Gundam SEED Destiny Final Plus

Information of Anime

Gundam SEED Destiny Final Plus is just a TV special that extends episode 50 of the show with new footage & some old ones being removed.  Think of it as version two of episode 50 that is extended.

Storyline (CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Below is a summary of the storyline.  This section does contain some spoilers.  If you haven't seen the series yet & don't want to be spoiled, skip this section.  If you want to know the story & want to see how I viewed it, read on.

It's not a storyline really.  This is nothing more than an alternative ending of Gundam SEED Destiny.  In fact, I believe this is the actual ending.  It's the same as episode 50 almost with new & missing footages.  Most of the new footage has Gilbert thinking about the times where he was talking to Raww about why people love to fight, a very small recap of the entire show, & extended clips of Kira & Athrun versus Shinn & Rey.  The story is a bit different from episode 50.  In episode 50, it looks liked ORB had the upper advantage in the battle.  In Final Plus, ORB is in a major disadvantage at the start as they feel that they fell into ZAFT's trap.

The most shocking part of the battle is how Athrun joins Kira in the fortress in meeting Gilbert.  This never occurred in episode 50, so this changes most of the story's ending.  As the fortress falls, Lacus makes a communication broadcast to all the ships in the battlefield to stop fighting which both ZAFT & ORB does.  When Shinn sees the fortress fall & thinks about what Athrun told him about creating a world without a future or searching for strength, he gets a change of heart.  Athrun appears to Shinn & Lunamaria in Justice to pick them up.

Time passes & this is where a lot of the new stuff comes in.  ZAFT & ORB makes an agreement to stop the war & end their differences.  ZAFT council requested to Lacus that she should return to ZAFT as their chairman, which she does.  Time passes more as we see Shinn, Athrun, Lunamaria, & Meyrin visit Shinn's family's grave at ORB.  Shinn tells Athrun the hardships he suffered with his family & how he hated this place that once lost it's beauty.  Suddenly, Kira & Lacus appear to visit Shinn's family's grave.  Athrun introduces Shinn to Kira as Freedom's pilot & shocks him & Lunamaria.  Kira tells Shinn about how he fights & builds a future.  He also tells Shinn to fight together when the time comes again by extending his hand for a handshake.  Shinn hesitates for a moment & shakes his hand in agreement.  The ending shows all three couples going their separate ways.

My Personal Review

Gundam SEED Destiny Final Plus is nothing but an ending that the creators wanted to show without that 30 minute time restriction in my view.  I felt the ending was a bit better than episode 50 in terms of filling plot holes.  However, it created things that caused more problems.  I would recommend watching this to get a more complete ending of the show.

Animation

Same as the show.  No changes whatsoever. However, the battle scenes are more exciting to watch here.  Also, the opening theme song scene is a bit different episode 50 with some new footage; particularly the naked Kira & Lacus hugging each other that seem to catch a lot of people's eyes.

Sound

Again, no changes here

Story

It's not a story.  It's an ending & a more problematic one at that.  I have no idea why the creators wanted to put Athrun with Kira when he went to meet Gilbert.  He wasn't there in episode 50 & this changes things a bit in terms of Athrun's character.

The overall ending frustrated people from what I heard.  The scene where Shinn shook Kira's hand is what drove people nuts.  Although I don't like Shinn, I don't see anything wrong with what he did.  However, I would agree that he shouldn't have shook Kira's hand & forget what he did to him in the past that easily.  I would expect some anger left in him, but will still shake Kira's hand since he didn't really try to kill him.  In other words, not full acceptance but do it to be somewhat polite.  Personally, the ending is a bit better since it's more complete & doesn't end suddenly.  However, it created more holes in it than it solved.

Overall Conclusion

Gundam SEED Destiny Final Plus provides a better ending than episode 50 did.  However, I'm not too happy with it.  It created things that wasn't needed & caused changes to the ending.

Gundam SEED Destiny Final Plus scores an eight out of ten.  It did provide more depth than what episode 50 couldn't offer, but they aren't necessary.  Although it had an ending that felt complete, it just created more holes in the story.

Want to see what's my opinion of who the best pilot in the SEED universe is?  Click here!