Gundam Seed/Seed Destiny General Discussion Thread

[Obelisk ze Tormentor]

Originally Posted by GN0010 Nosferatu

Do we know what the budget was for Seed Freedom? I am curious as to exactly how much of the gross has been profit. In America movies have to make back, I think 3x their budget to break even.

Anime movies usually don't reveal their budget to the masses. Heck, to this day, we still don't know the exact budget of CCA despite how well-known it was/is.

But also usually, when an anime movie reached 1 Billion Yen domestic, that's a guaranteed financial success, not just profit, success. So, imagine the success of Freedom with the 4 Billion (and counting). Furthermore, now that we know Freedom was also sponsored by Honda, that's another cut out of the movie's budget, making it even more profitable.

[Dernhelm]

Originally Posted by Obelisk ze Tormentor

But also usually, when an anime movie reached 1 Billion Yen domestic, that's a guaranteed financial success, not just profit, success.

oh, so that's why they did fancy animation when the movie officially broke 1 billion with the ZGOK popping out of the Haro. i thought they'd do something similar with the 4 billion reach but nah just a film still of Kira.

[Mad Pierrot]

Rotten Tomatoes linked me to one of the few reviews besides animenewsnetwork and just like that site, they highly praised the development of Kira's and Lacus' romance that might appeal even to casuals (well, it's not like the two had too much screentime). It's kinda sad in retrospect considering how such couple was often linked to Fukuda and Morosawa as the latter passed away before being able to finish the movie. Kinda like that feeling when Stan Lee appeared in the last Spiderman animated.

[Obelisk ze Tormentor]

Originally Posted by Dernhelm

oh, so that's why they did fancy animation when the movie officially broke 1 billion with the ZGOK popping out of the Haro. i thought they'd do something similar with the 4 billion reach but nah just a film still of Kira.

And now to give you a picture on how the Shounen anime movie market eclipse & dwarf the Gundam movie box office:
Demon Slayer: Mugen Train raked in 40 Billion Yen just for the domestic market.

[Dernhelm]

Originally Posted by Obelisk ze Tormentor

And now to give you a picture on how the Shounen anime movie market eclipse & dwarf the Gundam movie box office:
Demon Slayer: Mugen Train raked in 40 Billion Yen just for the domestic market.

no need to show me Demon Slayer when the new Haikyuu movie is already putting in crazy numbers with at least 6.4 billion yen in 4 weeks. i think it's going after The First Slam Dunk though.

[Obelisk ze Tormentor]

Originally Posted by Dernhelm

no need to show me Demon Slayer when the new Haikyuu movie is already putting in crazy numbers with at least 6.4 billion yen in 4 weeks. i think it's going after The First Slam Dunk though.

I'm just comparing the highest-earning Gundam movie with the highest-earning shounen movie to illustrate the gap between the two businesses.

It would be nice if mecha movies can do nearly as good business as shounen. The last Code Geass: Lelouch of the Re;surrection movie "only" made 1.9 Billion Yen for example. And Geass is supposed to be the most recognizable mecha IP next to Gundam & Macross.

[Mad Pierrot]

Yeah, Code Geass and Lelouch won around two consecutive Anime Grand Prix but Demon Slayer also won a lot in Japan. Jujutsu Kaisen is also a popular shonen jump anime but the only one that made the Anime Grand Prix was the prequel movie Jujutsu Kaisen 0 while competing with season 2 of Demon Slayer. Still, from what I read the first novelization of Seed Freedom did good in sales at least competing with the Haikyu novel too.

Note: As of March 2019, the Code Geass, Lelouch Resurrection movie has grossed more than ¥1 billion ($9 million) in Japan. Don't know if that helps Obelisk.

[Dernhelm]

thanks for all the info guys! i'm stunned the last Geass movie only did very modestly.

as for more mecha movies, people are kind of wondering what if G-Witch had a movie would it do as well as SEED or more?

[Mad Pierrot]

I don't think Bandai posted sales but I remember that both SEED and Destiny sold 1 million copies of DVDs per series and 00 did similar.

The original Code Geass didn't stay behind https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/new...n-discs-served

Gundam Unicorn and Origin were popular enough to be rereleased but I never heard of notable sales.

Still, now that I think about it the release of Resurrection might have been affected by social distancing. I think it happened in 2019 as Netflix grabbed it to stream it alongside the two final Kenshin liveaction films. Weird year, I remember that the liveaction of Kenshin did more than the final Gintama movie.

[Laevatein]

Originally Posted by Obelisk ze Tormentor

I'm just comparing the highest-earning Gundam movie with the highest-earning shounen movie to illustrate the gap between the two businesses.

It would be nice if mecha movies can do nearly as good business as shounen. The last Code Geass: Lelouch of the Re;surrection movie "only" made 1.9 Billion Yen for example. And Geass is supposed to be the most recognizable mecha IP next to Gundam & Macross.

Definitely Evangelion and probably Mazinger would be more recognisable.

[Obelisk ze Tormentor]

Originally Posted by Dernhelm

...as for more mecha movies, people are kind of wondering what if G-Witch had a movie would it do as well as SEED or more?

Hard to say.

WFM was pretty big when it first released, but nowhere near the pop-culture phenomenon that was SEED in early 2000s. Also, SEED fans were promised a movie since long ago and they've been waiting for 20+ years for Freedom, so yeah.

WFM movie still has the potential to be big like Freedom but I think it would be better if Bandai made WFM sequel show first. The conflict between Earthians & Spacians is still there waiting to be explored in detail and a single movie is not enough to do it justice.

Originally Posted by Laevatein

Definitely Evangelion and probably Mazinger would be more recognisable.

When it comes to Evangelion, at this point, I would credit Hideaki Anno more for its movie success than the movie being a mecha (not even counting the fact that Eva units aren't really mecha to begin with). The Anno name seems to be the bigger draw for Japanese audience (instead of Evangelion being a mecha anime) as has been proven by Shin Godzilla, Shin Ultraman & Shin Kamen Rider. All of those movies flourished mostly thanks to Anno's involvement being on the forefront of the marketing. And, yes, the Evangelion Rebuild movie 4 managed to score 10 Billion Yen domestic. Sure, you can take that as a "win" for mecha anime in general but I personally lean more towards Anno as the main draw. There's also a notion that a great deal of Evangelion fans don't really like mecha genre in general. They often say they like Evangelion coz it "deconstructs" mecha tropes without actually watching said mecha shows, not knowing that Shinji is practically just Amuro Ray from OG Gundam (if you crank up his whiny nature to 11) and the general plot of Eva is your stock standard trope of "alien/monster/robot will take turns in attacking our base" just like Mazinger Z & Getter Robo in the 70s

As for Mazinger Z, let's face it, that anime is only popular among older people who watched the TV show as kids back in the 70s or reruns in the 80s & 90s. The last big movie, Mazinger Z: INFINITY only scored around 220 Mill domestic in total. It debuted in #6 & only earned 87 Million Yen its first weekend, all of which is not a good look for its box office.

[monster]

Originally Posted by Obelisk ze Tormentor

Oh shit, monster! You're back too?

I actually check back once every few months to a year since I don't really watch anime anymore but feel nostalgic from time to time.

I came back today after seeing that the movie will be showing in the US in two places. I don't know if it will have more showings, especially near where I live, but if it doesn't, then I guess I'll wait for the home release.

Anyways, it's been good catching up on all the posts in this thread, although the extra-movie info dump just overwhelms me now that I don't have the time to read through all that.

[Mad Pierrot]

Well, while Mazinger Z Infinity was nice, it's obvious Go Nagai didn't work there. Then again, I never understood how he worked in the original anime. I remember hearing Nagai worked in both manga anime of Mazinger Z and Devilman.

[Dernhelm]

Originally Posted by monster

I came back today after seeing that the movie will be showing in the US in two places. I don't know if it will have more showings, especially near where I live, but if it doesn't, then I guess I'll wait for the home release.

there's a rumor that a wider release is slated for May 7 in the US because Fathom Events listed it on Fandango.

[Renegade334]

Summary of Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Freedom Week 1 Attendee Special Gift A, Escape for Two novella, by Liu Goto.

TL;DR…

 

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Note:
- Unlike what was previously reported, the novella actually doesn't take place AFTER the movie, but before COMPASS' arrival in Foundation. Not sure where that erroneous detail originated from, but I've seen it repeated on both 4chan and Reddit.
- The Foundation Shock is probably a rewording of the Foundation Effect, which refers to the ripple of local bids of independence witnessed within the Eurasian Foundation after the bloc was beaten back by a newly self-affirming, breakaway Foundation.

[Mad Pierrot]

I never thought about it but why does Athrun need to hide his identity? I get it in Destiny due to meeting ZAFT in the first series he was kinda an ally of Orb in the final episodes.

[Renegade334]

He's in the intelligence business now, so...yeah?

[Mad Pierrot]

The official Gundam website presented an interview between Hoshi and Fukuda. I was always surprised about Kira's characterization in Destiny. Fukuda admits he made him weaker in Destiny so that he doesn't handle the entire plot again in contrast to the original Seed where he pretty much "devoured" the plot. Guess the Kira from Destiny was still suffering trauma for what happened in Seed.

Also, Fukuda really wanted to destroy the Freedom vanilla even though Hoshi really liked it. Hoshi was a bit of a rookie actor by Seed but he was still highly popular for Taniguchi's first works Scryed (Kazuma) and Infinite Ryvius (the little brother who really looks a lot like Kira but two years before Seed). Still, Ishida almost ended up being Kira's during the making of the first anime.

[carmolita]

So athrun and cagalli are no longer together!? He's with meyrin?!

[Dernhelm]

Originally Posted by Mad Pierrot

Guess the Kira from Destiny was still suffering trauma for what happened in Seed.

i thought this was very obvious in Destiny but i guess not.

Originally Posted by carmolita

He's with meyrin?!

professionally, yes. romantically, that's a spoiler