# Kiss Kiss (Gundam Seed 15) Episode "14" was a recap episode - and 15 feels like more of the same. The 4-minute infodump reads like a recap of a series that never existed, the glorious adventures of Clifford growing up - something that could honestly make for an interesting prequel. But the delivery mechanism is poor; too much telling, not enough showing. Rather than calling back to this monologue later in the episode, as Kira lies hospitalized, it would have been better to explain these things through such incidents. But even beyond the poor delivery, while I normally love detailled settings, somehow this time I find myself not caring. Partly it's the same problem as with the Earth military power struggles - I know that the alien artifact and the wider Coordinator backstory are irrelevant to the rest of the story. Partly just the main conflict seems underdeveloped: *Gundam Seed* is clearly trying to show that war is stupid, but it does it too well: the internal disagreement among the Earth forces was motivated by nothing more than petty jealousy; similarly Le Creuset seems to simply want war. Interesting conflicts happen between people who believe they're doing the right thing; this is too close to cartoon villainy. And if the war starts to look like straightforward good vs. evil, it undermines any wider worldbuilding. Thankfully the infodump eventually ends, and we get back to the more important business of Best Girl. Flay's characterisation just gets better and better; her devotion to Kira - and her stone cold takedown of Sai - must bespeak some measure of true affection, even as she stridently insists (if only to herself) that it must be otherwise. All too soon matters will come to a head - the call back to last episode's robot shooting a civilian shuttle is establishing a motif that we'll be seeing more of - and in the last moments of this episode we call forward to the new combatants for the coming arc (on both sides) - a far better way of establishing breathing space than the infodump. But for the moment, our heroes are young and in love - tragedy has brought them closer together - and I am content. [Home](/) <div id="disqus_thread"></div> comments powered by Disqus