Mobile Suit Gundam SEED HD Remaster (Ultimate Edition Blu-ray) Unboxing

Mobile Suit Gundam SEED (Kidou Senshi Gandamu Shiudo) is a 2002 television anime series by studio Sunrise with director Mitsuo Fukuda and writer Chiaki Morosawa. The series first broadcast in Japan on October 2002 as part of the Autumn 2002 anime season. The HD Remaster first broadcast in Japan on January 2012.

Background:

“Year 70 of the Cosmic Era.

The Coordinators, a group of genetically enhanced humans, have moved into colonies orbiting the Earth. But that hasn’t quieted the tensions between them and regular humans; the conflict soon escalates into a full-scale war. On the neutral colony of Heliopolis, Kira Yamato, and his friends are going to school and just being kids. But when the ZAFT commando forces attack, Kira’s life changes forever.

Left with no choice, he and Federation officer Murrue Ramius are thrown into battle in a prototype mobile weapon, which Kira christens “GUNDAM.” Now, Kira must defend himself and his friends from his own people. For, unknown to anyone else, Kira is a Coordinator. And the enemy he faces on the battlefield is his childhood best friend, Athrun!”

Plot Synopsis via Anime Limited, May 2021.

Sunrise have produced dozens of Gundam instalments over the past couple of decades, many of which are part of the Universal Century timeline where the franchise first began. However, there are also many shows and films that have their own universe, with Gundam Wing, Gundam 00 and Gundam Iron-Blooded Orphans as notable examples. For this post, we have another standalone Gundam series released back in 2002 called Mobile Suit Gundam SEED.

Gundam SEED I believe has one of the most divisive opinions among Gundam fans. Many people love the series and many people dislike it a lot. That being said, it doesn’t stop the fact that it has received the same sort of treatment that Gundam Wing, G Gundam and Gundam 00 had in North America with their Ultra Edition releases from Nozomi Entertainment. The series was once released by Bandai Entertainment and Beez Entertainment, before eventually being rescued by Nozomi Enterainment and Anime Limited for the United States and United Kingdom.

However, there was one thing that makes Gundam SEED stand out the most compared to others in the franchise, and that is thanks to the HD Remaster version, known simply as Mobile Suit Gundam SEED HD Remaster. The HD Remaster released in 2012 updated the visual presentation, with a full screen 16:9 aspect ratio instead of the original 4:3. The story is the same, but the recap episodes have been removed.

Because the HD Remaster changed a lot of the presentation and scenes, this meant that the English dub that Bandai Entertainment and Ocean Group produced for the original 2002 version, will not be able to sync with the HD Remaster. Therefore, Sunrise has instead produced a new English dub with NYAV Post and a new cast.

Ultimate Edition Contents:

The Gundam franchise has been rather consistent in terms of packaging for the UK. Anime Limited have offered every instalment a box to house the series or film with the Gundam Collection logo on the spine. The difference here is that Mobile Suit Gundam SEED HD Remaster is actually presented as an Ultimate Edition release this time.

Original 2002 Version & Special Edition films

The reason the UK release is an Ultimate Edition rather than a Collector’s Edition package is because both Nozomi and Anime Limited were able to include the original version of Mobile Suit Gundam SEED with this release, as well as the Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Special Edition compilation films exclusively for this edition. That being said, the 2002 version and the compilation films were not remastered in high definition.

Instead, these are presented as a ‘Standard Definition on Blu-ray’ format, aka SD on BD. Both the 2002 version and compilation films are in their original 4:3 aspect ratio in 480i resolution, but you can watch them in their original Japanese audio and the older English dub. While Anime Limited have yet to announce plans to release Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny, that is very likely going to be given the exact same treatment as this one.

Packaging

For the Gundam Collection, Anime Limited keeps them rather consistent in terms of the spine presentation with the logo positioned near the top. The size of Gundam SEED HD Remaster is just a bit larger than Gundam 00. The set is presented with a big outer rigid box to house all of the contents, and inside are two regular sized rigid boxes – one for the original 2002 version and Special Edition compilation films, and the other for the HD Remaster. Both boxes include two Amaray Blu-ray cases.

Housed inside the HD Remaster box are 7 Artcards and a fold-out poster at 34x40cm size. 6 Artcards are also included in the other box. Housed within the larger box outside of the regular two boxes is a 120-page hardcover artbook. The artbook has a ton of gallery artwork, and I haven’t checked to see if Nozomi’s Ultra Edition artwork is similar, but the Nozomi version is much larger in height.

The UK packaging overall is roughly the same as the French release, but the French discs are not identical in content. The French fans also got screwed over considering French distributor @Anime merged the SD and HD versions together on the discs, with the SD version presented in French audio only while the HD Remaster is subtitled only.

The artwork is free of any information or BBFC content and the info sheet covers the information and specification like previous Anime Limited releases. The ultimate edition Blu-ray has 1000 units printed for an SRP of £199.99. While previous Gundam releases have done pretty well for Anime Limited, this one is going to be an interesting outcome because it’s much more pricier and is a divisive series. That being said, there are plans to release a standard Blu-ray in the future focusing solely on the HD Remaster of the series.

Mobile Suit Gundam SEED HD Remaster was pre-ordered as part of Anime Limited’s Early Bird offering at £119.99, with the Screen Anime 10% discount lowering the price to £108. Speaking of Screen Anime, as of this post, the service has discontinued but the store discount will continue in the form of Anime (Un)Limited membership for £17.99 a year (which is cheaper than Screen Anime’s £39.99 a year).

Physical Contents:

• Rigid Box with Amaray packaging and clean artwork
• Info sheet for specification and BBFC description
• Mobile Suit Gundam SEED 2002 version of the series, presented in SD
• Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Special Edition films, presented in SD
• 120-page Hardcover Artbook
• 34x40cm fold-out poster
• 13 artcards (7 in HD Remaster box, 6 in 2002 Version box)

On-Disc Contents:

Distributor: Anime Limited
Released: 31st May 2021

This release for Mobile Suit Gundam SEED HD Remaster contains all 48 episodes of the series across ten Blu-ray discs in total (five per Amaray case). In addition, all 50 episodes of the original 2002 version are presented across two Blu-ray discs in Standard Definition format, and all 3 compilation films are on a single Blu-ray disc also presented in SD. The encoding and authoring was worked on by the folks over at Nozomi.

Now some of you may have noticed that this release took a while to be completed. This is because Sunrise accidently sent Nozomi the ‘broadcast’ version of the HD Remaster rather than the ‘home video’ version. In addition, Nozomi were also notified by fans that the encoding on the standard definition on Blu-ray discs wasn’t quality checked properly as it had incorrect black levels on the presentation. Therefore, this resulted in a delay that meant having to redo all 13 discs. Because Anime Limited were using their stuff, this also delayed the UK release from its original launch window of early December 2020 to late May 2021.

The audio options available for the series include Japanese with English subtitles, the NYAV Post English dub for the HD Remaster and the Ocean Group English dub from Bandai Entertainment’s release for both the original 2002 version and compilation films. The yellow subtitles are unlockable during playback, while the regions are locked to B only for Blu-ray players.

The SD on BD discs have no on-disc extras, so if you miss out on this release there’s no bonus features that won’t be left out in the standard edition HD Remaster sets.

Blu-ray Specs:

Languages	SEED HD Remaster: English (NYAV Post), Japanese SEED SD 2002 version: English (Ocean Group), Japanese SEED Special Edition films: English (Ocean Group), Japanese
Audio	SEED HD Remaster: English (NYAV Post) DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Japanese DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 SEED SD 2002 version: English (Ocean Group) Dolby Digital 2.0 Japanese Dolby Digital 2.0 SEED Special Edition films: English (Ocean Group) Dolby Digital 2.0 Japanese Dolby Digital 2.0
Video	SEED HD Remaster: 1080p High Definition Native format 16:9 aspect ratio SEED SD 2002 version: 480i Standard Definition format 4:3 aspect ratio SEED Special Edition films: 480i Standard Definition format 4:3 aspect ratio
Region	B
Subtitles	English
Locked Subtitles	No
Discs	SEED HD Remaster: 10 BD-50s SEED SD 2002 version: 2 BD-50s SEED Special Edition films: 1 BD-50

Blu-ray On-Disc Extra Features:

HD Remaster Disc 1:

• Textless Opening 1 “Invoke”
• In This Era – Prelude

HD Remaster Disc 2:

• Textless Ending 1 “Anna ni Issho Datta no ni”

HD Remaster Disc 3:

• Textless Opening 2 “Moment”
• In This Era – George Glenn

HD Remaster Disc 4:

• In This Era – Athrun

HD Remaster Disc 5:

• Director’s Concept Music Video 1
• Mecha Animation Director HD Comparison 1

HD Remaster Disc 6:

• Textless Opening 3 “Believe”
• In This Era – Cagalli

HD Remaster Disc 7:

• Textless Ending 2 “Distance”

HD Remaster Disc 8:

• Textless Opening 4 “Realize”
• In This Era – Lacus

HD Remaster Disc 9:

• Director’s Concept Music Video 2
• Mecha Animation Director HD Comparison 2

HD Remaster Disc 10:

• Director’s Concept Music Video 3
• Director’s Concept Music Video 4
• SEED Character Theater 1
• SEED Character Theater 2
• In This Era – Kira
• After Phase: In the Valley of Stars

Unboxing Photos:

Final Notes:

Mobile Suit Gundam SEED HD Remaster is available to own on Blu-ray from United Kingdom distributor Anime Limited. The ultimate edition Blu-ray is available to order from multiple retailers including Amazon UK.

(Disclaimer: Amazon links are also included when available. They are affiliated so if you decide to order them, I’ll earn a small percentage if they ship which will help me with any hauls or small bills. Due to current global situations, shipping restrictions may apply.)