Zeta vs. Seed

[Kiba-kun]

From looking around various forums and sites, it seems that (disregarding people that have only seen one series) Zeta is the most popular UC series and Seed is the most popular AU (followed by V and X, if anyone's interested).

So I wanted to get a discussion going over which one is the better series overall. All the stuff I say below is strictly IMO, so no "You disagree with me therefore you're stupid" comments, please.

Both series have a fantastic, well-crafted storyline that really keeps you going. Let's take a look at both series. For SEED, Bartfeld's bizarre and unexplained survival really puzzles me (if anyone can explain this, please tell me!). Serious points knocked off for that. However, the Coordinator/Natural thing, coupled with Blue Cosmos, was simply fantastic, and the three romances (KiraLux, AsuCaga, FragaMurrue) were the best romances I have ever seen in an action-based anime. And of course, the Kira/Asuran and Fraga/Klueze rivalries were brilliant.

Zeta had some confusing parts, especially the side-swapping weirdness at the end. One minute they're with Axis, next minute they aren't, offering no real explanation as to why. Also, Zeta Gundam's arrival wasn't really well explained; it kinda appeared out of nowhere, and I had to look up online as to where it came from.

However, the relationship between Camille and both artificial newtypes was fantastic. Also, having Char as a 'good guy' was brilliant, and seeing almost all the 0079 crew again was great. Shame Sayla didn't do anything interesting, though, and Amuro was wasted.

Unfortunately, I just didn't feel for the characters of Zeta as much as the Seed ones. Maybe it was their old-fashioned design.

Mecha in both series were great; Zeta and Strike both had wonderful smooth lines, giving them a sleek but powerful impression. However, both Mk. II and Freedom suffered from jagged vents and ugly heads. The Hyaku-Shiki and Rick Dias both are some of my favourite suit designs, but some of the Titan's transforming suits were hideous, and the Methuss wasn't that nice either. Aegis, despite its stupid name, looked great, as did Buster and Blitz. In fact, I loved all the Seed mecha, although towards the end of the series they went downhill (a trend which carried on into Destiny). Freedom, Justice, Forbidden, Calamity and Raider just didn't do it for me.

So, overall I'd say Seed was my favourite, but it's very close. Anyone else?

By the way, I have a VERY strong suspiscion that Tomino wrote the last 5 or so episodes of Seed. The whole set-up reeks of him, and the numerous dramatic character deaths and dead people's spirits talking to Kira adds to it. Anyone know if I'm right or wrong?

[Mindless]

Well, I can't say much about Gundam Z, because I haven't been able to download it. However, I've seen around 10 episodes of Double Zeta, and suprisingly, I really like it, despite it's age, it's really well made. Very colorful characters, quite cool battles and stuff like that.

However, It's quite hard to compare an almost 20 year old anime to a couple of years/month old one. Double Zeta is a great anime to be that old, quite developed if you compare it to normal cartoons from that era.

As for Gundam SEED / Destiny. It's perfect, for me, it's a anime nirvana, to be able to watch such quality anime's. SEED / Destiny's storyline is very intresting, characters you litteraly fall in love with (Kira, Lacus, Athrun, etc. etc.), the drama that is wrapped into this war-torn universe, and a character depth hardly seen in anime's.

There are some dilemmas for me in SEED though, one is the thing you mentioned Kiba, Bartfelt's unexplained survival beeing blown up inside that mobile suit in the desert. There are people in real life that have survived falling from 10000ft. heights. But beeing blown up in a closed compartment is unexplainable to me. The only "possible" explanation would be that this girl piloting it with him (can't remember her name), somehow acted as a shield for him, prevented him from dying. Also another not-so-worked-out thing is Klueze. They explain that he is Mwu's clone and some stuff, but it really dosen't answer much questions about who he really is/was.

As for the Mech's in it, I think it contains decent mech's. The strike was cool in battle, nice design and so. The ZAFT boys' (Kira, Yzak, Dearka, Nicol) gundam's where also cool. The most original design of them probably was the Blitz, it's really cool. But I like the Duel better since it reminds me a bit of the Zeta gundam. With the entrance of Freedom and Justice, and not to mention Raider, Forbidden and Calamity, the whole mecha design took it's turn. The Freedom sure is a cool and cirtainly powerful gundam, but as you said, the whole vent-blowing-flashy-stuff just made it a bit too much. The Justice (and now with the entry of Saviour in Destiny) was kind of fantasy-less. Another red gundam? And that "Skateboard" thing on the back, looks like some kind of Hobgoblin-gundam. What was the point of that thing on the back? Never saw it do any good.

As for SEED / Destiny beeing my favourite compared to Gundam X, Wing and Double Zeta? Hmm... I probably like Gundam X the best. Wonderful main-character (Garrod Ran, how cool isn't he?) cool and quite unique gundams. The Ashtaron gundam is a bit alike the Altron/Nataku from Wing, and the Lepard is alot like the Heavy Arms / Custom in Wing too. But other than that, I think the GX and Double X are both very cool. And the best of all: The main character isn't some superhuman newtype or coordinator, he's just a normal guy. :P

As for Tomino-whatever and creating the last episodes, I wouldn't know about that, I don't even know the creators name of any gundam. I'd rather watch and enjoy than research and stuff like that. But I guess it might be good to know who has made them. Guess I'll have to do a bit of homework. :amuse

[Kiba-kun]

As for Tomino-whatever and creating the last episodes, I wouldn't know about that, I don't even know the creators name of any gundam. I'd rather watch and enjoy than research and stuff like that. But I guess it might be good to know who has made them. Guess I'll have to do a bit of homework. :amuse

Tomino wrote the original Mobile Suit Gundam, as well as Zeta and Char's Counterattack. He's legendary for killing off characters at whim, and for being obsessed with spirits and psychic humans, and epic, eath-shattering battles. So I kinda wondered about the last few episodes of Seed, with its intensely grandeous premise, the abundance of deaths (some of which were characteristically casual, eg the M1 Astray girls and Forbidden/Calamity) and Frey's spirit talking to Kira after her death.

As for ZZ, so far it's kinda annoying...but I'll have to see. Zeta was incredibly serious, with very little comedy. As I watched the last 5 eps of Zeta and the first 5 of ZZ in a row, it was a very weird transition for me. We'll see. Apparently it gets better later on. I haven't seen X, pretty high on my list of animes to see though ^_^ (although I gotta watch the other (clamp) X first :p)

[kevin77]

I gotta agree with mindless, it's pretty hard to compare those 2 animes. Seed has much better graphics, better sound track, smoother animation, better mecha design, wider variety of gundams.

Storywise tho, I have to give an edge to Z. Altho it has its shares of inconsistencies, it remains a highly original show with realistic and well-depicted characters. I'm thinking about that scene where Char and Amuro are reunited. Even tho they were not fighting anymore, u could feel the tension in the air. Very well done. Seed's story is very appealing, but there is a feeling of deja-vu to it.

For some reason, i really like the character design in Z. All characters looked different from one another. In Seed, character design was really sloppy imo. Even tho each one of them looked like movie stars, they also looked like siblings.

As for the main character, I really like Camille Vidan better than Kira. The former is hot blooded, the latter is soft-hearted.

IMO Tomino is the Akira Kurosawa (7 samurai) of Animes. His twisted mind is absolutely brilliant. I like being thown curve balls at when wathing animes.

[Chillin]

I think I will go with Seed, since it has an all around more complete package than Zeta. However considering the time in which it was made (and even now), Zeta is awesome. The story is awesome and while I will agree that Seed has the better mecha designs, I thought the ones in Zeta were very different from the mobile suit designs I'm used to seeing in a UC series. I do appreciate the aspect of Tomino's storytelling that does not feed you every single detail on a plate and lets you figure it out on your own. But while Seed may tend to explain things over in heavy detail, I believe Zeta doesn't do enough explaining with some of the events and characters. I also appreciate the constant tension and battles in Zeta, but I felt Seed had more of a balance of development and action. Barring the recap episodes, I think Seed made better use of it's time. Both Seed and Zeta have something in common and that is an abrupt ending. Luckily both have sequels. I won't get into comparing those until Seed Destiny has finished. Though I would actually like to compare Seed to the original MSG, and Seed Destiny to Zeta.

[kevin77]

I also appreciate the constant tension and battles in Zeta, but I felt Seed had more of a balance of development and action.

Now that u mention the battles, i gotta say in Z, battles look more realistic. The gundams in Z don't do super acrobatic moves. Plus, when they get hit, they get damaged. In Seed, towards the end, Freedom and Justice were pulling off some Matrix style dodging moves. And all that phase shift concept just annihilated the frequency of gundam parts getting destroyed.

IMO, Z is more realistic while Seed is more Hollywoodesque.

[Chillin]

Char's Counterattack had a lot sweet ass dodging moves and fast sword combat, I think it's just all in the animation budget. I remember Zeta doing some kind of crazy flip towards the end and shooting the guy from behind, that was awesome. In Z, the Zeta was hardly even touched, and then at the end with that crazy ass psychic shield and beam saber, I'd say Seed's battles were more realistic than that.

[kevin77]

hmmm, ok, i probably remembered wrong. Coz now when i think about it, Camille piloted the weak MKII for quite a while. It's probably the MKII that got trashed around by enemies.

[Kiba-kun]

hmmm, ok, i probably remembered wrong. Coz now when i think about it, Camille piloted the weak MKII for quite a while. It's probably the MKII that got trashed around by enemies.

MK II did get trashed quite a lot throughout the series, although Camille did only pilot it for less than half of the series.

It's kinda silly to think about realism in Gundam series, IMO ^^; Surely they're for escaping reality?

[Chillin]

Yeah Kiba's right :laugh
But the MKII sucked. I liked the design and all, but it wasn't even made of Luna Titanium alloy.

[dspr8_rugged]

Yes, it is pretty hard to compare Zeta and SEED. I can understand if you've compared SEED and Mobile Suit Gundam (MSG) instead. I can write down a lot of comparisons.

Still, in the spirit of the topic...

No, I am not comparing these two Gundam series by the way they look. SEED would have the upper hand in terms of appearance since, well, it's new.

Story-wise, Zeta has the more original story while SEED, with respect with the first half of the series, is a re-telling of MSG. Zeta has also a better story-flow, while SEED had a somewhat bad pacing.

Character-wise, hmmm... quite hard to decide. SEED's characters and character development is good, except the way they look. They all have the same set of eyes.

Zeta, on the other hand, is old, so the appearance of characters aren't exactly eye-candy. But Zeta is better than SEED in terms of character development. It has managed to explain why Kamille is such an angsty guy that he is, and the addition of the survivors of MSG adds up to the flavor (unlike in Destiny which is like the spotlight is being taken away from the new characters everytime the SEED survivors show up).

Mecha battles. What can I say, Zeta has a lot of them - almost in every episode, there is always a mecha battle. Unlike in SEED that it has to have a "non-battle" episode so that characters need to development. It's not a bad thing though.

Mechas in SEED are more vibrant than the ones in Zeta. In Zeta, only the Gundam MkII, the Rick Dias, Char's Hyaku Shiki and the Zeta Gundam itself were eye-candy. The others are quite weird-looking.

Freedom is the best that I've seen so far - appearance, balance and power are all good, while Zeta will remind you of Wing and Wing Zero in terms of their transforming capabilities, but only better.

Music... need to argue here? Of course, SEED takes the cake for this one. I'm not a fan of 80's music so there.

As a final note, I am for Zeta. Great story, characters, and of course, great mecha battles. Despite its age, it is definitely a great series. SEED on the other hand, I like as well, but mostly for it's music, mechas and mecha battles.

[Hunter]

I will go with Seed. I never really was fond of Zeta because I could not relate to the characters.

When I watched Zeta again, it seemed tame and boring as the only thing it had it going with was its deaths and since I knew who was going to die, I no longer enjoyed it.

[SGLP]

I just finished Zeta yesterday. It took me a week to get all the episodes because of a screwy torrent, but I finished. I'm now getting ZZ which should be done in 55 hours or less. Comparing it to SEED will be a little difficult when Destiny is the one taking story elements from it.

I would actually almost say Zeta was better. I even enjoyed it more up until the last two episodes. Everybody was dying left and right. I didn't like that at all. It's okay if it was for a reason, but I found myself laughing at the whole thing. It seemed the only point was to make Camille super strong with the souls of the ones who've died. Which was sort of a cop out. I wondered during the series why Camille was never progressing much as a pilot. Even when he got angry once he got back to his senses that was it. And him getting his mind taken was odd as he gets it back at the end of ZZ.

The plot was awesome and well paced. The only annoying part was the whole Cyber Newtype thing. I started cringing once Rosammy came along as it had gotten quite rediculous by then.

With that in mine I'll take SEED. Even though it wasn't as "dark" with so many mass killings and whatnot, it was "dark" nontheless. The whole Coordinator think really freaked me out at first. It's something that I think about sometimes, gene manipulation and stuff. And SEED shows what happens when it gets out of hand. SEED's problem arose from the weird ending and characters miraculous survivals.

I don't like either mecha designs more than the other. I'm cool with transforming mobile suits, but I just didn't like those of Zeta. I don't know why. And in SEED I don't like how their are so many Gundam's. It's an annoying trend I wish would stop. I only liked it in Gundam W since it made more sense. In the SEED world with these things being able to be stolen so easily, you'd think they'd sort of stray away from them as they come back to bite you in the ass (Freedom and Justice being the main culprits here).

I am looking forward to ZZ Gundam as surfing around mahq.net I learned that Tomino helps out later on. I've even put off watching Chars Counterattack until I see it.

[Hunter]

Actually Tomino is the director of ZZ from start to finish

[SGLP]

I was refering to his rewrite or whatever he did which made the story more serious.

[Mister Bushido]

I was refering to his rewrite or whatever he did which made the story more serious.
Oh you'll definately know when Tomino takes over the basic story of ZZ. It's really hard to watch in the beginning, but it becomes really good after the 10th or 11th episode.

As for Zeta vs Seed... I'mma have to go with Zeta. Mecha battles were awesome (granted super newtype powers did get semi ridiculous, but it led to such an anti-climactic ending, which was great ^^ ). As for the deaths, they don't call him "Kill Em All Tomino" for nothing. It did seem a bit deus ex machina in the end for Camille, but like in all wars, people gotta die. Mecha designs were great, with the Hamrabi and the O being some of my fav enemy mobile suits (the Bolinoak Sammahn was the worst), and the AEUG suits were cool as well (minus the Methuss). As for characters, they do get dodgy at points, but they were well received with me and played their roles well. And for Amuro not being in the spotlight, I thought that was a great move by Tomino as it didn't take away the focus from the main crew of the Argama.

SEED was good as well, but got really ridiculous once Freedom showed up. Don't get me wrong, some of the battles were intense and great looking, but the multitude of recycled scenes in the end made the last third of the anime dull.

As for music, I tip my hat to SEED, but my heart belongs to Zeta. I love that 80s music and sets me up for some kick ass battles in Gundam vs Zeta Gundam! XD It seemed more epic listening to the music of Zeta.

But that's my two cents. :bgai

[Hunter]

Originally Posted by Donkey Show:
Oh you'll definately know when Tomino takes over the basic story of ZZ. It's really hard to watch in the beginning
Thing is those unbearable parts you say was directed by Tomino himself...

Originally Posted by Donkey Show:
And for Amuro not being in the spotlight, I thought that was a great move by Tomino as it didn't take away the focus from the main crew of the Argama.
That is true. But if Amuro was given more focus then we will have something like Destiny.

[Mister Bushido]

Thing is those unbearable parts you say was directed by Tomino himself...

He may have directed it, but he did not write the script and story for the beginning. He never wanted it to be kiddie so he jumped in and took control of how the story was written in the middle of it.

[Encronian]

i own both zeta and seed and they are two of my more watched sets of dvd's but i'm gonna have to say that i liked zeta more. the older style of animation to me seemed a bit more gritty and keyed to the dark themes of the series. seed looked really good, especially the starting mechs, but the characters seemed too generic and too superhuman for just being geneticlly inhanced. i loved the mecha battles in both but again in zeta they seemed a bit more tense and realistic, well up until the super zeta at teh end of teh series, but i still liked that. so i like both a great deal, but in a fight i think amuro, char and, camille would whip the boys of seed something fierce.