Boom! Pow! The trademark sights and sounds of a Gundam series are not absent from this latest installment, which is something of a remake of the original Mobile Suit Gundam series. Is that all it's about? Not by a longshot. This Gundam series takes storytelling in an action series to a whole new level.

Filled with plot twists, well animated action scenes, and fan service galore, there really isn't a whole lot that brings down the Gundam SEED experience. Well, unless you skip over every opening animation sequence in the series (which totals fifty episodes). From episode one you know how the relationships will end up, you know what will happen a few episodes from then, and you get a few boobie shots. Then comes episode thirteen, episode twenty-six, and episode fourty; each opening animation following those episodes create some pretty massive spoilers that really ruin some of the suspense that may come from trying to figure out the relationships.

For the most part, the story moves along very quickly and it's pretty exciting. Every time I finished one episode, I just wanted to see another one. And another one. And another one. Unfortunately, this doesn't really help make the ending work. In a period where a series should slow down and get everything explained, Gundam SEED just keeps moving forward and then it just ends at episode 50. It didn't really feel very satisfying that such a fantastic story would end up like that.

Ah, how dare I go this far into a review and not mention the technical aspects of Gundam SEED? The music is absolutely fantastic. Some tracks are a little lousy and are really only good when background music in the show, but some of them, like the multitude of vocal songs, are wonderful. My personal favorites are Shizukana Yoru Ni and Mizu no Akashi, both sung by the magnificent Tanaka Rie. On the other end of the technical spectrum is the animation which ranges from awful to average and very, very rarely above average. It's not one of Hisashi Hirai's best works (see: Infinite Ryvius), but it certainly gets the job done.