GUNDAM SEED DESTINY

Ok, so it has cool mecha animation. Yeah, there's a lot of blowing stuff up. But the Gundam franchise offers so much more. In displaying combat between heavily-armed "mobile suits" piloted by gifted youngsters, it takes us on a journey that explores almost every aspect of war. The kid in me can appreciate it when Kira, one of the protagonists in the Seed series, gets to trade in his beat-up Strike Gundam for the new and improved Freedom Gundam. It looks cooler, and it rocks harder. All the glorious visuals are there to reel you in. And now that you're hooked, they can hit you with the history and political science lessons. At least I can hope that's what's happening for kids that watch the show. It's satisfying to see a cartoon demonstrate how people can be manipulated by their leaders into fighting war after war after war. Exploiting our differences to build up hatred, igniting the spark to fuel that hatred, revenge, profiteering-- it's all there. And it's all packaged in a wonderfully animated and melodramatically scored series. That's anime for you. I'm no anime expert. I just really enjoy this show.

Gundam Seed Destiny
And don't forget the rest of them:
Official Gundam website