JNN TV stations (Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS TV), Mainichi Broadcasting System (MBS TV, producing TV station), etc.).

Contents

[edit]

Overview

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Directed by Mitsuo Fukuda (Future GPX Cyber Formula and Gear Fighter Dendoh), the series is the first set in the Cosmic Era universe. This series begins with a war between Earth and the colonies that is similar to the One Year War of the original Gundam series with certain traditional elements from New Mobile Report Gundam Wing and After War Gundam X. The plot line is immense. On one side is the Earth Alliance, and on the opposite is the space colonies that form ZAFT (Zodiac Alliance of Freedom Treaty). Mankind has evolved into new forms through genetic engineering, with normal humans known as 'Naturals' and the genetically altered known as 'Coordinators'. Like the original series, ZAFT has a head start on mobile suit design, the Earth Alliance quickly catches up with its five prototype Gundams. With ZAFT having stolen four of the prototypes, young pilot Kira Yamato takes the Strike Gundam and is forced to fight his old friend Athrun Zala.

[edit]

Airing information

Reportedly described by Fukada as a re-imagining of the first Gundam story, Gundam SEED started with similar plot lines, but later on took off into its own direction.

The series is licensed by Bandai Entertainment, and was released on DVD in North America in uncut bilingual format. An edited version of the English dub premiered during the Toonami block at 10:30pm on Saturday nights, it was pushed back to 1:00 am on Friday nights starting with Phase 27 due to below average ratings.

The majority of the series was aired with a TV-Y7, apparently, at the insistence of Bandai who were desperately trying to push the new Gundam SEED toy line. However, since most retailers had stopped carrying the Gundam line due to oversaturation from the G Gundam series, this soon became a lost cause. Only the final episode was given the TV-PG-SV rating rather than the usual TV-Y7 rating.

Things that were edited out on Cartoon Network include mature content (ex. most references to the sexual relationship between Kira and Flay -- though the initial scene presenting this was left partially intact); scenes of intense combat violence (ex. almost all shots of pilots, including main characters, in their cockpits before having their machines destroyed); cold-blooded or brutal murders that are non-mobile suit related (ex. Siegel Clyne getting shot by ZAFT soldiers loyal to Patrick Zala); all references to the fact that the Living CPUs need to take performance enhancing drugs; and most notoriously, handguns being sloppily and inconsistently transformed into neon-colored lasers, dubbed "Disco Guns" by fans, for the majority of the show's run. Also, there was little to no use of the words "kill" or "die" in the middle of the series airing.

Since most of the series had been edited by Williams Street before broadcast, Cartoon Network changed very little in terms of content allowance. However, the airings of the final two episodes were left mostly unedited, with only a few elements being affected -- namely the guns used by Azrael, Patrick Zala, and one of the ZAFT soldiers (which was given neon-colored lights in certain but not all of the image frames), airbrushing the naked Flay's body in the final episode to avoid showing her cleavage, reducing the amount of blood shown, editing the character's lines; to remove either inapproprite language or controversial lines, and the removal or altering of flashbacks of graphic assassinations.

The Canadian version debuted on YTV's Bionix block in September 2004 at 9:30 pm where it got a better reception and aired comparatively uncut, with almost all of the material listed above intact. Reruns are now airing Fridays at 9:30pm on YTV's Bionix block.

The Philippine version (dubbed in Filipino) debuted last December 20, 2004 on ABS-CBN (it was first put on the slot that preceded TV Patrol World, 6:00PM, it was later moved to the 5:30PM slot until it concluded). It was given a PG rating by the MTRCB and well-received, The Series ended last March 4, 2005 but was later rerun at the 7:00 am slot until January 21, 2006. It is now airing on ABS-CBN's anime channel, Hero TV

One characteristic of this Gundam series is that it focused on character development in addition to fighting. As in The Super Dimension Fortress Macross and Neon Genesis Evangelion, this resulted in several episodes without any fighting. This series though, has been criticised by some fans for poor directing, mediocre CGI, and unnecessary fan service. Furthermore, some fans, especially those familiar with the other more action oriented alternate universe series, disliked what they viewed as melodrama surrounding the teenage relationships in this series. It also has the most amount of flashback episodes in any Gundam series(4), arranged into the 2 consecutive episodes as found in Gundam Wing. There has also been excessive inconsistent use of gravity effects. For example, Archangel residents are able to switch between floating and walking, even though the ship is in an environment devoid of gravity. However some would justify this inconsistance by way of magnetic ships shoes/boots/slippers. This theory, however, cannot explain episodes featuring people eating in space, where food would have flown off from trays if the gravity effect had been used consistently. Another theory is that the central part of the ship is under spin, thus giving those in the central area a kind of gravity, it would not be hard to do, and would make sleeping much more confortable for everyone. To be fair, this aspect was also in the original Mobile Suit Gundam series, so it might just be a carried-on trait and not unique to SEED.

One striking fact of the series is that the voices of characters, both major and minor, were done by many veteran seiyu. The cast list reads like a Who's Who of Japanese voice actors and actresses. This interesting fact is also carried over to the sequel, Gundam Seed Destiny.

[edit]

Adaptations

A three-part compilation of the TV series has been released as Gundam SEED: Special Edition. The English manga, authored by Masatsugu Iwase, is published in North America by Del Rey Manga and in Singapore by Chuang Yi, while Gundam SEED Astray, a spinoff of Gundam SEED, is published in North America by TOKYOPOP.

An adaptation of the TV series, authored by Mizuho Takayama, was originally as supplement of Comic BomBom. This version comes with folding colour posters of the Mobile Suits, and a bonus Gundam Seed Destiny episode 0 comic. The stories were eventually published into 2 volumes by Kodansha. The 2-volume version is available in Chinese, published by Rightman Publishing Ltd. in Hong Kong.

TV series was also turned into novel by Riu Koto, published by Kadokawa Shoten.

Also running with the series was a series of manga called Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Astray that told a side-story to the anime series. This proved popular enough to generate two more side-stories: Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Astray R and Mobile Suit Gundam SEED X Astray.

On July 62004 the sequel to Mobile Suit Gundam SEED, Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny, was announced after over a month of rumors. It started airing in Japan on October 2004 on the network Mainichi Broadcasting System and ran until October 12005. A third Gundam SEED production is in the works under the title Gundam Seed C.E. 73: Stargazer, an OVA meant to serve as a side-story to Destiny. So far, there have been no official announcements regarding a third TV series starring principle characters from SEED and/or Destiny.

[edit]

Cast & Crew

[edit]

Japanese Cast

[edit]

English-language Cast

[edit]

Filipino-language Cast

[edit]

Openings, Endings & Insert Songs

Openings:

Endings:

Insert Songs:

[edit]

See also

Preceded by (in production order): ∀ Gundam

Followed by (in production and chronological order): Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny

Gundam Portal: Portal:Gundam

[edit]

External links

Template:Cosmic Erade:Gundam Seed es:Gundam Seed fr:Gundam seed it:Mobile Suit Gundam SEED ja:機動戦士ガンダムSEED pt:Mobile Suit Gundam Seed ru:Mobile Suit Gundam SEED tl:Mobile Suit Gundam SEED th:กันดั้มซี้ด vi:Gundam Seed zh:機動戰士GUNDAM SEED

Retrieved from "http://www.netipedia.com/index.php/Mobile_Suit_Gundam_SEED"