So Shinn was a better pilot than Kira, right?

>>14075421

No, but Mikazuki was.

>>14075426
No amount of vaginas on his back will let Mika be better than the son of God Almighty

>>14075421

Not according to the show, no. Rau probably was though.

>>14075426
As if.

>>14075421

Considering he couldn't beat Kira again later on, despite them finally having equal machines, no.

He beat Kira once using strategy and tactics. Clever, but this isn't Dragonball. It doesn't mean he's not automatically better than Kira and will always win.

Of course it's also only because of Kira being nice that it didn't turn into a double kill as if Kira counterstabbed Impulse in the chest instead of the head, Shinn would be dead, and Kira would have ended up surviving.

>>14075440
>>14075456

Ooh, got some salty fujo girls here tonight~

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With the way the series is written and handled, it's really hard to say. Even with as overpowered as 00-Raiser is, I can still just believe that the machine itself is just that wrong and not that there's some dubious nature to the writing itself.

When people say "oh, well Shinn needed Impulse's abilities!" or "cheated", I say bollocks. The reason he needed to do that in the first place is because Impulse can't stand up to Freedom in the first place, and every move he does is pulled off almost flawlessly. He came in ready to push Impulse to the limit and he did just that. And it's not like other Gundam protagonists don't ever take advantage of their technological advancements.

But after Kira and friends "officially" take over ths how, Shinn's role in the series rises and wanes based on if they're there or not. If they aren't Destiny Gundam can block Destroy's city-razing cannons with it's beam shields and slice them apart easily. S-Freedom can knock Destiny on it's ass even if it blocks a rifle shot. What with that "if that was a beam he could have killed me!" quote, it almost feels like they're making fun of the character!" moment. Did we really need to throw that line in?

After Kira gets beaten and Athrun asks him about it (despite defeating Shinn while heavily injured), Kira pretty much says that he wasn't trying because he didn't really want to fight that much. I guess we're supposed to believe that Kira was really willing to let Shinn kill him? Or at the very least, risk losing the Freedom? I guess so.

It's not like the idea of Shinn losing to Kira and/or Athrun is an alien one, it just happens so handily, easily and in such a rushed production, I gather they didn't have the budget or time to have him put up a fight, so they just didn't.

I can't think of his performance at the aft end of the series as anything other than strictly jobbing, arguably by writer bias, but probably out of necessity. I mean, the bloody Druggie Trio put up better fights.

>>14075757
GIF FOR ANTS

>>14075757
>When people say "oh, well Shinn needed Impulse's abilities!" or "cheated", I say bollocks. The reason he needed to do that in the first place is because Impulse can't stand up to Freedom in the first place, and every move he does is pulled off almost flawlessly.

I wouldn't have a problem with this...if people didn't also claim Athrun in Seed 29 defeated Kira through his own skill and merit alone...even though Aegis was the most powerful of the GAT-X Gundam's, and Kira previously fought Yzak and had his rifle destroyed before Athrun even got to him, and Athrun was on the losing end of the fight until he used grabber mode to win, something only Aegis could do.

There's a notable double standard that exists with Kira, and people even admit it, but think it's totally ok, because fuck Fukuda, and after over a decade of this it's just getting old at this point.

>>14075421
>if kira ever went for kills he would have beaten him the first time

Lunamaria was the only reason to watch GSD.

>>14075469
> despite them finally having equal machines, no.

No way in hell that was true.

Destiny runs out of power just using its main gimmick

>>14076608
Athrun was almost out of power when he got to Kira. The Aegis had already fired the cannon which drains it considerably. Kira also had 2 batteries if you'll remember. Strike has a battery inside the suit and one insider the Aile Striker.

>>14076627
>Strike has a battery inside the suit and one insider the Aile Striker.

That's not how it works. It can recharge the battery if a pack is connected but it doesn't get two battery's worth of power from it.

Kira didn't run out of power when Athrun did because his rifle had been destroyed after only a few shots and he went into the fight with no ranged weapons beyond vulcans. Which is still a massive advantage for Athrun since he had a rifle, cannon and four beam sabers to Kira's one saber he used.

>>14076618

And Strike Freedom couldn't use it's dragoons.

Regadless the point is he couldn't complain about not being able to overpower Kira because he had less power now because both the mobile suits has Hyper Nuclear Deutrion engines.

>>14076655
The dragoons not be usable isn't comparable to Shinn's suit dying during fights. They may have the same reactor type but Destiny has something wrong with it. Don't forget the fight started with Kira blindsiding the boomerangs and was then on the run when Shinn used his wings.

>>14076680
I thought it was because the wings of light drained the battery

>>14076695
He barely used them. He wasn't even using them when he was asked to retreat.

>>14076702
It doesn't help that Destiny had hardly did any fighting at all to begin with.

You're expecting us to believe that after it's performance on Heaven's Base, it'd run out of energy that easily?

For fuck's sake, couldn't they think of some better excuse for Shinn to return? Like the Minerva's being attacked or something?
It's almost like someone wrote that in on purpose.

>>14076718
Fukuda didn't realise giving Destiny a n-jammer meant that they couldn't use battery levels as a plot device anymore.

>>14076608
Was it? I just thought it was the commander mobile suit out of the five. It's certainly got a more powerful weapon, but Aile Strike has better aerial movement than Aegis, which needs a Guul to fly on.

Fuckballs, it's been like 10 years. Will I ever stop getting dragged back into the Ol ye SEED debate?
I guess this is what it's like to be a Star Wars fan.

>>14075421
sure

>>14076731
Aile Strike can't fly without a Guul either. It's limited to thruster assisted jumps (which the other 4 Gundams can already do). Don't you remember the episode where Kira sort of had a plan to steal a Guul after knocking off one of the enemy Gundams?

>>14076730
destiny doesn't have an N-jammer

>>14076763
it has a seed nuclear engine, whatever they're called

>>14076772
no, n-jammers are the things that prevent nuclear reactors from working, n-jammer cancelers are the things that allow nuclear reactors to work when n-jammers are around

>>14076757
>It's limited to thruster assisted jumps (which the other 4 Gundams can already do). Don't you remember the episode where Kira sort of had a plan to steal a Guul after knocking off one of the enemy Gundams?
Yeah, and he used it throw it at someone else almost immediately You make it sound as if Aile's aerial abilities aren't better than all 4 of the other Gundams.

Compare how often the other Gundams have to land after boosting to Aile Strike.

>>14076785
wait, you said it like it didn't need a guul to fly

>>14075469
>>14075757
>>14076618
>>14076680
>>14076695
>>14076702
>>14076718
That's what annoys me the most about the Destiny. It single-handedly wrecked the Heaven's Base, but does fuck all after that, because none of the main characters can conclusively fight one another until get we to the end of the show. SEED had the same problem with the druggies, but it was somewhat justified by the 3v1 and 3v2 fights that took place.

Shimon from GBFT would've done a better job than post-HB Shinn, if only because the writers wouldn't hate him as much.

>Guy who does bootleg Uso tactics vs guy who primarily beamspams

Yes.

>>14075757
>I guess we're supposed to believe that Kira was really willing to let Shinn kill him? Or at the very least, risk losing the Freedom? I guess so.

You'd be pretty out of it too if you were busy banging Lacus every day between seasons and taking care of a bunch of homeless kids, let alone fixing all those god damn Haros and taking them out for walks.

He was also under the impression that he's invincible, and he practically was. And who could blame him? He 'tied' with Athrun and beat Rau, nobody's got credentials as great as he does, not even Athrun.

You underestimated the original Druggie Trio quite a bit. It was a fact that the Destiny Druggies were garbage, it was literally spoon fed to you they gave up their insane performance in exchange for more mental stability. Those Druggies were better than everybody in the series but Kira, Athrun, Rau, and maybe Mwu. They were already halfway to OD death by the time they stumbled upon Issac and Dearka and still tore their assholes apart before kicking the bucket.

Not even Stella in the giant fucking Destroy could have done that.

It wasn't so much forced writing that made Kira better, but that Shinn was never designed to be better than Kira in the first place. The first half of the show was about how Shinn was a hot head but could pull off ballsy shit but at no point did anyone think he could do something that Athrun couldn't. Even the operation on Kira, can you imagine what would have happened if Athrun was in the Impulse and actually wanted to take out Kira? it wouldn't have taken that fucking long against a guy who was just trying to disarm you. They were neck and neck in SEED.

The real problem is that in SEED, Kira got better constantly fighting Athrun, then Andrew, and when Athrun came around to join him, they introduced the Druggies, then then finally Rau.

Who the FUCK did Shinn get? It was a bunch of watered down druggies and Mwutwo who he didn't even fight and simply left it to Rey.

>SEED is shit: The Thread. Again. For the millionth time.

Why do people pretend Kira can do anything other than activating the Freedom's targeting computer?

>>14076608
I wouldn't say that's quite an even comparison, considering the Aegis and Strike were in a roughly similar ballpark whereas the nuclear equipped Freedom was in a whole nother league compared to the Impulse.

>>14077546
All joking aside, this isn't an invalid point. Early on Kira depended pretty heavily on leet computer skills as a substitute for skill he didn't have, and he seems to lean on his computer a fair bit to enable his showoffy shenanigans.

>>14076731
Aegis had limited hovering abilities without a Guul, which it displays during that very fight. It also has four beam sabers in close combat and Athrun makes use of all of them against Kira. The fight still comes to a draw until Athrun goes for the self-destruct.

>>14077824
Well, sort of. Athrun was in place for a killing blow with his big gun, so you could say that he won, except that his suit ran out of juice trying to charge said gun, so I guess you could say Kira won?

The point was that they're roughly comparable for purposes of this comparison.

>>14077546

Because he can? He uses the saber more often than not, and the targeting computer doesn't have anything to do with that. Let alone him deflecting shots with it Jedi style.

The only fight he actually did just spam the full burst over and over was his first fight with it in Alaska. After that he prefers the rifle and saber and only uses full burst once or twice per fight.

>>14077803
He only relies on the computer when taking out mooks. Whenever he's fighting one-on-one or two-on-three, Kira is consistently shown to be a skillful, though not invincible pilot during SEED. The druggies give him a hard time on multiple occasions, even decapitating the Freedom at one point, but he gets his licks in against them as well and even manages to take down Rau despite Rau being the one who's spamming stock footage in that fight.

>>14075469
>He beat Kira once using strategy and tactics
Wait what does Kira use then

>>14077225
Yeah, Shinn never was really on the level of Kira or Athrun. The first half of Destiny Athrun was a demotivated mess who was happy to just sit back and let Shinn do his hotheaded thing, and the rest of the cast just took it to mean that Shinn was awesome and Athrun wasn't. Then Kira came along and after getting beaten once by a mix of his own never-kill policy, Rey strategies, and Shinn's sperg-outs, proceeds to never let Shinn get a hit again, and leaves him for Athrun to deal with, who handily hands him his ass twice.

So while Shinn is obviously a good pilot, he never was the "super ace" everyone insisted he was. Viewers who think he is just fell for the same trick that the crew of the Minerva fell for in-universe.

>>14077930
You can't compare Shinn after he went full retard to early Shinn

>>14078933

> You can't compare early (Strike) Kira to Kira after he went full Freedom

>>14078933
He had already gone full retard by the time he fought Freedom.

>>14077225
I'd find this believable if they didn't spend a good portion of the series building up Shinn as the ONLY new character as a good pilot. Talia says it, Arthur says it, Gilbert says it, and even Neo and Athrun say it. Not to say that he's invincible, but he's supposed to be really good. When Destroy Gundam is tearing through, Kira shoots at it aimlessly, while Shinn charges right in and nearly kills the pilot in one swipe.

Kira and Athrun hadn't been piloting for 2-3 years. Not to say that they should have lost much of their skill, but that these two are still the piloting gods of the series? Not even CCA portrays Amuro as completely invincible, and he's had several more years under his belt.
Even if we argue that Athrun is demotivated, is it the entire time he went back to ZAFT? Didn't he want to go back to ZAFT? Or did he get tricked by Gilbert into doing it. Even before he fights against Kira and loses, he's pretty adamant in what he's doing, and continuously dogfights with Sting, whereas Shinn eventually takes Auel down. Shit, we've got Heine taking care of Gaia Gundam easily, if we throw in a third guy.

I'm not saying that the Druggie Trio are bad pilots, but I find the idea that Shinn's under them in piloting moxie to be ridiculous.

I'm of the opinion that there's really a big contrast from what we're being told through the series, and then what it goes on to show, and especially a big lack of care towards the newer cast that remains or even making a newer cast in general.

>>14079011
SEED mode is supposedly "activated" when the pilot has clarity of will and motive. Only time Athrun went into SEED mode in Destiny was after he left Zaft. Ergo, he wasn't motivated before.

>>14078995
He was able to think rationally back then and execute strategies. Later on he kicks beam sabers.

>>14079257
Shinn's already lost when he kicks the beam saber. It's more an act of defiance than anything else.

>>14079257
A strategy. He executes one strategy, singular tense. In a fight where he has tons of time to prep for it, tons of footage of the specific opponent to study, and a machine that can take advantage of a weakness in the opponent's fighting style that exists only when facing that one specific machine because of how it's built, he is able to execute a strategy. Most of the time Shinn just doesn't bother, and even if you're capable of planning ahead, if you're too hotheaded and/or unmotivated to actually do it, then that's what matters.

>>14079305

Didn't Rey have to suggest it too?

>>14077233
I cringe at this type of posting you see on /m/, it would fit better on Buzzfeed or Facebook.

If you're in your mid-late 20s, you and your friends are definitely still "Wing Babbies". There's a 95% chance you watched it with your middle/high school friends on VLC on your mom's ThinkPad while drinking Pepsi Blue, in between skating while listening to Avril Lavigne.

>>14079305
It wasn't a single strategy. It was a bunch of strategies and people seem to forget that Shinn had to pilot perfectly. He was moving body parts out of the way of Kira's shots. He didn't know where Kira was going to aim. He had to wait and see and then dodge with minimal movement. He was in an inferior machine at that. People need to stop downplaying Shinn's achievement because Rey helped plan it.

>>14079311
Yeah, it wasn't Shinn's idea.

>>14079333
It wasn't THAT inferior of a machine. It's not like he beat him on a GATX or even a Zaku (which are actually far superior to the GATX). The Impulse was much closer to Freedom in performance than the Strike was to the Impulse.

>>14079333
That's a bunch of tactics, it's one strategy. Tactics are low-level, strategy is high-level. Shinn still had to pilot well, but the very nature of the Impulse's design is that it's a forgiving machine for pilots who make mistakes, while also being much closer to the Freedom's performance than most other machines in service during that time.

It's still an achievement, but one success is only that if Shinn is otherwise consistently a more temperamental, less strategically-minded, and less effective pilot than Kira at the same points in their respective shows.

>>14079333

It doesn't seem all that inferior to me, especially when you count in its ability to Change Get, replace Silhouettes and get new weapons.

>>14079369
>and less effective pilot than Kira at the same points in their respective shows.

Shinn has more kills than Kira. If we're talking 34 to 34 Shinn killed Auel and Kira killed Nichol. Shinn was able to eject his his Blast Silhouette and accurately throw a javelin through the cockpit of Abyss. Abyss was in it's element in the water and he still couldn't touch Shinn. Even with Kira distracting Shinn at one point.

>>14079384
Freedom has a nuclear reactor. Impulse has a battery. Freedom displays tons of feats of agility over the course of Seed and Destiny. Impulse isn't impressive in any regard. Being able to change parts means nothing if you are outgunned.

>>14079257
He was never "able to think rationally". Before he just hadn't been convinced that he was some sort of super ace pilot with moral superiority, so he still would sometimes keep his head down and let things go. The difference between early Shinn and late Shinn is not that he "becomes dumber", it's that he's trusted with and given more power. And that's who Shinn becomes when given more authority: a bratty prick who wants everyone to do what he says, and throws tantrums in a nuclear powered robot when people refuse. What he thinks Kira and the Freedom are, is actually what he becomes.

>>14079407

Force Impulse keeps up with Freedom in the air consistently in that fight. If it doesn't have as many feats that may be down to the pilot. One having s nuclear reactor means nothing, since the output on both could be the same. One lasts longer, not inherently gives more power per time unit.

>>14079407
The best way to think about it is in terms of gens. Strike is 1st Gen. Freedom is 2nd Gen with a nuclear power source. Impulse is actually 3rd Gen, except he doesn't have a nuclear power source. So Freedom has more energy input, which means he can do some things the Impulse can't (has a higher cap on thrust, probably more overall speed tho maybe *not* better acceleration, no-time limit), but the Impulse is overall the better, more fine-tuned machine.

>>14079421
>Force Impulse keeps up with Freedom in the air consistently in that fight.

Because nobody cares about animating differences in machines in Seed. Freedom has always been touted as fast while no one talks about how fast Impulse is.

> but the Impulse is overall the better, more fine-tuned machine.

Nothing suggests that. The Impulse and other early Destiny Gundams were built during a treaty which restricted what they could do.

>>14079500

The Treaty didn't restrict what it could do though. The treaty was to restrict how many suits each side could have, not what they could do. Besides which, Durandal was ignoring it in reality from the start and Cagalli calls him out on it. Also,if animators don't care to show a difference and there's no stated difference, then there probably isn't one. Characters only commenting on one doesn't make that not the case.

File: [Lunamaria] Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny HD Remaster - 33v2 [BD][720p-AAC][F7CF8D3E].mkv_snapshot_06.57_[2016.04.03_18.53.37].jpg (97KB, 1280x720px) Image search: [Google]

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>>14079556
The difference is that Freedom is a speed demon while Impulse isn't. 33 has Shinn and Rey commenting on Freedom. Shinn says that Freedom is stronger than Impulse flatout. He goes on to say as far as he knows the Freedom in the strongest MS in existence.

They just didn't animate differences

>>14079620
Post that without the subs please senpai.

>>14079620

Considering you're translating powerful to mean stronger then I wouldn't take your word on the matter, when it could just be referring to the reactor being more powerful to power more weapons and last longer.

It's pretty funny that you're using the animation to say he's stronger because X and Y, but then saying the animation can't be trusted since it doesn't depict certain things. You can't have it both ways.

The animators made him good enough that one fight for tension, then made him worse in subsequent fights - because that was the order of the day. Just like the Impulse was great sometimes, so wad Shinn. They just didn't bother to animate differences between pilots because who cares I guess.

This argument about rationality seems strange when Kira is easily one of the most delusional and irrational people in the show

File: [Lunamaria] Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny HD Remaster - 33v2 [BD][720p-AAC][F7CF8D3E].mkv_snapshot_06.55_[2016.04.03_22.22.22].jpg (110KB, 1280x720px) Image search: [Google]

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>>14079628

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>>14079743
cool

File: [Lunamaria] Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny HD Remaster - 34 [BD][720p-AAC][BBED8F37].mkv_snapshot_17.55_[2016.04.03_18.57.46].jpg (91KB, 1280x720px) Image search: [Google]

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>>14079677
>Considering you're translating powerful to mean stronger

Nobody has ever argued that Impulse was as good as Freedom before this. Why would Freedom have just a better reactor than a suit that was made during a treaty that gimped it? The animation in Seed(Gundam as a whole really) is inconsistent. The one consistent thing however is that Freedom has always been called fast. By everybody. Freedom moves so fast that Shinn and Heine didn't even know what happened to them. No suit in Seed has ever been animated as consistently fast as Freedom from dodging dozens of beams from Providence or Heine's Gouf spamming it's beam fingers at it or Freedom being able to "teleport" behind Chaos? Freedom was animated to make it look cool and was treated better than every other suit in the show.

>>14079771

>Why would Freedom have just a better reactor than a suit that was made during a treaty that gimped it?

The only gimps the treaty put on it were that it couldn't have an N-Jammer, N-Jammer Canceller or Mirage Colloids. Which doesn't restrict it's performance, weaponry or capabilities much, if at all.

In fact, on a suit that can be laser charged remotely, swap backpacks and replace damaged parts it's reactor being less powerful is barely an issue.

>>14079800
>The only gimps the treaty put on it were that it couldn't have an N-Jammer, N-Jammer Canceller or Mirage Colloids. Which doesn't restrict it's performance, weaponry or capabilities much, if at all.

Not having a nuclear reactor restricts how powerful it can be. The stronger your power source, the stronger your unit. If Impulse was as strong as Freedom they would say so. Instead it's presented as weaker, stated to be weaker and is shown to be weaker.

>In fact, on a suit that can be laser charged remotely, swap backpacks and replace damaged parts it's reactor being less powerful is barely an issue.

It's a huge issue. Being charged relies on the ship. Swapping parts relies on the ship. They can be shot down like in Victory.

always tought that the impulse is better than destiny, it was way more versatile

the only thing shin needed was something like a faster pack to fight against the strike freedom and infinity justice and blow its parts right to kira and athrun faces

i also liked shin before he got out of impulse destiny

>>14079824

Having a nuclear reactor doesn't automatically make your unit stronger, only longer lasting. Also, the Impulse isn't shown to be weaker when they face.

Oh, but the animators just didn't animate the differences I guess. Which means we have no reason to take any of that fight at face value really. I mean, if the Force Impulse keeping up with Freedom is false, then a lot of the individual moments presented are false and not to be trusted, because they couldn't happen.

So Shinn being able to keep up is just a fever dream and can be ignored I guess.

I'd also rather have a unit that can parts swap and get new weapons over one that can't personally. It's only a huge issue in certain circumstances, and the same can be said of anything.

>>14075421
Yes.

>>14075421
>So Shinn was a better pilot than Kira, right?
Athrun is a better pilot than Shinn, Athrun is equal to Kira in every way. Thus, Kira is better than Shinn.

The better question is, can Shinn beat Yzak? Because they have never fought, and Yzak was arguably the third best pilot in the original SEED series.

File: seep2b.jpg (41KB, 214x150px) Image search: [Google]

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1st encounter defeat by Freedom which completely no idea which country belongs to if Freind or Foe.
2nd Impulse dodge the Freedom beam saber using heavy weight loads Blast Equipment.
3rd Rei gathers all intelligence Freedom skills, ways of firing restriction to create countermeasure and train in the computer simulation to master the execution tactical surprise. Not only that, is to depress the Pilots Morale which is why Kira knew the enemy pilot of his moves.

>>14080502

English do you speak it?

Also dodging one slash isn't exactly something to be bragging about. Kira would have destroyed him in 28 if Athrun didn't cut in.

The real issue is that the Freedom vs Impulse fight was supposed to show what Shinn could do if he truly dedicated himself, and in any other show would be a turning point where he gets noticeably better at piloting.

Instead he immediately upgrades to the Destiny and proceeds to regress because SEED has awful battle choreography when there aren't MS gimmicks that force something interesting.

>>14080583
Can you Understand military analyst? I guess not

>>14080583
Yeah, because he was busy fighting Auel and Freedom kept trying to attack him from behind.

Seeing how even after Kira took down Athrun, he didn't stop Shinn from sinking the entire ORB fleet, it's questionable that he would take him down so easily.
>>14080623
>The real issue is that the Freedom vs Impulse fight was supposed to show what Shinn could do if he truly dedicated himself, and in any other show would be a turning point where he gets noticeably better at piloting.

It might also have to do that he was abandoned as a character as well. Destiny Gundam's introduction episodes is probably one of the worst ways to introduce a mobile suit that's supposed to be a mainstay

>>14080727

By the time Kira got back to the fleet from wherever Athrun dragged him out to it was too late. Shinn had already wrecked it.

Shinn was defeated several times in the simulations when practicing in 33 before he finally managed to work out a pattern to beat Kira with so he wouldn't have been able to take in 28.

>>14080727
Maybe not the best showcase of the suit itself but a fantastic scene overall. The mood, the lighting, the music, even the flashbacks work perfectly in this scene.

>>14080727
First look of the Destiny is used to bully the fuck out of a lower-spec unit.

Also the Destiny has fucking clown tear eyes.

Also, is it me or would Freedom vs Destiny have been better rather than letting Athrun chop up Shinn?

>>14075421
Shinn is the better tactician and would be the better pilot if not for
>muh perfect coordinator xddd
and there's also the fact that Jesus gets the better suit both times.

While we're talking about SEED (again...), does anyone find it odd that nobody on a ship ever wears a normal suit?

>>14080797
The design doesnt matter. The Destiny suppose to be fast and surprise the enemy without being suprised.

>>14080827
Don't they all wear them during combat situations?

>>14080797
>Also, is it me or would Freedom vs Destiny have been better rather than letting Athrun chop up Shinn?
No, because in the end Kira doesn't give a damn about him. Athrun knows Shinn as a person and thus had to be the one to do the deed.

The silly implication that Shinn should be mad because his sister died to Kira' s collateral damage is entirely retarded. It is understandable that he could blame Kira to make himself feel better, but to let him have his revenge for THAT reason is unjustifiable. You simply can't say with a straight face that Kira is AT FAULT for the death of someone he never even saw.

>>14080851
Makes sense, in that way. Still, Freedom is pretty much directly opposed to Destiny, thematically speaking. Instead, Strike Freedom fights Legend, which is basically Rau Mk 2.

>>14080857
>Still, Freedom is pretty much directly opposed to Destiny, thematically speaking. Instead,
That's not between Kira and Shinn, but Lacus and Gilbert. And in the end Gilbert won and Lacus lost, even though Gilbert had to die for that victory.

>>14080851
I honestly disagree. Athrun and Shinn may have been on the same ship for a while, but they hardly have any decent interactions with each other outside of the first few episodes.

Athrun hardly hangs out with anyone on the Minerva and seems more frustrated than happy with having to deal with anyone on there, even when we have people like Luna and Meryin doting on him.
I suppose there's the intent, but I don't get the feeling like there's any actual care or chemistry between Athrun and Shinn. I don't feel like I'm watching two people who used to care about each other fight to the death like with Domon and Master Asia.

I mean, what happens at the end anyway? All Athrun really has to say is "you're a dummy!" and Shinn shouting "NO! YOU'RE THE DUMMY!" Even if Athrun does have anything concrete to say, Shinn doesn't, because he's been abandoned as a character at this point, just a thing for Athrun to literally kick around.

Now would have really have been a great time to go into why he believes in the Destiny Plan at all, or why he thinks Gilbert is doing the right thing.
Or if not that, at least put emphasis on the idea that he might be stepping into darkness and becoming what he hates more so than "he's on the badguys side" Instead, we get some weird pointless Stella NT-moment.
What the fuck was that about?

It comes off more like it was just easier to do because it's more stock footage for them to use.

I mean, don't even get me started on the convenient conversion of Rey Za Barrel.

>It comes off more like it was just easier to do because it's more stock footage for them to use.

That was the entire reason, yes.

>>14080866
Hard to win when you're dead, unless you meant a moral victory dealio. Gil's Destiny Plan was perfectly reasonable but Lacus just outed herself as a terrorist who murdered the only guy who actually did something about Blue Cosmos.

>>14080887
>Hard to win when you're dead, unless you meant a moral victory dealio. Gil's Destiny Plan was perfectly reasonable but Lacus just outed herself as a terrorist who murdered the only guy who actually did something about Blue Cosmos.
The Destiny Plan was never meant to work. It is just an excuse for totalitarian surveillance, as you can't enforce it without spying on everyone 24/7.

What Gilbert won is the argument about Destiny vs Freedom. Of what you do what you want or do what you had to do. Lacus wanted to run an orphanage, but her destiny was to be the ruler of the solar system. Gilbert forced her out of her choice into her destiny. Much like Kira was forced into being a full time soldier, the one thing he wanted to avoid. The two of them were destined for this path, neither wanted it.

>>14080900
I remember that argument too, that makes sense.

GSD was still a super trainewreck near the end, though. Is there any info on what it would have been like without hurrr Morosawa?

>>14080905
>I remember that argument too, that makes sense.
>GSD was still a super trainewreck near the end, though
Well yeah, basically GSD had good ideas, but horrible execution.

>>14080905
I'm not sure how you'd have any idea what a work would be like if its creator didn't make it.

Nothing, I guess?

>>14080923
IIRC Morosawa spazzed out and shat out a whole bunch of crap the team couldn't ignore because Fukuda was directing but which was very hard to work with.

If she wasn't shitting up the process I wonder what would have happened?

>>14080905
Not really. Rumors of how the series would go changed from day to day.

I remember hearing something about a new ZAKU model that would combine all the Wizard Packs, or how there was supposed to be a Diablo Gundam that would protect the Destroy Gundam from close range attacks.

I also remember hearing how Shinn would somehow end up on the Archangel and would defect from ZAFT, and Kira would give Shinn Freedom's NJC to put inside of the Destiny Gundam.
Back then, I was furious at such an idea, but now that might have been for the best.

>>14080715

Not when you talk like you just went through Google translate, no.

>>14080900

I'd argue that Lacus and Kira by taking the roles they didn't want proved Durandal wrong for the rest of the world.

I mean look at the guys Durandal tried to raise according to his idea of the Destiny plan. Shinn Rey and Meer. All of them couldn't handle the role he thought they should have and were inferior to the guys that actually got there without it being deliberate.

>>14080882

That's more than Kira vs Shinn would get because they are literally strangers to each other. Kira never really thought any more of Shinn than he did the druggie trio and Freedom might as well be an unpiloted drone as far as Shinn's concerned because he only sees to see it has an evil enemy machine that keeps messing things up for him. To the point that he's notably taken aback when he meets Kira in person.

It would just be a repeat of 34 and 42. Shinn growling and yelling at Kira to die and Kira not saying anything back.

The Freedom killed his family is a moot point. Even if he did it Shinn never saw it and never made the connection.

At least Athrun and Shinn know each other.

>>14080843

Only the generic EA ship crews do. AA doesn't, and nobody in Zaft does either.

>>14082009

Doesn't Shinn explicitly blame Kira and Freedom for killing his family?

>>14081990
Shinn and Rey losing doesn't mean that they couldn't do those roles, unless we're talking about Rey's sudden change of heart.
Shinn is just someone he calls in on smashing shit, he could easily be replaced.

Meer was doomed to fail from the start, because he decided he'd use Lacus's image and fame before a botched attempt on her life was made. Even if they were smart and used EA mobile suits, it wouldn't be too hard to try and piece together that ZAFT would want her out of the way.

Isn't Gilbert supposed to be a genius? This is dumb

>>14079867
>Having a nuclear reactor doesn't automatically make your unit stronger, only longer lasting
Not necessarily. Having higher and more reliable throughput of power means you can more freely build a machine for power intensive systems, whereas if you were working off of a battery then you'd want to economise.

>>14082016

No. Shinn's never ever seen Freedom before it shows up in 23.

People thought that what was going to happen, but it didn't.

His entire issue from Freedom, aside from it being allied with Orb, is because of Stella.

>>14082061

I was more talking about how despite drilling into Rey that he has to be Rau to make up for Rau, that mindset is easily broken so obviously Rey didn't believe it in too much.

That Shinn despite being raised to be Zaft's savior and Gil's champion, has the stress of the war break him more and more as it starts to get more personal, culminating in him completely cracking in the finale. Despite Gil thinking that so long as a soldier was praised and rewarded they'd never think twice about what they were doing.

Or how Meer is mostly a caricature of what she and the public think Lacus is but she lacks the real ones grace and charisma and power base and the ability to inspire loyalty to the point where he own bodyguards try to use her as bait and try to kill her when she fails to shoot Lacus.

Despite these being the prototypes of the apparant plan non of it goes how Gil thinks it was, which suggests the Destiny Plan just will not work.

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>>14080900
>Lacus wanted to run an orphanage.

Lacus wasn't just looking after orphans between shows. She also set up Terminal, an organization spying on various factions, handing out information they obtain through their efforts, and steals MS tech for their own usage.

Is it any wonder why people think she's shady as fuck?

>>14082084
>has the stress of the war break him more and more as it starts to get more personal
When had this ever become apparent in the series? At what point did we ever see the toll of fighting wear on Shinn?

>>14082009
Oh, I get that. But with stronger writing, this probably could have been salvaged. But it wasn't. When I think of Athrun vs Shinn, I don't see a battle vs two people who used to be comrades, I don't see someone fighting against someone he knew now walking on the dark side. I just see "Let's have these two guys fight because we've got stock footage from the last battle. Also, Athrun needs something to do!"
How do you mess something like this up?

When I think about it, what was the point of throwing the "oh look, the new protagonist and old protagonist will fight!" angle if nothing was going to come of it? If they had just never done it, that could have been time saved for other stuff.

>>14082090
>and steals MS tech for their own usage
And depending on what Bandai feels like at any given time, they also have MS production facilities capable of putting out high-end MS like the Strike Freedom and Infinite Justice.

>>14082078

I don't get how you can have a protagonist mainly motivated by anger from having his family killed during a battle and not have him confronted by someone whose family he killed. I thought he knew Kira did it, which would lend extra reason to do it, but isn't actually necessary now that I think of it.

>>14082092

After Heavens Base he's shown to not get nightmares about Stella and Athrun. Despite Rey telling him it's a weakness and he should feel great for killing enemies of Plant.

Also from Heaven's Base on pretty much every fight has him thinking about Stella and the war and everything and going into a Seed mode rage, which based on his expressions, clearly isn't meant to be shown as healthy.

Which culminates in the final battle when Luna tries to stop him and he sees her as Freedom and attacks her.

Guy's mind was cracking as soon as the war became more than smashing faceless guys he didn't know or care about.

>>14075421
remember FLAWLESS VICTORY?
yeah, Shinn was shit at everything

>>14082090

I'm not even sure how we're supposed to take Terminal.

The whole thing is pretty blatantly a retcon seeing as the AA leaves Orb with only what they could scrape together from the last war and lamenting being undermanned and underpower, to the point were sending out a one armed one eyed guy was the only way Kira was gonna get any backup.

But then like 10 episodes later, all of a sudden this terminal thing is brought up out of the blue and suddenly Lacus has a secret factory. I guess they realized they needed a way for them to have a big enough force to fight Plant alone, and needed a way for SF and IJ to come about that wasn't stealing them from a Zaft hanger yet again.

>>14082180
>I don't get how you can have a protagonist mainly motivated by anger from having his family killed during a battle and not have him confronted by someone whose family he killed.
Shinn is multivated by the anger of the death of his family and needed to find someone to blame. The fact is no one wanted to kill his family in particular, not Kira and not even the original druggies. So Shinn's desire to find closure was always going to be fruitless. Shinn wanted to find out why he lost his family, because he couldn't handle that sometimes people die for no real good reason. He get angry at Orb, but Orb would likely have caused Shinn's death if they had surrendered in the first war, as Shinn is a Coordinator himself. There was just no single person for Shinn to get revenge on.

>>14082212
>But then like 10 episodes later, all of a sudden this terminal thing is brought up out of the blue and suddenly Lacus has a secret factory. I guess they realized they needed a way for them to have a big enough force to fight Plant alone, and needed a way for SF and IJ to come about that wasn't stealing them from a Zaft hanger yet again.
Yeah, on that part it does look like Terminal was something they made up to substitute for something they abandoned.

>>14082215

Damn it. This would work so well if they people writing it actually cared.

>>14079323
>implying anyone who was in the skater culture watched anime when they were knocking up their gfs and dropping out of high school

>>14082215
>There was just no single person for Shinn to get revenge on.
himself, he was just a mass of incoherent rage 99% of the time
little bitch should have had his slut sister phone broken in a sortie for being a dumb faggot

>>14082215

The two are not incompatible though. He doesn't need to have someone to blame to be blamed for another family's death himself. It just brings the point full circle and hits it home that whoever killed his family did so without realizing it, had good reason and couldn't really have prevented it - same as him killing whoever's family.

>>14082212
Terminal was hidden in orbit, AA was chilling in ORB. Cagali's arranged wedding threw everything into chaos forcing them to leave early. They didn't have much stored in ORB. And they couldn't just link up right away due to their trying to wait and see where to place themselves.

>>14082471
>same as him killing whoever's family.
Except when Shinn kills, it is intentional. No one intentionally killed Shinn's family.

>>14082695

Are you honestly saying he couldn't have killed some bystander's by accident through having a beam miss he intended target and fry them instead or something?

>>14082700
>Are you honestly saying he couldn't have killed some bystander's by accident through having a beam miss he intended target and fry them instead or something?
Yes he could, but he would hardly expect anyone to go after him for that. So it doesn't matter because it is retarded for anyone to do this. He did do that himself, which makes him a retard.

>>14082705

He joined the military for that. Someone confronting him after a battle with that information would not be out there in such a show.

>>14082711
>He joined the military for that. Someone confronting him after a battle with that information would not be out there in such a show.
And if someone tried to do that he would brush the guy off for being a retard. The entire point is that his position was illogical and he knows it. This is why it was never resolved, it was never about finding the killer but to get over the fact that sometimes people die.

The fact that this lead to Shinn killing lots of people deliberately, including the man who rescued him in that fated day, showed that he wasn't ever going to get better.

>>14082756

He can brush the guy off at the time, it's the development that follows that counts. That he realizes he is being angry at some randomer for no reason because that person, like him, probably didn't mean it or even know it and that him being a soldier means it'll happen and being okay with it for the result is what mattters. None of which he has to explain to the randomer who accuses him, but which he does have to become comfortable with himself.

>>14082756
Why are we blaming Shinn for his death like he knew he was there, or more importantly, asked him to remain on the ship for a kamikaze attempt?

If fighting off ORB when they're throwing everything they could at him and his ship while aligned with the EAST still makes him the badguy, then maybe he was just destined to not be the main character.

For all this talk that he doesn't know what he wants, it's pretty simple what he wants , to stop terrible battles like that from happening again. His first line in a mobile suit is "Do you guys want to start another war?" Not "I'm mad and I long to spill blood!"

Consider this, if he hung around ORB and joined their military, he would have ended fighting for the EA!

Shinn killing Todoka was dramatic irony, not him stepping into darkness.

>>14082925
>For all this talk that he doesn't know what he wants, it's pretty simple what he wants , to stop terrible battles like that from happening again.
Yeah pretty much. In a better written show Shinn would be the type of character who seeks power for the sake of preventing tragedy but loses his way and forgets why he wanted it once he has it.

>>14082215
If ORB had just surrendered, he probably would have made it out okay. Plenty of other people evacuated earlier, and we don't see the EA shooting down escapees. Only any Coordinators stupid enough to hang around would be risking their lives. We only hear him talk about ORB, because the EA has no relevant charcters.

Meta-wise, we know that it wasn't that easy of a situation, and ORB has been in some shifty dealings with the EA.
All Shinn knows is that ORB chose to fight a battle they knew they couldn't win and the Princess of ORB shows up to preach at them about keeping promises of not fighting after they've been attacked.

>>14082941
It would have been pretty easy to do that in the latter half of the series, and really push the idea home that Gilbert is buttering him up, like with crap like giving Shinn lackies, a ship or fleet of his own, or at the very least, try to hype him up with some ace title and have Shinn wrapped up in trying to live up to it, and not asking why the war hasn't ended after they take the moon base.

Instead, all the ZAFT crew do is stand around and bumfuck around. Shut one of the latter episodes has them standing around at the shooting gallery. Again!

The fundamental problem with basically all complaints/analysis of Shinn as a character is that they assume he's even one.

He's not.

He WAS a character with something resembling a plot arc (whether that be him maturing and learning to face his biases or just him being Jerid 2.0 and going fucking insane), but that got chucked to the side entirely and by the end of the series he is a literal attack dog with nothing to him at all. Why does he support the Destiny Plan? Why is he protecting a superweapon? Why doesn't he care that he's going up against Lacus, the goddess of ZAFT? And why can't he have a single decent conversation with anyone ever?

Shinn just got dropped entirely, so any attempt to critique or rationalize his decisions falls flat because you're looking at a cardboard cutout. You may as well ask why Yuna was so pathetic or why Djibril was such a dick; because the author didn't care about fleshing them out and just made them that way.

If you want to talk about actually shitty characters in Destiny, Athrun is right there.

Slap shin face for killing the fleeing criminal soldiers instead of praising him to free the slave.

>>14083057
Discussion about Athrun is easy.
He's a moron.

Honestly, if we're going to talk about 'fixing' Shinn, we need to basically change the entire series. The series icannot support the weight of two casts, we need new charcters. Shinn needed an actual rival of his own, like someone apart of the ORB/EA army.

>>14080900
Seed Destiny has the deepest lore

>>14083057
Yuna became pathetic to make Cagalli look impressive but both are so painfully stupid her moment of glory feels lame

>>14083033
>like with crap like giving Shinn lackies

>They're all mostly pilots just as young or younger than him.
>Shinn begins to get less angsty due to more responsibility
>Eventually cools down enough to realize Durandal is doing something shifty
>Series is saved

I could get behind this. Then again given the general trend of the series it's more like

>One of the pilots will be a little sister-lite who lost her brother
>Shinn and her bond
>Kira's beamspam accidentally shorts out her MS her during a sortie despite doing usual against others
>She dies to an overload so technically not Kira's fault (he will look away for a second and say "Was that an overload...?")
>Or she dies blocking a shot that Shinn could have avoided anyways
>Mayu/Stella/dead subordinate triple flashback combo
>It's fucking on, chaps

>Destiny gets destroyed by SF after 5 mins of stock footage anyways. F-F-FLAWLESS VICTORY

>>14075421
Sometimes I sit back and listen to Life Goes On
And then I wish to myself "I wish this show as good"

>>14083381
It was pretty odd how his character changed almost immediately.
The idea of him saying "this country is not your toy!" seems alien now.

So why didn't ORB just launch a coup and team up with the Eurasia side of the EA that was getting tired of their shit, or the other few neutral nations around?
Something other than MUH DUTY?

>>14075486
>Fujo girls
No those are delusional Shinn fans.

>>14084853

Because that's not the Japanese way.

If Shinn was kept as the protagonist, I doubt Destiny would be any better. Instead of something like that SRW scenario, Fukuda would more likely just make Shinn win with a ZAFT perfect victory.

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>>14086174
Depends
Do they have a budget?
Do they have a plan of what they're doing?
I reckon a series is easier to plan for when they know what they're doing and have only one side of protagonists to work with.

It's not like the concept of raising-the-tension-towards-the-end is an alien idea to these people, unless they really just didn't feel like trying that time.

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>>14084853
He was a creep manipulative dick but still made some sense. The derailment was so massive it was like the writers decided to retcon him as soon as Cagalli got kidnapped.

>>14080813

Whose dumbass idea was Kira anyway? Why would anyone think such an awful character was a good idea?

>>14080948

What crap was she responsible for again, since you've sifted the filth more than I could?

>>14080813
>>14086486
Stop samefagging, Shinnfag.

>>14086174

It wouldn't Durandal and Shinn are pretty sueish too if you look real close at them. It's just not as apparant because they get outsued by Kira and Lacus in the end.

But if they won it would just be trading one flawless victory for another.

People might like it more because they're always had this irrational hatred of Kira and Lacus and desperately want them to die.

But it wouldn't be a better show in the end.

>>14080797
>Also, is it me or would Freedom vs Destiny have been better rather than letting Athrun chop up Shinn?

It would have definitely been very thematic in the series, but sadly it didn't make sense, character motivation-wise, as >>14080851
points out.

>>14075421
Shinn > Kira
Kira > Athrun
Athrun > Shinn

>>14087040
Oh shit, it's a Rock Paper Scissors scenario!

All joking aside, that kind of works if you have well written characters, as it's very probable that Shinn might excel at whatever Kira is actually unguarded against, while Athrun knows how to take on Shinn effectively, and etc...

>>14087040
I wouldn't have minded that kind of scenario, but that isn't really how it's portrayed.

It's portrayed as "Shinn managed to marginally beat Kira once, but if Kira was serious he wouldn't do nearly as well", and there's even a throwaway line to that effect in the later episodes.

>>14079333
>He was in an inferior machine at that.

Debatable. It didn't have the same output, but it's hard to deny that the entire parts system almost seems engineered specifically to combat Kira and his fighting style.

Shinn and Rei basically had to team up and cheat to win. Kira > Shinn in a real fight, but Kira doesn't even go for the easy kills. Shinnfags just need to accept that Kira is a merciful god.

>>14089655
This.

The only reason Shin won their fight is because Kira didn't want to fight.

Kira is literally a genetically engineered Mary Sue, perfect by the standards of "perfect" being.
And at one time or another all the not-basic bitches are into him. 2 Princesses and a Skin Head.
When Kira puts in any effort he is basically unbeatable, and yet still boring as all fuck.
That's why people hate him.

>>14089720
>When Kira puts in any effort he is basically unbeatable, and yet still boring as all fuck.
Actually Athrun is intentionally exactly as strong as he is. It's just that the bits about how over powered he was was left in the production note and not in the anime. Athrun only gets weakened because he never knows why he is fighting most of the time, his girlfriend being unable to help him makes it worse.

>>14089901

That's really debatable. When Athrun won he needed to use a grab function exclusive to his machine and self destruct.

If he'd been piloting anything other than Aegis he'd be dead, because he was down a head and arm and out of power.

Which is the same with Shinn actually, because if he'd been piloting anything other than Impulse the fight would be over when Kira took that chunk out of it.

Even Rau only trashed Kira as bad as he did because he had dragoons. He only ever scored a single hit against Kira with Providence's rifle.

Kira always loses to circumstance, and never because he was flat out over powered.

>>14090480
This seems like nitpicking to me. Kira is obviously strong, but I don't think he's portrayed as unbeatable, just "really strong, possibly the strongest".

His almost-tie with Rau counts, his defeat by Athrun counts. The defeat by Shinn is fundamentally different than both of those, as Kira is not portrayed as REALLY going all out, and Shinn is also portrayed as having trained specifically and almost exclusively for that fight, with the help of Rey.

So, really, Rau and Athrun are also not comparable to Shinn, in terms of how their fight against Kira went.

What's more, you also have Athrun's fights against him for comparison. Shinn is obviously not THAT strong, since Athrun didn't just beat him, but completely dominate him twice. When Athrun went against Kira in a similar machine, they both almost completely died, and both were clearly going all out. When Athrun went against Shinn, he just went for it, for once, and kicked his ass really handily. At no point did I think that Athrun would have had the same easy time against Rau, and both Kira and Athrun seemed to face more or less the same amount of trouble from the druggies.

Therefore, it's completely reasonable to read Athrun and Kira as equals, and to then infer that their fights are representative of that fact, but when you have such a sketchy record as Shinn does against other skilled pilots, it's not at all reasonable to read Shinn as being equal, even if he did manage to "win" once. It's a matter of overall performance, not just specific one.