mayoraasei | Entries tagged with gundam seed

I know I know...I don't know why I'm watching this LOL

Have been skipping huge chunks of most episodes. It's quite terrible, actually, to have come from GS and to be a fan of the original series, because even though the scriptwriter said (rather belatedly) that the first third is dedicated to Shinn, the 2nd third is for Athrun and the last third is for Kira, the new characters have deplorably little screen time.

And there are just too many new characters for us to care about. Even with GS, it took a while to start caring for characters outside the immediate circle of friends. It's hard to start caring about Minerva when they're on the aggressive side several times, in an anime that keeps trying to toll its anti-war messages.

Shinn still makes me teeth grate DDDD= I wonder how they decided to sit down and say, "Look, Kira and Athrun were hugely popular last season, so to make a main character who will match their awesomeness, let's make this new character narrow-minded, naive, aggressive, short-sighted, disobedient, prejudiced, unreasonable...and has a huge sister complex and hero complex."

I DON'T UNDERSTAND.

I guess that explains why they had to in turn make Athrun mope non-stop and Kira make very dodgey calls about what side he is taking, in order to make Shinn seem less of an idiot.

It's not like he doesn't have good characteristics. Unlike Kira and Athrun, he wears his heart on his sleeve, he's straightforward, he doesn't mope about wondering what to do.

But it's really hard to like a character who lays blame on everyone else for things that are just based off his prejudice. His family gets killed while evacuating from Onogoro, "IT'S ALL ATTHA FAMILY'S FAULT!!!!!" Heine tries to attack Kira and forgets about Stellar who slices him up from behind, "IT'S ALL FREEDOM'S FAULT!!!!!" Stellar burns down millions of people and an entire city, Kira jams her beams and the explosion kills her, never mind that Neo promised to never let her set foot in a mobile suit again, "IT'S ALL FREEDOM'S FAULT!!!!!"

And the way he uses "You don't understand" as a shield and weapon is so pathetic. What right does he have to shout that at Cagalli, who saw her father go up in flames before her? Or at Athrun, who almost had to face down his father with a gun?

I guess what annoys me is that there are so many holes in his arguments and yet NO ONE PICKS IT UP and throws it back in his face. Athrun, "Do you think handing Stellar back helped her? To someone who can't leave the battlefield of her own free will, we'll just fight against her again!" To which Shinn replies, "But Neo promised that he would not let her fight again."

AND YOU FRIGGIN BELIEVED HIM YOU NINCOMPOOPHEAD??????

And when he destroys Freedom he cackles, "Stellar! I avenged you!" So should Athrun kill you because you killed Kira??? HUH??? And he gloats about defeating Kira to Athrun, of all people even though someone as dense as him knew that Athrun was partial to Freedom. "Should I cry and despair after killing him??" THEN WHY THE FUCK WERE YOU SO UPSET OVER STELLAR???

Argh. Why am I watching this, again.

Current Mood: angry

Trying to get through some of my favourite stuff before work consumes my life =(

At first the thought of going through 50 episodes of Gundam SEED was a terrifyingly mountainous task, but once started I realised/remembered how much flashback there was and got through each episode in under 15 minutes ==;;;;

After watching it...

I feel so, so sorry for Athrun =( Compared to him, Kira has been extraodinarily fortunate (main character protection/favouritism aside).

Even though Kira's road was rocky in the beginning, he's always had people supporting him by his side, from the start he had friends who spoke in his defence when it was revealed that he was a Coordinator. Partly due to his non-military training, his instinctive humanity made him many powerful friends, from Orb's princess Cagalli, to PLANT's equivalent Lacus, without both of whom Archangel and Kira wouldn't have survived.

But Athrun's path was one of continual betrayal, and the more the series went on, the more people he lost from his side. From initial shock of his best friend on the other side of the firing line, to Lacus' sudden announcement of anti-ZAFT sentiments, to finally facing his father only to be gunned down. Even in GSD, he was used and betrayed by the chairman of PLANT.

But he never really made a wrong choice, I feel. I don't think his reason for fighting was any different from Kira's - which was to protect themselves before their loved ones get killed. It's just a pity that his loved ones deserted him for different sides of the battle. Lacus and Kira became pacifists. His father became a ZAFT extremist. In the end it was ZAFT who betrayed him, taking away his conviction in his motivation and his faith in his own people.

I'm not sure what makes Lacus different in GSD, but Athrun wanted to return home. PLANT was his home, but he didn't belong there any more. But neither did he belong with Cagalli or Kira and Lacus, which was why he hesitated so much in GSD. He wanted a place to belong and he was offered ZAFT, but the more he stayed the less he was sure it was where he should be.

And can I just say how AWESOME and COOL and CRUSH-WORTHY Cagalli was before the sh!t that was GSD happened??? I think I've fallen in love with her all over again!!! She and Athrun were so cute together at the end of GS, why ruin a perfectly good relationship DDD=

(And why did they ruin a perfectly good death....Mwu T-T)

Current Mood: sad

In an effort to stay relevant and motivated, I have decided to start a 30 day meme~

~~Stop using your motivation on uselss stuff like this.~~

Since I haven't properly watched anime in, like, 3 or 4 years (or however long it's been since Gundam OO scarred me for life), this will be more a memory exercise than a prolonged fangirling session. See, memory exercises, good for you it is XD

In fact, it is so good for you that I am going to do two characters, one from anime and one from J-dramas XDDDD

Day 1 ~ Favourite character
This is hard because I like characters for a lot of different reasons, so in the end I settled for the characters I love to watch.

Kira Yamato
Hijikata lost out by the existence of Tosshi, whom I find unwatchable LOL. Basically Kira won by dint of me never remembering him to have annoyed me too much, and that he was either kicking butt or he was putting up a very impressive fight. The fights he loses are generally more spectacular, but that's another complaint altogether.

After three years of fangirling GS I really don't want to exposit on his character again. Suffice to say he's a nice guy with a whole heap of very understandable insecurities, but who nevertheless got the job done.

Osawa Eriko
This lady hath no rivals, seriously LOL In a society where women traditionally viewed employment as a temporary measure to burn up the time between graduating and marriage, it is always refreshing to see a woman who is more manly than a man XD She's brainy, efficient, poised and at the first sign of danger she'll be off kicking butt...well, someone's butt anyway, although most of the time it seems to be her own team's collective butts...

And how can you say no when she's brought to life by Amami Yuki =3=

Current Mood: squee

On (last year's?) G Fest, they held a character poll and Setsuna came 3rd..and Miyano Mamoru fell off the chair XDDDD It's the first time I've seen a main character rank so low on a poll LOL. Usually they come first, or if the main antagonist is really interesting, at least a second. First was Lockon...okay, usually dying gives you a spike in popularity, but to beat the main character...LOL! Apparently whenever Miyano says Setsuna's famous "I am Gundam" line in the recording studio, everyone cracks up laughing. Phew, we weren't the only ones who thought it retarded.

Also watched the Gundam Seed festival where they screened a 2 hour summary clip of the story and had the four main characters narrate a quarter each. I don't know why when Tanaka Rie (Lacus) and Hoshi Souichirou (Kira) come on screen I have to close my eyes to actually recognise their voices as their characters. The narration was really nice though, even aside from the dramatic and convincing live voice-acting the four seiyuus put on. It gives a lot more insight into Athrun and Cagalli's motivations and conflicts in the first half of GS, especially since in the series we only saw things from Kira's point of view. It seems a much more believable segue into Athrun's indecisiveness and doubts in GSD, because I actually had the impression that he was quite confident in what he believed in and what he wanted to fight for in early GS, but it's nice to see that he's been having a lot of doubts ever since running into Kira. The same applies to Cagalli, although her doubts were more obvious in GS, but I still think it takes a huge leap of faith to be convinced at the sobbing mess she became in GSD ==; She was so cool in GS...the amount of cheers the seiyuu got when she walked on shows how popular her character is. They also slotted live performances of most of the songs in between important scenes, which was nice (even though I skipped them LOL).

Speaking of Ishida Akira (Athrun), I was watching Book of Bantorra and I mistook Graham Acre's seiyuu for Ishida *掩面* I'm so sorry T_T

Katsura does sound exactly like Athrun ==; I was expecting Katsura's track in the Gintama drama CD to be completely "Zura janai, Katsura da", but it only had "Katsura janai, Zura da...ah iya chigau, Katsura da" ("I'm not Katura, I'm Zura...er wait that's wrong, I'm Katura." LOL baka) I TOTALLY cracked up at the line "Katsura Kotaro, Zura, hasshinsuru!" (Standard launch phrase) A spoof of Gundam! By someone who was a pilot in Gundam!! LOL. Although as I remember, Athrun's standard phrase was "Athrun Zala, Aegis/Justice/Saviour, deru!" so it wasn't a direct spoof of Athrun...which is a pity. For some reason Gintama has not spoofed the GS (or G00) franchise at all, even though they've taken on the other Gundam series.

Sugita Tomokazu actually looks somewhat like Gintoki...especially the dead fish eyes *gets kicked by his fans to Mars*

Okita's drama CD track (memorable lines) was totally facepalm. Out of nearly 20 phrases, 6 directly referred to Hijikata by name (starting off with "I'm begging you, die Hijikata you bastard"), 2 was him introducing himself as vice commander (and thereby wiping Hijikata out of the picture) and 1 was making fun of Hijikata's mayonnaise...Okita-san, Okita-san, your immense Hijikata complex is getting a bit too obvious Orz Even Hijikata only mentioned mayonnaise 5 times in his track LOL

I always wondered why Okita always refers to Hijikata as "Hijikata-san" (unless they're strangling each other, at which point it becomes just "HIJIKATAAAAAAA"), even though Hijikata calls him (surprisingly affectionately...considering) "Sougo". In the CD track Hijikata actually says "The only one who can call me Toshi is Kondou-san". Hearing him say without background music "Ore wa ai no senshi, Mayora 13" (I'm the warrior of love, Mayora 13) is just hilarious XDD

Well, assuming they haven't made a mistake with naming/candidate number/emails/ranking/whatever, I've been offered a rural bonded place for medicine =__=;; The revised scheme means that for every year I study, I must work one year at a rural location.

In other words, that's going to be 4 years stuck at Wagga Wagga, or some other outback waterhole.

My friend (who's still waiting for her results from ANU) has been very encouraging, pointing out that city placements can be much more difficult to find, and the government doesn't subsidise such placements, even in areas of shortage like the outer suburbs.

I'm getting a case of wedding blues (hahaha). I'm not sure I really want to do med... Don't get me wrong, I find med a very interesting subject, the sort of thing that'll keep my short interest span occupied enough for the rest of my life, I bet. But boiled down, it's only the thing I would like to do more than any other job short of choosing one that will never support me, like writing or whatever.

Good thing I won't have to think about that for a week or so. The logistics of trying to get all the paperwork and first aid recertification and VACCINATIONS done all before February next year is just frightening.

I don't remember a single thing about vaccinations. Vaguely I seem to remember something involving needles in year 8 for MMR (measles/mumps/rubella). Argh.

Anyway, will think about that later. First must finish that stupid 30 minute presentation due tomorrow.

As an aside, if anyone wants to hear the English voices in Gundam Seed, here's episode 28. The only one missing is Lacus. God. Athrun's voice sounds like a weasel. WHY DID YOU DO THIS TO HIM T___T I don't mind Kira's voice too much...though it reminds me a lot of someone, but not Kira =__= here's episode 42 with Lacus and Andrew. Lacus' voice doesn't grate, but it doesn't have the extreme girliness but cool authority that she managed to command in Japanese.

Current Mood: blank

I keep forgetting to bookmark the site.

The best Gundam Seed flash parodies archive

LOL

Too bad they're in Japanese.

Without subtitles Orz

My favourites are:
1) Kira conquers all of Athrun's possible love interests.
2) The Wii release.
3) Gundam00 trailer hijacked by Freedom.
4) Athrun is balding, to the song of "Your image is like mine".

Admittedly, they're the only ones I understood at all XD

Current Mood: amused

There's actually precious little information about this (or these).

The news about the SEED movie came out ages ago, probably early last year, but there's still very little information on what the series is about. All we know, as we've known for the past year, that the movie will be a full feature-length movie, and not a compilation/recap. It will involve practically all the main characters. Lacus, as we've seen in Final Plus and the special editions (often considered "finalised" editions), has become part of the ZAFT council. Apparently Kira and Athrun both join the ZAFT elite force (the red uniforms)? Shinn and Lunamaria are both back in ZAFT, as one might expect. If that's true, I can't wait to see Kira in the red coat! XD It will take place in CE74, which, according to people's calculations, is not long after the war. Apparently - according to other people's calculations - the armoury theft was in October 73, so if we add up the assortment of battles, the entire mess would probably not have finished at least after March 74.

I'm still really irritated at Athrun's constant side-switching. And the scriptwriter is so damn clever that practically all enemies are eliminated at the end of GSD. The EA's annihilated, ZAFT needs rebuilding (and has been seized by Lacus et co), and Orb is under Cagalli's control.

It's time for that rebellion group in Africa to blow up the moon ^_~

They are also planning to make another Gundam series, on top of the current UC (the original Gundam) and CE (GS franchise) ones. Apparently, "the CE fans are entering university and in 10 years, we will need new fans to keep the franchise going", so the newest series will once again target the current 13-17 year old boys. It is supposedly scheduled for release in October this year, and there's a rumour that the director will be the same person who directed Full Metal Alchemist.

I'm kind of hoping they get a better director/scriptwriter on the team. GS had its highlights, but then GSD went along and shredded everything with its superiority complex, throwing all the main characters into political prominence. Lacus participating in underground anti-Zala organisations I can understand, but on the ZAFT council? Errrrmmmmm........ Kira being a uber-experienced pilot on one hand, but at the head of a squad team? Or (even worse!) as a general? Kira?! Kira who has never ever ever had any any leadership experience?! Who's fought every single battle, well, single-handedly (except the few times when he had Athrun or Mwu at his back)? He's barely ever worked in a team!

Maybe his squad name is Suicide Squad. HAHA.

Okay, that wasn't nice.

Feeling rather masochist, I went and downloaded the Japanese raw (i.e. no subtitles) of the 3rd part of GSD compilation special. Watched it all last night, all 90 minutes of it (yeah, this time it was just in one part and not two). Am finding that I pick up more phrases from the raw than I do from watching it subtitles. I think I just get lazy and not bother listening when there are subtitles...or perhaps I'm too busy reading them? Excuses.

The director surrendered to pressures from Athrun/Cagalli fans (who affectionately call themselves AsuCaga fans). The interaction between Meyrin and Athrun, and Mia and Athrun for that matter, were cut massively. The Athrun and Cagalli reunion went better than in the anime; although I'm proud to say the only thing I picked up in that entire conversation was Cagalli saying "It's hard" ==;

I've also discovered in the order of comprehensibility: Stellar > Murrue > Rey > Kira > everyone else > Athrun > Talia.

...Yeah, in the dialogue between Murrue and Talia, I could only understand Murrue's side of the conversation ==;;;; And I didn't understand a single word of Athrun's monologues ==;

Everything else went the same way. Because it's more condensed, I think a lot of issues were made clearer: what spurred Stellar to go crazy, how Stellar's death translated for Shinn, how Shinn defeated Kira (in this special it was made to look like the ultimate strike was timely rather than skilful, although timeliness is also a handy skill). Andrew fans will be displeased to find that his battle scenes are cut in order to maximise Strike Freedom's ==;

( The reeeeaaaaaalllllllly looooooooong version )

Shinn sounds more and more like Hikaru from Host Club ==;

Current Mood: babbly

Sorry to inundate LJ with all these posts ==;;;

Gintama is cool! But probably only if you know a bit of Meiji restoration history, which is sad ;__;

Gundam Seed Stargazer is turning out exactly as expected - a promotional teaser before the story is continued in book form.

Possibly because of a slightly different team (the director is different, for one) for this, we see a return to the nostalgic days of Gundam Seed where irony was understated, and the feelings of the characters were shown not told.

And Hoshi no Tobira has a piano version, and is so pretty ^-^

Anyway.

I realise I haven't updated my site for a while ~~; I don't think any honest update is coming soon...

And I realise that there's one character I've almost never drawn...

( Ash )

...And I haven't touched my artbook since ~~; Will seek to be more productive.

LOL

( The first half of part II )

Overall: It is, again, extremely rushed. It's really not something that one should watch instead of the series. It really doesn't have time to settle into the moods of the series, which in some aspects is good (Athrun and Cagalli moping, for one thing), but in others it makes the relationships less convincing (Stellar especially).

Individual scenes and the dialogue make MUCH MORE SENSE now. Athrun is actually *gasp* cool!! And Shinn is cuter. Kira appears much less (in this episode anyway).

I went back and read X volume 16 yesterday. It's related because Shinn's voice actor did Kamui, and they're both mopey characters who didn't get all that much fan-love (awww). As someone said once, everyone flocked to X to see Subaru, and everyone flocked to GSD to see Kira (awww).

I realised that Kamui is actually really sweet, in the same way that Shinn is ==; It's the kind that you don't usually notice and will probably never notice because by the time it comes through, you're already sick to death of the character.

I also realised why I loved X so much, even though I complain non-stop about CLAMP's marketing ploys. Whatever their commercial techniques, CLAMP's art is beyond a doubt amongst the best in the industry. The symbolism in the construction of panels and the contrast between Subaru and Seishirou...it's obvious, but it's not patronisingly obvious, and CLAMP's flowing, wordless beauty is really quite breath-taking in the empty, sakura petal-filled blackness.

And in the neat, self-contained young man he has become, the shadow of sweet innocent Subaru remains...in the frank, honest gaze and the neverending reserves of gentleness.

;___;

THE 8AM CLASSES ARE KILLING ME AAAAARRRRRRRRRRGH!!!!

I went to Kino today. Was standing in the Jap section when a guy crept (I swear, he looked nervous) up to me and asked if I could read Jap, to which I replied "Not really". But he enlisted my "help" anyway and asked how he would known whether the artbooks are coloured or not, and I said "They usually are." And added, "I've bought a few and they were coloured," for good measure. He seemed convinced. I should probably have advised him that my version of "usually" has less frequency than "often".

...When I got back I realised, hmm, his eyes were a really really dark green O___o;;;

Current Mood: sleepy

Being the only person on my FList inundating LJ with senseless posts, whilst everyone else is probably off studiously studying or whatever appropriate task you set yourselves these days.

Completely randomly - I am convinced my clarinet is dead. It keeps squeaking in a consistent and predictable way. If I remove the body of it (i.e. just leave the barrel and mouthpiece intact) and blow through it, it doesn't squeak no matter how I blow. I think the padding on the keys died.

I swear, music instruments from China hate me. I was tuning my cousin's violin for him a few days ago, and the damn string snapped. It was a G (i.e. the thickest string) and I didn't even wind it over the G when it snapped. The string itself was worn already even though the violin was supposed to be new, and the metal tore ==; And the instrument tuning pipe is off-tune, I swear. And the pegs refuse to hold in place. Argh. (Had to go out and buy replacement string, which costed $23-$59 ==;;;;;)

Gundam Seed Destiny Special Part II (again in two halves) screened Thursday and yesterday. I'm told they have continued to make Lunamaria more protective of Shinn rather than fangirling Athrun. There's also more romantic interaction between Kira and Lacus, as opposed to their more courteous and detached meetings in the original anime.

...They've also given Lacus bigger boobs in the opening sequence.

And after the "nice" bit of Athrun fanservice last episode, there's some Lacus fanservice this time.

Will write more when the Chinese version comes out ^^

Wow...LJ's been quiet lately (except for mine. Yay for non-conformity! XD)

(Everyone: Stop. Rubbing. The fact that you finished your exams. In.)

Muahahahaha.

I didn't download the GS special editions, although apparently the animation was done better in that one than the original series. For GSD, people say that the animation in the special edition looks worse than it did in the original, but I can't be bothered picking out the difference.

The SE's are basically shorter, summarised versions of the original series. For GSD there are 4 parts. The first part "Break World" summarises episodes 1 to 13 - and the first part was screened as a two-episode entity? Confusing? You bet! Especially with subbers marking the links as "SP ED Part I Part II (END)" (so, is it part I or part II or the end?!) and the sizes of the files ranging from 200mb to 2GB @___@

( Kudakareta Sekai ~ First half )
Because more time is allowed for special editions to be released and a lot of things undergo editing between the original and the SE, people say that what's in the SE should be taken as "the canon".

The only reason I downloaded this was because apparently one needs to watch what happens in the SE before watching the GSD movie....

*Sigh*

Saw the three minutes promo today. 22 seconds of it was spent thanking the sponsors and 56 seconds of it was promoting the merchandise ==;;;;

1.5 minutes of animation to the background music of...I can't read the damn tiny text. It's called "Stargazer ~ Hoshi no [something]" by [something] Satori. ~~;;

It's probably the most cheerless songs since Seed finished with Find the Way (because Destiny songs were all so damn chipper). ....That's just great. (It's a nice song, just...damn...depressing)

It's set after the time Junius 7 was sent flying down to Earth to wreck its mass destruction (and thereby giving Blue Cosmos an excuse to move), which was actually about episode 7 or 8 in Destiny. The main character is a silver-haired Natural...called Sven. I need to check this ==;

The entire trailer consisted of scenes of destruction and killing.

Well, I suppose that should make it less annoying than Destiny's escapist ways of dealing with warfare.

Anyway, if I read the Japanese text correctly (i.e. I probably didn't), there are 3 installments to this, the first will be released(?? this is the bit I don't get) 14th July, followed by 11th August and then 15th September. The DVD will come out end of the year.

3 installments ==;;;;;;;;;;;;;; I wonder how they're going to do something that looks so depressing in 3 installments.

Not sure how long the installments are, by the way.

Oh, also, the other really interesting to note is: it looks like most of the team is different to those who worked on the main series. The director, for one thing, isn't Fukuda. And the character design is also done by someone else. I hope that's a good thing, considering how badly Fukuda screwed up Destiny. ...Although the guy who for the script was also on the script team for Destiny =___=|||||||

In other news...does anyone play the clarinet? ==;;;;;;;

A bunch of unrelated stuff, this post:

1) I've found that those people who've read the entire Lymond Chronicles (Dorothy Dunnett) are generally smitten with the series. It takes the patience of a geographically stable mountain to get into though ==; In some bizarre way it reminds me of the Tales of Genji, with the expectation that readers should be able to pick up on the quotations.

2) The ending to Fairy Cube (Yuki Kaori) is decidedly happy ==; I can't believe Tokage didn't die. She's getting soft! It's all her daughter's fault! I saw Bloodhound DX in Kinokuniya today. Was very tempted to get it. It was Tokyo Babylon-sized (big). ...Considering Fairy Cube ended and Fushigi Yuugi comes out once every half a year and Vampire Knight ISN'T COMING OUT AT ALL DAMN IT, I might get it. Next time. I saw volume 3 of Vampire Knight in Japanese. ARGH I WANT IT DAMN IT!!!!!! I couldn't find Lala though ==;

3) Saw in the magazines section that they're making a movie (should be animated movie) for Gundam Seed. The magazine had Kira on the cover. ...How much more do they have to butcher the characters?? T_____T Even though I really don't like my favourite characters dying.....DAMN IT IF Athrun runs away to ZAFT AGAIN he deserves to be skewered and shishkebabed and roasted and julienned and fed to starfishes. ...Besides, why does Athrun always have to be the guy that switches his alliance all the time?!

4) The Liberal and Labour parties are all asses and they're doing a perfect job of f***ing up Australia. The bloody idiocy of pouring money into killing Iraqi civilians while escalating problems in welfare, childcare and education. Bloody myopic government.

This FFXI/Seed Destiny parody is hilarious XDD Even though I've never seen FFXI >__>;;;

Damn, now I wish I've played that game.

Edit: (On another Youtube creation about GSD) There's something indescribably amusing in watching Saviour being julienned to the song of "It's my life". BWAHAHAHA. Poor Athrun.

Current Mood: amused

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mayoraasei

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beyond the edge

where sanity is not required

Entries tagged with gundam seed

gsd rewatch

revisiting gundam seed

30 day character meme

seiyuu love mayo~

a sort of good news?

kenkoudaa

gundam updates

gundam seed destiny special 3

inundating

"real time" commentary

i feel like such a bum

Gundam Seed Destiny Special Edition

Gundam Seed Stargazer

LJ is so slow =___=||||

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