WARNING, CONTAINS ZETA GUNDAM SPOILERS!!!
So I finished Zeta Gundam the other day and here are my thoughts I posted on another board:
First off, Kamille is one of my favorite Gundam pilots as his story is just so tragic and he truly grows as a character. Not to mention the finale is a major shocker. On the other hand, I thought Amuro was even more of a spoiled b---- than he was in the original series, but his episodes were much more tolerable the second through than the first. I thought Char was pretty awesome and my favorite episode is when they are in Dakar with him giving his speech about the truth behind the Titans. However, I must admit, I was very confused on the politics at times, especially since Char's speech seemed to be pointless by the next episode since you never saw anything change from it. The characters themselves were pretty likable, as they all had their own distinct personalities, but I will admit, I got sick of Jerid and wished he had died earlier in the series. That guy was so annoying. The other two characters I had no remorese for when they died were Katz and Reccoa. First off, Katz got everything he deserved due to how much of a dick he became as the series progressed while Reccoa's switching of the sides made little sense. I mean really, "He treated me like a real woman so I have turned against you all." Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. Scirroco was pretty cool though, reminded me of Treize, but my favorite character in the series has to be Haman Karn. She was rutheless and smart, had a lot of well throught out strategies, and overall, she just kicked ass. Oh yeah, I almost forgot Four, who was also a great character and provided some of my favorite episodes to the series as well.
The mechs were also great, especially the Zeta and Qubeley. The Zeta is now within my top favorite five Gundam designs of all time, while the Qubeley has always been my favorite non-Gundam mech design, so it was nice to finally see it in action. There were a lot of great mobile suits in this series, like the three blue starfish looking things (cannot think of their names now) that Yazan commanded and of course the Psycho Gundam. The first version was really cool to look at and was just an interesting design due to its size all around. I do wish we had gotten more of it during the series though, but that is okay, as like the Qubeley, it was not over done. Sadly though, I am mixed on Char's Shiki. It had a great unique design to it, but it came out of nowhere. One minute he is piloting the Hizack the next he has the Shiki. I did not have any feelings towards Scirocco's O mech though, it was not bad, but it was not that good either.
As for the story itself, except for a few hiccups here and there, the series was pretty solid all of the way through. Like every 50 episode series, it could have been told in less than 40 episodes, but for what it is worth, I enjoyed almost every minute of it. As for the ending, I have mixed thoughts, as there really was not an ending since the series was always meant to lead into ZZ. However, since Bandai has yet to bring ZZ to the US for some reason, I think the ending blows because nothing is truly resolved in the end. This is where the movies do a better job even though they completely screw it up by making it impossible for everything after Zeta to occur. Fortunately, I have downloaded fansubs of ZZ, but I wish I could watch it on DVD and with better subs than downloadable quality.
In the end, like I said, Zeta has become my second favorite series as despite the cliffhanger ending, the series was top notch in my book. With that said, I'm going to rewatch it soon and give the english dub a chance in hopes that it might be good despite Char, Amuro, and Bright having different voices.
WARNING CONTAINS GUNDAM SEED SPOILERS:
Well I spent Friday watching Gundam SEED (okay, I only watched 21-50, as I spent the last week watching the first 20) and I have to say, I wished I had sat down to watch the series on DVD back when it first came out, as it turned out to be quite enjoyable. When I first watched it on CN I could not get into it thanks to the weekly episodes and the massive edits. Now that I watched it all in a little over a week, I enjoyed almost every minute of it. It is going to be interesting to rewatch Destiny as well though, as I watched that series raw when it first aired, so we'll see if it holds the same as it did then. Oh yeah, I will admit though, I watched SEED dubbed. I watched the first episode in both languages and came to the conclusion that I liked most of the english voices better. While La Crouset sounds great in both, Athrun and Toll (especially Toll) were just much better in English. On the other hand, I find Cagalli's Jp voice to be better, but I'd rather stick with the one with the majority of the voices I prefer. Of course, if Bandai knew how to give Char a good voice in the dub (and not change voices inbetween series) I would probably enjoy the UC dubs a lot more. Now I cannot even watch Unicorn dubbed regardless of how good Ep1's dub was since Char is going to be in it. Anyway, the Freedom is pretty awesome, especially in its introduction episode and I love the Forbidden and Providence. Forbidden has the kick ass scythe while the Providence has funnels. I love funnels. Not everything is great in SEED though, as four clipshows is rediculous and this series has the worst character I have ever seen in Gundam history, Flay. Thank goodness she dies, although it is not soon enough. Overall though, like I said, I enjoyed SEED a lot more than I did the first time and I can see why it was quite popular.
