MSG/UC = Unicorn is pretty popular among casuals, so it makes sense to try and link them together. Kinda like how they tried to push "Kira is just like Amuro" before the backlash against Destiny set in, with Kira being called out on being a naive, selt-righteous, hypocritical and a war monger in his own right in crossovers. Origin/G-Reco = Alpha and Omega of the UC timeline before the Moonlight Butterfly. Also, Char and Bellri can have a long debate about lolis vs. older sisters. Wing/Zeta = Kamille is a terrorist who learns to keep his emotions in check, Heero is a terrorist who regains his emotions. 00/IBO = It's post Awakening Setsuna offering Mika, the flower that represents peace in his timeline. But Mika, in the 4th opening, is represented by the Japanese spider lily, a poisonous flower used to protect the dead from animals that is sometimes referred to as the hell flower.\
If anything MSG/UC is the weakest link in my opinion. But there is something interesting here, something that should give the pro-enders cause for concern. See the lack of SEED in all this stuff about the 40th? You know, despite SEED being incredibly popular back in it's heyday? Well, here's the deal. SEED wasn't beloved by the hardcore Gundam fanbase back then. and the Kira-wanking in Destiny only made matters worse. Gunpla, the franchise's main source of income, dropped 36% for Destiny because Gundam fans weren't supporting SEED while SEED fans didn't buy Gunpla. This is why they killed the Cosmic Era, and 00 was meant to win back Gundam fans as well as find non-SEED fans. 00 managed to outsell the Cosmic Era in terms of HG model kits according to old marketing materials for AGE.
Throw in the fact that Unicorn is now the Gundam for casuals, and you get why SEED isn't present.
Boruto has to compete against the likes of Black Clover and My Hero Academia in order to be one of the big shonen titles now, because those are the ones casual audiences are going for now. And the fan backlash has undoubtedly hurt Naruto's sales. I mean, the manga is the main source of the franchise's income and it has plummeted. What was it, 2 million copies of a volume sold their first week at the series' peak vs selling under 100k now? The name means nothing if future stories retroactively taint the old ones. It happened to something as big as SEED, so just because people are supporting the ending doesn't mean that the execs are happy with how things have played out.
I could see a slight Amuro comparison up until Kira got the first Freedom. After that, he was nothing like Amuro and just became as you / others described. Actually, when you think about it...he became pretty much what Naruto became to a degree (minus the war-monger part for Naruto). They both ended up coming down to, "Believe what I believe or I'll make you by force". Even Lacus noted their own hypocrisy during the last stretch of SEED - "We call for peace...but with weapons in our hands..." - She could see that what they were doing would not truly bring about peace because they were trying to force the Earth Alliance and ZAFT to the bargaining table with metaphorical guns to their heads.
As for Gunplas, it also doesn't help that a vast majority of mobile suit designs in SEED Destiny were either just updated rehashes of SEED mobile suits (especially ones like Impulse / Strike, Legend / Providence, Strike Freedom / Freedom, and Infinite Justice / Justice) and so it might feel like you were just getting "the same thing". or they were, even worse, pretty blatant "ripoffs" of Universal Century mobile suits (ZAKU Warrior, GOUF Ignited, DOM Trooper, Savior Gundam, Murasame, Akatsuki Gundam Destroy Gundam, etc.). At least SEED tried to be little original and only paid homage to the Universal Century designs, like with the mono-eye sensors of most ZAFT mobile suits.
Eh, feels refreshing to talk about something else (though I suppose we COULD make a Gundam thread).
I really can't hate Wing, if ONLY because it was the one show that opened me to the world of anime (I was already into DragonballZ, but I didn't have the urge to explore; what can I say, I was 15 at the time). At first, Wing BLEW MY MIND. So you can imagine my surprise when exploring Gundam fansites, Wing was CONSISTENTLY named as the worst series (at this time the latest one was Turn A).
Anyway, I eventually explored other Gundam series, and upon watching some of Wing again...it really doesn't hold up. Inconsistent damage (grunt pilots a Mobile Suit, it gets blown to smithereens. Gundam pilot uses same mobile suit, can take a beating for a bit), sometimes overly philosophical, quite a few plotholes, vague origin of the Gundams, and even then I thought Wufei was a complete kitten.
I'd say it definitely picks up in the 2nd half, but then again I think most Gundam series' really shine in their second halves.
The exception being Seed Destiny. I personally thought the first half was awesome, but by the 2nd half it CRASHED AND BURNED.
In fact, with Seed Destiny, my experience with that series is eerily similar to mine with Naruto. Both started out promising, if you're invested you're convinced all the plot points are going somewhere, but by the end they just fall flat on their faces and betray what they were promising in the first place. I and many other fans never wanted to see another Gundam series at the time, but I think 00 brought many back ( I still remember the Jesus Yamato vs Allah F Seiei memes). Whether the Naruto franchise can do such a thing for me, well, I'm waiting. Not getting my hopes up though.
As Rules mentioned, both Fudaka and Kishimoto didn't have a strong sense of where they wanted to take their respective series and only added in certain elements because they thought they were popular genre tropes without understanding how to properly use them. The similarities are really astonishing. I also heard because his wife was the chief writer, Fudaka often gave her breaks and that's why the Cosmic Era has so many clip show episodes (on MAHQ he's called "Clip'em All" Fudaka as opposed to "Kill'em All" Tomino). If the illness was the factor that got in the way, then I do sympathize with them, but at that point Fudaka should have gotten a writer in better health. Also heard his wife was a big fan of KiraXLacus, and that's why they became a GaryStuXMarySue couple as time went on.
If only Kishimoto's wife had that same power over him.
Lesson that should be taken from both of these is that you NEVER create a story based on popular tropes; you make what you think is a good story THEN you add any tropes that you think will suit your needs. Do it like the two above and in the end it's going to derail everything.
Yeah, I don't necessarily "hate" Gundam Wing. I just never saw what was SO great about it to some people. To this day, there are people who say it's one of the best Gundam series. To me, it was all flash, but no substance. Similar to SEED / SEED Destiny, it took a crap ton of extra material outside of the anime series' to (try to) explain things (in regards to both characters and tech, but whose canonicity is questionable at best) that should have been in the anime series itself.
Most of the characters themselves were just boring more than anything. Some started out okay. I even liked Relena early on, especially when she took it upon herself to try to kill Lady Une in revenge for her (adopted) father's death. That made her seem badass, but then as soon as she learns about her real heritage and tries to live out the whole "total pacifism" thing and then is used like a tool by Trieze....ugh, she just went completely down the tubes. In the end, Noin is probably the only character I liked all the way through. Others either went down the tubes, barely went anywhere, if at all, or didn't get enough attention to have any sort of impact one way or the other. Wing was also one of the series with TWO infamous clip-show episodes (to which both SEED and SEED Destiny also did). The sequel manga, Gundam Wing: Frozen Teardrops, was also poorly received from what I've read. In the end, similar to SEED, I mostly just like some of the mobile suit designs and love the soundtrack (SEED Destiny - mostly just the soundtrack).
Also similar to Naruto, there was (at least initially) a lot of pairing-goggled fans who only cared about who looked good with someone else. When I ask people why they like Kira/Lacus so much even though there was no real romantic development between them, one of the first things they say is almost always, "Because they look so cute together". Just like with NHers, they can't seem to ever provide any real development from within the series itself, and what they do try to point out is stuff that is very easily explained / debunked..
"Kira hugged Lacus after saying her father died!"....yeah, I'm pretty sure most friends would do such a thing if their friend told them their father died and started crying on the spot, male or female.
"They were together for the two years between SEED and SEED Destiny." ....yeah, hiding as internationally wanted terrorists / criminals and in such a situation, it's probably better to stick together.. If they (more Kira since, as I said, Lacus at least acknowledged their hypocrisy) truly believed what they did was right, they would have been out there preaching to the masses, not hiding away.
"Lacus said she was fond of Kira after being picked by Athrun!"...yeah, "fond" does not automatically mean "romantically attracted to". She could have just as easily just seeing him as a kindred spirit due to their beliefs, which again, does not automatically equate to "romantically attracted to".
...and so on. Athrun and Cagalli at least felt semi-real, but then they went and broke them up in SEED Destiny for...reasons... and then forcing Athrun together with...Meyrin Hawke...while also forcing Shinn and Lunamaria Hawke together...it was pretty much just having Lunamaria getting with Shinn (even though she initially had a crush on Athrun) and then just giving Athrun the leftovers.
Destiny's infamous use of clip shows, recycling of animation and stock footage comes from the fact that it was far behind schedule. See, this is how TV in Japan works. You're effectively renting the timeslot in order to air your show from the broadcaster, and have a requirement to fill it up. If you fail to do so for whatever reason, you lose it. Since episodes are completed only a couple of weeks before airing., they'll do whatever they can to not fall behind schedule. Not to mention, it looks bad on the part of the director for failing to properly manage the show. This may be a reason why we don't see shows air 50 episodes continuously anymore, alongside changing business models and Japan's economy.
Destiny abused this and even in Japan it was considered a joke before the HD Remaster (but is still considered a joke, especially Athrun memes). Fukuda talked about this on twitter after his wife died, saying that he often butted heads with producers. One side wanted the show to stay on schedule, the other was fighting for better quality. Granted, Fukuda never specified which side he was on but either way he didn't realize how bad it looks on his part. If he was arguing for quality, than he failed and caused the show to go behind schedule. If he was arguing for schedule, than he didn't care about the quality of his show. He also defended his wife's writing, saying she could get a script out in a single day when properly inspired and that at times her scripts were accepted without revision. For those who don't know, most episode scripts go through 3-4 versions to iron out the details.
Not to mention some members of staff weren't happy with the scripts. One animation director posted on his blog (said post was removed, but it was something referenced on Morosawa's wikipedia page) said that while he liked Fukuda's "pitiful" production, that if Morosawa couldn't write than she shouldn't. That the story wasn't drawing people in, people did not get the feelings behind the love story, that she couldn't maintain tone or atmosphere, and that scripts were written to reuse scenes. We have Kenichi Suzumura, Shinn's VA, saying that Shinn's development was derailed and he did not end up the way he was originally supposed to. Shinn in early promos was called the hero, but then he was turned into the villain because he opposed Kira.
Destiny, like Naruto, shows that it doesn't matter how big you were. If you screw up big enough, fans will take offense. The worst SEED haters I know were, once upon a time, diehard SEED fans before Destiny. Now, SEED has an anti-fandom.
PS: I really get the impression 00 was meant to tackle Destiny's views by proxy. S1 is showing a far less idealized version of Kira and co.'s actions, the fact it's often called a deconstruction of Gundam shows how off they were from the rest of the franchise. S2 has the subtext of taking control of Gundam away from the genetically engineered clone of E.A. Ray and returning Gundam to the ideals of it's bald creator. The movie is a CCA-level Newtype miracle, completing 00's attempt to reconstruct Gundam for the modern age.
Yeah, I remember also seeing Shinn advertised as the new protagonist and the way it started, he certainly looked promising, especially given we were seeing someone with a completely different PoV from Kira, and even hated him because of the death of his own family. From what I heard, he was also flip-flopped because it was still a time where people were high on Kira and so replacing him with someone else just didn't sit well with them. Similar to how Yu-Gi-Oh! GX having Judai / Jaden as the new main character rather than Yugi just got an immediate negative reaction on reflex from a lot of Yu-Gi-Oh! Shadow Games / Duel Monsters fans ("It's YU-GI-Oh!, so why isn't YUGI the main character?!", "This is too light-hearted! Why isn't it darker?!" and idiotic crap like that). Today, people seem to have accepted Judai, but back then? Hoo boy...
Funny thing is that there already is an anti-SEED Destiny series in the form of Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team. Shiro and Aina, two "star-crossed lovers" who meet and fall for each other after some battlefield encounters, try to work to get at least their immediate colleagues to resolve their fighting peacefully, even going as far as to not kill enemy soldiers as much as they could, only to be laughed out of the room (literally in Shiro's case) because of how naive and unrealistic the ideals were (as well as leaders on both sides just plain hating each other, were corrupt, etc.). However, unlike SEED / SEED Destiny, where things more or less "worked out" in the end, 08th MS Team had Shiro and Aina suffer consequences for their decisions (Aina having to help kill her now-psychotic, genocidal brother, and Shiro near-court martialled but sent on a near-suicide mission for redemption, his squad-mates being made to watch him and, if it looked like he was going to betray, kill him, etc.), fail completely in the end and, like Kira and Lacus, are shown to be in hiding while most others thought they were dead, because otherwise they would no doubt have been arrested and executed for betrayal, desertion, giving aid and comfort to the enemy, and so on, and Shiro having lost a leg.
Nothing they did mattered in the long run. The One Year War continued for two more weeks (by the end of the series, we learn Operation Star One was beginning - the attack on Zeon space fortress Solomon and then A Baoa Qu the week after) and costing thousands of more lives, and outside of their immediate friends and such, no one has probably heard of them and what they did. What leaders on both sides who did probably just buried it. And nothing they did would have any impact on future conflicts and war.