I was really hoping I could give it a B+, but the ending wound up falling a bit flat. Overall, it was a very well-orchestrated military drama/romance, and about as anti-war as you can get when your protagonists are flying around in totally awesome giant robots.
I didn't really understand why the Earth Forces and ZAFT were fighting towards the end, I thought maybe they could learn to get along due to their mutual love of horrific war crimes.
Ultimately, the series loses quite a bit for a weak ending and some poor explanation in the middle, it really felt like they just didn't have enough time in the last episode to wrap everything up and explain it all, though there is a second series in the same universe, which I am intending to watch, so maybe that will bother to explain what the deal with the seeds is.
One thing that I was very pleased with for most of the series was how grey the morality was. The good guys were good, but the bad guys weren't really that bad, it let us focus on the effect the war had on them as people, and the dehumanizing effects of loss and death. This weakens as the series gets closer to the finale, both as a natural progression of characters getting over their issues and more blatantly evil characters filling the void as the former sympathetic villains start changing allegiances. (Spoiler alert, Gundam pilots in a Gundam Series switch sides a lot...)
Overall: If you need an introduction to the anime juggernaut that is Gundam, Gundam SEED is certainly not a bad way to go, and the first forty episodes are a well-crafted, emotionally-charged drama. However, you may find the conclusion a little bit of a disappointment.
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