Following the first Mobile Suit Gundam SEED FREEDOM teaser revealed after the last episode of Mobile Suit Gundam the Witch from Mercury, a new 30-second trailer dropped which included showed more characters and included actual dialogues. You can check out the trailer below.
You may be able to pick up the faintest hint of the plot through the spoken dialogue sprinkled throughout the trailer, capping with what appears to be everyone needing to stop Kira for some reason. I do want to mention a couple of items in this trailer.
First, I really like seeing Shinn and Kira working together in a considerable capacity. Gundam SEED DESTINY ended with both of them appearing to work for ZAFT though it seems that, despite the similarly designed uniforms, they’re now under a different organization altogether. Which also includes our new pink-haired character on the left.
Athrun is mostly missing in these shots except for one where he appears to be doing some Alex Dino-spy work? Not entirely sure on that plot point.
We also see our protagonists meeting this figure head, which honestly gives me Mariemaia Khushrenada and/or Gundam ZZ-era Mineva Zabi vibes. What’s with these organizations giving children such political power?
The last thing I wanted to point out, and this is mostly me nitpicking, is what appears to be a more consistent UI interface for Cosmic Era computers. All Gundam series following SEED DESTINY had visually appearing interfaces, especially those seen in Gundam 00 and more recently, Witch from Mercury. So, seeing such treatment in SEED FREEDOM is much appreciated. And since we can decipher the text for the Destiny Plan on the left side, I’ve transcribed it below.
The “Destiny Plan” is a new management plan for humanity, in which your occupation and lifestyle are predetermined to suit your innate genetic type, and you live your life accordingly. All our previously acquired knowledge of genetic engineering, and the highest level of current technology will be used to implement this ultimate system for human salvation.
Information on all of humanity’s attributes, including our personality, intelligence, talents, and the presence or absence of serious disease factors, is contained within our bodies. If this can be clearly understood, individuals can exercise their abilities to just the right extent, minimizing strife and conflict.
When our talents fail to bloom because we don’t truly know our own selves, this is also a terrible loss for all of humanity.
We must begin from a place of fully understanding ourselves. This will be the glorious final step towards a happier future for us all.
And while we didn’t see any new mobile suits outside of spanking new CG versions of old ones, we did get new character reveals. I’ll just put the roster here, but you can check out their designs on the official Gundam SEED FREEDOM website.
While we don’t see everyone here, including that Mariemaia-like character from earlier, we do see most of the ‘more relevant’ cast. This also further confirms that essentially all of the ‘Clyne Faction’ are now with this new organization sporting ZAFT-styled uniforms. All of the female characters seem to have lip color applied, and I’m inclined to believe this design choice is made to make them look more mature.
We are also provided with the new pilot suits for our main mobile suit pilots. As they now work under the same organization, they have the same designs, but they still retain the colors coming from their SEED DESTINY suits.
Let’s quickly enter speculation territory as I’m expected all of these guys would be getting new or upgraded versions of their SEED DESTINY mobile suits. Kira, Athrun and Mu basically exited the last battle unscathed, but Shinn and Lunamaria’s mobile suits were wrecked so I’m expecting new versions of Destiny and Impulse. But of course, given that the movie is entitled Gundam SEED FREEDOM, the new Freedom will likely have the spotlight.
Lastly, here’s Agnes Giebenrath, who I’ve initially mistaken for Meyrin. She gives off the same vibes as Lafter from IRON-BLOODED ORPHANS just from her character design, for all I know she could have a dead serious personality. I’m also curious if she’ll get to pilot a new Gundam or more likely a high-performance grunt suit since she does share the same red ace pilot uniform (and skirt) as Lunamaria.
Now that the character reveals are done, we are likely to see the mobile suit reveals in the next trailer drop. Which also means new pre-orders of upcoming Gunpla, so we’ll track any updates once those come out. Mobile Suit Gundam SEED FREEDOM is slated for Japanese theater release on January 26, 2024, with no international distribution currently confirmed.
