On August 31st, the movie Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Freedom premiered in several cinemas in Spain. If you don’t remember seeing it on the billboard, don’t worry, it’s normal: it was only available for a couple of days. And this is because it was more of an event, a community celebration, than anything else. As we had already explained on 3DJuegos, SEED Freedom is the highest-grossing movie in Gundam’s history in Japan: one that, in fact, has been in the works for 20 years and serves as the final touch to the series that “saved” the franchise by bringing in a new legion of fans and rekindling the interest of veteran fans. You can imagine, it’s quite an event.
Bandai Namco, aware of this, decided to take the film around the world; probably aiming to replicate the success it had in the early 2000s. I can assure you that on Discord, Twitter, or Weibo among other platforms, there were Gundam fan communities closely monitoring the film’s reception as it made its way through the West, knowing that a lot is at stake.
Why there was nervousness following SEED Freedom
You see: although SEED Freedom is incredibly popular in the Gundam world, it is also one of its most controversial backgrounds. To give you an idea, it did something similar to what happened in Star Wars Episode VII, almost like a remake, repeating scenes from the original work (in this case, the Japanese television series), irritating the purists of the main timeline, Universal Century or UC.
Did I like the movie? A bit polarized: the good is very good, and the bad is very bad
In fact, the SEED Destiny series that premiered in 2004 had a terrible reception in its passage through the United States, greatly dividing fans into lovers and detractors. That was the tension revolving around SEED Freedom: if it repeats the successes it has had in Japan, it is most likely that its creators will want to continue working on that significant background; with all the good and bad that implies.
Personally, I was able to see SEED Freedom in theaters on time and what I found there is more or less what all Gundam fans were expecting: it’s a very pompous work, with really powerful war moments that more or less make up for the animation errors that occurred at the time; but also with that extreme and grating idealization that Kira and Lacus share during a huge part of the film.
Did I like it? A bit polarized: the good is very good, and the bad is very bad. I can understand the wide spectrum of opinions behind this. But hey, something we probably all agree on is that the gunpla kits that come out of this look pretty good. I don’t know about you, but the HG kit of Gyan Strom (Agnes Giebenlart’s) is catching my eye.
If you haven’t had a chance to see Gundam SEED Freedom yet and you’re curious, keep in mind that at the time of writing this, the Japanese have it streaming on Netflix and Prime Video; while the rest of the world will likely have to wait for the content rotation on the official website.
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