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GUNDAM_SEED

                                             April 10, 2018


The most striking thing about "Gundam Seed",
I think:                                             Alternate titles:
                                                     "Gundam Reseeded",
In both "Seed" and the original Gundam,              "Gundam Seedy"..
our hero turns out to be remarkably good
at piloting mechas, but there are two         MECHA
different rationales presented in the
original and in the later "Seed" version.

In the first version of Gundam he's very good
with working with computerized machinery, but       In the original Gundam,
more than that there's a speculative theory         there's an excellent,
going around about "newtypes": humanity is          quaint touch: as a
continuing to evolve, and there are occasional      beginning pilot who's
appearances of people who just seem better          never flow before he's
than baseline human-- the "new types" are very      flipping back and forth
intuitive and evidently capable of very rapid       through a printed manual
responses, hence they do very well as fighter       while fighting the
pilots.                                             enemy.

In "Gundam Seed", rather than random scattered
mutations (which are occuring on all sides of
the conflict), there's a new, genetically          In the updated version,
engineered race of improved human beings called    he jumps into a new,
"The Cooordinators", and our hero happens to be    experimental mecha,
one by birth, though he was raised in a human      immediately reacts
"neutral territory".                               "this operating system
                                                   sucks!" and re-writes
                                                   the software on the fly.
     So: everyone who is a Coordinator knows
     that they're a Coordinator-- in the
     original version you might not know you
     were a Newtype until you were growing         NEWTYPE
     up, and even then it might be ambiguous.

     This change in premise seems to
     undermine the original myth, it
     changes the way the story can function...


         Our hero Kira is piloting a
         new, experimental mecha-- the
         "strike", one of the first
         "Gundams", though evidently not
         the first mecha. He is up against
         *other* coordinators, who are
         also piloting stolen versions
         of the same model.  A question          As of episode 19, another
         in my mind-- left completely            Coordinator remarks that
         unaddressed in the story-- is,          Kira clearly superlative
         what is the software like?              even for a coordinator--
         Did they also re-program it on          a move back toward the
         the fly?  Is one control                original premise of an
         system better than the other?           unusual individual.

                                                 And episode 27 makes still
                                                 another move back toward the
                                                 "new type" idea: someone
                                                 speculates that Kira may
                                                 be an example of a speculative
                                                 phenomena known by the acronym
                                                 SEED-- "Superior Evolutionary
                                                 Excellentismo Dorkosity" or
                                                 something like that.


                                                  
           (In case it isn't clear: "Seed" has it's               
           fans, but I positively hated it-- grinding               
           through the entire series was a chore.  It                
           makes me feel like never looking at                    
           anything else from the Gundam franchise...         
           I have to remind myself about "Iron-Blooded
           Orphans".)                                      
                                                           
                                                          
                                                     
                
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