Earlier this week, the Gundam SEED series social accounts teased latest information from Mobile Suit Gundam SEED FREEDOM will be revealed on Thursday, Oct. 5. Then on the evening of Wednesday, Oct. 4, after coming home from a late-night work meeting, my social feeds suddenly were filled with leaks of what would be these announcements. I was waiting for the official reveals, at least for the names, but at least the leaks provided me time to gather unsolicited thoughts on these new mecha.
But first, let’s check out the mecha-filled third trailer they’ve dropped for the upcoming movie.
We still have no idea of what the story is, but at least we can see the uninspired mobile armor transformations for both the new Freedom and Justice Gundams. Speaking of the new Gundams, let’s go through them right now.
First, we have the new Rising Freedom Gundam which will be manned by Kira Yamato. Do note that outside the new Freedom, and possibly Justice Gundams, I’m not sure who pilots what from our main protagonist squad, despite some looking like obvious choices. Rising Freedom more or less shares the same ‘aesthetic DNA’ as the previous Freedom Gundams, though this one appears to return to its roots and ditches the Super Dragoons. It also has a bluer color scheme, kind of how the Aerial became the Aerial Rebuild.
One thing it gains is a mobile armor transformation and calling it a transformation is a bit of a stretch since it’s just a piece flipping over to cover its head and with the shield and beam rifle covering its body. The actual mobile suit body doesn’t even undergo a transformation. You can also see in the thumbnail of the trailer above that the blade antenna crest has “AUMENTO 909” scribed on it. “Aumento” is Spanish for “increase” or in the context of this new Freedom, it can also mean “rise,” hence Rising Freedom. The Metal Robot Spirits figure for this guy also reveals its model number, STTS-909.
Overall, the design is very 2000s, just okay but really uninspired. I’d still buy the kit though.
Next is the new Justice, the Immortal Justice Gundam. I guess if being infinite is not enough, then the next step is to become immortal. Again, it carries the core design DNA of the Justice Gundam design into this new iteration with bits and bobs added here and there. And just like the Rising Freedom, this guy also has the same dumb mobile armor mode. I don’t have any further comments on that matter.
Like the Rising Freedom, the Metal Robot Spirits figure of this mobile suit reveals its model number: STTS-808.
Starting in SEED DESTINY, the Universal Century mobile suit namesakes continue in SEED FREEDOM with the Cosmic Era version of the Gelgoog, called the GELGOOG Menace. I assume just like the ZAKU Warrior and GOUF Ignited, “GELGOOG” will be some acronym that will probably make no sense. Rumors suggest that this is going to be piloted by Lunamaria Hawke, which makes sense if we’re going with the color scheme. It’s also shown with two optional backpack units, one for atmospheric use while the other for space.
The next ZAFT mobile suit in the lineup is also another Universal Century homage, the GYAN Strom. Now things start to get a little dicey when speculating who will be piloting this thing. We only have Shinn Asuka and Agnes Giebenrath from our core Compass pilot squad. I was initially inclined to believe that Agnes would pilot the GYAN Strom while Shinn would return to his previous unit, the Force Impulse Gundam Spec II. That said, it would make sense for both Shinn and Lunamaria to get the latest Zaft mobile suits so making Shinn the pilot of this GYAN Strom would also track. But then again, others are saying that this unit obviously has the color Yzak Joule’s colors, coming from his GOUF Ignited.
Personally, I think Shinn would be piloting this mobile suit, since the original Gyan is a sword-wielding mobile suit, and Shinn does have expertise piloting mobile suits with Anti-Ship Swords.
As mentioned, the Force Impulse Gundam returns in the movie with some performance upgrades, but visually, it’s pretty much the same Force Impulse we are familiar with.
For the new organization to be introduced in the movie, their main mobile suit ace pilot squad will be using these sentai-looking Black Knight Squad units, so this group is called the Black Knight Squad then? We have the commander unit with the Black Knight Squad Shi-ve.A and I have no idea where that name could possibly come from. Same goes for the rest of the sentai, with each unit referred to as Black Knight Squad Rud-ro.A. They are identical units only differentiated with colors at specific parts.
I’m not interested in them at all.
That’s what we have as far as mobile suits go. Now the Rising Freedom and Immortal Justice have been leaked though some potato quality images several weeks back, and they were shown with another pair of Freedom and Justice-looking mobile suits. They also looked much closer to the Strike Freedom and Infinite Justice, albeit with different backpacks. The rumor mill suggests that Kira, and whoever pilots the Justice, will start the film using the Rising Freedom and Immortal Justice respectively. Then they both get a new mobile suit for the climactic battle where we’re also supposed to see a new version of the Destiny Gundam.
But I’m not holding my breath for these rumors, so I’ll just buy the Gunpla of whichever I like from the lineup they currently have. Speaking of Gunpla…
Mobile Suit Gundam SEED FREEDOM is set to premiere on January 26, 2024 in Japanese theaters. No international release schedules have been announced.
