Gundam SEED Freedom Increases to 5 Billion Yen with Special Edition Screening

After the first weekend of the 1st Special Edition Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Freedom screening, the film has risen to a cumulative total of 5.05 billion yen and selling 3.01 million tickets.

To celebrate the film’s latest box office milestone, a commemorative 3DCG illustration by the film’s CG director, Kensuke Kushida, has been released. The illustration features protagonist Kira Yamato’s ZGMF/A-262B Strike Freedom Gundam Type II, Athrun Zala’s ZGMF-X191M2 ∞ Justice Gundam Type II, and the antagonist machine, NOG-M2D1/E Black Knight Squad Cal-re.A.

On its third weekend in February, the SEED Freedom became the highest grossing Gundam film dethroning the 1982 Mobile Suit Gundam III: Encounters in Space, which held the franchise box office record for forty-two years with 2.3 billion yen, while the 2021 Mobile Suit Gundam: Hathaway’s Flash is the third highest performing franchise film at 2.23 billion yen.

In August, it was announced the film would be receiving two “limited-time special edition” screenings, featuring over 500 updated cuts that would also be included in the Blu-ray release, each with different epilogue cuts. Part 1 would be shown in theaters from September 20 to October 3, while Part 2 screening from November 1 to November 14.

The tagline of Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Freedom is “The wings of freedom to seize the future”. The film is directed by Mitsuo Fukuda, featuring a script by Fukuda, Chiaki Morosawa, and Ryu Goto. Hisashi Hirai returns for character design, while the mechanical design team includes Kunio Okawara, Kimitoshi Yamane, Kazutaka Miyatake, Junichi Akutsu, Manabu Shintani, Zenseava, Takuya Io, and Hiroyuki Taiga. Satoshi Shigeta returns as mechanical animation director. Toshihiko Sahashi is the composer for the film’s music, and the theme song “FREEDOM” is performed by Takanori Nishikawa with Tetsuya Komuro.

Story

In C.E.75, the fighting still continues.

There are independence movements, and aggression by Blue Cosmos… In order to calm the situation, a global peace monitoring agency called COMPASS is established, with Lacus as its first president. As members of COMPASS, Kira and his comrades intervene into various regional battles. Then a newly established nation called Foundation proposes a joint operation against a Blue Cosmos stronghold.