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Mobile Suit Gundam SEED

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File:Gundam seed title.JPG
Title of the series

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 Cosmic Era. The series has 50 episodes, aired in Japan from October 52002 to September 272003.

Overview

Template:Spoiler Directed by Mitsuo Fukuda (Future GPX Cyber Formula and Gear Fighter Dendoh), the series is set in an alternate universe to the original series, 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 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 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. Gundam SEED started with similar plot lines to the first Gundam series. But later on in the series Gundam SEED took off into its own original plotline.

The series is licensed by Bandai Visual. The American edition is currently being broadcast on Cartoon Network at 1am on Friday nights. 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. Signel Clyne getting shot by ZAFT soldiers loyal to Patrick Zala); all references to the facts that the Living CPUs need to take performance enhanching drugs; and most notoriously, all handguns being transformed into neon-colored lasers, dubbed "Disco Guns" by fans, for the majority of the show's run.

Although the series 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. Since most of the series had been pre-edited, very little changed 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 some inapproprite language or to alter any lines that are controversial, and the removal or altering of flashbacks to graphic assassinations. 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 toyline. 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.

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 Monday-Thursday at 10:30pm on YTV.

An abridged, six part version of the TV series is also being released as Gundam SEED: Special Edition. The English manga 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.

Another element left over from the most popular recent Gundam series (1995-6's Gundam Wing) was the presence of five color-coded Gundams piloted by angst-ridden bishonen. This made the series quite attractive to female fans, though to date unofficial SEED slash fiction is primarily concentrated among the ZAFT adversary characters, rather than among the Archangel crew members. 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.

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 continues to do so today.

Cast & Crew

Japanese Cast

Staff

  • Director - Mitsuo Fukuda
  • Series Writer - Chiaki Morosawa
  • Character Design - Hisashi Hirai
  • Mecha Designer - Kunio Okawara & Kimitoshi Yamane
  • Music Composer - Toshihiko Sahashi

English-language Cast

Openings & Endings & Insert Songs

Openings:

Endings:

Insert Songs:

See also

Preceded by (in production order): ∀ Gundam

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


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