Mobile Suit Gundam SEED

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 5 2002 to September 27 2003 at 6:00 p.m. on the JNN TV stations (Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS TV), Mainichi Broadcasting System (MBS TV, producing TV station), etc.).

Overview
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. On one side is the Earth Alliance, and on the opposite is the space colonies that form ZAFT (Zodiac Alliance of Freedom Treaty). Mankind is divided over human genetic engineering, with normal humans known as 'Naturals' and the genetically altered humans 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 Gundam’s. 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. Little do they know that there are sinister forces at work that go far beyond their worst nightmares...

Themes and reactions
The series was widely acclaimed upon release, and has left a great legacy upon the otaku community of Japan and abroad. A handful of major characters consistently top the favorite character lists of Newtype magazine, and the merchandise sold in the thousands.

The series was primarily intended to be Universal Century updated for a new generation of fans, with other elements from previous series added into the mix. The similarities between the original Mobile Suit Gundam and this series are by far the most numerous. To fit the tastes of 21st century teenagers, the series focused heavily on the interpersonal relationships between the characters, resulting in well-crafted and many layered romantic friendships. The traumatic friendship between Kira and Athrun guides the series, but the old-school romance between ace pilot Mu and captain Murrue won the hearts of many. Moreover, the series featured a villainous presence in Rau Le Creuset, something which many Gundam series, such as Gundam Wing, lacked in such pure, nefarious form. The drawing style was also updated to a modern style, characterized by bright colors, big eyes, small mouth and noses, and unique colored and often eccentric hair styles. The protagonists are also for the most part very young, to cater to the younger audience that has always been the primary target audience of the majority of Japanese animated shows like Gundam.

The inclusion of issues such as racism, with desires of genocide, further updated the series and provided food for thought as well as social commentary. The genetically altered Coordinators provide a vision for the future in a world fraught with talk of GM food and cloning.

Many old school Gundam fans were upset with how much the series took from the original Mobile Suit Gundam, saying that it was nothing more than a rip-off of the original. Other criticisms revolve around the fact that Gundam Seed focuses a lot of chara-moe, or moe of characters rather than the bigger picture of war, and that the animation style is flashy and disjointed compared to all previous Gundam stories in terms of atmosphere. Other old school fans are pleased however, stating that Fukuda was able to adapt the premise in a new direction, as a possible "What if?" situation and like the new direction that Fukuda took with the already established story and archetypes. Either side do seem to agree however, that Seed possesses one of the best music and songs out of all Gundam Series and even anime. Seed presents the one of the peak time in Japanese jpop history.

Airing information
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 10:30 p.m. 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 over-saturation 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 Rau Le Creuset and 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 inappropriate 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 p.m. where it got a better reception and aired comparatively uncut, with almost all of the material listed above intact.

In Japan, it occupied the Saturday 6 p.m. timeslot on MBS and TBS, widely considered a prime timeslot; the anime and its subsequent successor to the timeslot (Full Metal Alchemist) went on to do very well.

In the Philippines, the show was aired on ABS-CBN last December 20, 2004. First shown on the 6 pm primetime block on Weekdays (Mondays-Fridays), it was later moved to the 5:30 pm slot on the same day frame until it's End last March 4, 2005. Currently, it airs on ABS-CBN's Cable Anime Channel, Hero TV every Friday at 10:30 am, 5:30 pm and 11:30 pm, and in Cartoon Network Philippines every Saturday and Sunday at 10:30 pm (double episodes) (all times in Philippine Standard Time [GMT+8])

Adaptations, Spin-offs & Sequels
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 spin-off 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 color 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.

The TV series was also turned into a series of novels 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 6, 2004 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 1, 2005. A third Gundam SEED production, Gundam SEED C.E. 73: Stargazer, an ONA side-story to Destiny, is currently being streamed on Bandai Channel. A film was recently announced to complete the trilogy.

Cast & Crew
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 is also carried over to the sequel, Gundam SEED Destiny. While there has always been scrutiny over the dubbing of many anime series, the mispronunciation of several character names in the English dubbing has angered many die-hard Gundam SEED fans.

Japanese Cast

 * Athrun Zala - Akira Ishida
 * Cagalli Yula Athha - Naomi Shindou
 * Clotho Buer - Hiro Yuuki
 * Dearka Elsman, Martin DaCosta - Akira Sasanuma
 * Ezalia Joule, Haro, Murrue Ramius - Kotono Mitsuishi
 * Flay Allster, Natarle Badgiruel - Houko Kuwashima
 * Kira Yamato - Souichirou Hoshi
 * Lacus Clyne - Rie Tanaka
 * Miguel Aiman - Takanori Nishikawa (T.M. Revolution)
 * Mu La Flaga - Takehito Koyasu
 * Nicol Amarfi - Mami Matsui/Romi Paku (Special Edition)
 * Orga Sabnak - Joshida Ryohei
 * Rau Le Creuset - Toshihiko Seki
 * Shani Andras - Shunichi Miyamoto
 * Yzak Joule - Tomokazu Seki
 * Andrew Waltfeld - Ryotaro Okiayu
 * Aisha - Vivian Hsu/ Fumi Hirano (Special Edition)
 * Muruta Azrael - Nobuyuki Hiyama
 * Tolle Koenig - Takayuki Inoue
 * Arnold Neumann/ Ledonir Kisaka - Isshin Chiba
 * Kuzzey Buskirk/ Romero Pal - Yasuhiro Takato
 * Patrick Zala - Kinryu Arimoto
 * Miriallia Haw - Megumi Toyoguchi
 * Sai Argyle - Tetsu Shiratori
 * Music Composer - Toshihiko Sahashi

English-language Cast

 * Narrator, Ezalia Joule - Alison Matthews
 * Kira Yamato - Matt Hill
 * Rau Le Creuset - Mark Oliver
 * Mu La Flaga - Trevor Devall
 * Murrue Ramius, Eileen Canaver - Lisa Ann Beley
 * Athrun Zala - Samuel Vincent
 * Cagalli Yula Athha - Vanessa Morley
 * Dearka Elsman - Brad Swaile
 * Miriallia Haw - Anna Cummer
 * Tolle Koenig, Shani Andras - Richard Ian Cox
 * Flay Allster, Birdy (Torii), Haro - Tabitha St. Germain
 * Sai Argyle - Bill Switzer
 * Kuzzey Buskirk - Keith Miller
 * Natarle Badgiruel - Sarah Johns
 * Yzak Joule - Michael Adamthwaite
 * Koopman, Gerard Garcia - Scott McNeil
 * Clotho Buer, Yuri Amalfi - Ted Cole
 * Arnold Neumann - Philip Pacaud
 * Lacus Clyne - Chantal Strand
 * Lacus' singing voice - Jillian Michaels
 * Andrew Waltfeld, Reverend Malchio - Brian Drummond
 * Martin DaCosta - Brian Dobson
 * Nicol Amalfi - Gabe Khouth
 * Dalida Lolaha Chandra II - Simon Hayama
 * Romero Pal - Brendan Van Wijk
 * Kojiro Murdoch - Ward Perry
 * Erica Simmons - Sharon Alexander
 * Asagi Caldwell - Jocelyne Loewen
 * Mayura Labatt - Rebecca Shoichet
 * Ledonir Kisaka - Adam Henderson
 * Uzumi Nara Athha - John Novak
 * Siegel Clyne - Don Brown
 * Patrick Zala - Andrew Kavadas
 * Muruta Azrael - Andrew Francis
 * Aisha - Saffron Henderson
 * Miguel Aiman - Tony Sampson
 * Capt. Fredrik Ades - Michael Dobson
 * Col. William Sutherland - Ron Halder
 * Orga Sabnak - Andrew Toth

Openings, Endings and Insert Songs
Openings:
 * INVOKE by T.M.Revolution (ep. 1-13) (Toonami Broadcast: episode 1-26), (YTV Broadcast: 1-50)
 * moment by Vivian or Kazuma (ep. 14-26)
 * Believe by Nami Tamaki (ep. 27-40)
 * Realize by Nami Tamaki (ep. 41-50)

Endings:
 * Anna ni Issho Datta no ni (あんなに一緒だったのに; We were so together, but) by See-Saw (ep. 1-26)
 * RIVER by Tatsuya Ishii (ep. 27-39)
 * FIND THE WAY by Mika Nakashima (ep. 40-50)

Insert Songs:
 * Akatsuki no Kuruma (暁の車; Wheels of Dawn) by FictionJunction YUUKA (ep. 24, 32, 40)
 * Anna ni Issho Datta no ni (We were so together, but) by See-Saw (episode 28)
 * Meteor by T.M. Revolution (ep. 26, 29, 35, 47)
 * Mizu no Akashi (水の証; Token of Water) by Rie Tanaka (English version Jillian Michaels) (ep. 36 & 41)
 * Shizuka na Yoru ni (静かな夜に; In the Quiet Night) by Rie Tanaka (English version Jillian Michaels) (episodes 7-9, 14, 20)
 * FIND THE WAY by Mika Nakashima (ep. 46)

Trivia

 * In episode 16 ("The Burning Desert Sands"), it is made very clear that the main character Kira Yamato and his love interest Flay Allster had sex sometime between episode 15 and 16. This scene gave parents in Japan a scare and caused a good deal of controversy at the time. The directors were punished for this scene. However, when the Gundam SEED Special Edition was released, it was revealed that the two indeed had sex.


 * Cagalli, Fllay and Lacus, the three female leads of the series, only ever exchange 1 line of dialogue to each of the other two throughout the series' 50-episode run.


 * In episode 19 or 20 when Cagalli finished the flight simulator the screen read "Lanking" and "Kagali"
 * In episode 32 ("In the Promised Land"), the investigation report Captain Sutherland holds in his hands at JOSH-A, Alaska shows Kira to hold the rank of Lieutenant, he actually holds the rank of Ensign.