thoughts on gundam seed

[rhodochrosite]

why was everyone in gundam seed / destiny shouting in pain every episode - ysa

i think this is kind of like the most relentlessly depressing anime ive ever seen which is not saying that much because i havent seen that much anime but my face has nonstop been like 😦 - me

watched gundam seed last month and uhhhh... it was really good but SO miserable. i thought gundam was a kid's show ala yugioh where the dark themes are filtered through a layer of Games and the violence is largely censored, but it is actually just a bleak and unflinching portrait of the horrors of a genocidal war that drags children into it too with like essentially zero shounen optimism about the whole thing. people not only die when they are killed but have to live with what they've done if they aren't killed. the kind of show i usually like is ~30% jokes ~30% romance ~40% terror (categories can overlap) which is why i really love tenipuri and yugioh since they both navigate angst and humour with a decent balance, but i think gundam seed is more like 5% romance 95% terror and no lightness anywhere so it's a very heavy watch. everyone is constantly keyed up to 110% desperation and anguish levels which i enjoy as a melodrama lover but it is really exhausting lmao. also thanks to my terrible visual processing abilities i had no idea wtf was happening in any battle scene like do not expect me to remember who is piloting which giant robot.

i did like it though!! it hits a lot of my all time favourite themes and tropes--military academies, severe ideological conflicts, structured hierarchies of command, complex political alliances, jurisdictional tensions and bureaucratic infighting, grief, memory, sacrifice, childhood friends to enemies, arranged political marriage, actions having consequences, 1s and 0s, wait it's all love always has been. i think that the anti-war violence-begets-violence philosophy is super consistent and coherent AND there's no easy Why Can't We All Just Get Along solution presented either because it isn't easy. both sides of the war (naturals vs coordinators) emphasise that they're just trying to protect themselves and their loved ones, but things escalate to the point where they see the very existence of the other side as a threat to their own existence, so the protag group ends up breaking away from both factions entirely in an attempt to find the most ideologically sound way to put an end to the war as soon as possible.

i also really liked the repeated questioning of what exactly everyone is fighting for--murrue comments dryly that it's hard to remember why she's fighting, kira has been conflicted right from the start and therefore ripe for emotional manipulation by everyone and their dog, natarle justifies increasingly brutal actions in the name of desperate times, desperate measures + the banality of evil principle. lacus is the only one who seems to have clear vision and conviction (cagalli has plenty of conviction and no idea wtf she's doing with it, athrun's vision and conviction both gradually erode under the weight of his love for kira) but even that is like a grimly serene understanding that terrible things need to be done now to prevent worse from happening in the future even though she ultimately seeks peace love harmony forgiveness everyone holding hands in a circle and singing etc.

anyway... gseed really is a story about how it surely is a privilege to approach the end still believing in something and that's ultimately why i love it. but i can't emphasise enough how harrowing the approach to the end is.

CHARACTERS
MAIN QUARTET
kira
kind of an interesting shounen protag for how deeply he does not want to be here, he's having trauma meltdowns every episode over being forced to kill people in order to protect other people and keeps suffering until the end but he keeps going. and i always find persistence in the face of every possible odd and severe heartbreak deeply touching. probably my least favourite out of the main four but i do like him and i feel very sorry for him, he's much too kind and softhearted to be the hero of a war story. it's not really his fault that i am soooo obsessed with the other three.

athrun
visual slayer and the reason i started seed in the first place!! then i was jumpscared by cv ishida akira. he's zaft's shining prodigy and he's good at everything but he kind of has like this extreme repression compartmentalisation Duty And Legacy Above All thing going on that is making his emotional landscape barren as hell. i think he's a little bit the killer tbh like he checks off all the boxes of handsome rich charming self-assured controlling 1 with daddy issues but kira destabilises him soooo bad he spends most of seed severely off-kilter and kind of desperately anguished. which is also like... He Had Never Experienced This Emotion Before. so on one hand he has this perfect life as a star highranker pilot destined to follow his father's footsteps into the plant supreme council and rule over everything but on the other hand he now has to deal with like "feelings" you know those things? and i love to see him struggle to find the balancing point.

lacus
her politician idol princess military commander slay... like when she was first introduced i thought she was the naive sheltered maiden type but it turns out she's literally the only one who truly knows what's going on and truly knows HERSELF but she makes the conscious decision to always be kind and polite and loving anyway. love her watakushi 1pp and her unfailingly polite speech patterns and her randomly baitful pop idol career. and she has this sense of like total steely calm and control. i think it's SO COOL that she can go into superpowered heightened senses seed mode as a commander directing the battles rather than in combat herself, it's so true that lacus clyne was born to lead and to wield power. out of the main quartet she has the strongest and most settled sense of self, and the most complete vision.

cagalli
MY BELOVED ONEPICKKKK 1800 i love glasshearted impulsive furious quick-tempered desperately emotional prodigy fighter girls... aries sun pisces venus the combination ever (cagalli is a taurus but sometimes it's the text that is wrong). her blunt/abrupt/plain speech patterns and omae 2pp are so cute to me. she really is a very headfirst heartfirst act before thinking type but so easily hurt despite her aggression and bluster :') and she believes in honour!! she's clearly much more at home blowing shit up than doing princessly statescraft, so i'm really glad she got to pilot a gundam and am unconvinced by her apparent career pivot into politics in seed destiny, but i strongly believe that cagalli can do whatever she wants. i just don't think she WANTS to be the president yk, she spent all of seed uncomfortable with the duties imposed on her bc of her birth station and obviously felt more fulfilled and happy being able to physically fight in the war effort and while i always love stories about coming to terms with legacy i also think there's value in acknowledging the weight of the past and the expectations you're born into, and letting them go. it's also nice that she's the only unsuperpowered one in the main quartet but holds her own, ability level wise. I LOVE HIGHRANKERS.

as for haptics and proxemics... I LOVE POLYCULE!!! first of all it is like this:
LACUS - 1
ATHRUN - 1
KIRA - 0.5
CAGALLI - 0

but also you have to understand that the law of shounen protag seme governs gundam seed as well so it's still kirathrun in that order. i do think kira is the only person athrun would bottom for, same with lacus.

kira/athrun kind of one of theeeee most fucked up and me bait protag x rival ships i've ever experienced. like my goddd IT'S ALL LOVE ALWAYS HAS BEEN. childhood best friends to deeply reluctant enemies on opposite sides of the battlefield to genuine hatred to slowly reconciling allies... they both do genuinely believe they're on the right side of history and athrun in particular is so convinced that he can bring kira over to the side of the coordinators because kira IS a coordinator just like them and he's so confused by kira's refusal to join him and so certain that it must be because the naturals brainwashed him. neither of them want to fight the other but they have to engage for the sake of duty and ideology. but they're always both clutching onto the memory of their childhood together, always flashing back to their goodbye where athrun gifted kira a robotic bird that kira has kept with him ever since and flower petals were fluttering all around them in the wind. even after kira returns lacus to athrun because Taking Hostages Is Wrong and they both consciously realise that they're enemies for real now and they'll strike to kill the next time they see each other and they're both visibly so heartbroken about it but unwilling to back down, athrun still doesn't take down the photo of him and kira still up on his corkboard at home.

LIKE i cannot emphasise enough how tragically romeo and juliet esque romantically coded they are like they never stop referring to each other as My Best Friend EVEN AFTER ATHRUN (thinks he has) KILLED KIRA... like it's only because they loved each other so much that when they both finally snap because the other killed one of their friends they go so berserk trying to kill each other. and like that's something they will both have to live with and work through... the forgiveness that breaks the endless cycle of violence and revenge that is so central to gseed's main themes... it's literally theeeeee saddest love is not enough But Maybe It Still Can Be story ever.

also i read a jfan tweet about how they thought kira was much more naturally talented than athrun, who was also a prodigy but needed to work for it, so kira unconsciously held himself back when they were classmates because he didn't want to hurt or demoralise athrun, and he only realised athrun's existence had been acting like a 'brake' on himself when athrun was about to die. BUT ATHRUN HAD KNOWN ALL ALONG... which only increased the magnitude and complexity of his ksdkkj towards kira. which made me extremely tails gets trolled. op also said they felt like kira was trying to match athrun's max power as a way to keep himself human w/o being consumed by his seed godmode... like aghfhdksfdkskj athrun being this like standard of humanity and desperate lifeline for kira is so . and also it's very appealing that athrun is the best at everything except he loses to kira.

athrun/cagalli THE HET EVERRRRR violence and hatred and murder attempts that give way to unexpected tenderness and connection and mercy And They Were My 2pick!!! like genuinely if i experienced this as a child it would have permanently altered my brain chemistry but in a way that would render me exactly the same as i am today like it's the kind of ship that would have been right at home alongside the rest of my formative media experiences. 1800 I LOVE 1S AND 0S HOSTAGESHIPPINGGGG their first meeting is sooo epic it's them crashlanding on the same island and then cagalli tries to attack/kill athrun but he overpowers her and restrains her but then it starts raining so he unties her like You couldn't kill me even if you tried and then they have a tense d&m in the cave they're taking shelter in about why they're both fighting. like first of all i loveeeee how mad and pressed tsundere 0 cagalli is that athrun considers her so little of a threat that he literally goes to sleep even though cagalli could try to shoot him anytime. and she does try but he calls her bluff about it but the gun accidentally discharges and then she administers first aid to him it's like wow how could a single scene contain so many haptics and proxemics specifically designed to kill me.

also like athrun/lacus, athrun/cagalli is in large part about kira as well because kira is athrun's [incomprehensible] and cagalli's long lost twin brother so the extreme anguish and turmoil of the scene where cagalli confronts athrun with a gun in the hospital after athrun has apparently killed kira and they're both like sobbing over how much they both loved him. really enjoyed the optics of cagalli getting all in athrun's space shoving a gun into his throat screaming at him about why he killed kira if he loved him so much and athrun not even trying to resist because he also hates himself for having killed his best friend for the sake of his duty. and also he randomly says maybe the reason he's still alive even though he thinks he should also be dead is because cagalli is the one destined to kill him... which was VERY ROMANTIC. and like... it's not even really about forgiveness or blame, it's just this moment of shared grief and horrible understanding that they're kind of all they have left of someone who was so important to both of them.

well anyway you guys know how i feel about hostageshipping ships... very chef's kiss. they gave me everything i could ever have wanted out of het hostage Thank You Seed.

athrun/lacus yukimura4yukimura beybladeshipping arranged political marriage regency courtship is VERY PERFECT TO ME yes they had no chemistry but they would have had a perfectly happy though probably passionless* highranker marriage which is kind of the height of romance to meee. i thought their slightly awkward date at lacus's mansion where they politely have tea and then promenade around the garden a respectful distance apart from each other was soooo cute and especially the part where lacus straight up told athrun she was developing feelings for kira like you ever confess your feelings for your fiance's ex childhood best friend now ideological enemy to your fiance? also i think it's so sweet that athrun made the haro robots for lacus to keep her company!! athrun's love language is gifting little robots to the people he cares about i hope he makes one for cagalli soon.

on the flipside of the betrothal courtesy there's also like... a shocking intensity to athrun/lacus that is only really revealed as their planned future with each other irreversibly breaks down, because they are both actually very intense people it's just that they always held it in around each other in a polite society cosplay of the perfect heirs they are supposed to be. but not even in a fake or uncomfortable way yk? like in a we have never really been kids but i can almost relive that childlike fumbling sweetness with you again way. like they have that shared history and background that means they Get the societal conventions and expectations they need to operate within so they're always a point of familiarity for each other, even though that is also what makes them unable to really communicate with each other. at one point lacus reaches out to athrun to try and comfort him about the pain of having to fight kira, who they both now love, and athrun flinches away T__T

anyway i loveeeee their confrontation scene after lacus is declared a traitor to the coordinators for assisting kira where athrun is like completely societally destabilised pointing a gun at lacus with shaking hands desperately asking her why she's betraying them with probably the most emotion he's ever shown in front of her and lacus is so calm and steady and focused as she challenges athrun to really think about what exactly he believes in. like it's clearly the end of anything romantic they could have been to each other but it's also what allows both their true selves to emerge... and in that light they are always going to be so so important to each other especially since their lives are so intertwined.

also the eyecatch scene of the two of them relaxing on a grassy hill with the haros while lacus twirls around and athrun blows bubbles is so randomly ksdkkj-inducing? the dissonant serenity of it all amidst the rapidly escalating physical and emotional stakes of the plot... jaw literally dropped (positively) when athrun was replaced with kira in the eyecatch after athrun and lacus's engagement is broken off. SO TRUE.

*i do wonder if maybe they might have fallen in love if not for kira and cagalli (for both of them honestly) like their engagement was broken off by athrun's dad after lacus declared her public opposition to their side of the war and they never had any actual falling out between the two of them, but i think they both knew the people they were or were becoming were not people that could be together like that. when athrun finds refuge with archangel and meets up with cagalli again she's like "isn't that girl your fiancee?" about lacus and he tells cagalli she isn't anymore because he was stupid and cagalli's like, well at least you know that now. and that really created an image that made me think. like it's just something about the aborted connections and the nothing where there could have been something of it all.

wow typing all that out i didn't realise i had that many feelings about athrun/lacus but i guess i really do.

i knowwwww lacus/cagalli could be so good and epic together but they don't meet until close to the end of the show so they don't have a lot of canon interax but IT'S LITERALLY PERFECT 1S AND 0S. lacus is the control tower and cagalli is the weapon!! cagalli expresses enthusiastic admiration of lacus for being able to pull off such a daring escape from plant with a whole gundam in tow, and then ofc cagalli is under lacus's command for the final battle, and they also have a really heart touching d&m in the epilogue about the direction of the future and how to shape the world which is sooo being GIRLS is the most special thing in the universe. i'm really glad there's absolutely zero jealousy or animosity between them, cagalli feels only respect for lacus even though lacus was engaged to the boy cagalli loves. and i think lacus really enjoys cagalli's frankness.

kira/lacus was sweet... not a lot to say tho i'll like any canon het for free, i think i mostly like the fact that lacus likes kira so much and feels like she can be a Real Human Girl around him, i found the scene where she finally allows herself to cry in kira's arms over her father's assassination after holding herself together to effect her political coup soooo heart touching.

you actually have to laugh at the skywalker-esque hetbaiting pulled with kira/cagalli before it was revealed they were long lost twins LOL the fact that the setup was kira/cagalli + athrun/lacus and the endgame was kira/lacus + athrun/cagalli. i do appreciate that the op spoils the het endgames literally from the first ep before anyone has even met anyone else, i like to know what i'm getting into. but anyway kira and cagalli were really TT of the world, even before they knew they were twins they had this like instinctive and wordless understanding of each other which was nice because both of them kind of struggle with words. there are moments where cagalli like brusquely tries to comfort kira and it's a bit awkward but soo heartfelt.. and moments where kira automatically moves in front of cagalli to shield her from danger... really cute they really care so much about each other. cagalli vc Sorry About All That Earlier, I Didn't Mean To Hit You. Well, I Did, But It Was Spontaneous saurrrr cute. i love cagalli btw did i mention that.

ARCHANGEL COMMAND
mu la flaga was kind of just there to me like ok char clone (big brother mentor edition). i feel like had i not been watching with athrun goggles i would have been more baited by his psychic bond with his arch nemesis rau le creuset who is also ok char clone (masked villain edition) and then it turns out he's the genetic clone of mu's dad or something and that's why they're soulbonded or something. legalise char clone 4 char clone kismesissitude i guess? i liked mu's well-intentioned emotional manipulation of kira by telling him You Have To Fight To Protect Your Friends, and i liked his canon het with murrue ):

the reallll prize was the relationship btwn murrue and natarle because they had sooo much epic ideological tension so there was this constant undercurrent of coworkerly push-pull despite murrue being natarle's superior and natarle respecting rank hierarchy and respecting murrue as a person, just not agreeing with her commanding strategy. murrue is generally compassionate and makes decisions that have leeway for emotion and ethics, where natarle seeks victory at all costs and is willing to make ethical sacrifices to get there. loved the scene mid-battle where flay was like WE LITERALLY HAVE LACUS CLYNE ON BOARD USE HER AS A HOSTAGE HELLO??? and even though the battle was going badly for them murrue point blank refused because lacus had been picked up by archangel as a refugee, but natarle ended up grabbing the radio off murrue and telling the zaft forces to cease fire immediately or they would execute lacus. and like... it worked... and natarle eventually gets promoted to command her own ship and there's a rather bittersweet farewell moment where they're both like, i hope we can meet again under better conditions someday. like wryly aware of their workplace differences but understanding that neither of them are going to budge from the position they believe is correct. i did like seeing natarle grapple with her own moral compass once she was in command of her own ship too.

ZAFT PILOT SQUAD
firstly sorry to all nicols but he was clearly going to die, he was way too nice and Why Can't We All Just Get Along for elite killer bitch clique. walking death flag ): i think the tension and dislike and rivalry but ultimately loyalty between deark yzak and athrun was pretty interesting tho, like literally snide popular girls sniping at each other except their petty competitiveness gets acted out on like weapon of mass destruction scale and causes many war crimes and mass civilian deaths. i think if i rewatch seed i will try to pay more attention to them because the more i think about their roles in the story and their personalities the more i'm like well it's kind of me bait actually.

weirdly tails gets trolled scene towards the end where yzak's politician mother runs into him and pauses to tell him how she's so proud of how well he's doing and how the war will be over soon and that she'll station his unit towards the back during battle so he can be safer. i think there was just something about how like... normal it was? like it was like any busy working mother taking a quick moment to care for her son, except she was on her way to sanction genocide and yzak was feeling increasingly torn apart about his role in instigating genocide so there was just such a disconnect between the genuine though rushed tenderness of the scene and their identities AND both of their emotional states. not sure why that affected me so much but it really made me feel so much more positively about yzak.

KIRA'S FRIENDS
honestly didn't care for any of them except ofc i need to talk about flay.... i am not in the business of looking for justifications for racism but i do think flay was in an unfortunate position where her preexisting mild prejudice against coordinators was tipped over the point of no return because the coordinators killed her dad and like the trauma blinded her from ever being able to learn and get better. i really felt quite bad for her in the end because she was so deluded and brittle and terrified and didn't have anyone because she destroyed all her interpersonal relationships in order to gaslight gatekeep girlboss kira into being her personal coordinator killing machine. like in the end flay was just an extremely flawed and traumatised girl with no coping mechanisms who should have gotten therapy but instead ended up sexually manipulating another traumatised kid into being her attack dog. it was obviously not sustainable from the start which made it even sadder to me like it was all just this horrible high speed train going off the rails heading towards an inevitable gory crash. i wouldn't say that i like flay but i felt really sorry for her.

who else did i have thoughts about... enjoyed the scene of miriallia trying to kill deark in the medical bay for revenge but was otherwise pretty bored by the het implications, she kind of otherwise didn't exist to me. also the scene in the epilogue where it's shown that flay's ex-fiance sai still has a photo of him and flay from before the war up on the corkboard in his workspace made me TT


KILLING SCENES
the lines that i'm still thinking about even a month later:

LACUS: he said he would rather not fight against you.
ATHRUN: me neither! why would i want to?!
LACUS: you always have that bitter expression, lately.
ATHRUN: i can't exactly fight a war with a big smile on my face.

the failed attempt at comfort right after kira hands lacus back over to athrun kills the man it's really like... what good is understanding if nothing can be done about it? lacus is always trying to extend kindness and sincerity to athrun but athrun can never bring himself to let her in due to serious emotional problems. therein lies the central misalignment of athrun/lacus. also sets the tone of basically every athrun/lacus interaction from now on being about kira.

ATHRUN: is it yours?
KIRA: yeah. thank... you...
[ATHRUN turns to leave]
KIRA: a friend gave it to me!
[ATHRUN pauses and turns back]
KIRA: it's a very precious thing... that a very precious friend gave me.
ATHRUN: i see.

crying shaking sobbing athrun and the zafts are infiltrating orb when birdy flies over to athrun and then kira and athrun accidentally meet again on opposite sides of the compound fence when kira comes looking for birdy and they have this agonising exchange where they both pretend not to know each other. and you can TELL everything is about to go to shit and this is like, the final moment of painful sentiment and love and longing they are going to be able to share. like when the opening notes of anna ni issho datta no ni kick in while they're staring at each other in wordless tearful anguish and it goes into special kirathrun fmv ver ed... NO WORDS. AND ALSO CAGALLI WAS THEREEEE.

KIRA: you cannot die yet.
KIRA: you know that, right?
KIRA: you and i... cannot die yet.
ATHRUN: not yet?
KIRA: not yet.

spoken via gundam intercom just before kirathrun go into battle finally as allies. THIS WAS SO ROMANTIC I ALMOST DIED. they both have these like, slight wry smiles? like the calm acceptance that regardless of what they personally feel and regardless of the way the battle turns out they CAN'T die because they have things they still need to do. MY FAVOURITE THEME EVER... and the idea of mortality as like an inside joke. so good.

CAGALLI: the things we can do, the things we hope for, the things we should do, they're the same for everyone, aren't they? for you, for kira, for lacus, for me.
ATHRUN: cagalli...
CAGALLI: sure, there are times when it's useless to go out into the battlefield and fight, but it's necessary right now, so...
CAGALLI: don't look at me like that! you take way more risks out there than i do!
CAGALLI: i won't let you die.

cry cry cry cry cry this is when cagalli tells athrun she's going into battle with him in a gundam and obv athrun is taken aback and worried about her safety and he doesn't even say anything but cagalli like bristles and snaps at him but the real sentiment of her wanting to protect him reveals itself very quickly... MY PERFECT ARIES SUN PISCES VENUS MAIDEN BTW.

KIRA: why... did we end up coming... to a place like this?
[KIRA sees ATHRUN and CAGALLI approaching in the distance and closes his eyes]
KIRA: because... it's our world.

THE ENDING SCENE... my god. kira alone and floating in space in front of earth surrounded by the wreckage of his gundam and then the bird athrun made for him leading athrun and cagalli to him and lacus's ring is visible inside kira's helmet and everyone is crying with relief and the war is over and everything they did was for the sake of the world they will inherit.

ATHRUN: it won't ever end, because we shouldn't let it end. the world.

SURELY IT IS A PRIVILEGE TO APPROACH THE END STILL BELIEVING IN SOMETHING
WAIT IT'S ALL LOVE? ALWAYS HAS BEEN

MUSIC
meteor - t.m.revolution
i don't know what it is about this song that makes me so indescribably sad i feel like i'm dying. it's like... not a sad song? it's just like essence of Approaching The End Still Believing In Something.

anna ni issho datta no ni - see-saw
every time the opening notes start up over some horrifically miserable cliffhanger ending i do get gotten. like for real how come even though we're together like this the twilight is already a different colour? hmm?

invoke - t.m.revolution
not as deeply depressing as meteor but still kind of really sorrow inducing for a fastpaced shonen op.

distance - fictionjunction
beautiful depressing classic kalafina.