Gundam SEED Destiny, the direct sequel to Gundam SEED, got off to a great start. We were thrown into battle that raged on and off for 4 to 5 episodes non-stop, and our hopes were high. There were new characters that had stories to be told, and a new plot to be delivered. But, this all stopped before the series even hit the 20th episode. Instead of the new characters being in the spotlight, Lacus and the crew came in and took it back. Athrun was left in the cold, and it became the Jesus Yamato show. Instead of seeing intense battles, we get to see Freedom strike the same pose over and over again as hundreds of grunt units explode.
Gundam SEED retained elements from the older, more war oriented Gundam series, which made it easily watchable and quite entertaining if you could get by the re-use of the same frames. But SEED Destiny became a "super robot" show in which the main characters suits could easily take out an entire fleet without getting a scratch. The new suits, while flashy, are just blatant copies of UC suits. Pumping up a Zaku and giving it a huge backpack doesn't mean you've created a new suit.
Destiny had the potential to be as good as SEED, but it ended up destroying itself by becoming a super robot show filled with Gundams.
I give it 3 out of 10 stars, because it did have a good start.
