Gundam Show Thread - MSG thru GQuuuuuuX

[Big s]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Eh... I'd disagree with your assessment.

It’s ok to disagree, that’s where the fun is. Just remember the feds may have been seen to have started things by their sanctions. The majority of Zeon also believed the feds had assinated their figurehead. And eventually the fanatics from the federation became the Titans. 

[Black Valkyrie]

 

 

[Big s]

It’s like a Frankengundam mixing a gp01 and an ez8 or something with parts from the origin 

[Bolt]

The shield is trying too hard. 

[Seto Kaiba]

The shield looks like a derivative of the GP01's, but the beam rifle is the Guncannon's.

The shoulders and head look like the Ez-8's.

... does it have three beam sabers on its left shoulder?

 

13 hours ago, Big s said:

It’s ok to disagree, that’s where the fun is.

Naturally. 👍

 

13 hours ago, Big s said:

Just remember the feds may have been seen to have started things by their sanctions. The majority of Zeon also believed the feds had assinated their figurehead. And eventually the fanatics from the federation became the Titans. 

Oh, I know... and Gundam the Origin played the Federation's provocations up quite a bit to make it clearer that Zeon didn't declare independence for shiggles.  It still doesn't excuse or justify what Zeon did after declaring independence.  Their opening move was to massacre billions of people via unrestricted use of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons against the other Sides.  There's disproportionate retribution and then there's that.

It was Zeon's fanatical and ongoing commitment to mass slaughter and widespread destruction that created the conditions that gave rise to the Titans.  Zeon's war crimes during the One Year War had already created an environment of fear and suspicion that allowed power-hungry officers like Jamitov Hymen and Bask Om to agitate for the creation of an elite anti-spacenoid force.  Aguille Delaz and Anavel Gato handed the Federation's hardliners a picture-perfect and damn near irrefutable argument in favor of policing spacenoids more rigorously through Operation Stardust.  That led directly to the creation of the Titans... so directly that we see the Titans being founded and the characters who'd fought the Delaz fleet joining the Titans in the ending of Stardust Memory.  It doesn't excuse what the Titans did either, but it cannot be denied that they are monsters of Zeon's creation.  Zeon's actions convinced the Federation the Titans were necessary... and Zeon's actions convinced the Titans that the extremity of their own actions were justified in the name of protecting the peace.

Edited December 5, 2023 by Seto Kaiba

[Big s]

7 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

The shield looks like a derivative of the GP01's, but the beam rifle is the Guncannon's.

The shoulders and head look like the Ez-8's.

... does it have three beam sabers on its left shoulder?

 

Naturally. 👍

 

Oh, I know... and Gundam the Origin played the Federation's provocations up quite a bit to make it clearer that Zeon didn't declare independence for shiggles.  It still doesn't excuse or justify what Zeon did after declaring independence.  Their opening move was to massacre billions of people via unrestricted use of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons against the other Sides.  There's disproportionate retribution and then there's that.

It was Zeon's fanatical and ongoing commitment to mass slaughter and widespread destruction that created the conditions that gave rise to the Titans.  Zeon's war crimes during the One Year War had already created an environment of fear and suspicion that allowed power-hungry officers like Jamitov Hymen and Bask Om to agitate for the creation of an elite anti-spacenoid force.  Aguille Delaz and Anavel Gato handed the Federation's hardliners a picture-perfect and damn near irrefutable argument in favor of policing spacenoids more rigorously through Operation Stardust.  That led directly to the creation of the Titans... so directly that we see the Titans being founded and the characters who'd fought the Delaz fleet joining the Titans in the ending of Stardust Memory.  It doesn't excuse what the Titans did either, but it cannot be denied that they are monsters of Zeon's creation.  Zeon's actions convinced the Federation the Titans were necessary... and Zeon's actions convinced the Titans that the extremity of their own actions were justified in the name of protecting the peace.

The zeon did over retaliate, but due to the speed of events it was extreme violence met by more extreme violence in a back and forth of chemical, nuclear and eventually the colony drops that brought up the treaty that would stop that temporarily, but to the basic Zeon soldier believing things were done to them to create the situation is where their story is. To be honest after watching Unicorn, I’m almost thinking everyone was just played against eachother and things could’ve started either way, but I hate the unicorn era of Gundam for trying to set that oddity up.

All that aside, it’s really just back to whether a group of Zeon soldiers will make for good main characters and I think they’ve already proven that in shows and games. They seem like your basic grunts in the middle of combat facing the horror of a machine that can probably take more damage than they can individually dish out. It looked like mostly upgraded Zaku 2’s. As long as they have a better than Disney writing team, they should be able to pull it off with ease

[F-ZeroOne]

Regards that Gundam, I do have to wonder what the point is of a shield that the enemy can shoot through the upper part...?!

Edited December 6, 2023 by F-ZeroOne

[Seto Kaiba]

14 hours ago, Big s said:

The zeon did over retaliate, but due to the speed of events it was extreme violence met by more extreme violence in a back and forth of chemical, nuclear and eventually the colony drops that brought up the treaty that would stop that temporarily, but to the basic Zeon soldier believing things were done to them to create the situation is where their story is.

TBH, I don't think this argument works... in the main, because it's been addressed and refuted in-series.  

For instance, in Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory, one of the characters (Cima Gaharu) is a Zeon soldier who participated in Zeon's gassing of defenseless space colonies during the One Year War.  Not only is made explicitly clear that Cima and her troops knew what they were being ordered to do was a war crime and the worst kind of atrocity, it's also indicated on no uncertain terms that the rest of the Zeon forces shunned them for doing it.  It's how Cima's unit ended up becoming pirates.  They were considered a disgrace to the rest of the Zeon military and weren't allowed to join the retreat to Axis.  (And they couldn't go back to the colony they were drafted from because it'd been made into the Solar Ray.)

It wasn't a "my country right or wrong" thing... they knew they were being ordered to commit war crimes and did it anyway.  At least a few of them (e.g. M'Quve) did it because they figured it was expedient and they'd never have to actually answer for it.  It's not an accident that most of the time when we see a Zeon unit in the UC, they're not exactly sane and rational people.  (Like the ones in Cucuruz Doan's Island, who are basically all axe-crazy.)

 

14 hours ago, Big s said:

To be honest after watching Unicorn, I’m almost thinking everyone was just played against eachother and things could’ve started either way, but I hate the unicorn era of Gundam for trying to set that oddity up.

Unicorn is a pretty good example too, considering how far the story had to go to give the Neo Zeon remnant some skin in the game.

Take away the reveal in Laplace's Box and The Sleeves are just terrorists killing people out of spite.

 

14 hours ago, Big s said:

All that aside, it’s really just back to whether a group of Zeon soldiers will make for good main characters and I think they’ve already proven that in shows and games. They seem like your basic grunts in the middle of combat facing the horror of a machine that can probably take more damage than they can individually dish out. It looked like mostly upgraded Zaku 2’s. As long as they have a better than Disney writing team, they should be able to pull it off with ease

They've proven they can make Zeon soldiers interesting and sympathetic protagonists very rarely and only under very special circumstances... which usually involves them not really being invested in Zeon's goals or a party to its crimes like Bernie Wiseman in 0080: War in the Pocket or Oliver May in MS IGLOO.  

Bernie was able to be a convincing nice guy as 0080's protagonist in no small part because he was a new recruit fresh out of training on his very first assignment.  He'd never taken part in a military operation before, so he wasn't carrying the guilt of Zeon's various war crimes.  It also helped that, late in the OVA's story, his motivation is preventing his superiors from committing another war crime when he learns their contingency plan in the event of Cyclops Team's failure was to destroy Libot with a nuclear strike.

Oliver May worked really well as a protagonist in MS IGLOO because he was similarly unconnected to Zeon's war crimes and his visible dismay with the lengths Zeon was going to in order to win the war helped keep him sympathetic as the story progressed through the One Year War.  Even when he's drafted into the defenses of A Baoa Qu at the end of MS IGLOO: Apocalypse 0079, he's terrified instead of patriotic and jumps at the chance to stop fighting.

Whether they can make a unit who are actively fighting for Zeon's cause anything but villain protagonists... we'll see.  My hopes are not high.

 

45 minutes ago, F-ZeroOne said:

Regards that Gundam, I do have to wonder what the point is of a shield that the enemy can shoot through the upper part...?!

Historically, shields with notches or gaps like that were constructed so that you could shoot out through the shield.

They were usually built as literal movable walls called mantlets... which has since become the term for the movable armor around a gunmount.

Master Archive Mobile Suit suggests several models of Mobile Suit shield, including the NFHI RGM-M-Sh-AGD used by the RGM-79G GM Command, RGM-79N GM Custom, and RGM-79Q GM Quel were made to be used this way.  There's also the suggestion that the GP-series RX-Vsh-023F/S-04712 shield used by the GP01 was intended to be used that way, with sliding rails for the grip so the shield could be flipped upside-down and mounted.

This new Gundam's shield most closely resembles the GP01's shield, so presumably it's made to be used in siege conditions or as a brace for a heavy weapon as we see the RX-79[G] doing occasionally with its smaller collapsible shield.

[Big s]

3 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

TBH, I don't think this argument works... in the main, because it's been addressed and refuted in-series.  

For instance, in Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory, one of the characters (Cima Gaharu) is a Zeon soldier who participated in Zeon's gassing of defenseless space colonies during the One Year War.  Not only is made explicitly clear that Cima and her troops knew what they were being ordered to do was a war crime and the worst kind of atrocity, it's also indicated on no uncertain terms that the rest of the Zeon forces shunned them for doing it.  It's how Cima's unit ended up becoming pirates.  They were considered a disgrace to the rest of the Zeon military and weren't allowed to join the retreat to Axis.  (And they couldn't go back to the colony they were drafted from because it'd been made into the Solar Ray.)

She’s definitely not a sympathetic character, but she also doesn’t represent all of Zeon. And just to be clear the feds were nuking entire colonies as well before the colony drop. One side would do an atrocity followed by the other side. 
Ramba Ral is a different side of the same military. His men treated people with respect, while even in the white base, they were torturing captives. Oddly it feels like Amuro was treated better by the zeons than the federal forces. 
 

[Guyffon]

On 12/5/2023 at 1:49 PM, Black Valkyrie said:

 

 

The 3 beam sabres look like it might be some kind of beam spear like a gm striker’s

[F-ZeroOne]

Seto Kaiba, thanks for explaining possible reasons for the shield design.

[Seto Kaiba]

On 12/6/2023 at 4:31 PM, Big s said:

She’s definitely not a sympathetic character, but she also doesn’t represent all of Zeon.

But there's exponentially more Zeon characters in her camp, morally, than in Ral's.

Even in Origin, which was more even-handed than OG, Ramba Ral was still one of very few decent and honorable people on Zeon's side... and like most of them, there's an asterisk hanging over that because he's still an officer in the occupation forces oppressing people.  The main reason he's remembered as "good" is simply because he has some standards where the other Zeon characters in the series are puppy-kickers for fun AND profit.

Kinda what I'm getting at here... there are Zeon characters who are not horribly sh*tty people, but they are rare and being one almost invariably requires being opposed to Zeon's goals, methods, and/or leadership.  Making a Zeon protagonist without that is going to be an incredibly hard sell.

 

On 12/6/2023 at 8:55 PM, Guyffon said:

The 3 beam sabres look like it might be some kind of beam spear like a gm striker’s

Weren't the beam sabers in this era each individually expandable into beam spears?

That was one of the RX-78-2's lesser-used gimmicks, but still...

[kajnrig]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Weren't the beam sabers in this era each individually expandable into beam spears?

That was one of the RX-78-2's lesser-used gimmicks, but still...

Far as I'm aware that was only ever a gimmick of the RX-78. Spear depictions of suits from that time and into the future tended to default to a beam saber holder a LA the GM Striker:

 

[Seto Kaiba]

27 minutes ago, kajnrig said:

Far as I'm aware that was only ever a gimmick of the RX-78. Spear depictions of suits from that time and into the future tended to default to a beam saber holder a LA the GM Striker:

Maybe, then again maybe not...

I went looking in Master Archive and it doesn't mention the beam javelin at all. A bit of an odd choice I guess, but then again it doesn't mention a lot of the more niche equipment options in the series like the hyper hammer and super napalm. Interestingly, well I was looking into it, I found that there is an appearance by the classic beam javelin in the Gundam UC novel and OVA. Apparently one of the GM III units fighting at Dakar had a beam javelin that looks identical to the one used by the RX-78-2 in the original series.

[kajnrig]

3 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Maybe, then again maybe not...

I went looking in Master Archive and it doesn't mention the beam javelin at all. A bit of an odd choice I guess, but then again it doesn't mention a lot of the more niche equipment options in the series like the hyper hammer and super napalm. Interestingly, well I was looking into it, I found that there is an appearance by the classic beam javelin in the Gundam UC novel and OVA. Apparently one of the GM III units fighting at Dakar had a beam javelin that looks identical to the one used by the RX-78-2 in the original series.

That could be right, I'm sure it made a cameo somewhere in there amidst all the other cameos. A "GM Semi-Striker" also showed up IIRC during the Torrington fight, using the beam sabers at the end of a long stick variant. So I guess they're both represented in canon. Then again, when the compilation movie trilogy came out, I remember they tried to get rid of some of the goofier, toyetic stuff like the G-Armor, etc. I forget if the beam javelin was excised or not.

Managed to find the relevant Unicorn clips:

 

 

On another note, I want to take this moment to reiterate my disdain for all things Gundam handheld shield. I feel like the big full-size shield template needs to just go at this point. As a design element it rarely adds to a design, and more often detracts from it, looking lopsided and unwieldy as hell. It never provides any actual defense for a mobile suit, and yet it continues to get aesthetic overhauls that frankly stink. I still think, to this day, that the Ground Gundam shield is the one good iteration of the Gundam shield, and that's partly because it's barely a shield at all. It manages to look practical and aesthetically cohesive at the same time, and it's actually shown being used to good effect in the 08MST OVA.

[Seto Kaiba]

10 hours ago, kajnrig said:

On another note, I want to take this moment to reiterate my disdain for all things Gundam handheld shield. I feel like the big full-size shield template needs to just go at this point. As a design element it rarely adds to a design, and more often detracts from it, looking lopsided and unwieldy as hell. It never provides any actual defense for a mobile suit, and yet it continues to get aesthetic overhauls that frankly stink.

Granted, I agree wholeheartedly that the shield designs that show up are seldom attractive... but they have been shown to be undeniably effective in the animation.

I think the main reason the shield gets a bad rap is that the Gundam didn't really need the shield much because the OYW Zeon forces were using mainly hard rounds that its own armor was proof enough against.  It was much more advantageous for the GMs, which weren't made from Luna Titanium and lacked the same bullet resistance of the Gundams they were based on.  

Once everyone switched to beam weapons and most new mobile suits were made from Gundarium around the time of the Gryps conflict the shield was a lot less necessary, and became little more than a plank covered in extra-thick anti-beam coating so that the MS carrying it could tank a few more hits.

(The two best examples of the shield providing highly effective defense are the showiest... the GP02 using its shield to protect itself from its own nuclear bazooka in Stardust Memory and the Unicorn and Banshee tanking a hit from a colony laser in Gundam UC.)

 

10 hours ago, kajnrig said:

I still think, to this day, that the Ground Gundam shield is the one good iteration of the Gundam shield, and that's partly because it's barely a shield at all. It manages to look practical and aesthetically cohesive at the same time, and it's actually shown being used to good effect in the 08MST OVA.

It's a different kind of shield... collapsible, and forearm mounted so it leaves both hands free.  It definitely has a lot more utility than the regular model.

(Though, since we were once again seeing Gundams made from Luna Titanium its main value was that extra utility.)

[Bolt]

Ya, I think most Gundam shield designs are silly, at best. But it's true, some designs have proven to look useful. I thought even the over shielded thunderbolt gundam ,at least having dedicated arms , made some sense and certainly offered some crucial protection. 

[pengbuzz]

I liked the design for the Zeta Gundam's shield; not sure how useful it was in combat, but it made the wave rider mode look much better.

[no3Ljm]

New Seed Freedom promo video.

 

Edited December 27, 2023 by no3Ljm

[anime52k8]

On 12/6/2023 at 1:31 PM, Big s said:

And just to be clear the feds were nuking entire colonies as well before the colony drop. One side would do an atrocity followed by the other side.
 

they weren't though. the only Nukes the Federation used were against the colony drop itself.

[David Hingtgen]

Good shield?  G-Saviour, ironically.  

[renegadeleader1]

20 hours ago, anime52k8 said:

they weren't though. the only Nukes the Federation used were against the colony drop itself.

The only time the Federation could even come close to being accused of a war crime in the One Year War is at Side 5 during the Battle of Loum. That was when the Zeon Fleet tried to hijack another colony to drop and then  proceeded to use the colonies as cover for the ensuing battle untill their mobile suits showed up. This resulted in several colonies being destroyed in the crossfire.

Edited December 16, 2023 by renegadeleader1

[Big s]

10 minutes ago, renegadeleader1 said:

The only time the Federation could even come close to being accused of a war crime in the One Year War is at Side 5 during the Battle of Loum. That was when the Zeon Fleet tried to hijack another colony to drop and then  proceeded to use the colonies as cover for the ensuing battle untill their mobile suits showed up. This resulted in several colonies being destroyed in the crossfire.

They still nuked several colonies. Even though Zeon was trying to hijac another colony, the feds didn’t exactly fire indiscriminately. The entire area was turned into a shoal zone. The eventual treaty was supposed to leave out colonies that weren’t aligned, but then on several occasions they got them involved in weapons development 

[Seto Kaiba]

20 hours ago, renegadeleader1 said:

The only time the Federation could even come close to being accused of a war crime in the One Year War is at Side 5 during the Battle of Loum. That was when the Zeon Fleet tried to hijack another colony to drop and then  proceeded to use the colonies as cover for the ensuing battle untill their mobile suits showed up. This resulted in several colonies being destroyed in the crossfire.

 

19 hours ago, Big s said:

They still nuked several colonies. Even though Zeon was trying to hijac another colony, the feds didn’t exactly fire indiscriminately. The entire area was turned into a shoal zone. The eventual treaty was supposed to leave out colonies that weren’t aligned, but then on several occasions they got them involved in weapons development 

So, I went and checked this... and @renegadeleader1 is actually correct.

After consulting a number of official publications, it is quite clear that only the Principality of Zeon used nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons indiscriminately. The Federation forces are only described as using nuclear weapons, and only as a part of the attempt to prevent the Operation British colony drop during which the Federation employed both ship launched and surface launched thermonuclear weapons against Island Iffish and its escorting Zeon fleet.

There's nothing I can find that suggests the Federation nuked any inhabited colonies the way Zeon did... and nuclear weapons were not used at Loum due to the issues caused by minovsky particle interference affecting guidance.

 

EDIT: To clarify the point, this information is taken from Gundam Officials, the Gundam Perfect File, Gundam Historica, and the old Bandai Entertainment Bible books.  It's indicated therein that the massive death toll attributed to nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons was almost entirely inflicted during Zeon's initial surprise attack on Sides 1, 2, and 4 on January 3rd and 4th, UC 0079.  It's also stated that the Federation was caught by surprise and wasn't able to coordinate a counteroffensive or retaliate in any meaningful way during this initial offensive due to the breakdown of radio communications that was caused by Minovsky particle interference.  It was, by all accounts, an entirely one-sided massacre in which the Principality's forces indiscriminately destroyed space colonies using mobile suit-launched nuclear missiles and gas bombs containing biological and chemical agents.  In 40 hours of largely unopposed cruelty, Zeon massacred an estimated 2.8 billion defenseless people.  That's more than half of the total estimated loss of life from the entire One Year War in terms of both primary and secondary causes... and they weren't even done at that point.  There was also Operation British and then the destruction of Side 5, which is suggested to have been mostly Zeon's doing.  When all's said and done, a bare minimum of 52% of the 5.5 billion lives lost in the OYW were directly attributable to Zeon's use of WMDs... and Officials suggests that number may be as high as 87% once the effects of the colony drop are counted.  This was NOT a "both sides" thing.  (And if I seem a bit thrown by that, it's because I am... I was not expecting the explanation to be THAT damning.)

Edited December 16, 2023 by Seto Kaiba

[seti88]

Just watched cucuruz island. Late am sure.

But boy i enjoyed it..and the ED another classic gundam song imo...

Sometimes you just have to sit back, admire the animation, feel the tropes/storyline and take it as it is....lovely...

p.s. and what an entry of the gundam by the top of the volcano..

[lechuck]

New MS designs leaked two days ago and not a single posting about it on MW. This disrespect towards Gundam is unacceptable and must be corrected!
https://www.taghobby.com/archives/721046
https://www.gundamkitscollection.com/2024/01/spoiler-alert-gundam-seed-freedom-new.html

Spoiler

Mighty Strike Freedom Gundam + Proud Defender

 

Spoiler

Infinite Justice Gundam Type II

 

Spoiler

Destiny Gundam Spec II

 

Spoiler

Sword/Blast Impulse Gundam Spec II

 

Spoiler

Duel Blitz Gundam

 

Spoiler

Lightning Buster Gundam

 

Spoiler

BLACK KNIGHT SQUAD Cal-re.A

 

Spoiler

Z'Gok

 

Edited January 28 by lechuck

[Big s]

18 minutes ago, lechuck said:

New MS designs leaked two days ago and not a single posting about it on MW. This disrespect towards Gundam is unacceptable and must be corrected!

It’s probably just due to it being seed related. It’s kinda tough to get excited for it

[Seto Kaiba]

4 hours ago, lechuck said:

New MS designs leaked two days ago and not a single posting about it on MW. This disrespect towards Gundam is unacceptable and must be corrected!

It's not a leak if it's official promotional material being run in a magazine...

But also... it's Gundam SEED.  Much like how the entire cast share maybe 3-4 faces and body types, the Mobile Suits all look the ****ing same because 80% of them are the same Gundam with different paintjobs and slightly different accessories.

Looking at 'em, I feel like these are just the same designs we saw on the official website last year.

[azrael]

FYI, SEED Freedom premiered on Friday.

Yep. Whomever is doing the lineart for SEED, please fire and ban them from ever working on a Gundam production. I'm sure these designs will look much better on screen or on promotional artwork that isn't lineart. 

[pengbuzz]

35 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

It's not a leak if it's official promotional material being run in a magazine...

But also... it's Gundam SEED.  Much like how the entire cast share maybe 3-4 faces and body types, the Mobile Suits all look the ****ing same because 80% of them are the same Gundam with different paintjobs and slightly different accessories.

Looking at 'em, I feel like these are just the same designs we saw on the official website last year.

May as well call it GUNDAM: The Xerox Wars.

[lechuck]

2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

It's not a leak if it's official promotional material being run in a magazine...

Yes, if you have to be pedantic about my wording, then it is official promo material meant for the movie goers that has been photographed and leaked to the broader public.

2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

But also... it's Gundam SEED.  Much like how the entire cast share maybe 3-4 faces and body types, the Mobile Suits all look the ****ing same because 80% of them are the same Gundam with different paintjobs and slightly different accessories.

Looking at 'em, I feel like these are just the same designs we saw on the official website last year.

2 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

May as well call it GUNDAM: The Xerox Wars.

So terrible and one dimensional of them, it is good thing that Macross doesn't practice that. Imagine Valkyries just being minimal colour variations and head swaps... no... wait...

[no3Ljm]

14 minutes ago, lechuck said:

So terrible and one dimensional of them, it is good thing that Macross doesn't practice that. Imagine Valkyries just being minimal colour variations and head swaps... no... wait...

Nailed it. 

[Seto Kaiba]

3 hours ago, lechuck said:

Yes, if you have to be pedantic about my wording, then it is official promo material meant for the movie goers that has been photographed and leaked to the broader public.

... as opposed to the publicly available magazine and globally available website it was already printed in? 🤣

 

3 hours ago, lechuck said:

So terrible and one dimensional of them, it is good thing that Macross doesn't practice that. Imagine Valkyries just being minimal colour variations and head swaps... no... wait...

Touched a nerve, did I?  Oh dear.  In all seriousness, the lack of visually distinct designs is one of the most common criticisms leveled at Cosmic Era titles in general, not helped at all by both sides using Gundams.  I can't recall a point in Macross where painting a VF different colors was enough to give it a different model number, for instance.  (Like Cagalli's MBF-02 Strike Rouge, a GAT-X105 Strike Gundam painted pink.)

Come to that, the many different versions of Kira and Athrun's signature Gundams aren't terribly distinct from each other either.  I've watched SEED and SEED Destiny multiple times and I couldn't for the life of me tell you the difference between the Freedom, Strike Freedom, Rising Freedom, Mighty Strike Freedom, etc...

Edited January 29 by Seto Kaiba

[Big s]

My problem with seed designs is that they looked fairly new in the original series, but eventually it just started looking more like build fighters versions of mobile suit designs.

[azrael]

Just so people understand my absolute, utter revulsion at the person doing the SEED  lineart, I will post these gems, courtesy of 4chan.

Spoiler

Spoiler