Well I won't deny that Shinn could have died as well, although I believe Shinn is fully capable of defeating Kira, I also believe the reverse is very possible.
eh? I don't know about that, his angle seemed kind of off. Shinn flew in nearly horizontal to the ground (and straightened out a bit after he stabbed), I saw Kira's head stab more as a desperate last move. Then theres also the fact that Shinn had most of the momentum and had the Impulse's hands infront of the stomach. But then I also can't deny some possibility that Kira may have been able to attack the cockpit, but then both we and Shinn know he never aims for cockpits.
Fair enough.
I'm not exactly sure what you're trying to ask. If you're asking when a situation like that could come again, just loot at this way: Kira still avoids killing, Kira still uses the same tactics, and It's not hard to pressure the AA using another ship.
If you're going by 4tran's point of putting the enemy in an unfair position, Kira wasn't able to exploit his advantage at that point. And after that once Shinn got into SEED mode everything was fought to a standstill between the two.
Did you mean 'Kira imposed the disadvantages onto himself'?. Anyway I never said any of them were 'fair fights,' but Kira will always have disadvantages imposed onto himself since he always avoids attacking cockpits and always uses the same tactics. The only way I see a 'fair fight' happening between Kira and Shinn is if the AA gets detroyed or something and Kira goes into a berserker mode like he did against Athrun in SEED, at which point Shinn better calm down and start using his head or else he'd find his chances of winning to be fairly low.
That's not what I'm trying to say at all. Hell even taking examples after episode 34, Kira only had the advantage when Shinn was out of SEED mode, and Kira was in it. After that, their fights are all stanstandstills, so he does manage to take on SF without preperations.
Shinn in the Destiny still blows stuff up with his sword. But fine, in Strike Kira just uses whatever weapon he can to defend himself and the AA. In Impulse Shinn uses whatever weapon he can to wipe out enemy fleets.
Who's to say he wounldn't get it on his own?
Yes their situations were different, but then Shinn also managed to be much more offensive than Kira did, and I don't believe it was me who brought up Kira in Strike.
Yes the grunts of CE are crap, but it's much harder to take out 30 windams in an Impulse than it is to sit back beam spam any number of grunts.
and Kira is supposed to be better than Shinn because...?
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So I just went and rewatched that fight, Kira has his DRAGOONs shoot forward because he had just launched them, they didn't have enough time to get around Shinn. And Shinn manages to dodge all the DRAGOONs, and blocks a beam rifle shot that still causes an explosion (but doesn't cause any damage to the Destiny). After that Kira flies away, Shinn chases, Rey shows up, Kira launches his DRAGOONs at Rey. Shinn shows up shoots a couple of beam rifle shots, Kira goes into SEED mode, Shinn takes out his big gun, shoots, Kira shoots his chest cannon and both shots hit each other. After that Rey shows up, shoots at Kira and then Shinn leaves to go find the Minerva and AA. All of this while Shinn is out of SEED mode, thereby not fighting nearly at his potential. Again I hope you're not basing the fact that Kira is better than Shinn off that.