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Gundam SEED Phase 8: The Songstress of the Enemy Forces

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Summary

Lacus floats out of her escape pod with her noisy Haro flying around. She looks at Kira’s uniform and realizes she isn’t on a ZAFT ship. Murrue, Natarle and Mu take her to a room for questioning. Natarle chases away Tolle and the bridge crew for eavesdropping. Mu notices that Lacus’ last name Clyne is similar to Siegel Clyne, and Lacus explains that she’s his daughter. Lacus asks Mu if he knows her father, and he sighs in disbelief. She says she was investigating Junius Seven in preparation for the one year anniversary of the Bloody Valentine. An Alliance ship showed up and a conflict began during an inspection of the civilian ship Silverwind, so the crew shoved Lacus into the lifepod. While in the shower, Athrun gets a call to inform him that the Vesalius will be leaving port 36 hours ahead of schedule. He then turns on the TV and hears a news report about Lacus and the Silverwind disappearing near Junius Seven. When he reports for duty, he asks Rau if their departure has to do with Lacus. Athrun says it’s not certain something bad happened, but Patrick says he has to go. He says everyone knows that Athrun and Lacus are engaged and that it would be odd if Athrun didn’t go searching for her when she was missing. He explains that they sent a GINN Reconnaissance Type to find her, but it hasn’t returned. Athrun sees that his mission is to bring her back like a hero, but Rau says he could also end up bring back just her corpse and wailing away with tears. The Archangel leaves the ruins of Junius Seven, and Kira walks into the cafeteria and finds Miriallia and Flay arguing. Kuzzey explains that Flay refuses to deliver food to Lacus. Flay says she doesn’t like being around Coordinators because they’re scary, and she notices Kira standing there. She says they also have improved strength, and as she argues with Miriallia, Lacus and Haro walk into the cafeteria.

Mu wonders what they will do with Lacus, and Murrue says they have no choice but to take her to Alliance headquarters on the Moon. Mu says they’ll find plenty of uses for her there, and Murrue wants to prevent that because Lacus is a young civilian girl. Natarle asks how she can say that when she involved young civilians like Kira in the war. In the cafeteria, Lacus says she is hungry and thirsty, and Flay asks why a ZAFT girl is roaming the ship. Lacus says she isn’t from ZAFT, and Flay shouts out that they are all the same because they’re Coordinators. Lacus says she is a civilian like Flay, and Flay says they’re not alike at all. After Kira and Lacus leave, Kuzzey asks Flay if she is a member of Blue Cosmos, and she says she isn’t. However, she doesn’t think that what they believe is wrong. She thinks that Coordinators go against nature and that their very existence is wrong. Lacus tells Kira she is lonely, and he tells her there are people on the ship who don’t like Coordinators. She tells him he has been nice to her, and he says it’s because he’s a Coordinator too. On the bridge, Romero Pal picks up the Alliance’s 8th Fleet, commanded by Admiral Lewis C. Halberton. The fleet is sending out a signal for the Archangel, and it’s not too far away. The bridge crew rejoice because they can finally rendezvous with their forces. Sai tells Kira not to worry, and they hear Lacus singing. Sai says she has a beautiful voice, but he then writes it off as being part of the genetic engineering. On the Vesalius, Ades tells Rau that they’ve picked up an Alliance fleet. Rau decides to divert from the Lacus mission because he wants to intercept the Archangel before it meets that fleet. He tells Ades he doesn’t want to be the laughingstock of future historians. Sai tells Flay that her father is part of the fleet and will be meeting them. Kira goes down to the hangar to work on the Strike Gundam with Murdoch. The Archangel sets course for the fleet, and Lacus wonders where they’re going.

Commentary

After a brief introduction in the last episode, we get to see more of Lacus and her toy Haro. Yes, this is the same Haro from the Universal Century, only smaller and pink. It’s also very noisy and talks all the time. Lacus seems to be very naive and doesn’t catch on to things too quickly. She asks Mu if he knows her father just because he knows his name. How on Earth would an Alliance pilot know the leader of the PLANTS? Also, we see Flay’s true colors here. Kuzzey mentions Blue Cosmos, which sounds like it’s some kind of anti-Coordinator group. Flay makes it very clear that she hates all Coordinators except Kira, but this is problematic. It’s like a Nazi saying he hates all Jews except for one alone. The question now is why she hates Coordinators so much, aside from the events at Heliopolis.

Overall Rating
3.5/5
Gundam SEED Info


Director:
Mitsuo Fukuda

Writer(s):
Chiaki Morosawa
Hiroyuki Yoshino
Hiroshi Ohnogi
Shigeru Morita
Akinori Endo
Yuuichi Nomura
Akemi Omode

Mechanical Designer(s):
Kunio Okawara
Kimitoshi Yamane
Junichi Akutsu

Character Designer:
Hisashi Hirai

Musical Composer:
Toshihiko Sahashi

Format:
50 episodes (original); 48 episodes (HD); 1 short; 3 compilation movies

Airdates (Original):
Japan 10.05.2002 – 09.27.2003
U.S. 04.17.2004 – 04.15.2005

Airdates (HD Remaster):
Japan 01.xx.2012 – 11.xx.2012

Video Release (SE):
Japan 08.27.2004 – 10.22.2004
U.S. 07.11.2005 – 11.22.2005

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