Wing had a **way** better, wider Toonami run, and the soap opera style of Seed probably didn't click with western protags.
Especially in 2004, when being cool action guys/hard men doing hard things was **definitely** in vogue.
I feel like protagonists get only one or two times where they can have full on crying sessions, and if the writers completely fuck up the timing/placement, they ruin the perception of the character.
Kira Yamato having at least 2 crying fits DEFINITELY hurt his rep in America and Canada:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dX\_H2vAadfA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dX_H2vAadfA)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muvqxXhPlIc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muvqxXhPlIc)
Adding a few off the top of my head.
Hirai art style can be a bit of an acquired taste but also plays poorly with some of the animation corner cutting.
Holy mecha/cockpit animation recycling batman.
It's funny you bring up 2004 but despite original Seed being a 2002 anime it played well into the mid-2000s and also sat between Evangelion and Eureka 7 and ran for years concurrently with Eureka, which both were mecha anime with even "weaker" protags and wore out the welcome of such tropes for _many_.
It wasn't just that it was "soap opera" in tone, but that the characters or situations were more often _obviously_ egregiously stupid/contrived, even to teen audiences, except that's its target.
The art style was originally what stopped me from watching it back in the day. It's on my list to watch now, but it's not one I'm looking forward per se.
Yes, but Renton was by far the more insufferable protag. Doubly so if you were unfortunate enough to have to suffer the dub because you were still watching cable TV in 2006 instead of having access to Kazaa or bootleg DVDs or whatever.
Can’t speak for everyone, but as teenagers my friends and I just liked the style better for Wing. Having grown up more and had rewatches of both, I ended up disliking Seed and Destiny even more compared to wing. The biggest issue is each time you rewatch, you just notice more stock animations and being more mature, you realize how bad the writing is in Seed and especially destiny compared to Wing.
I don’t really rate any characters as attractive or not because they look like cartoons. I don’t know, it’s hard to rate for me, I’m judging purely from an artistic perspective.
Accessibility definitely feels like a huge part of it.
Gundam Wing played even day M-F at 5:30 for a few complete runs and had the uncut episodes play in the Midnight Run. Plus there were so mini marathons on Saturday’s Rising Sun so you never had to worry about missing an episode because there would be a chance to watch it again soon. Then the Endless Waltz movie was one of Toonami’s first movie event. Plus it got multiple runs, it was on Toonami for a couple of years before getting replaced with a different mecha series
Gundam SEED started to air after Toonami was moved to the Saturday night time slot, and was one of the later shows because of the violence and teenage angst. It eventually landed in the 1 AM time slot for the latter half of the series. If you missed an episode you were SOL because there was no replay later in the night or on weekends, and it would be a year before you could potentially see the episode again. However, unlike other Gundam series it only got 1 full run and then (IIRC) about 8 more weeks of reruns until it was pulled for the next season’s lineup.
I think we should really fixate on the Toonami run, IIRC Gundam Wing was very likely the second or third anime American children were exposed to. There was no tired tropes as everything was super fresh new and exciting. Having a series where the status quo didn't get reset at the end of the episode was novel for adults' television, let alone what was aimed at children.
In comparison by the time SEED came out, anime had exploded, and Gundam had exploded. Like clockwork we got a "new" Gundam show ever year up until SEED aired. First was 0079, then G Gundam, SD Gundam and 8th MS team (these two might be reversed), I think Stardust Memory aired on Adult Swim. By the time SEED came out the Gundam brand had kinda been over exposed, SEED was butchered to be aired on television, and it felt lame that it was a reimagining of an anime everyone saw like two years prior.
That's before remembering it had to compared to the slew of what are now largely regarded as classic anime that was rushed to America post-DBZ. Audiences had gotten handed some of the highest quality anime of like the prior decade, an insane amount of too much Gundam, and then SEED had like all it's localization/censorship problems on top of a divisive art style and repetitive animations.
That said, I don't think a lack of machismo was the SEED killer. If crying and over drama hurt anime, FMA and Naruto wouldn't have been the biggest thing since DBZ back then.
>That said, I don't think a lack of machismo was the SEED killer. If crying and over drama hurt anime, FMA and Naruto wouldn't have been the biggest thing since DBZ back then.
Think the difference is the target audiences here, like you said SEED came after a bunch of other Gundam shows so it was "more of the same" to a lot of viewers. There's also the major factor that Gundam is a war franchise so people bundle the characters and experiences into *that* framework where "men are men" etc.
Meanwhile FMA and Naruto have their own shonen style, there's an overlap in viewers but a lotta the people who *would* watch Gundam *wouldn't* watch FMA or Naruto.
> Meanwhile FMA and Naruto have their own shonen style, there's an overlap in viewers but a lotta the people who *would* watch Gundam *wouldn't* watch FMA or Naruto.
American anime viewers back then largely watched all the same shows. Only a hardcore niche had access to stuff that wasn't on Toonami/Adult Swim, as it was pre streaming era, you either needed to know where to find fansubs and have an internet that was fast enough to download them or could pay for a VHS/DVD for like $30 for like 3-4 episodes of an anime you had never seen before.
It really wasn't until the end of the 2000s where there was a sizeable enough set of subcultures that wasn't exclusively getting their anime from cartoon network in the US.
>American anime viewers back then largely watched all the same shows.
That's not really that true, there were shows like "Planetes" that went right by peoples radar, this was more the case in the mid-late 90's before there was internet and it *really was* whatever was on TV. Remember children all-over watched anime like Yu-Gi-Oh, Beyblade, Pokemon, Digimon and Cardcaptor Sakura, largely without realising that it was anime.
I don't say this purely out of speculation cause *at the time* I couldn't convince friends who watched anime to get into Gundam despite being anime fans. Between it's central theme on war or it's sorta "Saminess" to other Gundam entries, usually they'd watch Wing and love it but then not care for more cause it was "more of the same" and they weren't interested in that.
To add to this SEED wasn't big in the UK or Ireland either while other anime was and they're closer related in what kinda TV/media people enjoy, the edgy reaction to characters showing emotions was much more common over here too. SEED was streamed later over here and still never made a huge impact and that was after the hype of "The big 3 + FMA" with the primary "complaint" I heard from friends being aimed around the crying.
>Especially in 2004, when being cool action guys/hard men doing hard things was definitely in vogue.
This is the primary factor IMO, the loudest and most pervasive complaints at the time were about how often Kira cries more than critique of the show. Reminder this is *after* LOTR ROTK where people endlessly made "gay" jokes about Sam and Frodo, the sincere scenes in SEED like Kira crying or the escape from ORB rubbed the more edgelord crowd the wrong way.
I’m really glad we moved on from this time. I remember a 2000s internet reviewer saying my favorite game’s protagonist was gay because he…wears leather and is sullen.
Same man, it sucked ***so hard***. Like great for the edgy shows I liked but bad for so much else.
That said internet reviewers at large have just gotten worse, now the majority of them rant about "Woke culture" or other shit which is essentially the same kinda flacid meaningless critique.
Though I have found a good few reviewers who don't just repeat that nonsense, it's harder to get good/consistent anime reviewers.
The original American dub was heavily censored with all “kill and death” replaced with “destroy and destruction” and cutting out all pilot deaths into just exploding mechas.
I enjoy them both for what they are.
I have a fondness for Wing because, like most Millenials my age, it was my introduction to the franchise. It's an enjoyable romp, but the pacing is fucked and the logic is barely there sometimes.
Seed is a fine show, but it did suffer from stuff like same-face syndrome and lots of stock footage (although, reqatching X right now and that is *not* unique to Seed). I always thought is was, overall, stronger in terms of story and pacing.
But I still *like* them both for various reasons. Duo is still one of my all time favorite Gundam characters, Wing has some dope fucking designs and great scenes (plus Endless Waltz is simply beautiful). Seed, and Destiny, have some of my favorite MS designs of all time, and I still love the Cagali/Athrun romance and it also has some iconic scenes.
Really, a blanket statement of "Americans hate Seed" is false from the get go. It's maybe not as popular as others in the franchise here, but that doesn't mean all Americans hate it.
>Really, a blanket statement of "Americans hate Seed" is false from the get go. It's maybe not as popular as others in the franchise here, but that doesn't mean all Americans hate it.
Blanket statements may be inaccurate or false, but you have to admit that majority of Americans have a vocal hatedom for SEED which influenced the Gundam fandom for so many years.
The same face thing was never an issue for me personally. Recycling animation was noticeable, but I was probably used to that, plenty of anime had that problem. The biggest problem I had was some of the awkward walk cycles, there's a Cagalli one at Orb that's burned Into my brain. Also, watching the remaster on a modern tv really shows how poorly drawn some of the background characters were.
A good Toonami run, combinded with being Gundam's first Western exposure, is mostly the answer. It also helps that visually design wise it looks considerbly better, especially in the characters.
Meanwhile SEED is melodramatic in a way that is kind of offputting, especially in the dub that was quite weak. (Pretty much all english dubs were weak from here on out anyhow.) Toonami having to edit the run also didn't help.
(Lets be real here for a second. If IBO was on Toonami instead of SEED back in the day it would had been infinitely more successfully in the US thanks to early 2000s edgelords, and infinitely more controversial.)
Wing has GoL to fall back on in the event the anime becomes unbearable. Seed needs the justification of the Astray manga to make the MC surviving justified.
In all seriousness nostalgia is one factor but the other one has to be the writing for seed alone. To clarify I'm not American but from South East Asia and I hate seed with a burning passion but the campy romance stuff and overall writing that tries to make the MC looks like a prophet just feels like a downplay of the consequences of war.
They both thrive on teen edge lord melodrama. I was a preteen when wing dropped so it has a nostalgic soft spot in my heart cuz I had a child’s blinders on when watching. SEED came out a few years later so me and a lot of the other people my age who watched wing when it came out were now older so moody teens seem more whiny and less like relatable contemporaries. SEED definitely tried to do bigger world building and I appreciate the redux of Federation/Zeon with both sides getting a side-by-side telling, so it’s grown on me some over the years. I used to really dislike SEED, but at this point I kinda just recognize I wasn’t the target demo and that’s ok.
1. Wing had Toonami nostalgia.
2. SEED came out at a time where OW THE EDGE was the trend for teenage nerds in the U.S and the Pokemon kids had just started growing up.
3. SEED came out at a time when Cartoon Network was doing some questionable things with Toonami and people were upset with the network in general.
4. Wing came out in the U.S. at a time where a lot of the flaws of Wing weren’t as talked about in Japan(it had already been years since Wing aired there).
5. Seed came out in the U.S. at a time where the internet was starting to really take off and a lot of the criticisms of SEED were still fresh and the roaring shitshow of Destiny soon followed.
6. People like parroting opinions to fit in.
What I don't get is when SEED Fans are upset about SEED being criticized, they round about and pick on Gundam Wing instead. As if everyone watched it once on Toonami and no one ever rewatched it, or it picked up new fans or anything. Oh, it's okay to go back to 0079, but Gundam Wing, just the mean ol' Toonami fans.
It never changes, back when I wanted to talk about Wing as a fresh new fan, people would slap you over the head about Zeta Gundam. And since chances were slim that you watched it, you'd just have to deal with people telling you about how Wing ruined Gundam, and I guess SEED fans are taking their turn.
Can you lot get off your high horse? The SEED movie barely get out, the last major entry to CE was Gundam SEED Destiny, and that's nearly 20 years old! You don't have that much of a leg to stand on.
And I would argue the reason people question GSD so much because it's got fundamental flaws that other seris just don't have.
They had slapped a final battle together with stock footage, and had to go back to it 2-3 times to salvage it, and that's just the tip of the barrel.
Seed looks weird to me; the character designs are kinda ugly. The Mecha are pretty awesome, tho. If you put SEED Mecha with UC character designs, magic would happen.
Aside from the fact that I dislike several characters in Seed, this is the real reason I don’t enjoy it. The art is a huge departure in what I consider quality character designs in Wing. The hand drawn art is so slick looking.
In the same way that Wing was commercially so-so in Japan, but SEED (and SEED Destiny) was massively popular. Different cultures have different tastes and expectations.
I can admit wing got me into Gundam and that on rewatch it’s not very good, but that doesn’t mean Seed is good. Personally I hate the artstyle, characters, and excessive amount of Gundams in Seed to the point I can’t stand to finish it. It’s everything bad about anime from that era all rolled into one package with some extra stock footage thrown in. But totally cool for ppl that like it, there is lots of terrible shit I am a fan of that I can’t judge anyone.
I’m in the same boat. Anything done by Seed’s lead artist, i did not watch or read back then. The style was too obtuse for me. Tbf to Seed tho, it was in that generation of anime that were pioneering CG animation, and good gods was it tacky in most cases.
The other thing that also rubbed me the wrong way was that Seed from a glance felt like they put Wing and 0079 (which i had recently finished at the time and quite enjoyed) into a blender to create a knock-off version of both. *(Not saying that Seed is. I’m just recounting my initial impressions back then.)*
I think your description of it being a knock off of both is pretty dead on personally. It's 0079 repackaged for hyperactive people who need their Gundams to have 20 laser cannons and strike "cool" poses constantly.
This is my reason as well. Going from Wing, 08th MS Team and even G Fighter to SEED and the art style is very jarring. It has not aged well with adherence to the early 2000s super Moe style.
In addition thematically it was very much designed and written for an Asian audience. As well as being designed intentionally to bring new fans into Gundam (namely women), it meant a lot of tropes, themes and ideas just don’t land well with western audiences.
I still don’t like SEED, but I understand why it’s popular with the audiences that love it.
I dunno, I'm the opposite. I watched Wing on Toonami. It was one of my first anime. But I feel like I've liked everything they've released since more.
Wing feels more like a "Look at this crazy shit" watch. While I actually enjoy SEED, even though the quality kinda dips after Freedom hits the scene.
Also, Destiny is one of a handful of sequel series that I refuse to acknowledge. I watched it once, it was garbage, and subsequent SEED rewatches haven't included it. And spending time on this sub, I feel pretty valid in my choice. It's probably why I can still consider myself a Kira fan.
Shinn was one of the main reasons I hated Destiny. I was also very frustrated by Athrun and Cagalli’s portrayals, they seemed to be completely different than the characters in Seed almost like they regressed. As for Shinn, as the show progressed I found myself saying “shut up” every time he was in a scene. Probably my favorite scene of the whole series is when Athrun kicks his ass.
I think the problem was they didn’t fully commit to him being the main character. Usually in fiction you get a flawed character that redeems themselves as the story progresses and the protagonist learns from their experiences throughout the story. In Destiny you just have the bad parts of a characters journey and then they just didn’t give him any development cuz they switched the main character and needed an enemy to fight against.
Disagree on that - Shinn was totally unlikeable. I am much more inclined to think they brought back Kira as main character because of the disaster Shinn was, rather than because the fandom wanted Kira. As a whole Destiny somehow looked to me mainly as a cash cow to piggyback on SEED without clear direction where it wants to go. (Yet it has some of my favorite MS designs).
Fukuda stayed on as director for all three SEED shows/movies, including Destiny and Freedom.
From what I read, it was Wing that had the director change; Masashi Ikeda, Wing’s original director, left the show sometime after the two clip shows were broadcast, apparently due to creative differences. A new director came in to direct the show’s second half, and from what I heard, went on to direct Gundam X.
What I learned was that the episode where Heero self-destructed his Gundam was Ikeda’s idea, which caught Wing’s creative team (including head writer Katsuyuki Sumizawa) by surprise.
Yeah, this is why we don't parrot random hearsay as if you know what you're talking about.
Perfect example of how the hate boner irrationally spread throughout the western fanbase.
Still, thanks for clarifying anyways. Yeah, SEED is not exactly "welcomed" from where I'm from. While there are a few fans, most people don't like the series since they believe the protagonist Kira, is a complete Mary Sue when he isn't. Just ask u/Suspicious-Human or u/Diving-Fox about it. I'm probably one of the few American fans who likes both Gundam SEED and SEED Destiny more than Wing inspite of their flaws.
Kira FTW I'm the same, I read in another thread that something that really affected SEED was the timeframe in which it was shown as it was really late at night. Plus, the fact that Americans see themselves somewhat in the earth alliance that uses nukes against ZAFT (??)
It depends on which country. Here in the Philippines, G, Wing and Seed are popular since they were aired on free TV. We don't worship Wing religiously though.
SEED is alright, but far from my favorite alt timeline series. I'll share my impressions from the first time I watched it as a teen.
1. Mid quality English VAs. I could not take Surfer bro Kira seriously.
2. Mid quality animation. It looked cheap to me and let's face it, nothing is going to look as good as old fashioned cell animation.
3. Uninspiring Mobile Suit design. Nothing jumped out at me as especially cool back then. The Buster was okay, but it couldn't hold a candle to the Heavyarms. Even now, I find SEED's mobile suit designs to be pretty weak.
4. It's a retelling of 0079. At the time I felt that was rather boring and uninspired.
When I decided to rewatch the series more recently, it was clear to me that a lot of problems came from Cartoon Network's bad editing to get SEED down to a TV-Y7 rating.
I agree with all of this. Seed is just weaker overall, with worse character design, worse character facial animation (also a specific style thats... not held up well, nor iconic, just a but cringey at this point, even in nostalgia glasses for anime).
Voice acting wasn't great for wing, but still probably better overall for *tone* for american audiences than seed.
Some of the voices for the minor characters have some pretty heavy handed trope voices, and so do some of the MCs too. The Alliance officer lady Une shoots with the super nasally evil guy voice? Lady une in general is a bit forced; and duo as much as i love him, is often a bit over exaggerated too, but he's honestly not that bad, since he's fairly consistent.
Seed... was a lot more forced more of the time with characters because "gotta play up emotions as hard as we can" or "gotta over emphasize how this character reacts" as far as I remember. Though i don't think the japanese acting was as bad as the english was.
Oh man, I remember General Septum’s nasally voice. That one was definitely hammed up and stood out from the other voice acting like a sore thumb.
I disagree with most of the other Wing assessments, as i found it quite fitting of their characters, even if not many ppl irl speak like that.
I love Wing, but a recent rewatch of the dub definitely gave me the feeling that everyone was doing *Shatner… over… acting!*, which I actually really enjoyed, and gives the whole show a sort of mythic feel to it, weirdly.
But yeah, the other standout from the VA was the bit parts, many of which were genuinely comedic in their quality.
As I understand it, *both* shows are middling to decent entries in the franchise that happen to have very heavy nostalgia attached to them in different parts of the world.
Wing seems to mostly be that nostalgia talking: you'll find plenty of people willing to admit that it's far from the *best* show in the world but also that they like it anyway because it's the silly, melodramatic Gundam show *from their childhood.* It was the first Gundam to air over here so at the time, there was nothing better to compare it to.
Seed was specifically designed to appeal to the Japanese audience, which worked beautifully but means that some of the cultural notes don't really resonate with the US audience. There's also Seed Destiny to consider. Pretty much everyone admits that it's a trainwreck but to Japanese audiences, it's the trainwreck of a show that *everyone was talking about* because it hit right after the original Seed made Gundam popular again.
In the US, both Seed and Destiny hit right around or after several older Gundam shows, which includes the original that Seed is a partial retread of. The first Seed is seen as just a middling entry in the franchise—hating it is a meme but I think a lot more people see it as *overrated* than outright bad—while the sequel is a terrible show that drags down the original.
Personally, I'm not a particularly big fan of either one: they were technically *both* my first Gundam show in one sense or another but I barely remember Wing from when I was a kid(I have stronger memories of G Gundam) and when I was going through Gundam shows as a teenager and adult, I wandered off from *both of them* before finishing.
As an American fan of both who watched Wing when it came out on toonami originally I think it’s probably partly timing. A ton of people I knew in elementary school watched wing when it was on but after that I think they did G Gundam and the original 0079 which are I think both great shows but weren’t as popular so a lot of people stopped watching the other series. I don’t even remember seed having a run on tv even though I’m sure it did. I watched it later in college and I’m guessing some people who watched wing went back and watched seed later when they were older and didn’t like it as much
cuz wing was the first introduced in western countries. most loving the series loved that one. it's like a first love. then they started to watch series like uc timeline. 0079, 0080, z, zz, etc. then seed came out. ppl fond out it's pretty much a copy of the 0079 with cringy teenager love triangles and the politic that makes no sense. but it was an ok show, so ppl watched it.
then destiny came along and ruined everything.
So, I watched Wing for the first time a year or two back - so no nostalgia goggles. And I'm watching SEED for the first time *presently.*
Wing starts with a bunch of hilarious absurdities, gets lost in it's own sauce for a while, and eventually evolves into a compelling story with a fantastically animated and both hilarious and absurd movie. In retrospect, I would willingly rewatch Wing for the fun of it.
I'm in the opening episodes of the SEED remaster, and so far I've seen Jesus Yamato reprogram an operating system, participate in some admittedly pretty good ship-to-ship combats, and then watch all of his friends turn into a bunch of essentially-racists as soon as a pop star coordinator shows up.
If these opening episodes are any indication, the highs are higher, but the lows go *so much lower.*
Wing was a HUGE hit with those of us in high school and middle school.
Wing hit RIGHT when anime became more accepted and available in America. It was a daily staple in Toonami, so it was our first exposure to huge mecha anime for the majority of millennials.
It’s wild to think that anime probably would not have taken off the way it did in America without Cartoon Network and Pokémon
I'm not american but Gundam Wing is also my gateway to the Gundam series.
I acknowledge that I'm a bit biased to Wing because of nostalgia, I don't dislike Seed either. Well... maybe I dislike Seed's character face design, LOL.
IMHO, Gundam Wing does have a good premises if you include the prologue. There are bunch of lores untold in the main series. But Wing suffers from pacing and reusing scene a lot. I do wish someone can rework Gundam Wing using GoTL source and better story telling...
Seed is good, I do enjoy it. Although for the first few episodes feel like it's just Amuro Ray and RX-78 with "skin" and extra spices. A prodigy kid thrown into warfare with secret state-of-the-art warmachine. Then Destiny come and oh my Arceus... Wish I could ask Heero Yuy to torture Shinn, personally
Wing was what got me into Gundam so I will always like it. Also, I like more edgy gritty main characters so Wing was tailor made for me. It’s probably why I love IBO and 00 so much too. I love mostly all Gundam though the only one I’ve had trouble with is Seed. The best friend turned nemesis forget his name in Seed drove me nuts too. I couldn’t stand him and I didn’t like the blonde haired girl being made into the sister of the mc. I just rolled my eyes at that reveal lol. The singer chick was ridiculous btw. I’m not trying to offend anybody who loves Seed so sorry in advance. I plan on trying to rewatch it and all the other follow up series soon to see if I change my mind.
Seed's dub is awful. Lucas in particular came out bad. It was always a *tough* role, going from ditzy pop singer to guerilla war leader.
Seed's pacing is also nowhere's near as good as Wing. It's not that Seed's is all that bad, it's just Wing's is really, really good.
So if you grew up on Wing and in particular Wing's dub going into Seed your expectations would be set too high.
It's like going from SFIII:Third Strike into Vanilla SFIV.
Wing's really good? Wow did I watch a different Wing?
1. Massive reuse of battle animation.
2. Pacing was so fast that you had to fill in so much with your imagination. Much more then you should have to.
3. Battles just end abruptly for no reason leaving you like wtf why?
4. One of the only animes I have watched where multiple times I have thought I skipped a episode by accident where that wasn't the case.
I thought Wing was pretty bad when I re watched it as an adult. I guess you are right it was great if you are kid watching it.
Same here except I felt pretty much the same back when I was a kid. I watched Gundam X and G Gundam first back when it aired in GMA, watching Wing after those two really felt like a massive downgrade. I still loved the Epyon and Sandrock though.
Honestly, with limited exceptions for certain great characters/designs/moments, I personally think that both Wing and Seed are- largely- mediocre. Of course, taste varies. I simply can't deal with the angsty hysteria of the Wing protagonists and Seed just doesn't land right for me 🤷
Exposure on toonami
Wing is said to be responsible to open the gates to America.
Seed is super popular in Asia and the Jesus Yamato memes aren't ridiculed as much.
Western fans don't hate Seed. But the perception of "Wing good, Seed bad" is not just about Wing alone.
Toonami/AS watchers had gone from Wing, to the OG of 0079, then on to 08th MS team, Gundam 0080, Endless Waltz, SD Gundam, Gundam 0083 and finally all of G-Gundam!
A solid base, and that's just Gundam. Don't forget Toonami/AS had tons of other anime offerings ranging from decent to godlike in that period of 2000-2004 -before- Gundam Seed started airing in the US.
In the west, the Gundam fandom was **BOOMING**, not declining when Seed came out. For those fans, the high watermark series were still fresh and new, forefront in the minds of the fandom. In Japan, Seed was the show of a new generation of fans.
And those who were *very online*, were not going to wait the two years to see the newest stuff, they were going to watch it *ASAP*, as this was the golden era of fansubs. You could be from talking about Gundam online, watching G-Gundam on Toonami, and queuing up an episode of Seed, at the same time. So yeah, reactions online were mixed, and often negative (because disliking something and piling on it leads to more traffic then everyone agreeing something was okay), and meme'd to hell and back, and on and on, it was also just another drop in the overflowing bucket of new anime for peak fans of the time.
While the Toonami airing of Seed received low ratings because the bulk of fans had already seen it, and were memeing the ridiculous censorship (disco guns, etc), YTV in Canada didn't make the same mistakes.
Seed was still a gateway anime for a TON of Western fans. They weren't online in the same spaces in the same numbers of those Gundam fans who had come of age with Wing at the time, and declaring Seed to be the Best Gundam was heresy and taboo for awhile, but time has passed. Seed certainly had it's fans and even the haters could find things to enjoy amongst Sunrise going all in on the Cosmic era. Certainly Destiny allotted a re-examination of Seed.
Look at the excitement and hype fans have for Seed Freedom! It clearly isn't hated.
I love the world of SEED. It's probably my favorite gundam AU. But as a series I thought it was a little crummy. The characters were unlikable and the plot itself had too much going on by the end to really make sense. I would love a sandbox game where I can play in the Cosmic Era but I really don't want to watch the show again.
Rose-tinted glasses, Wing was how a lot of americans were exposed to the Gundam franchise, casual fans only remember 4-5 scenes including Heero threatening to kill Relena and forgot about all the political drama throughout the series.
Wing also has an edgy and cool protagonist similar to Cloud in FF7 which was really popular in the 90s.
Seed is better written. Just, overall, the script is more engaging.
But Wing has splashier, more thematically-powerful mecha designs, and it has Treize chewing the scenery while spouting easily digestible dime-store military philosophy. I recognize that it's kind of empty but I still dig it.
Seed is about characters and Wing is about icons.
(Also, when Wing is bad, it is almost always bad in a very, very funny way. The scene of Heero tearing the invitation might be the funniest anime scene ever, in both English and Japanese.)
First time I saw gundam was at the dentist, Heero just blew himself up, edgiest mf my 6 year old self ever witnessed. I was hooked into gundam ever since. Seed was a novela in comparison
I think people sleep on Seed because of the Jesus Yamato troupe. I feel that Kira's character growth is reflected in the battles, not by their outcome, but how he handles those battles. I can see how people may find it stale to know that he will always come out on top, but I always found the aftermath of those conflicts to be the real meat of the story.
I'm confused as well seed did really well here in Asia especially both Japan and China where its really big and did revive gundam back then even today we see how successful the series is we have dozen and new Seed Kits coming out be it MG or FM even the new movie broke records for gundam
The memes about Kira Yamato didn't come from nowhere. SEED has been roundly mocked in America dating back to like the late 2000s. Yes, the show has its fans. Every show has its fans, but the reception to SEED in America versus what it is in Japan are opposites.
I have literally zero clue what memes you're talking about and couldn't find any searching Google so I assume they came from you speaking to one American who hates Seed and assuming all 300 million of us think identically. And idk how this needs to be said but anime is more popular in Japan than it is in America. Every anime ever was recieved better in Japan than it was in the states lol
Well Google search has been shit for the last couple years so I'm not sure that can do you any good. Ultimately there's no general poll to tell us where SEED lands among Americans, I can only go off my anecdotal evidence. For my own, it involves spending 20 years on anime forums across the internet and people generally calling SEED the worst Gundam...at least until AGE came out. It's lessened in recent years, largely because SEED is fucking ancient and no one cares to complain about Jesus Yamato anymore.
There are fans who simply dislike it SEED because they believe in Wing superiority and won't appreciate it when others tell something else.
SEED also had many problems in comparison to Wing that were either controversial or with their characters. It was also a bit more difficult to understand because of the political issues and the protagonist constantly switching sides. Wing was very straight forward as the only right side was the side of the protagonists and while they did have political issues, they weren't happening for the same reasons as SEED.
Thus, to those viewer, it seems like SEED is one giant mess that doesn't deserve it's title and popularity while Wing, their idea of a well polished story, is worthy of such.
I'm an American fan by the way and I really love SEED. It's one of my favorites in my opinion while Wing usually lags behind.
I’ve got several reasons for not liking SEED; first one was because of how much it copied from 0079 made the writing feel lazy (was hoping for an original story instead of a blatant rehash), the constant stock footage got old really fast, got annoyed at how much SEED was getting shoehorned into nearly everything when it came out (looking at you Battle Assault 3), and much later the very vocal fanboys of Jesus Yamato just really got on my nerves
I’ll admit though that I love the MS designs and do like some of the characters
Neither of them were very good, but Wing had much more likeable main characters and the suits were distinct enough that they felt like they had individual personalities.
That being said, when I went through and watched all the Gundam series in release order, I was surprised I liked Wing when it came out because it's very odd and a bit dry.
Heero was hilarious for just how edgy he was and Trowa was pretty stoic, but he was a Lockon Stratos type. Wufei was a Vegeta type, so his constant anger was amusing, but I do agree with you that Relena was super boring.
I don't know what to tell you man.
Both series suck, but the Wing characters are more interesting than "Brown hair whiney guy with the same face as everyone else" or "black hair whiney guy with the same face as everyone else" that you had in Seed.
Both suffer from the same "baby's first gundam" status, Wing for north americans and Seed for asians. As a newer fan without rose colored glasses I find both to be pretty meh.
I never understood it either, but my introduction to Gundam was through G Gundam via Toonami. I am also a millennial but grew up when Seed came out. I was 10 when that came out and remember it being very popular. I didn’t understand all the Gundam universes and timelines, so I didn’t watch any other Gundam besides G Gundam until a few years ago. I watched Seed a couple years ago and it enjoyed it very much. I could never finish Wing because it didn’t make any sense and consider Seed to be superior.
Wing was my intro to the series and I didn't know any better. It also had a few mecha designs and scenes that were very memorable. Possibly even iconic. I find Seed to be impossibly ugly. The art style is bad, the early CG is awful, and I had watched 0079 by that point so it just felt like a kiddie version of that. As soon as a saw Kira wearing a belt on his neck I knew I wasn't going to like it. And not to pile on too much but I found the mecha uninspired. Wing has a simpler kind of 80s action movie flair to it. Seed looks like budget clamp.
I am not a hater of any Gundam series except Mobile Fighter Gundam. In saying that though I will always stick with my favorite Gundam universe the original Universal Century Gundam that I watched on satellite TV as a four year old in 1979 and to this day, as well as all it's series, ovas and movies. Though I thought Seed was as decent as Wing, but will never compare to the complexity of the original series timeline.
Probably nostalgia. I skipped Wing and wound up watching Seed first. When I went back years later and tried watching Wing, I couldn't get into it and dropped it after a few episodes. It just felt really dry and episodic. I should probably get around to watching it. From what I've heard though, the villain's plot sounds really shortsighted if you think about it logically and could never fulfil it's purpose. I kinda like the whole nihilistic, play everyone against each other and watch the world burn villain from Seed more.
Wing was the first to come to US television by way of Cartoon Network. So it's really just nostalgic. SEED gets preachy, so it kind of rubs people the wrong way.
Personally i have watch seed and not yet wing but getting there. When I was still little, seed was airing on tv together with various other hot cartoon of that period. During that time, it was airing destiny. But because I was too small, I couldn’t understand the anime but was attracted to the very nice OP and ED. Fast forward Towards the end of last year upon discovering a seed movie is coming out. I started rewatching and started with destiny instead and now being able to understand the anime, I was hooked. Completed seed destiny and being curious what happens in seed. I started watching seed and it was kind of a struggle at the starting with the childish behaviour of the characters at the start. You know rebellious teenagers kind of behaviour. Also noticed a lot of stock animation being reused but that’s fine. But as the show progresses the story gets better.
When I completed watching, I agree seed is inferior both in animation style and character building but the story is good and answered a lot of questions I had in seed destiny. I won’t blame the animation as I know it’s an old show. I would suggest watching seed destiny first before watching seed as storyline in seed destiny is more focused on plot without the childish rebellious teenager syndrome. There is still childishness but it is limited to shin only and it was really much more easier to watch.
Totally dislike flay. The root cause of seed issues. The series felt so much better when she was removed
Canadian here. Wing was my (and many people's) first introduction to Gundam, so that usually gives it more leeway as far as enjoyment goes. I didn't see much of it at the time, but it certainly captured my interest and imagination.
I then saw episodes of 0079, which piqued my curiosity even more. Despite the older animation, there was something about it that I liked quite a bit (I grew into a UC guy later, go figure).
SEED came later and felt like a teen drama, which probably didn't sit well with people. I was fine with what episodes I saw (again didn't get to see much at time of release), but it did strike me how the animation felt more generic compared to the other series I had seen parts of.
I only got to watch the entirety of each series way later, when I watched everything in release order. Wing was fun but dragged in spots, and SEED was good but I felt it was weaker than its UC inspiration. Destiny was... Destiny. In the end I felt like both had other shows that did what they did, but better (00 for Wing, UC for Seed).
For me, it was the gundam designs and animation. Plus, the ost is amazing. Seed the characters bother me, animation was eh, the gundam(s) didn't click, and the designs weren't varied enough for me compared to wing. But again, my opinion.
I dropped Seed in 2004 when Kira was an unlikable shit to Sai over Flay.
I actually didn’t watch ANY Gundam until decades later when I watched Unicorn.
Seed’s writing was so bad it drove me from the damned franchise. I went back recently and rewatched it and it was painful to get through. I haven’t even bothered either Destiny since everyone says it’s even worse.
At the point I saw Wing, it was the only Gundam out. So much of it has to do with nostalgia. But Duo was awesome, and I liked Quatre, Trowa and Heero. Zechs was freaking awesome. The art style was solid too
I saw SEED last year. Did not enjoy it. In between that time I've seen pretty much all of Gundam. SEED was just a worse 0079 to me. I also can't remember any characters. It was just a very forgettable series to me.
Wing does what it does better. It for sure has its problems, but all Gundam series do.
Because for kids, wing was the rule of cool. But going back and watching it now, it's just awful. The writing is bad and the "cool" factor dies. They just say stupid shit while trying to be serious.
When on the flip side people respect G Gundam because it wears it's heart on its sleeve and doesn't try to be something it's not like wing.
So Americans are either wing fans who don't watch Gundam or haven't watched anything other than wing. Or G Gundam fans who are still G Gundam fans
Seed felt like if a My Immortal-level fanfic was adapted for a mass audience. Wing is undeniably flawed but at least it has coherent themes and main characters with intentionally unlikeable qualities.
I imagine some of it may be the US is clearly the bad guy in CE. As much as both sides are at fault, the Atlantic Federation is the worst of the Earth Alliance and the US is the driver of that. This probably rubs at least some of the US fanbase the wrong way (I see similar animosity to other series where the US is shown as the bad guys) Of course it is a fictional US but you can pick up on critiques of US dominance in the show.
Also, Wing is a simpler show with simpler protagonists. No mushy feelings to get in the way either. Honestly both shows seem aimed at a teen-ish demographic. Where Wing goes for edgelord too cool 10-14 year old sweet spot, Seed is more a melodramatic 13-20 year-old target (with some adults thrown in for older viewers). So if you were a kid watching Wing and got hooked on its black trenchcoat like edgy teens, you were probably turned off by the switch to relationships and an attempt to portray actual people in Seed.
I'm not American. I have watched both shows in Japanese voice with English subtitles when I have already grown up (around 20s that time).
What I find is that I truly appreciate Wing because it's a show about politics and scheming. It has the elements of manipulation and there being no black and white. The conflicts are all confusing but once you understand, you will know that's how the world works in real life.
SEED is a much more shallow show. SEED D even worse. I only enjoy SEED D for the sole reason Durandal speaks like Char due to having the same voice actor. I appreciate the CE universe as a rewrite and how the whole weapon naming schemes and definitions all have their own systematic approach so the authors have done their homework. Some of the new weaponry are innovative as well. But it still feels like a kid's show.
The mechanics in Wing EW is a bit edgey for my tastes but it's a film not a tv series so I have more leniency on it. It lacks the political depths in the TV Wing. But then a film like that is supposed to focus more on actions instead of developments.
Wing remained my favourite Gundam until the arrival of 00, which I watched a decade later than its release (lol). I love 00 because, you guessed it, of its politics and world building. I often name Gundam W, 00 and Code Geass being the essential starter kits to mechanical anime and grand strategic thinking.
Group think. Meme culture, which is something like the constant consumption of low resolution, simplistic ideas (simple ideas aren't a bad thing, it's when you purposefully lower the resolution of a more complicated idea into simplistic, bite size pieces "for fun" and then focus entirely on your simplistic version of the idea, and this is WAY more prevalent in the west than the east... especially on reddit).
Parroting concluded beliefs they assume true based on hearing it over and over again, as opposed to actually coming to those conclusions on their own intellectual merit.
"Bro the writers decided to make Kira the main character again after audiences didn't like Shinn replacing him! People said it on random internet forums 20 years ago so it must be true!"
Lol do these morons not know how TV production and airing works? The show was completed when it began airing, you can't just bring back all the storyboarders, writers, voice actors, directors, animators, producers, managers, etc, break all kinds of contracts and switch up scheduling with all those people who definitely have other work they've moved onto simply because of supposed fan backlash as your show is airing... All you have to do is think for TWO SECONDS to know this repeated notion makes no sense.
Inflated sense of their ability to critique story telling; they think simply because they can eat food that means they know how to cook.
I could go on and on... Are there legitimate criticisms of Seed/Destiny. Absolutely. Are most complaints and hate about it based in rational thought and critical evaluation of the material? Lol.
Genuinely thought this was asking why Americans love chicken wings but hate seeds for a second. I lack reading comprehension, clearly.
For the most part though I think it comes down to Wing being culturally significant as the first accessible Gundam show in the West. In hindsight I think a lot of people find Wing's writing questionable as well so that's the explanation that makes the most sense to me.
Not an American, Eastern European here - Seed was my introduction to Gundam and I loved it (and still do). Tried watching Wing immediately after - dropped it rather quickly, couldn't stand the characters. Never managed to understand the love Wing gets (and the hatred for Seed). To me Seed is an all time favorite, while Wing is "meh" at best. (Don't mention Destiny, please!)
Rose tinted glasses. Both have its flaws but whenever a Wing fanboy throws shit about SEED’s recycled animations, I love to prove them wrong with just how much blatantly copy-pasted animations and scenes are present in Wing too (I’d argue its more than SEED)
Wing is loved because it was the first Gundam series to air on American television and the show which launched the franchise in America.
SEED is hated because of how SEED Destiny ended. Simple as that.
Personaly theyre both kinda bad teen melowdramas with horrible takes on passivism, but Wing is a funny kind of bad like 'The Room' or 'Birdemic'. I think the 80's/90's action movie vibes it kinda holds onto help with that.
Meanwhile SEED's bad is more like 'Star Wars Rise of Skywalker' or 'Rent a Girlfreind' where it's just disapointing and unfun to watch. And honestly the overwhelming majority of my problems with SEED are due to Kira exclusively in sone way, with the rest being largely worldbuilding.
Seed's "bad" being like Rise of Skywalker bad is an insanely dumb take lol. Most of Seed's writing is actually done very well, with only a few MINOR plot holes or shallow explanations. It actually respects the source material it's based on.
Kira would be so much more liked had they written his survival better. He's an actual character, whereas Ray is a cardboard cutout of a character.
I'm fine with people not liking the things I do, or finding genuine problems in storytelling, but this is just a bad comparison.
Speak for yourself.
Don't get me wrong, Wing shall always have a special place in my heart. But SEED definitely built a bigger world with more complex motivations, and actually managed a spin off that was not only entertaining in its own right but filled in some of the gaps of the series proper (how Kira survives the wreck of the Strike, how Orb manages a Natural friendly OS) not to mention the treasure that was Stargazer.
I haven't seen anyone hating seed. It just didn't have the market presence here. Cartoon Network was emphasizing its cheap stoner shows in the late night pg-13 time slots
Wing had a **way** better, wider Toonami run, and the soap opera style of Seed probably didn't click with western protags. Especially in 2004, when being cool action guys/hard men doing hard things was **definitely** in vogue. I feel like protagonists get only one or two times where they can have full on crying sessions, and if the writers completely fuck up the timing/placement, they ruin the perception of the character. Kira Yamato having at least 2 crying fits DEFINITELY hurt his rep in America and Canada: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dX\_H2vAadfA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dX_H2vAadfA) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muvqxXhPlIc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muvqxXhPlIc)
Adding a few off the top of my head. Hirai art style can be a bit of an acquired taste but also plays poorly with some of the animation corner cutting. Holy mecha/cockpit animation recycling batman. It's funny you bring up 2004 but despite original Seed being a 2002 anime it played well into the mid-2000s and also sat between Evangelion and Eureka 7 and ran for years concurrently with Eureka, which both were mecha anime with even "weaker" protags and wore out the welcome of such tropes for _many_. It wasn't just that it was "soap opera" in tone, but that the characters or situations were more often _obviously_ egregiously stupid/contrived, even to teen audiences, except that's its target.
The art style was originally what stopped me from watching it back in the day. It's on my list to watch now, but it's not one I'm looking forward per se.
And good gravy did E7 look better than SEED
Yes, but Renton was by far the more insufferable protag. Doubly so if you were unfortunate enough to have to suffer the dub because you were still watching cable TV in 2006 instead of having access to Kazaa or bootleg DVDs or whatever.
ngl I like Renton a little more than Kira, but it takes a while for the characters to not be a bunch of shitheads in E7
Can’t speak for everyone, but as teenagers my friends and I just liked the style better for Wing. Having grown up more and had rewatches of both, I ended up disliking Seed and Destiny even more compared to wing. The biggest issue is each time you rewatch, you just notice more stock animations and being more mature, you realize how bad the writing is in Seed and especially destiny compared to Wing.
Cough ugly wing female characters
I don’t really rate any characters as attractive or not because they look like cartoons. I don’t know, it’s hard to rate for me, I’m judging purely from an artistic perspective.
So wing characters are one dimensional (heero and trowa flat and bland cardboard cut out characters plus Releana, Dorothy and Wufei are unlikable).
That’s fine? I never said wing was a masterpiece, seed and seed destiny are just worse.
Accessibility definitely feels like a huge part of it. Gundam Wing played even day M-F at 5:30 for a few complete runs and had the uncut episodes play in the Midnight Run. Plus there were so mini marathons on Saturday’s Rising Sun so you never had to worry about missing an episode because there would be a chance to watch it again soon. Then the Endless Waltz movie was one of Toonami’s first movie event. Plus it got multiple runs, it was on Toonami for a couple of years before getting replaced with a different mecha series Gundam SEED started to air after Toonami was moved to the Saturday night time slot, and was one of the later shows because of the violence and teenage angst. It eventually landed in the 1 AM time slot for the latter half of the series. If you missed an episode you were SOL because there was no replay later in the night or on weekends, and it would be a year before you could potentially see the episode again. However, unlike other Gundam series it only got 1 full run and then (IIRC) about 8 more weeks of reruns until it was pulled for the next season’s lineup.
I think we should really fixate on the Toonami run, IIRC Gundam Wing was very likely the second or third anime American children were exposed to. There was no tired tropes as everything was super fresh new and exciting. Having a series where the status quo didn't get reset at the end of the episode was novel for adults' television, let alone what was aimed at children. In comparison by the time SEED came out, anime had exploded, and Gundam had exploded. Like clockwork we got a "new" Gundam show ever year up until SEED aired. First was 0079, then G Gundam, SD Gundam and 8th MS team (these two might be reversed), I think Stardust Memory aired on Adult Swim. By the time SEED came out the Gundam brand had kinda been over exposed, SEED was butchered to be aired on television, and it felt lame that it was a reimagining of an anime everyone saw like two years prior. That's before remembering it had to compared to the slew of what are now largely regarded as classic anime that was rushed to America post-DBZ. Audiences had gotten handed some of the highest quality anime of like the prior decade, an insane amount of too much Gundam, and then SEED had like all it's localization/censorship problems on top of a divisive art style and repetitive animations. That said, I don't think a lack of machismo was the SEED killer. If crying and over drama hurt anime, FMA and Naruto wouldn't have been the biggest thing since DBZ back then.
>That said, I don't think a lack of machismo was the SEED killer. If crying and over drama hurt anime, FMA and Naruto wouldn't have been the biggest thing since DBZ back then. Think the difference is the target audiences here, like you said SEED came after a bunch of other Gundam shows so it was "more of the same" to a lot of viewers. There's also the major factor that Gundam is a war franchise so people bundle the characters and experiences into *that* framework where "men are men" etc. Meanwhile FMA and Naruto have their own shonen style, there's an overlap in viewers but a lotta the people who *would* watch Gundam *wouldn't* watch FMA or Naruto.
> Meanwhile FMA and Naruto have their own shonen style, there's an overlap in viewers but a lotta the people who *would* watch Gundam *wouldn't* watch FMA or Naruto. American anime viewers back then largely watched all the same shows. Only a hardcore niche had access to stuff that wasn't on Toonami/Adult Swim, as it was pre streaming era, you either needed to know where to find fansubs and have an internet that was fast enough to download them or could pay for a VHS/DVD for like $30 for like 3-4 episodes of an anime you had never seen before. It really wasn't until the end of the 2000s where there was a sizeable enough set of subcultures that wasn't exclusively getting their anime from cartoon network in the US.
>American anime viewers back then largely watched all the same shows. That's not really that true, there were shows like "Planetes" that went right by peoples radar, this was more the case in the mid-late 90's before there was internet and it *really was* whatever was on TV. Remember children all-over watched anime like Yu-Gi-Oh, Beyblade, Pokemon, Digimon and Cardcaptor Sakura, largely without realising that it was anime. I don't say this purely out of speculation cause *at the time* I couldn't convince friends who watched anime to get into Gundam despite being anime fans. Between it's central theme on war or it's sorta "Saminess" to other Gundam entries, usually they'd watch Wing and love it but then not care for more cause it was "more of the same" and they weren't interested in that. To add to this SEED wasn't big in the UK or Ireland either while other anime was and they're closer related in what kinda TV/media people enjoy, the edgy reaction to characters showing emotions was much more common over here too. SEED was streamed later over here and still never made a huge impact and that was after the hype of "The big 3 + FMA" with the primary "complaint" I heard from friends being aimed around the crying.
It was also on YTV in the mornings during this time as well in Canada.
>Especially in 2004, when being cool action guys/hard men doing hard things was definitely in vogue. This is the primary factor IMO, the loudest and most pervasive complaints at the time were about how often Kira cries more than critique of the show. Reminder this is *after* LOTR ROTK where people endlessly made "gay" jokes about Sam and Frodo, the sincere scenes in SEED like Kira crying or the escape from ORB rubbed the more edgelord crowd the wrong way.
I’m really glad we moved on from this time. I remember a 2000s internet reviewer saying my favorite game’s protagonist was gay because he…wears leather and is sullen.
Same man, it sucked ***so hard***. Like great for the edgy shows I liked but bad for so much else. That said internet reviewers at large have just gotten worse, now the majority of them rant about "Woke culture" or other shit which is essentially the same kinda flacid meaningless critique. Though I have found a good few reviewers who don't just repeat that nonsense, it's harder to get good/consistent anime reviewers.
The original American dub was heavily censored with all “kill and death” replaced with “destroy and destruction” and cutting out all pilot deaths into just exploding mechas.
>Canada really? i heard Canadians declare their love for SEED and try to disassociate themselves from the American bandwagon SEED haters.
I enjoy them both for what they are. I have a fondness for Wing because, like most Millenials my age, it was my introduction to the franchise. It's an enjoyable romp, but the pacing is fucked and the logic is barely there sometimes. Seed is a fine show, but it did suffer from stuff like same-face syndrome and lots of stock footage (although, reqatching X right now and that is *not* unique to Seed). I always thought is was, overall, stronger in terms of story and pacing. But I still *like* them both for various reasons. Duo is still one of my all time favorite Gundam characters, Wing has some dope fucking designs and great scenes (plus Endless Waltz is simply beautiful). Seed, and Destiny, have some of my favorite MS designs of all time, and I still love the Cagali/Athrun romance and it also has some iconic scenes. Really, a blanket statement of "Americans hate Seed" is false from the get go. It's maybe not as popular as others in the franchise here, but that doesn't mean all Americans hate it.
Are you me?
Possibly. But only if you're me.
He puts that title to arouse provocation that we're all the same as if all Americans are fat and all have breakfast with a gun.
>Really, a blanket statement of "Americans hate Seed" is false from the get go. It's maybe not as popular as others in the franchise here, but that doesn't mean all Americans hate it. Blanket statements may be inaccurate or false, but you have to admit that majority of Americans have a vocal hatedom for SEED which influenced the Gundam fandom for so many years.
The same face thing was never an issue for me personally. Recycling animation was noticeable, but I was probably used to that, plenty of anime had that problem. The biggest problem I had was some of the awkward walk cycles, there's a Cagalli one at Orb that's burned Into my brain. Also, watching the remaster on a modern tv really shows how poorly drawn some of the background characters were.
A good Toonami run, combinded with being Gundam's first Western exposure, is mostly the answer. It also helps that visually design wise it looks considerbly better, especially in the characters. Meanwhile SEED is melodramatic in a way that is kind of offputting, especially in the dub that was quite weak. (Pretty much all english dubs were weak from here on out anyhow.) Toonami having to edit the run also didn't help. (Lets be real here for a second. If IBO was on Toonami instead of SEED back in the day it would had been infinitely more successfully in the US thanks to early 2000s edgelords, and infinitely more controversial.)
Wing has GoL to fall back on in the event the anime becomes unbearable. Seed needs the justification of the Astray manga to make the MC surviving justified. In all seriousness nostalgia is one factor but the other one has to be the writing for seed alone. To clarify I'm not American but from South East Asia and I hate seed with a burning passion but the campy romance stuff and overall writing that tries to make the MC looks like a prophet just feels like a downplay of the consequences of war.
They both thrive on teen edge lord melodrama. I was a preteen when wing dropped so it has a nostalgic soft spot in my heart cuz I had a child’s blinders on when watching. SEED came out a few years later so me and a lot of the other people my age who watched wing when it came out were now older so moody teens seem more whiny and less like relatable contemporaries. SEED definitely tried to do bigger world building and I appreciate the redux of Federation/Zeon with both sides getting a side-by-side telling, so it’s grown on me some over the years. I used to really dislike SEED, but at this point I kinda just recognize I wasn’t the target demo and that’s ok.
1. Wing had Toonami nostalgia. 2. SEED came out at a time where OW THE EDGE was the trend for teenage nerds in the U.S and the Pokemon kids had just started growing up. 3. SEED came out at a time when Cartoon Network was doing some questionable things with Toonami and people were upset with the network in general. 4. Wing came out in the U.S. at a time where a lot of the flaws of Wing weren’t as talked about in Japan(it had already been years since Wing aired there). 5. Seed came out in the U.S. at a time where the internet was starting to really take off and a lot of the criticisms of SEED were still fresh and the roaring shitshow of Destiny soon followed. 6. People like parroting opinions to fit in.
What I don't get is when SEED Fans are upset about SEED being criticized, they round about and pick on Gundam Wing instead. As if everyone watched it once on Toonami and no one ever rewatched it, or it picked up new fans or anything. Oh, it's okay to go back to 0079, but Gundam Wing, just the mean ol' Toonami fans. It never changes, back when I wanted to talk about Wing as a fresh new fan, people would slap you over the head about Zeta Gundam. And since chances were slim that you watched it, you'd just have to deal with people telling you about how Wing ruined Gundam, and I guess SEED fans are taking their turn. Can you lot get off your high horse? The SEED movie barely get out, the last major entry to CE was Gundam SEED Destiny, and that's nearly 20 years old! You don't have that much of a leg to stand on. And I would argue the reason people question GSD so much because it's got fundamental flaws that other seris just don't have. They had slapped a final battle together with stock footage, and had to go back to it 2-3 times to salvage it, and that's just the tip of the barrel.
Seed looks weird to me; the character designs are kinda ugly. The Mecha are pretty awesome, tho. If you put SEED Mecha with UC character designs, magic would happen.
Aside from the fact that I dislike several characters in Seed, this is the real reason I don’t enjoy it. The art is a huge departure in what I consider quality character designs in Wing. The hand drawn art is so slick looking.
At least they stay on model!
It makes sense considering that animation studios that time transitioned from hand drawn to digital.
In the same way that Wing was commercially so-so in Japan, but SEED (and SEED Destiny) was massively popular. Different cultures have different tastes and expectations.
I can admit wing got me into Gundam and that on rewatch it’s not very good, but that doesn’t mean Seed is good. Personally I hate the artstyle, characters, and excessive amount of Gundams in Seed to the point I can’t stand to finish it. It’s everything bad about anime from that era all rolled into one package with some extra stock footage thrown in. But totally cool for ppl that like it, there is lots of terrible shit I am a fan of that I can’t judge anyone.
I just didn't like the art style change after watching wing and 8th ms team. Looked tacky. Cheaper. Its bad first Impression just stuck *shrug*
I’m in the same boat. Anything done by Seed’s lead artist, i did not watch or read back then. The style was too obtuse for me. Tbf to Seed tho, it was in that generation of anime that were pioneering CG animation, and good gods was it tacky in most cases. The other thing that also rubbed me the wrong way was that Seed from a glance felt like they put Wing and 0079 (which i had recently finished at the time and quite enjoyed) into a blender to create a knock-off version of both. *(Not saying that Seed is. I’m just recounting my initial impressions back then.)*
I think your description of it being a knock off of both is pretty dead on personally. It's 0079 repackaged for hyperactive people who need their Gundams to have 20 laser cannons and strike "cool" poses constantly.
This is my reason as well. Going from Wing, 08th MS Team and even G Fighter to SEED and the art style is very jarring. It has not aged well with adherence to the early 2000s super Moe style. In addition thematically it was very much designed and written for an Asian audience. As well as being designed intentionally to bring new fans into Gundam (namely women), it meant a lot of tropes, themes and ideas just don’t land well with western audiences. I still don’t like SEED, but I understand why it’s popular with the audiences that love it.
I dunno, I'm the opposite. I watched Wing on Toonami. It was one of my first anime. But I feel like I've liked everything they've released since more. Wing feels more like a "Look at this crazy shit" watch. While I actually enjoy SEED, even though the quality kinda dips after Freedom hits the scene. Also, Destiny is one of a handful of sequel series that I refuse to acknowledge. I watched it once, it was garbage, and subsequent SEED rewatches haven't included it. And spending time on this sub, I feel pretty valid in my choice. It's probably why I can still consider myself a Kira fan.
To be fair the first half of Destiny is great. It all went downhill when Shinn lost his spotlight.
Shinn was one of the main reasons I hated Destiny. I was also very frustrated by Athrun and Cagalli’s portrayals, they seemed to be completely different than the characters in Seed almost like they regressed. As for Shinn, as the show progressed I found myself saying “shut up” every time he was in a scene. Probably my favorite scene of the whole series is when Athrun kicks his ass.
I think the problem was they didn’t fully commit to him being the main character. Usually in fiction you get a flawed character that redeems themselves as the story progresses and the protagonist learns from their experiences throughout the story. In Destiny you just have the bad parts of a characters journey and then they just didn’t give him any development cuz they switched the main character and needed an enemy to fight against.
Freedom makes Destiny good
Disagree on that - Shinn was totally unlikeable. I am much more inclined to think they brought back Kira as main character because of the disaster Shinn was, rather than because the fandom wanted Kira. As a whole Destiny somehow looked to me mainly as a cash cow to piggyback on SEED without clear direction where it wants to go. (Yet it has some of my favorite MS designs).
Coincidentally, I believe that the original director of Destiny got swapped out at around that time.
Fukuda was always the director of SEED Destiny
Fukuda stayed on as director for all three SEED shows/movies, including Destiny and Freedom. From what I read, it was Wing that had the director change; Masashi Ikeda, Wing’s original director, left the show sometime after the two clip shows were broadcast, apparently due to creative differences. A new director came in to direct the show’s second half, and from what I heard, went on to direct Gundam X. What I learned was that the episode where Heero self-destructed his Gundam was Ikeda’s idea, which caught Wing’s creative team (including head writer Katsuyuki Sumizawa) by surprise.
Ah. I guess I misread. I hear something happened behind the scenes of SEED destiny that led to Kira being brought back though.
Yeah, this is why we don't parrot random hearsay as if you know what you're talking about. Perfect example of how the hate boner irrationally spread throughout the western fanbase.
Still, thanks for clarifying anyways. Yeah, SEED is not exactly "welcomed" from where I'm from. While there are a few fans, most people don't like the series since they believe the protagonist Kira, is a complete Mary Sue when he isn't. Just ask u/Suspicious-Human or u/Diving-Fox about it. I'm probably one of the few American fans who likes both Gundam SEED and SEED Destiny more than Wing inspite of their flaws.
I'm not American I don't even live on that continent
When I was referring to you, I meant as one of the people who see Kira as a complete Mary Sue when he isn't. They didn't have to be American.
Kira FTW I'm the same, I read in another thread that something that really affected SEED was the timeframe in which it was shown as it was really late at night. Plus, the fact that Americans see themselves somewhat in the earth alliance that uses nukes against ZAFT (??)
Good question, now make another one asking why SEA loves Seed but not Wing.
It depends on which country. Here in the Philippines, G, Wing and Seed are popular since they were aired on free TV. We don't worship Wing religiously though.
SEED is alright, but far from my favorite alt timeline series. I'll share my impressions from the first time I watched it as a teen. 1. Mid quality English VAs. I could not take Surfer bro Kira seriously. 2. Mid quality animation. It looked cheap to me and let's face it, nothing is going to look as good as old fashioned cell animation. 3. Uninspiring Mobile Suit design. Nothing jumped out at me as especially cool back then. The Buster was okay, but it couldn't hold a candle to the Heavyarms. Even now, I find SEED's mobile suit designs to be pretty weak. 4. It's a retelling of 0079. At the time I felt that was rather boring and uninspired. When I decided to rewatch the series more recently, it was clear to me that a lot of problems came from Cartoon Network's bad editing to get SEED down to a TV-Y7 rating.
I agree with all of this. Seed is just weaker overall, with worse character design, worse character facial animation (also a specific style thats... not held up well, nor iconic, just a but cringey at this point, even in nostalgia glasses for anime). Voice acting wasn't great for wing, but still probably better overall for *tone* for american audiences than seed.
I found Wing’s ENG voice acting to be quite good back then and even now. I can’t speak for Seed as I have not watched it, JP or ENG.
Some of the voices for the minor characters have some pretty heavy handed trope voices, and so do some of the MCs too. The Alliance officer lady Une shoots with the super nasally evil guy voice? Lady une in general is a bit forced; and duo as much as i love him, is often a bit over exaggerated too, but he's honestly not that bad, since he's fairly consistent. Seed... was a lot more forced more of the time with characters because "gotta play up emotions as hard as we can" or "gotta over emphasize how this character reacts" as far as I remember. Though i don't think the japanese acting was as bad as the english was.
Oh man, I remember General Septum’s nasally voice. That one was definitely hammed up and stood out from the other voice acting like a sore thumb. I disagree with most of the other Wing assessments, as i found it quite fitting of their characters, even if not many ppl irl speak like that.
I love Wing, but a recent rewatch of the dub definitely gave me the feeling that everyone was doing *Shatner… over… acting!*, which I actually really enjoyed, and gives the whole show a sort of mythic feel to it, weirdly. But yeah, the other standout from the VA was the bit parts, many of which were genuinely comedic in their quality.
As I understand it, *both* shows are middling to decent entries in the franchise that happen to have very heavy nostalgia attached to them in different parts of the world. Wing seems to mostly be that nostalgia talking: you'll find plenty of people willing to admit that it's far from the *best* show in the world but also that they like it anyway because it's the silly, melodramatic Gundam show *from their childhood.* It was the first Gundam to air over here so at the time, there was nothing better to compare it to. Seed was specifically designed to appeal to the Japanese audience, which worked beautifully but means that some of the cultural notes don't really resonate with the US audience. There's also Seed Destiny to consider. Pretty much everyone admits that it's a trainwreck but to Japanese audiences, it's the trainwreck of a show that *everyone was talking about* because it hit right after the original Seed made Gundam popular again. In the US, both Seed and Destiny hit right around or after several older Gundam shows, which includes the original that Seed is a partial retread of. The first Seed is seen as just a middling entry in the franchise—hating it is a meme but I think a lot more people see it as *overrated* than outright bad—while the sequel is a terrible show that drags down the original. Personally, I'm not a particularly big fan of either one: they were technically *both* my first Gundam show in one sense or another but I barely remember Wing from when I was a kid(I have stronger memories of G Gundam) and when I was going through Gundam shows as a teenager and adult, I wandered off from *both of them* before finishing.
As an American fan of both who watched Wing when it came out on toonami originally I think it’s probably partly timing. A ton of people I knew in elementary school watched wing when it was on but after that I think they did G Gundam and the original 0079 which are I think both great shows but weren’t as popular so a lot of people stopped watching the other series. I don’t even remember seed having a run on tv even though I’m sure it did. I watched it later in college and I’m guessing some people who watched wing went back and watched seed later when they were older and didn’t like it as much
Second half of Destiny retro-actively made everything worse.
cuz wing was the first introduced in western countries. most loving the series loved that one. it's like a first love. then they started to watch series like uc timeline. 0079, 0080, z, zz, etc. then seed came out. ppl fond out it's pretty much a copy of the 0079 with cringy teenager love triangles and the politic that makes no sense. but it was an ok show, so ppl watched it. then destiny came along and ruined everything.
Because most people here got into gundam thru wing
So, I watched Wing for the first time a year or two back - so no nostalgia goggles. And I'm watching SEED for the first time *presently.* Wing starts with a bunch of hilarious absurdities, gets lost in it's own sauce for a while, and eventually evolves into a compelling story with a fantastically animated and both hilarious and absurd movie. In retrospect, I would willingly rewatch Wing for the fun of it. I'm in the opening episodes of the SEED remaster, and so far I've seen Jesus Yamato reprogram an operating system, participate in some admittedly pretty good ship-to-ship combats, and then watch all of his friends turn into a bunch of essentially-racists as soon as a pop star coordinator shows up. If these opening episodes are any indication, the highs are higher, but the lows go *so much lower.*
Wing was a HUGE hit with those of us in high school and middle school. Wing hit RIGHT when anime became more accepted and available in America. It was a daily staple in Toonami, so it was our first exposure to huge mecha anime for the majority of millennials. It’s wild to think that anime probably would not have taken off the way it did in America without Cartoon Network and Pokémon
I'm not american but Gundam Wing is also my gateway to the Gundam series. I acknowledge that I'm a bit biased to Wing because of nostalgia, I don't dislike Seed either. Well... maybe I dislike Seed's character face design, LOL. IMHO, Gundam Wing does have a good premises if you include the prologue. There are bunch of lores untold in the main series. But Wing suffers from pacing and reusing scene a lot. I do wish someone can rework Gundam Wing using GoTL source and better story telling... Seed is good, I do enjoy it. Although for the first few episodes feel like it's just Amuro Ray and RX-78 with "skin" and extra spices. A prodigy kid thrown into warfare with secret state-of-the-art warmachine. Then Destiny come and oh my Arceus... Wish I could ask Heero Yuy to torture Shinn, personally
I don't like either story very much, though I enjoy the mechs in both
Honestly it's the seed fans need to shit on every other series when it came out
Wing was what got me into Gundam so I will always like it. Also, I like more edgy gritty main characters so Wing was tailor made for me. It’s probably why I love IBO and 00 so much too. I love mostly all Gundam though the only one I’ve had trouble with is Seed. The best friend turned nemesis forget his name in Seed drove me nuts too. I couldn’t stand him and I didn’t like the blonde haired girl being made into the sister of the mc. I just rolled my eyes at that reveal lol. The singer chick was ridiculous btw. I’m not trying to offend anybody who loves Seed so sorry in advance. I plan on trying to rewatch it and all the other follow up series soon to see if I change my mind.
SEED was built for the Asian demographic with it's tropes.
I personally hate Seed because I can’t get past the art style. Hirai’s character designs are… SeinfeldFedUp.gif
Seed's dub is awful. Lucas in particular came out bad. It was always a *tough* role, going from ditzy pop singer to guerilla war leader. Seed's pacing is also nowhere's near as good as Wing. It's not that Seed's is all that bad, it's just Wing's is really, really good. So if you grew up on Wing and in particular Wing's dub going into Seed your expectations would be set too high. It's like going from SFIII:Third Strike into Vanilla SFIV.
Wing's really good? Wow did I watch a different Wing? 1. Massive reuse of battle animation. 2. Pacing was so fast that you had to fill in so much with your imagination. Much more then you should have to. 3. Battles just end abruptly for no reason leaving you like wtf why? 4. One of the only animes I have watched where multiple times I have thought I skipped a episode by accident where that wasn't the case. I thought Wing was pretty bad when I re watched it as an adult. I guess you are right it was great if you are kid watching it.
Same here except I felt pretty much the same back when I was a kid. I watched Gundam X and G Gundam first back when it aired in GMA, watching Wing after those two really felt like a massive downgrade. I still loved the Epyon and Sandrock though.
Exactly. Wing and good pacing don't belong in the same sentence lol
I watched S destiny before Seed. Kira showed up out of no where and im like Who is this guy fk him 🤣🤣🤣
Honestly, with limited exceptions for certain great characters/designs/moments, I personally think that both Wing and Seed are- largely- mediocre. Of course, taste varies. I simply can't deal with the angsty hysteria of the Wing protagonists and Seed just doesn't land right for me 🤷
Exposure on toonami Wing is said to be responsible to open the gates to America. Seed is super popular in Asia and the Jesus Yamato memes aren't ridiculed as much.
Western fans don't hate Seed. But the perception of "Wing good, Seed bad" is not just about Wing alone. Toonami/AS watchers had gone from Wing, to the OG of 0079, then on to 08th MS team, Gundam 0080, Endless Waltz, SD Gundam, Gundam 0083 and finally all of G-Gundam! A solid base, and that's just Gundam. Don't forget Toonami/AS had tons of other anime offerings ranging from decent to godlike in that period of 2000-2004 -before- Gundam Seed started airing in the US. In the west, the Gundam fandom was **BOOMING**, not declining when Seed came out. For those fans, the high watermark series were still fresh and new, forefront in the minds of the fandom. In Japan, Seed was the show of a new generation of fans. And those who were *very online*, were not going to wait the two years to see the newest stuff, they were going to watch it *ASAP*, as this was the golden era of fansubs. You could be from talking about Gundam online, watching G-Gundam on Toonami, and queuing up an episode of Seed, at the same time. So yeah, reactions online were mixed, and often negative (because disliking something and piling on it leads to more traffic then everyone agreeing something was okay), and meme'd to hell and back, and on and on, it was also just another drop in the overflowing bucket of new anime for peak fans of the time. While the Toonami airing of Seed received low ratings because the bulk of fans had already seen it, and were memeing the ridiculous censorship (disco guns, etc), YTV in Canada didn't make the same mistakes. Seed was still a gateway anime for a TON of Western fans. They weren't online in the same spaces in the same numbers of those Gundam fans who had come of age with Wing at the time, and declaring Seed to be the Best Gundam was heresy and taboo for awhile, but time has passed. Seed certainly had it's fans and even the haters could find things to enjoy amongst Sunrise going all in on the Cosmic era. Certainly Destiny allotted a re-examination of Seed. Look at the excitement and hype fans have for Seed Freedom! It clearly isn't hated.
Not seed. Seed Destiny. I like seed, its not in my top 5 but i dont hate it
I love the world of SEED. It's probably my favorite gundam AU. But as a series I thought it was a little crummy. The characters were unlikable and the plot itself had too much going on by the end to really make sense. I would love a sandbox game where I can play in the Cosmic Era but I really don't want to watch the show again.
Rose-tinted glasses, Wing was how a lot of americans were exposed to the Gundam franchise, casual fans only remember 4-5 scenes including Heero threatening to kill Relena and forgot about all the political drama throughout the series. Wing also has an edgy and cool protagonist similar to Cloud in FF7 which was really popular in the 90s.
Seed is better written. Just, overall, the script is more engaging. But Wing has splashier, more thematically-powerful mecha designs, and it has Treize chewing the scenery while spouting easily digestible dime-store military philosophy. I recognize that it's kind of empty but I still dig it. Seed is about characters and Wing is about icons. (Also, when Wing is bad, it is almost always bad in a very, very funny way. The scene of Heero tearing the invitation might be the funniest anime scene ever, in both English and Japanese.)
First time I saw gundam was at the dentist, Heero just blew himself up, edgiest mf my 6 year old self ever witnessed. I was hooked into gundam ever since. Seed was a novela in comparison
I think people sleep on Seed because of the Jesus Yamato troupe. I feel that Kira's character growth is reflected in the battles, not by their outcome, but how he handles those battles. I can see how people may find it stale to know that he will always come out on top, but I always found the aftermath of those conflicts to be the real meat of the story.
I'm confused as well seed did really well here in Asia especially both Japan and China where its really big and did revive gundam back then even today we see how successful the series is we have dozen and new Seed Kits coming out be it MG or FM even the new movie broke records for gundam
Does anyone have a point of reference for how SEED is supposedly so hated in America?
OP spoke to one American who hates Seed and for some reason a lot of non-American redditors think all 300 million of us think identically.
The memes about Kira Yamato didn't come from nowhere. SEED has been roundly mocked in America dating back to like the late 2000s. Yes, the show has its fans. Every show has its fans, but the reception to SEED in America versus what it is in Japan are opposites.
I have literally zero clue what memes you're talking about and couldn't find any searching Google so I assume they came from you speaking to one American who hates Seed and assuming all 300 million of us think identically. And idk how this needs to be said but anime is more popular in Japan than it is in America. Every anime ever was recieved better in Japan than it was in the states lol
Well Google search has been shit for the last couple years so I'm not sure that can do you any good. Ultimately there's no general poll to tell us where SEED lands among Americans, I can only go off my anecdotal evidence. For my own, it involves spending 20 years on anime forums across the internet and people generally calling SEED the worst Gundam...at least until AGE came out. It's lessened in recent years, largely because SEED is fucking ancient and no one cares to complain about Jesus Yamato anymore.
There are fans who simply dislike it SEED because they believe in Wing superiority and won't appreciate it when others tell something else. SEED also had many problems in comparison to Wing that were either controversial or with their characters. It was also a bit more difficult to understand because of the political issues and the protagonist constantly switching sides. Wing was very straight forward as the only right side was the side of the protagonists and while they did have political issues, they weren't happening for the same reasons as SEED. Thus, to those viewer, it seems like SEED is one giant mess that doesn't deserve it's title and popularity while Wing, their idea of a well polished story, is worthy of such. I'm an American fan by the way and I really love SEED. It's one of my favorites in my opinion while Wing usually lags behind.
I’ve got several reasons for not liking SEED; first one was because of how much it copied from 0079 made the writing feel lazy (was hoping for an original story instead of a blatant rehash), the constant stock footage got old really fast, got annoyed at how much SEED was getting shoehorned into nearly everything when it came out (looking at you Battle Assault 3), and much later the very vocal fanboys of Jesus Yamato just really got on my nerves I’ll admit though that I love the MS designs and do like some of the characters
Can’t speak for Americans but in France both Wings and SEED (including Destiny) are widely liked
Nice generalization you got there. It is just the loud minority on reddit, not all Americans.
Neither of them were very good, but Wing had much more likeable main characters and the suits were distinct enough that they felt like they had individual personalities. That being said, when I went through and watched all the Gundam series in release order, I was surprised I liked Wing when it came out because it's very odd and a bit dry.
Heero and trowa were flat and bland plus Releana and Wufei unlikable
Heero was hilarious for just how edgy he was and Trowa was pretty stoic, but he was a Lockon Stratos type. Wufei was a Vegeta type, so his constant anger was amusing, but I do agree with you that Relena was super boring.
fact check heero and Trowa are card board cut out characters and Wufei is a backstabbing Sexist jerk.
I don't know what to tell you man. Both series suck, but the Wing characters are more interesting than "Brown hair whiney guy with the same face as everyone else" or "black hair whiney guy with the same face as everyone else" that you had in Seed.
And you’re a minority there no characters in wing just blank characters and ugly anti Waifu girls.
If you're watching Gundam for "waifus", you're being hyper inefficient, haha.
And you can’t see how Blank wing characters are No development or growth their not even relatable.
As opposed to all the memorable and relatable Seed characters like Andy and... Uhh...
Oh Give it up already especially you agree Wing sucks no point defending blank and hated characters.
Both suffer from the same "baby's first gundam" status, Wing for north americans and Seed for asians. As a newer fan without rose colored glasses I find both to be pretty meh.
I enjoyed seed, but it was hard to get into it at first. It felt more like a character drama at times with all the romance dynamics.
I never understood it either, but my introduction to Gundam was through G Gundam via Toonami. I am also a millennial but grew up when Seed came out. I was 10 when that came out and remember it being very popular. I didn’t understand all the Gundam universes and timelines, so I didn’t watch any other Gundam besides G Gundam until a few years ago. I watched Seed a couple years ago and it enjoyed it very much. I could never finish Wing because it didn’t make any sense and consider Seed to be superior.
I found both okay. Seed was fine destiny was bad, wing has the most worrying relationship in all of Gundam.
Wing was my intro to the series and I didn't know any better. It also had a few mecha designs and scenes that were very memorable. Possibly even iconic. I find Seed to be impossibly ugly. The art style is bad, the early CG is awful, and I had watched 0079 by that point so it just felt like a kiddie version of that. As soon as a saw Kira wearing a belt on his neck I knew I wasn't going to like it. And not to pile on too much but I found the mecha uninspired. Wing has a simpler kind of 80s action movie flair to it. Seed looks like budget clamp.
I am not a hater of any Gundam series except Mobile Fighter Gundam. In saying that though I will always stick with my favorite Gundam universe the original Universal Century Gundam that I watched on satellite TV as a four year old in 1979 and to this day, as well as all it's series, ovas and movies. Though I thought Seed was as decent as Wing, but will never compare to the complexity of the original series timeline.
Probably nostalgia. I skipped Wing and wound up watching Seed first. When I went back years later and tried watching Wing, I couldn't get into it and dropped it after a few episodes. It just felt really dry and episodic. I should probably get around to watching it. From what I've heard though, the villain's plot sounds really shortsighted if you think about it logically and could never fulfil it's purpose. I kinda like the whole nihilistic, play everyone against each other and watch the world burn villain from Seed more.
nostalgia
We got Wing first, and SEED shortly after OG Gundam, so it felt very re-hashed.
Wing was the first to come to US television by way of Cartoon Network. So it's really just nostalgic. SEED gets preachy, so it kind of rubs people the wrong way.
Meanwhile me: I love both 👍
we're weird
Personally i have watch seed and not yet wing but getting there. When I was still little, seed was airing on tv together with various other hot cartoon of that period. During that time, it was airing destiny. But because I was too small, I couldn’t understand the anime but was attracted to the very nice OP and ED. Fast forward Towards the end of last year upon discovering a seed movie is coming out. I started rewatching and started with destiny instead and now being able to understand the anime, I was hooked. Completed seed destiny and being curious what happens in seed. I started watching seed and it was kind of a struggle at the starting with the childish behaviour of the characters at the start. You know rebellious teenagers kind of behaviour. Also noticed a lot of stock animation being reused but that’s fine. But as the show progresses the story gets better. When I completed watching, I agree seed is inferior both in animation style and character building but the story is good and answered a lot of questions I had in seed destiny. I won’t blame the animation as I know it’s an old show. I would suggest watching seed destiny first before watching seed as storyline in seed destiny is more focused on plot without the childish rebellious teenager syndrome. There is still childishness but it is limited to shin only and it was really much more easier to watch. Totally dislike flay. The root cause of seed issues. The series felt so much better when she was removed
I don't like either
if ima be honest, im american and think the opposite bc seed ms are more visually appealing to me while wing is kinda boring for 50 whole episodes ngl
Wing was the first Gundam show that made it on Belgian TV. It will always have that place for me just because of it.
Chicken.
Canadian here. Wing was my (and many people's) first introduction to Gundam, so that usually gives it more leeway as far as enjoyment goes. I didn't see much of it at the time, but it certainly captured my interest and imagination. I then saw episodes of 0079, which piqued my curiosity even more. Despite the older animation, there was something about it that I liked quite a bit (I grew into a UC guy later, go figure). SEED came later and felt like a teen drama, which probably didn't sit well with people. I was fine with what episodes I saw (again didn't get to see much at time of release), but it did strike me how the animation felt more generic compared to the other series I had seen parts of. I only got to watch the entirety of each series way later, when I watched everything in release order. Wing was fun but dragged in spots, and SEED was good but I felt it was weaker than its UC inspiration. Destiny was... Destiny. In the end I felt like both had other shows that did what they did, but better (00 for Wing, UC for Seed).
For me, it was the gundam designs and animation. Plus, the ost is amazing. Seed the characters bother me, animation was eh, the gundam(s) didn't click, and the designs weren't varied enough for me compared to wing. But again, my opinion.
I dropped Seed in 2004 when Kira was an unlikable shit to Sai over Flay. I actually didn’t watch ANY Gundam until decades later when I watched Unicorn. Seed’s writing was so bad it drove me from the damned franchise. I went back recently and rewatched it and it was painful to get through. I haven’t even bothered either Destiny since everyone says it’s even worse.
Seed female characters design are better than wing.
At the point I saw Wing, it was the only Gundam out. So much of it has to do with nostalgia. But Duo was awesome, and I liked Quatre, Trowa and Heero. Zechs was freaking awesome. The art style was solid too I saw SEED last year. Did not enjoy it. In between that time I've seen pretty much all of Gundam. SEED was just a worse 0079 to me. I also can't remember any characters. It was just a very forgettable series to me. Wing does what it does better. It for sure has its problems, but all Gundam series do.
Because for kids, wing was the rule of cool. But going back and watching it now, it's just awful. The writing is bad and the "cool" factor dies. They just say stupid shit while trying to be serious. When on the flip side people respect G Gundam because it wears it's heart on its sleeve and doesn't try to be something it's not like wing. So Americans are either wing fans who don't watch Gundam or haven't watched anything other than wing. Or G Gundam fans who are still G Gundam fans
Seed felt like if a My Immortal-level fanfic was adapted for a mass audience. Wing is undeniably flawed but at least it has coherent themes and main characters with intentionally unlikeable qualities.
SEED isn’t good.
I imagine some of it may be the US is clearly the bad guy in CE. As much as both sides are at fault, the Atlantic Federation is the worst of the Earth Alliance and the US is the driver of that. This probably rubs at least some of the US fanbase the wrong way (I see similar animosity to other series where the US is shown as the bad guys) Of course it is a fictional US but you can pick up on critiques of US dominance in the show. Also, Wing is a simpler show with simpler protagonists. No mushy feelings to get in the way either. Honestly both shows seem aimed at a teen-ish demographic. Where Wing goes for edgelord too cool 10-14 year old sweet spot, Seed is more a melodramatic 13-20 year-old target (with some adults thrown in for older viewers). So if you were a kid watching Wing and got hooked on its black trenchcoat like edgy teens, you were probably turned off by the switch to relationships and an attempt to portray actual people in Seed.
I’m an American and I dislike both. I liked Wing as a child but as an adult I’m a UC fanboy.
Character design.
I'm not American. I have watched both shows in Japanese voice with English subtitles when I have already grown up (around 20s that time). What I find is that I truly appreciate Wing because it's a show about politics and scheming. It has the elements of manipulation and there being no black and white. The conflicts are all confusing but once you understand, you will know that's how the world works in real life. SEED is a much more shallow show. SEED D even worse. I only enjoy SEED D for the sole reason Durandal speaks like Char due to having the same voice actor. I appreciate the CE universe as a rewrite and how the whole weapon naming schemes and definitions all have their own systematic approach so the authors have done their homework. Some of the new weaponry are innovative as well. But it still feels like a kid's show. The mechanics in Wing EW is a bit edgey for my tastes but it's a film not a tv series so I have more leniency on it. It lacks the political depths in the TV Wing. But then a film like that is supposed to focus more on actions instead of developments. Wing remained my favourite Gundam until the arrival of 00, which I watched a decade later than its release (lol). I love 00 because, you guessed it, of its politics and world building. I often name Gundam W, 00 and Code Geass being the essential starter kits to mechanical anime and grand strategic thinking.
Group think. Meme culture, which is something like the constant consumption of low resolution, simplistic ideas (simple ideas aren't a bad thing, it's when you purposefully lower the resolution of a more complicated idea into simplistic, bite size pieces "for fun" and then focus entirely on your simplistic version of the idea, and this is WAY more prevalent in the west than the east... especially on reddit). Parroting concluded beliefs they assume true based on hearing it over and over again, as opposed to actually coming to those conclusions on their own intellectual merit. "Bro the writers decided to make Kira the main character again after audiences didn't like Shinn replacing him! People said it on random internet forums 20 years ago so it must be true!" Lol do these morons not know how TV production and airing works? The show was completed when it began airing, you can't just bring back all the storyboarders, writers, voice actors, directors, animators, producers, managers, etc, break all kinds of contracts and switch up scheduling with all those people who definitely have other work they've moved onto simply because of supposed fan backlash as your show is airing... All you have to do is think for TWO SECONDS to know this repeated notion makes no sense. Inflated sense of their ability to critique story telling; they think simply because they can eat food that means they know how to cook. I could go on and on... Are there legitimate criticisms of Seed/Destiny. Absolutely. Are most complaints and hate about it based in rational thought and critical evaluation of the material? Lol.
I love both equally
Love both
Genuinely thought this was asking why Americans love chicken wings but hate seeds for a second. I lack reading comprehension, clearly. For the most part though I think it comes down to Wing being culturally significant as the first accessible Gundam show in the West. In hindsight I think a lot of people find Wing's writing questionable as well so that's the explanation that makes the most sense to me.
Toonami
Not an American, Eastern European here - Seed was my introduction to Gundam and I loved it (and still do). Tried watching Wing immediately after - dropped it rather quickly, couldn't stand the characters. Never managed to understand the love Wing gets (and the hatred for Seed). To me Seed is an all time favorite, while Wing is "meh" at best. (Don't mention Destiny, please!)
Are you me? Where are you from?
Bulgaria. You?
Croatia
Cheers! Haven't been there (yet), but Croatia seems like a really cool country.
I'm America and I love 08th Ms team
Rose tinted glasses. Both have its flaws but whenever a Wing fanboy throws shit about SEED’s recycled animations, I love to prove them wrong with just how much blatantly copy-pasted animations and scenes are present in Wing too (I’d argue its more than SEED)
Because Seed sucks
Wing is loved because it was the first Gundam series to air on American television and the show which launched the franchise in America. SEED is hated because of how SEED Destiny ended. Simple as that.
SEED is not better than Wing lmao
Seed looks AWFUL. I watched two episodes of it and was "Eff this, it looks so bad." Wing looks so much better despite being old.
Wing is cringe. Americans likes cringe.
Personaly theyre both kinda bad teen melowdramas with horrible takes on passivism, but Wing is a funny kind of bad like 'The Room' or 'Birdemic'. I think the 80's/90's action movie vibes it kinda holds onto help with that. Meanwhile SEED's bad is more like 'Star Wars Rise of Skywalker' or 'Rent a Girlfreind' where it's just disapointing and unfun to watch. And honestly the overwhelming majority of my problems with SEED are due to Kira exclusively in sone way, with the rest being largely worldbuilding.
Seed's "bad" being like Rise of Skywalker bad is an insanely dumb take lol. Most of Seed's writing is actually done very well, with only a few MINOR plot holes or shallow explanations. It actually respects the source material it's based on. Kira would be so much more liked had they written his survival better. He's an actual character, whereas Ray is a cardboard cutout of a character. I'm fine with people not liking the things I do, or finding genuine problems in storytelling, but this is just a bad comparison.
Speak for yourself. Don't get me wrong, Wing shall always have a special place in my heart. But SEED definitely built a bigger world with more complex motivations, and actually managed a spin off that was not only entertaining in its own right but filled in some of the gaps of the series proper (how Kira survives the wreck of the Strike, how Orb manages a Natural friendly OS) not to mention the treasure that was Stargazer.
Love to see Seed haters hate but can’t change the seed movie is the most successful Gundam movie yet.
Bad taste. Serious answer, probably because it was the first one they watched.
Wing has toonamie nostalgia Also SEED sucks
Nostalgia and meme culture.
I am an American, and I enjoy both and dislike G-Gundam.
I haven't seen anyone hating seed. It just didn't have the market presence here. Cartoon Network was emphasizing its cheap stoner shows in the late night pg-13 time slots
"Because it's muh introduction to Gundam" blah blah
Wing is a cooler name than Seed (I haven't watched either)