Japanese animation, commonly referred to as "anime," is quite popular these days. Not the paper stuff, but actual cartoon shows. Why else would there be so many homemade music videos of similar large-eyed cartoons on Youtube or Gofish?

But after you watch a couple 200-episode long series, it gets kind of dull after a while. I mean, just how many hours of fictional characters reiterating ideas of justice, friendship, love, and perseverance can one take? Or the hours of people alternatively staring at each other murderously, or crying and saying, “I love you, so don’t leave”?

Probably one of the least popular anime series at Uni, judging from the response I see from anime club, is one of my favorites — "Gundam Seed." It deals with the above themes to some extent. But it also raises many questions about war, questions that can’t be easily answered. Questions that many people don’t want to ask themselves or think about, because entertainment is supposed to entertain and be fun, not realistic or plausible.

Unlike in most anime, there is no clearcut answer to anything in "Gundam." The series is science fiction based on current and not-too-far fetched technology, such as space colonies and gigantic humanoid fighting machines. It deals primarily with war and human nature, though romance is sometimes thrown in to attract audiences.

The series portrays war as a terrible tragedy created by humans, but does not always give the audience a clearcut side to root for or a clear solution to end the war. Who can judge whom during a war? Who is right, and who is wrong? Why do people fight?

In one of the "Gundam" series, "Gundam Seed," technology has allowed humans to live in colonies in space. The series begins in the middle of a war between Naturals, those who are born as nature intended and mostly reside on Earth, and Coordinators, people who are genetically modified and live mostly in space. War broke out between these two sides after the Bloody Valentine Tragedy, when the Naturals destroyed a peaceful, agricultural space colony.

At very beginning, it seems that the Naturals are in the wrong. They blew up a colony of peaceful people merely because the Naturals were jealous of the superhuman abilities of the genetically modified population.

ZAFT, an alliance of the Coordinators, retaliated by producing “N-Jammers” to disrupt communications and nuclear energy supplies on the Earth, which leads to mass starvation. Then ZAFT started to take control of Earth, all in the name of defending itself. Even though both sides speculated that the war would be quick — the small but superior ZAFT forces against the large Earth Alliance armies — the conflict lasted more than a year.

As the war progresses, we are introduced to our main protagonist, a young Coordinator, Kira Yamato, who lives in a neutral space colony. However, ZAFT forces destroy that colony because it the Earth Alliance was using it to develop advanced mobile suits and a new battleship. Though most of the colonists are able to escape in lifepods, Kira and his friends end up on the Earth Alliance battleship, the Archangel, assuming temporary combatant positions in order to survive.

Unfortunately, they are pursued by a ZAFT ship, including Kira’s old friend, Athrun Zala. To protect his friends, Kira has to fight Athrun, who lost his own mother in the Bloody Valentine Tragedy. This complication raises several inevitable questions: What is it that we should be fighting for? Why do we fight? Who is right, and who is wrong?

To make matters worse, they both end up killing each other’s friends in the heat of battle, when everything goes crazy and there’s no time to think about consequences or what is right. So what would you do if your best friend killed your friend? Would you kill your friend, to earn the hatred of even more people and perpetuate the vicious cycle of war, or would you be able to forgive your friend?

Later on in the series, each side proved to be more despicable than the other. The Earth Alliance, influenced by an extremist group that calls for the total annihilation of the Coordinators, develops “extendeds,” or humans specifically enhanced to kill, uses nuclear weapons, and deliberately kills its own troops to wipe out a large portion of the enemy.

However, ZAFT was not without faults either. The Coordinators assassinated a prominent anti-war member of their own council and used their own superweapon to destroy the Earth forces, eventually attempting to destroy Earth itself. Whom would you rather die for?

Many people don’t like this series just because of all the problems that are presented and the belief that these problems will never present themselves. But who knows what will happen in the future? What will you do if you are put into a position to either defend yourself, your friends, and your family?

Is it wrong to fight to protect? Is it right to kill? Can we even hope to live in a place without war?

Is war ever justified?