We all know that Gundam SEED has some great fights given to us by great mobile suit pilots, but when it comes down to it, what makes a great pilot? And who is really better than whom? We know you have your personal favourite pilots, but if you want a more detailed explanation on who is really better, then check out this list.
Take note we are only talking about Gundam SEED and not Gundam SEED Destiny.
Warning! Spoilers ahead.
10. Mu La Flaga
Although in the series he is shown as a Natural, Mu possesses great mobile suit piloting skills. He started off as a mobile armor pilot and then later became the pilot of the Strike and became very skilled at piloting it once it was equipped with the support AI from Orb. In the battlefield, Mu can often be seen not having any trouble when it comes to fighting normal Coordinators, but he always has trouble when he goes up against Rau Le Creuset, the commander of the famous Le Creuset team of ZAFT.
Even though Mu is a Natural, he can always sense when Rau Le Creuset is near, and this is shown as a lightning bolt flashing in front of him. This is similar to the ability of Newtypes called the Newtype flash. Mu La Flaga could very well be a Newtype and that could explain why is so much better than the normal Naturals who fight alongside him in the first Alliance-PLANT. However, the term Newtype was never used in Gundam SEED. Throughout Gundam SEED, Mu only shares this ability with one other person, and that is Rau Le Creuset.
As a person, Mu shows a lot of personality that mostly depends on who he is with at the time. When he is with Kira Yamato and his friends, Mu acts like he is a big brother and at the same time not letting Kira forget that he is their commanding officer but when he is with Marue Ramius, the captain of the Archangel, Mu is a charmer who goes out of his way to casually seduce her.
9. Nicol Amalfi
Not much is known about Nicol other than he was a member of the Le Creuset team, he loved the piano, and that his father was a member of the PLANT supreme council. We also know that among the Le Creuset team, the other members, specifically Yzak Joule and Dearka Elsman, refer to him as weak or cowardly but this is only because Nicol is more on the pacifistic side.
In terms of his mobile suit piloting skills, we ranked him higher than Mu because Nicol is a ZAFT red coat that signifies he is an elite pilot of ZAFT.
8. Dearka Elsman
Also a member of team Le Creuset, is a red coat pilot of ZAFT and serves as the artillery for the Le Creuset team. Not much can be learned about Dearka in Gundam SEED as we mostly see him only during Le Creuset team meetings or during a battle.
Unlike Nicol though, he is more of an aggressive person. This should enable him to fight more fiercely but he has never truly shot down significant targets down. He even failed to shoot down Mu La Flaga when he was piloting the Sky grasper but we believe that if the battle was in space and it was a one on one battle, Dearka would win over Mu.
During battles, he is seen mostly just destroying ships with his gun cannons. Overall, we ranked Dearka at number eight because although he has a powerful machine and is not a pacifist like Nicol, he isn’t that significant in the story.
7. Yzak Joule
He is also a member of team Le Creuset, and unlike his fellow teammates, he has a temper when it comes to battles. We don’t know that much about Yzak aside from his mother being a member of the PLANT supreme council and that he has a deep loyalty for the PLANTs and ZAFT.
During battles he would rush towards the enemy aggressively, usually Kira Yamato, and without fear. Although he is a ZAFT red coat, just like Dearka, he has never been able to shoot down enemies that are significant. Unlike Dearka though, he was able to stand against the strike and the freedom for a short while until Kira deafeated him both times.
6. Orga Sabnak
Orga Sabnak is a biological CPU of the Earth Forces that severed the same role as Dearka Elsman for his team during the first Alliance-PLANT war. Using his machine, the Calamity, he would be the artillery support for his team. Unlike normal Coordinators though, he proved to enough of a challenge for Kira Yamato and Athrun Zala who were both piloting the Freedom and the Justice respectively.
However, aside from his few hit at the Freedom, he is just like Dearka Elsman, a remake of the role of Dearka Elsman including the role of not being able to shoot down significant targets. Although he is loud and obnoxious during battles, he is still only a side character that doesn’t really do anything in the show regardless of his skills.
The only downside to his skills is that he needs to regularly ingest some kind of medicine or else he will experience severe pain. This means that although he possesses great skill as a mobile suit pilot, he can only fight for a short amount of time, so the longer the battle is, the more disadvantageous it is for him.
5. Shani Andras
He is another member of the biological CPUs during the first Alliance-PLANT war. Unlike his teammates, he specializes in melee fighting as his mobile suit is designed for it. Just like his teammates Shani is leaning towards being a sociopath or a psychopath, he just enjoys killing his enemies and doesn’t mind if he kills his teammates in the process.
Just like his teammates, Shani Andras is able to stand his ground when he was facing Kira Yamato and Athrun Zala during the battle of Orb but he never truly got to shoot down significant targets. He also suffers the same kind of downside his teammates suffer. Although he has great skill as a mobile suit pilot due to him being a biological CPU, he also needs to maintain a dose of some sort of medicine or else he will experience extreme pain.
4. Clotho Buer
He is also a member of the biological CPUs made by the Earth Alliance during the first Alliance-PLANT war. We don’t know much about him as a character since he, along with his teammates, were introduced in a much later time in Gundam SEED. We do know that he possesses enough skill to stand his own ground when he faces Kira Yamato in the Freedom and Athrun Zala in the Justice.
We also know that just like his teammates, he is somewhat a sociopath or a psychopath because he does not care who he kills and he is not afraid to die, he just does what he is told. During their fights Clotho Buer serves as a close combat to mid-range fighter. He can fight in close combat with his flail and claws and he can fight in mid-range because of his beams and cannons. Just like his teammates, Clotho Buer has to take and maintenance drug that keeps him functioning as a biological CPU.
3. Andrew Waltfeld
Andrew Waltfeld is a captain of a team of ZAFT on earth that is particularly located in the desert. From the show we know that he prefers being on Earth and that he loves brewing coffee. We can also see the depth of his skill with him being able to identify Kira as a coordinator even before meeting Kira himself. Although he fights the main protagonist, during Gundam SEED, he gives Kira a philosophical insight into what war really is, why it happens, and how to stop it. He does this by means of asking him questions that later on prove to develop Kira Yamato as a character.
We consider the Desert Tiger himself to be Kira’s first difficult opponent. It should be noted though that during his fight with Kira Yamato, Andrew Waltfeld had a great advantage as his opponent was fighting him using a space type mobile suit in a desert environment. Andrew Waltfeld is such a good pilot that during his fight he forced Kira into SEED mode. He was even good enough to make the Strike loose phase shift armor.
Although Andrew Waltfeld may not be as skilled as those who are biological CPUs, the difference in skill is not that much but the difference in the period of time in which they can fight is great, this means that Andrew Waltfeld, if he was ever to face a biological CPU would probably win as long as he able to make the battle last longer than what the biological CPU can handle.
2. Rau Le Creuset
Reasonably one of the best and most interesting characters of the show, and perhaps the one true antagonist in Gundam SEED, Rau Le Creuset is a great character that comes with an interesting backstory and great mobile piloting skills to boot. He is introduced to us from the beginning of the show and since then he has always proven to be an interesting character because of his charisma and his philosophy.
At the start of Gundam SEED, Rau seems like a cool and collected individual, however as the show progresses, we discover a different side of him. We learn that he is not a normal human being. Although he is a Coordinator, he is the only Clone shown in Gundam SEED. He is actually a clone of Al Da Flaga, Mu La Flaga’s Father.
Rau Le Creuset also has the ability to sense Mu La Flaga when he is close or nearby, this is an ability he shares only with Mu. Rau himself is aware that he is a clone and for the entire span of Gundam SEED, it seems that only Rau himself is the only one aware until he reveals it to Kira Yamato and Mu La Flaga when they were in the mental colony.
Rau is a psychopathic individual. He believes that the humanity is destined to destroy itself because of man’s insatiable desires. He also believes that he is that he is the only one who can rightfully judge humanity because he claims to be a failed product of man’s insatiable desires. In terms of Mobile Suit piloting skills, Rau was able to stand his ground when he faced Kira Yamato, piloting the Freedom, in Jachin Due. He was even able to keep up with Kira Yamato’s speed and was able to severely damage the Freedom during the battle as well.
1. Athrun Zala and Kira Yamato
We call it as a tie for Kira and Athrun at the number one spot. We believe both are equally good and here are the reasons why.
Athrun Zala
Unlike Kira Yamato, Athrun Zala graduated from a military academy and is a ZAFT red coat mobile suit pilot. Being a red cot means he is identified in ZAFT as one the elite pilots. This means that unlike Kira, he received proper military training for mobile suit piloting and combat. We can see Athrun’s skill in piloting a mobile suit many times in Gundam SEED during his fights with Kira Yamato. In his battle with Kira Yamato at the Marshall Islands, he was able to severely damage the strike and would have won the battle if he did not run out of power.
Because his mobile suit is designed as a close combat fighter, Athrun’s fights showcase more of his close combat abilities. However that is not to say that Athrun is not great at mid-range to long range combat.
One great source of power for Athrun is his SEED mode. When Athrun is in SEED mode he becomes the best close combat fighter in Gundam SEED. It should be emphasized that Athrun has never truly lost a battle when he is in SEED mode. We consider his fight with Kira Yamato in the Marshall Islands to be a draw as both machines were destroyed and both pilots ended up unconscious.
Although Athrun is not an Ultimate Coordinator like Kira, he possesses enough skill to be able to stand toe to toe with Kira, and in the show there was never a decisive battle between the two to show who actually superior.
Kira Yamato
Kira starts off as a happy go lucky teen in the peaceful and neutral space colony of Orb, Heliopolis. However, he gets pulled into the war in order to protect his Natural friends from ZAFT. From the start of the show, we can see that Kira has some knowledge about robotics, but he is no soldier and he never received any military training in piloting a mobile suit but because he is the Ultimate Coordinator, the moment he jumps in the Strike, he immediately knows how to operate it.
He manages to fight off Miguel, the mentor of team Le Creuset while at the same time upgrading the operating system of the strike. A feat that normal Coordinators are unable to do as we see in the first episode that the Le Creuset team taking their time in finishing the operating systems of their mobile suits before they can pilot it properly.
In Gundam SEED, Kira has only ever been taken down in the fight with Athrun Zala at the Marshall Islands, but we consider that to be a draw since both machines were destroyed and both pilots ended up unconscious.
Just like Athrun Zala, Kira also possesses the SEED mode and it is his main source of ability when he faces an opponent of high calibre. When in SEED mode, Kira becomes unstoppable. He is able to beat any opponent he faces as long as he is in SEED mode. The only opponent Kira was unable to defeat was Athrun Zala during the battle at the Marshall Islands.
Kira Yamato may be better than Athrun Zala if he did not limit his combat skills. Kira is a pacifist and he truly hates war and fighting. He hates killing even more and if he can do it, he fights his enemies with the intent of not killing them, just disabling them. If Kira were to fight with the intent to kill, who knows how strong of a pilot he could actually be.
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