Gundam Seed Destiny 6

Ender on November 30, 2004 · in Gundam Seed Destiny

Wow. This episode was more like an season finale, upping the tension and drama even further. The last few episodes had been spent covering the Minerva’s pursuit of the unknown Pegasus, and the fruitless dogfights between the evil trio and Shinn’s company. Finally, we get down to the meat of things as we meet a sect of hardline Coordinators who continue to believe in the anti-Natural policies of the former leader of ZAFT, Patrick Zara(Asuran’s dad). They plants explosives on the ruins of Junius-7, a ruined space colony, and the explosions force the colony out of its stable orbit, and into a collision course towards Earth. This naturally sets off major political firecrackers, as the Earth Alliance (under the sway of the extremist Blue Cosmos party) suspects ZAFT of being behind the fiasco, while ZAFT desperately attempts to stop the potentially catastrophic collision. Ironically, the original destruction of Junius-7 was the cause of the first war between Earth and ZAFT…

We pick up once again with the Minerva, who has been sent to assist the ZAFT forces who are attempting to fragment the colony into smaller pieces with nuclear explosives. In a scene reminiscent of Armageddon, Deep Impact, etc, we see the attempts of the ZAFT squad (led by Izak and Deakka from the first series) to defend themselves from the lurking hardline coordinators, protect the bombs, and plant them ASAP. Unfortunately, in the screw-up of the century, the Earth-backed mysterious masked man and his evil trio believe that they were the perpetrators of the first explosion, and proceed to attack everyone! Stupid Earth fools!!!

Fortunately, Asuran finally decides to get off his butt and help Shinn & Co. defend Yzak’s crew. Seems Yzak is still bitter about Asuran’s betrayal of ZAFT from the first season, and butts heads with his former squad leader. Luckily, the arrival of the evil trio forces them to work together (sort of…) and the free-for-all melee begins! On one side we have the estrogen wars, as Lunamaria and Stella continue to duke it out over the surface of the dead colony. Seems Luna is barely holding out against Stella’s overpowered Gundam, but manages to fight the good fight through much deft Zaku maneuvering. On the other hand we have a clash between the veterans of Jakin Dule (last battle of the original series), Asuran, Yzak, and Deakka, and the evil boys Sting and Owl in their fancy-schmancy gundams. This was perhaps my favorite part of the episode, as the vets use their superior piloting skills to lay on the smackdown using dinky Zakus. Yzak’s light blue laser halberd-wielding Zaku was pretty sweet All the while, angsty-boy Shinn can only stand by and gape at their 1337 skillz

Unfortunately in the end, the colony isn’t destroyed – only split in two, and the protagonists can only helplessly watch as they head towards Earth. Meanwhile, Shinn and Asuran get left behind, locked in combat with the remainder of the rebel sect. Their respect for each other grows as they work together to plant the last nuke, but they are unable to make it back to the mothership, and are pulled into Earth’s atmosphere.

For those Lacus fans out there (yes, all three of you), we get a parting shot of Kira and Lacus at the orphanage, watching the burning colony plunge over the horizon. Dammit Kira, do something!!!!!!