I'm just that asshole who's late to everything, aren't I? Well, today's review is gonna be a little different considering the season. Rather than review a movie, we’re going to take a look at a anime OVA. Now which OVA could possibly warrant a review on this day? Why, an anime about death, the misery of war, and a child’s innocence being smashed into pieces! I’m of course talking about Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket.
Now while the series doesn’t really have any Christmas spirit per say, it does take place during Christmas and the actual holiday (December 25th) plays a central role in the story.
For those of you unfamiliar of the Gundam franchise, a very brief recap! Mobile Suit Gundam is about a future where mankind has migrated to space and a group of colonies call themselves the Principality of Zeon and declare war on the Earth Federation with giant robots called “Mobile Suits”. This particular OVA (Original Video Animation), as the title suggests, is a small story that takes place in the same timeline as the main series, but in a small corner no one really cares about.
Released in 1989, 0080 was created to commemorate Gundam’s 10th Anniversary, the series was not penned by Gundam’s creator, Yoshiyuki Tomino. The series takes a step back from the mainstream series focuses (conflicts of Newtpes finding their place in the universe) and instead takes a realistic approach about ordinary soldiers in this horrifying war. Tomino himself even praised the series and only had about 1 or 2 issues (very good ones in fact) with the series, but overall, he seemed to enjoy.
For this review, since there are only 6 episodes, we’ll go through them individually real quick like a normal movie review and abridge whatever isn’t really relevant. So, without further ado, let’s dive in.
Our episode starts off in December of Universal Century 0079 in the arctic where a team of Zeon spec-ops, called the Cyclops Team, is underwater in a submarine. They deploy their mobile suit team, consisting of three Hygoggs and one Z’Gok-E. The team consists of its captain, Steiner Hardy (Barry Stigler), the Russian accented drinker Mikhail “Mischa” Kaminsky (St. Paul Peter), Andy Strauss, and lowest ranking member: Gabriel Ramirez Garcia (Kirk Baily).
The team uses their superior mobile suits to smash through and attack a secret Earth Federation post, encountering several of their mobile suits as well and peeling through them. Andy comes across a large shuttle carrying several containers getting ready to launch. Andy gets impatient and jumps out to attack, only to get shot down and killed by a GM Type D. The shuttle takes off successfully escaping destruction. Steiner steps out and finds Andy’s body, holding it in his arms and screaming in anger to the sky.
The narrative changes to a small colony in the cluster known as Side 6, a neutral series of colonies in the war. Ten-year-old Alfred Izuruha (Brianne Siddall) is going at school and gets in trouble for drawing a Zeon Zaku II instead of paying attention. At lunch, he gets into a fight with a girl named Dorothy (Melissa Fahn) over one of Al’s friends holding an EF rank badge and whether or not the Earth Federation has mobile suits of their own.
After school, Al’s friends Chay and Alcott ask him to go see his father at the space port and use his camera to get footage of some Federation mobile suits being brought it. Al goes to the space port to meet his father, Ems Izuruha (Steve Blum) and was only able to see the containers. As Alfred heads home, he runs into a woman with red hair. Her name is Christina Mackenzie (Wendee Lee), an old friend and older sister-like person to Al who came back to Side 6. As rain starts falling, Al is brought inside of Christina’s house. Christina explains that she came back thanks to her government job and was transferred back at last second. Al heads home, has dinner and plays a shooting video game. But rather than shoot monsters, he shoots the buildings including the school, hospital and other buildings until he gets a game over.
The next day at school, Zeon attacks the colony. They bring in several mobile suits into the colony and cause a little havoc. The Earth Federation forces stationed there are forced to deploy their own mobile suits to fight back. In the crossfire, a Zaku II Kai flies by Al and his friends, and Al decides to chase after it. The Zaku II crashes in a nearby forest and Al takes out his camera to start filming. As he walks around the Zaku, he sees the cockpit open and the pilot standing out of it, aiming a gun at Al.
“Relfections in a Brown Eye”? I didn’t know the abyss staring at you provided a pretty image to with it.
Back to Al and the Zeke, the soldier decides not to shoot Al, seeing as he’s a kid. He introduces himself as Bernard “Bernie” Wiseman (David Hayter). Al asks if he can hold Bernie’s gun, and is quickly denied. Bernie then decides to let Al hold his gun, but takes the boy’s camera to see the footage. After a brief scuffle, Al spots Bernie’s rank badge. The two instead trade the rank badge for the camera. Bernie takes just the floppy disc holding the footage and gives the camera back. Another Zaku II Kai lands nearby and Bernie runs over to it, hitching a ride with the pilot and flying off and escaping the colony.
Al goes back to his friends Chay and Telcott and proceeds to laugh at Dorothy for being wrong about the Federation having mobile suits of their own. Class is cancelled for the rest of the day. Later at home, Al places the rank badge on his jacket and pretends to be a mobile suit pilot in his room.
Meanwhile at the Zeon lunar city of Granada, a Zeon Colonel named Killing is debriefing the Cyclops Team of their upcoming mission to Side 6 to investigate the colony. It seems that the shuttle that escaped the arctic had made it to colony. Colonel Killing wants whatever is in the shuttle, either by obtaining or destroying it. He assigns Bernie to the Cyclops Team since he got them footage and to fill the space that Andy had.
Bernie meets the team, and Captain Steiner breaks down their plan: Operation Rubicon. Bernie disguises himself as a civilian pilot on a shuttle carrying the parts of a new mobile suit into the colony during a Zeon attack. They intend to construct the mobile suit in secret and plan out how to obtain whatever was in the shuttle.
Al, all the while, gets in trouble at school for his poor grades and worries about the trouble he’ll face with his mother. That night, Al sneaks out of his house. He’s caught be Christina, and claims that he is on a dare and that Christina can’t come with him since she’s a girl. He asks to keep it a secret, and Christina agrees to. Al heads to the Zaku II Kai Bernie piloted and sees that the weapons were taken away. He falls in the cockpit, which closes as he enters. He sits back, and starts laughing about the coolness of the situation.
At Granada, Bernie’s shuttle is prepped up, along with a dead body disguised as a civilian and shot through the window to recreate the shuttle being damaged. The operation begins and Bernie flies out as several mobile suit teams head out to distract the Federation forces. Bernie finally lands through the crossfire, but as he’s being processed by security, he’s missing one last piece of paperwork. Captain Steiner comes in and puts on an act while delivering the missing paperwork. The group is cleared, and they begin moving the containers to their new location.
Al wakes up in the morning and sees the battle happening outside the colony and gets out of the Zaku. He runs out to a nearby street and is almost hit by a truck. The truck stops, and the driver looks out to yell at Al. Al recognizes the driver as Bernie and gets out of the way. Bernie and the trucks driven by his fellow Cyclops Team continue on their way. Al quickly pursues them, barely latching onto Garcia’s truck in the back. Al starts laughing in excitement that the Zeon soldiers are back again. Listen kid, I’m all for chaos and mayhem, but this is in war where 1/3 of humanity has BIT THE DUST. I repeat: 1/3 of the human population. And this is through dropping colonies on Australia and poison gas attacks. Let’s move on and continue the adventures of our little psychopath.
Al holds on to Garcia’s truck for a few blocks, but is flung off on a very sharp corner and lands in some bushes. Shrubbery: saving kid’s broken spines and bashed open skulls since the 1970s. Al goes to the police station and shows them his injuries, wanting to find the soldiers and complaining about it being hit and run. He gives Garcia’s license plate number and the truck is located at a warehouse. A cop and Al arrive and start questioning, but Mikhail is about to pull on a gun on the cop, Al starts crying and claiming Bernie is his older brother. Al says he made the hit and run up just to see his “brother”. The cop leaves, pissed at Al’s shenanigans.
Bernie scolds Al, who demands to be a member of the Cyclops Team. Captain Steiner says Al can join if he tells them where the footage of the storage area from the footage Bernie gave them was. Al points it out on a map, and Stiener gives him a Cyclops Team insignia as a reward. Bernie drives Al home. While the two are gone, Steiner denies Garcia the chance to kill Al. If anything, it was better he stayed alive so as to keep the newbie Bernie out of the way. On the drive home, Bernie lies about his battle experience to Al, including saying he was one kill away from being an ace.
When Al gets home, his mother starts scolding him for his grades. Bernie listens in through a bug in the patch they gave Al. As Al works on his homework, he overhears Christina scream. He looks out his window to see Bernie on the ground and Christina holding a bat. Before she could call the cops, Al defends Bernie, once again claiming that Bernie was his brother.
In Christina’s house, Al and Bernie lie, claiming Bernie is Al’s half-brother by their father in a previous marriage. Christina’s father lets out that Christina is a soldier in the Federation, and she claims she only does data entry while Al slips out that Bernie is one as well, but Bernie claims he was discharged. Bernie and Christina seem to hit it off thanks to the confusion from earlier.
The next morning, Al leaves his friends playing war and heads to the warehouse. There, he sees the newly produced Kämpfer under construction and testing. Al is disappointed that the suit would only be used for escaping the colony later on. Even more so, Al lets out that Bernie was one kill from being an ace and should be the pilot, causing Bernie some trouble from Garcia and Mikhail. Instead, Mikhail will be the pilot due to more experience.
Meanwhile, Christina is revealed to be the testing pilot for the new Gundam Alex NT-1, which has been so supped up that it was built for Newtypes (specifically: the main character of the mainstream series: Amuro Ray [review for another day]).
Construction of the Kämpfer goes on while Al and Bernie search around for the hidden Federation base. Al recognizes a gate guard at one factory as a man he encountered at the space port where he recorded his footage. He and Bernie go snooping around through the colony interior and find a newly made blocked off section, Al goes into a vent and reaches a hallway where he spots the new Gundam and begins taking pictures of it just as two guards begin approaching him from the other end of the hallway.
Bernie drives Al home, the latter of which falls asleep in the car. Bernie hands Al over to Christina at her house, asking her to cover for him. Christina agrees to, and Bernie asks her to call him by his first name “Bernie”. She says goodnight, and says his name.
The next day, Garcia heads out and places a bomb near the Team’s escape point. At school, Al is asked why he draws Zakus in his notepad since Zeon are the bad guys. Al says he like Zeon better because of their cool mobile suits. As he’s being criticized, Dorothy defends him from their onslaught.
Later on, Bernie and Al talk about the Gundam they find. When Al asks Bernie if he can beat it, Bernie says that have a good 50/50 shot of defeating it. Bernie then asks if Christina has asked about him at all. Later, the Cyclops Team goes over their mission. The plan is that Mikhail will use the Kampfer to cause a diversion while Bernie, Steiner, and Garcia infiltrate the base. If they can’t steal the Gundam, they’ll destroy it. While preparing, Garcia tells Bernie not to get himself killed. At long last, everyone is prepped up and begin heading out. Steiner, Garcia, and Bernie get into the Federation factory while wearing Federation uniforms while Mikhail gets the Kämpfer up and ready to cause havoc.
At the Feddie factory, Al fakes and Austrailian accent to a guard and how the country is covered in snow at this time of year. Mikhail starts shooting up Federation vehicles as the trio reach the room containing the Gundam. The guard from earlier realizes that its summer in Austrailia and stops them. A firefight breaks out between the trio and the Federation guards with the Gundam just feet away from them. Steiner is shot in the shoulder while Garcia is hit as well.
Outside, the Federation fires missiles that miss Mikhail and hit Al’s school. Garcia plans to destroy the Gundam while Bernie gets Steiner out of there. But Garcia is shot before he could get any closer to the Gundam. In his last breath, Garcia sets off the mines he was planning on uses on the Gundam, killing all of the guards while Bernie escapes with Steiner while acting as a Feddie.
Christina comes into the room in the aftermath of the explosion and gets into the Gundam as Mikhail blows a hole into the building. Christina moves the Gundam out of Mikhail’s range, and stands it up to fight. Mikhail throws a series of bombs at the Gundam, which only destroys its thick outer armor. The Gundam opens up a gatling gun in its forearm and opens fire. The Kämpfer’s armor is too thin, and Mikhail is killed as the bullets rip through the mobile suit.
Al arrives at the battle to watch in horror as Mikhail is killed and finds Bernie dragging a wounded Stiener.
Back at Granada, Colonel Killing goes mental and kills the chief commander to assume command and clearance to arm a nuclear warhead to fire at Side 6.
In Side 6, Al leaves a fast food joint and walks by the destruction caused by the attack. Among the destruction, he sees a dead child dragged out of some wreckage and has a slight mental breakdown before getting a grip and running. In the woods, Bernie is packing up and getting ready to escape the colony, Steiner’s grave marked nearby. A flashback to last night, Steiner asks if Mikhail destroyed the Gundam. Bernie lies, but Steiner calls him out on it.
Famous last words, man. Way to go.
Bernie also recalls speaking to the bartender who had been helping them the entire time. The bartender, named Charlie, reveals that Zeon will be destroying the colony with nuclear missiles to destroy the Gundam (seeing as Amuro’s own Gundam has proved such a monster on its own). Al comes to Bernie and brings the food he bought. As Al gets depressed about everyone else on the team dying, Bernie says they were just unlucky. Al questions why they had to, and Bernie replies that everyone has luck when it comes to death, and they’re luck just ran out.
Bernie reveals that Zeon is going to destroy the colony if the Gundam is not destroyed by Christmas Day. Al thinks they can fix the Zaku enough to destroy it, but Bernie reveals he’s just a rookie and never actually shot down anyone as well as he is leaving the colony. Al thinks Bernie is just scared, and that he could actually beat the Gundam. Bernie takes the Cyclops Team patch and tears it open, revealing the bug he planted. Al claims to hate Bernie for being coward and is going to tell the police, but Bernie counters that they’ll execute Al for being an accomplice.
Al heads to an arcade and has another breakdown about the colony being destroyed when he sees some kids play a game based around mobile suits. He runs away and finds Christina near some wreckage. Al asks her a hypothetical: if you knew the colony was going to be destroyed, what would you do? Christina replies that she would fight to protect those she cares about, but running is an okay option as well. Al then heads to his school, where his friends Chay and Telcott are excited about the school being destroyed and picking up shell casings. Bernie all the while is at the spaceport and buying a ticket to the colony of Francheska.
In other parts of space, the nuclear warhead is loaded on Captain Von Helsing’s (not even kidding) ship. He objects, but Colonel Killing orders the mission be carried out.
Al heads to the police and tells them of the coming attack, but because of the stunt he pulled a few days prior, they don’t believe him and kick him out. At the spaceport, Bernie heads to a bar and buys a drink. As he reaches for money, he finds the rank patch Al threw at him during their argument. He then overhears a drunk woman rant on the phone about her mistakes and how bad the Francheska colony is. Bernie reflects on his time with Al and the bond they built. He gets a phone and calls Al and informs him that he’s not running away: he’s going to stay and fight the Gundam.
The final episode begins with Al and Bernie repairing the Zaku with what little tools they have. They can salvage parts from the GMs across the colony that were destroyed, and obtain weapons that Mikhail left in two trucks parked in an extended parking lot. They go to get the weapons, but one truck is being towed. Just as the other one is found by two guards, Al feigns being a kid who lost his dad to their war while Bernie steals the truck.
Back in the woods, the truck only had one heat hawk (super heated axe) and 12 hand grenades. While thinking of different weapons to use, Bernie thinks of using some of the mobile suit-sized Christmas balloons throughout the city as distraction tools. That night, Bernie steals some of the balloons from a factory. They continue working the whole night and have the Zaku ready by the next day on Christmas Eve. At the Christmas Eve Parade, Bernie gives Al a letter and disc containing a video that Al needs to play in case Bernie dies. That night, Al prays for Bernie to win the battle and save the colony.
The next day on Christmas, Al’s father arrives at the spaceport where he and his mother are waiting for him. Al’s father mentions that he was late thanks to being caught up in a battle. He mentions that the Zeon ships destroyed in the battle were carrying nuclear missiles. Al then realizes that Bernie doesn’t need to fight; the colony is safe. Al runs from his parents and rushes through the city to find Bernie before the fight starts.
Unfortunately, Bernie is already in actions. He makes his Zaku known to the colony, and the Gundam Alex is the only usable mobile suit. Christina launches and she starts chasing him. Pink smoke planted by Bernie goes off in the woods and heads towards it. Bernie’s Zaku heads into the forest, knowing the Gundam will follow to avoid civilian casualties. Bernie sets off the Christmas balloons, distracting the Gundam for a couple seconds while he attacks from behind with his heat hawk. However, Christina is able to hit the cockpit with her gatling guns and wounded Bernie, but Bernie was able to cut off the Gundam’s gatling gun on the right arm (the left arm out of ammo from the fight with the Kämpfer). Christina is even wounded in the attack. Christina pulls out a beam saber and the two do battle. Al arrives, screaming to get Bernie’s attention and trying to stop them. The Gundam and Zaku charge at each other. The Gundam’s beam saber goes through the cockpit and vaporizes Bernie while the heat hawk takes off the head. The Zaku’s reactor explodes, sending Al and Christina’s Gundam away by the blast.
Christina is alive, while Bernie has been “reduced to a pile of hamburger”. Al is motionless; stil registering that his best friend was killed right in front of him. Even worse, he watches as Christina is pulled out of the Gundam.
The tape Bernie gave Al is played in the next scene, with Bernie sitting in front of the Zaku before going to battle. Bernie instructs Al to give the letter and video to the Federation; both of which reveal his team’s involvement with the whole fiasco. Bernie tells Al to not hate Gundam or the Feddies, because they are just like them: soldiers.
Weeks later in January, Al awoken by his mother for his first day to return to school. Christina sees Al as he is walking out, saying goodbye and that she’s leaving the colony. Christina asks Al to say goodbye to Bernie for her, which almost makes Al start bawling. At the school, Al and his classmates are listening to their principal making a speech about the war. As Al finally starts crying, Dorothy heads to find a teacher while Chay and Telcott think he’s crying about the war being over. The two morons encourage Al, saying that another cool war will start soon. Roll over-enthusiastic music themed credits.
This anime is…really good. I’m sure it’s not a good idea to review what’s technically a sequel anime, but the season just seemed right considering…
I’ll start off with what I like most about this anime: the story. The story is honestly a masterpiece, telling a gripping story about the realism of war. Whereas the original Gundam did have realistic moments about the horrors of war, it was still bound by the 80s super robot cage built around it. This series however takes a hammer to your nuts over it and make you wanna stop buying your 8 year olds Call of Duty.
To simplify it: it’s a story about how youth often makes fun of war and thinks it’s cool with the evolution of weaponry and how kids can treat it very much like a game; wanting to be a part of it and be a hero. But when that war starts knocking on your door and bodies start hitting the floor, you’re going to learn just what war is all about. War is a serious subject and should be taken lightly. Even more so, it shouldn’t be praised and hailed as some big action event where heroes are born and the good guys triumph over evil. Morality is a gray area in war and there really are no good guys or bad guys: just soldiers following orders and fighting for what they think is right. Granted, in this case Zeon is evil in only that it’s ruled by a family of psychopaths who want to rule the world and the leading member considers being compared to Hitler as a compliment.
The characters all have their own little charm to them; most development going to Bernie and Al over the course of the show. Everyone is pretty flat, but interesting enough. Al is one hell of an annoying kid, but you get to revel in his idealism and ignorance getting smashed into bits. Bernie is the best character in the whole show; being the ONLY Zeon soldier to ever destroy a Gundam other than Char (if you want to argue technicalities, he really IS the only Zeon soldier to do it). Garcia was honestly a surprise, his development showing just on the episode he dies, showing his concern over his junior Bernie and sacrificing his life to destroy the Gundam. If I had to pick a character I just didn’t care about, I’d say Mikhail. He has very little lines and has no presence other than being a Russian stereotype; big, quiet, and keeping a flask of whiskey in whatever mobile suit he’s in. Runner-up has to go to Christina, who doesn’t really have any kind of effect other than making Al cry; so she at least has a few points under her belt.
I watched this show in dub because I like dub. Get over it, Sub Purists. The voice acting was rather good, but this series was released in America in 2001, but was still reeking of 90s dubbing. Mikhail, Garcia, and fucking VON HELSING all have accents (Russian, Latino, and German respectively). And let’s be honest: Brianne Siddal voiced every damn kid in this show that wasn’t Dorothy (as she did every kid in 90s anime). Steve Blum even makes an appearance as Al’s father. A small appearance, but impactful nonetheless (it’s Steve Blum, man!). David Hayter as Bernie was fantastic in the whole show, and I wish he broke out more in the voice acting world.
The animation was VERY good for 1989 anime. Every single little detail as smooth, detailed, and just a thrill to watch. What I liked especially as that this show started a little tradition among Gundam spinoffs of the One Year War: redesigning old suits. In this case, redesigns of the Gelgoog, Z’Gok, Gogg, and expanding the GM designs. The faces and eyes were a little “buggy” here and there just looked strange. The biggest plus is the animation during motion: avoiding speedlines (thank god).
When asked about, Tomino only had really two complaints about the series. One was that whenever there was a shot of the sky, it was blue rather than the other end of the colony. Small, but logical when considering the environment. The other criticism was that during the first Zeon attack, there was still school despite the attack. Listen, I know the education system is shit and you want to get this over with, but between saving my ass and learning when Genghis Kahn conquered all of Asia, I’ll take my own damn life thank you very much.
My only real complaint of the show: why the hell was the Zaku still there? Seriously, they mention that they took its weapons but they didn’t think to move it. Was it too much just to take the Gundam out and drag the damn thing some place where civies won’t accidentally take control and cause hell.
Overall, I would highly recommend this show to just about any anime fan. It would help if you watched or at least know of the main Gundam series prior to watching, but I honestly think non Gundam fans can enjoy this show all the same.
Now while the series doesn’t really have any Christmas spirit per say, it does take place during Christmas and the actual holiday (December 25th) plays a central role in the story.
For those of you unfamiliar of the Gundam franchise, a very brief recap! Mobile Suit Gundam is about a future where mankind has migrated to space and a group of colonies call themselves the Principality of Zeon and declare war on the Earth Federation with giant robots called “Mobile Suits”. This particular OVA (Original Video Animation), as the title suggests, is a small story that takes place in the same timeline as the main series, but in a small corner no one really cares about.
Released in 1989, 0080 was created to commemorate Gundam’s 10th Anniversary, the series was not penned by Gundam’s creator, Yoshiyuki Tomino. The series takes a step back from the mainstream series focuses (conflicts of Newtpes finding their place in the universe) and instead takes a realistic approach about ordinary soldiers in this horrifying war. Tomino himself even praised the series and only had about 1 or 2 issues (very good ones in fact) with the series, but overall, he seemed to enjoy.
For this review, since there are only 6 episodes, we’ll go through them individually real quick like a normal movie review and abridge whatever isn’t really relevant. So, without further ado, let’s dive in.
Episode 1: How Many Miles to the Battlefield?
Our episode starts off in December of Universal Century 0079 in the arctic where a team of Zeon spec-ops, called the Cyclops Team, is underwater in a submarine. They deploy their mobile suit team, consisting of three Hygoggs and one Z’Gok-E. The team consists of its captain, Steiner Hardy (Barry Stigler), the Russian accented drinker Mikhail “Mischa” Kaminsky (St. Paul Peter), Andy Strauss, and lowest ranking member: Gabriel Ramirez Garcia (Kirk Baily).
The team uses their superior mobile suits to smash through and attack a secret Earth Federation post, encountering several of their mobile suits as well and peeling through them. Andy comes across a large shuttle carrying several containers getting ready to launch. Andy gets impatient and jumps out to attack, only to get shot down and killed by a GM Type D. The shuttle takes off successfully escaping destruction. Steiner steps out and finds Andy’s body, holding it in his arms and screaming in anger to the sky.
The narrative changes to a small colony in the cluster known as Side 6, a neutral series of colonies in the war. Ten-year-old Alfred Izuruha (Brianne Siddall) is going at school and gets in trouble for drawing a Zeon Zaku II instead of paying attention. At lunch, he gets into a fight with a girl named Dorothy (Melissa Fahn) over one of Al’s friends holding an EF rank badge and whether or not the Earth Federation has mobile suits of their own.
After school, Al’s friends Chay and Alcott ask him to go see his father at the space port and use his camera to get footage of some Federation mobile suits being brought it. Al goes to the space port to meet his father, Ems Izuruha (Steve Blum) and was only able to see the containers. As Alfred heads home, he runs into a woman with red hair. Her name is Christina Mackenzie (Wendee Lee), an old friend and older sister-like person to Al who came back to Side 6. As rain starts falling, Al is brought inside of Christina’s house. Christina explains that she came back thanks to her government job and was transferred back at last second. Al heads home, has dinner and plays a shooting video game. But rather than shoot monsters, he shoots the buildings including the school, hospital and other buildings until he gets a game over.
The next day at school, Zeon attacks the colony. They bring in several mobile suits into the colony and cause a little havoc. The Earth Federation forces stationed there are forced to deploy their own mobile suits to fight back. In the crossfire, a Zaku II Kai flies by Al and his friends, and Al decides to chase after it. The Zaku II crashes in a nearby forest and Al takes out his camera to start filming. As he walks around the Zaku, he sees the cockpit open and the pilot standing out of it, aiming a gun at Al.
Episode 2: Reflections in a Brown Eye
“Relfections in a Brown Eye”? I didn’t know the abyss staring at you provided a pretty image to with it.
Back to Al and the Zeke, the soldier decides not to shoot Al, seeing as he’s a kid. He introduces himself as Bernard “Bernie” Wiseman (David Hayter). Al asks if he can hold Bernie’s gun, and is quickly denied. Bernie then decides to let Al hold his gun, but takes the boy’s camera to see the footage. After a brief scuffle, Al spots Bernie’s rank badge. The two instead trade the rank badge for the camera. Bernie takes just the floppy disc holding the footage and gives the camera back. Another Zaku II Kai lands nearby and Bernie runs over to it, hitching a ride with the pilot and flying off and escaping the colony.
Al goes back to his friends Chay and Telcott and proceeds to laugh at Dorothy for being wrong about the Federation having mobile suits of their own. Class is cancelled for the rest of the day. Later at home, Al places the rank badge on his jacket and pretends to be a mobile suit pilot in his room.
Meanwhile at the Zeon lunar city of Granada, a Zeon Colonel named Killing is debriefing the Cyclops Team of their upcoming mission to Side 6 to investigate the colony. It seems that the shuttle that escaped the arctic had made it to colony. Colonel Killing wants whatever is in the shuttle, either by obtaining or destroying it. He assigns Bernie to the Cyclops Team since he got them footage and to fill the space that Andy had.
Bernie meets the team, and Captain Steiner breaks down their plan: Operation Rubicon. Bernie disguises himself as a civilian pilot on a shuttle carrying the parts of a new mobile suit into the colony during a Zeon attack. They intend to construct the mobile suit in secret and plan out how to obtain whatever was in the shuttle.
Al, all the while, gets in trouble at school for his poor grades and worries about the trouble he’ll face with his mother. That night, Al sneaks out of his house. He’s caught be Christina, and claims that he is on a dare and that Christina can’t come with him since she’s a girl. He asks to keep it a secret, and Christina agrees to. Al heads to the Zaku II Kai Bernie piloted and sees that the weapons were taken away. He falls in the cockpit, which closes as he enters. He sits back, and starts laughing about the coolness of the situation.
At Granada, Bernie’s shuttle is prepped up, along with a dead body disguised as a civilian and shot through the window to recreate the shuttle being damaged. The operation begins and Bernie flies out as several mobile suit teams head out to distract the Federation forces. Bernie finally lands through the crossfire, but as he’s being processed by security, he’s missing one last piece of paperwork. Captain Steiner comes in and puts on an act while delivering the missing paperwork. The group is cleared, and they begin moving the containers to their new location.Al wakes up in the morning and sees the battle happening outside the colony and gets out of the Zaku. He runs out to a nearby street and is almost hit by a truck. The truck stops, and the driver looks out to yell at Al. Al recognizes the driver as Bernie and gets out of the way. Bernie and the trucks driven by his fellow Cyclops Team continue on their way. Al quickly pursues them, barely latching onto Garcia’s truck in the back. Al starts laughing in excitement that the Zeon soldiers are back again. Listen kid, I’m all for chaos and mayhem, but this is in war where 1/3 of humanity has BIT THE DUST. I repeat: 1/3 of the human population. And this is through dropping colonies on Australia and poison gas attacks. Let’s move on and continue the adventures of our little psychopath.
Episode 3: And at the End of the Rainbow?
Al holds on to Garcia’s truck for a few blocks, but is flung off on a very sharp corner and lands in some bushes. Shrubbery: saving kid’s broken spines and bashed open skulls since the 1970s. Al goes to the police station and shows them his injuries, wanting to find the soldiers and complaining about it being hit and run. He gives Garcia’s license plate number and the truck is located at a warehouse. A cop and Al arrive and start questioning, but Mikhail is about to pull on a gun on the cop, Al starts crying and claiming Bernie is his older brother. Al says he made the hit and run up just to see his “brother”. The cop leaves, pissed at Al’s shenanigans.
Bernie scolds Al, who demands to be a member of the Cyclops Team. Captain Steiner says Al can join if he tells them where the footage of the storage area from the footage Bernie gave them was. Al points it out on a map, and Stiener gives him a Cyclops Team insignia as a reward. Bernie drives Al home. While the two are gone, Steiner denies Garcia the chance to kill Al. If anything, it was better he stayed alive so as to keep the newbie Bernie out of the way. On the drive home, Bernie lies about his battle experience to Al, including saying he was one kill away from being an ace.
When Al gets home, his mother starts scolding him for his grades. Bernie listens in through a bug in the patch they gave Al. As Al works on his homework, he overhears Christina scream. He looks out his window to see Bernie on the ground and Christina holding a bat. Before she could call the cops, Al defends Bernie, once again claiming that Bernie was his brother.
The next morning, Al leaves his friends playing war and heads to the warehouse. There, he sees the newly produced Kämpfer under construction and testing. Al is disappointed that the suit would only be used for escaping the colony later on. Even more so, Al lets out that Bernie was one kill from being an ace and should be the pilot, causing Bernie some trouble from Garcia and Mikhail. Instead, Mikhail will be the pilot due to more experience.
Meanwhile, Christina is revealed to be the testing pilot for the new Gundam Alex NT-1, which has been so supped up that it was built for Newtypes (specifically: the main character of the mainstream series: Amuro Ray [review for another day]).
Construction of the Kämpfer goes on while Al and Bernie search around for the hidden Federation base. Al recognizes a gate guard at one factory as a man he encountered at the space port where he recorded his footage. He and Bernie go snooping around through the colony interior and find a newly made blocked off section, Al goes into a vent and reaches a hallway where he spots the new Gundam and begins taking pictures of it just as two guards begin approaching him from the other end of the hallway.
Episode 4: Over the River and Through the Woods
Al returns to Bernie and the two begin heading back to the warehouse to report their findings. Garcia, at that time, heads to a bar owned by a bartender helping them. Garcia receives blueprints and maps of the colony, and Federation uniforms for their plan. Upon Bernie and Al’s return, the two are chided for being too aggressive in their search and almost getting captured.
Bernie drives Al home, the latter of which falls asleep in the car. Bernie hands Al over to Christina at her house, asking her to cover for him. Christina agrees to, and Bernie asks her to call him by his first name “Bernie”. She says goodnight, and says his name.
The next day, Garcia heads out and places a bomb near the Team’s escape point. At school, Al is asked why he draws Zakus in his notepad since Zeon are the bad guys. Al says he like Zeon better because of their cool mobile suits. As he’s being criticized, Dorothy defends him from their onslaught.
Later on, Bernie and Al talk about the Gundam they find. When Al asks Bernie if he can beat it, Bernie says that have a good 50/50 shot of defeating it. Bernie then asks if Christina has asked about him at all. Later, the Cyclops Team goes over their mission. The plan is that Mikhail will use the Kampfer to cause a diversion while Bernie, Steiner, and Garcia infiltrate the base. If they can’t steal the Gundam, they’ll destroy it. While preparing, Garcia tells Bernie not to get himself killed. At long last, everyone is prepped up and begin heading out. Steiner, Garcia, and Bernie get into the Federation factory while wearing Federation uniforms while Mikhail gets the Kämpfer up and ready to cause havoc.
At the Feddie factory, Al fakes and Austrailian accent to a guard and how the country is covered in snow at this time of year. Mikhail starts shooting up Federation vehicles as the trio reach the room containing the Gundam. The guard from earlier realizes that its summer in Austrailia and stops them. A firefight breaks out between the trio and the Federation guards with the Gundam just feet away from them. Steiner is shot in the shoulder while Garcia is hit as well.
Outside, the Federation fires missiles that miss Mikhail and hit Al’s school. Garcia plans to destroy the Gundam while Bernie gets Steiner out of there. But Garcia is shot before he could get any closer to the Gundam. In his last breath, Garcia sets off the mines he was planning on uses on the Gundam, killing all of the guards while Bernie escapes with Steiner while acting as a Feddie.
Christina comes into the room in the aftermath of the explosion and gets into the Gundam as Mikhail blows a hole into the building. Christina moves the Gundam out of Mikhail’s range, and stands it up to fight. Mikhail throws a series of bombs at the Gundam, which only destroys its thick outer armor. The Gundam opens up a gatling gun in its forearm and opens fire. The Kämpfer’s armor is too thin, and Mikhail is killed as the bullets rip through the mobile suit.
Al arrives at the battle to watch in horror as Mikhail is killed and finds Bernie dragging a wounded Stiener.
Episode 5: Say it Ain’t So, Bernie!
In Side 6, Al leaves a fast food joint and walks by the destruction caused by the attack. Among the destruction, he sees a dead child dragged out of some wreckage and has a slight mental breakdown before getting a grip and running. In the woods, Bernie is packing up and getting ready to escape the colony, Steiner’s grave marked nearby. A flashback to last night, Steiner asks if Mikhail destroyed the Gundam. Bernie lies, but Steiner calls him out on it.
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| "Bernie, you're a terrible liar." |
Famous last words, man. Way to go.
Bernie also recalls speaking to the bartender who had been helping them the entire time. The bartender, named Charlie, reveals that Zeon will be destroying the colony with nuclear missiles to destroy the Gundam (seeing as Amuro’s own Gundam has proved such a monster on its own). Al comes to Bernie and brings the food he bought. As Al gets depressed about everyone else on the team dying, Bernie says they were just unlucky. Al questions why they had to, and Bernie replies that everyone has luck when it comes to death, and they’re luck just ran out.
Bernie reveals that Zeon is going to destroy the colony if the Gundam is not destroyed by Christmas Day. Al thinks they can fix the Zaku enough to destroy it, but Bernie reveals he’s just a rookie and never actually shot down anyone as well as he is leaving the colony. Al thinks Bernie is just scared, and that he could actually beat the Gundam. Bernie takes the Cyclops Team patch and tears it open, revealing the bug he planted. Al claims to hate Bernie for being coward and is going to tell the police, but Bernie counters that they’ll execute Al for being an accomplice.Al heads to an arcade and has another breakdown about the colony being destroyed when he sees some kids play a game based around mobile suits. He runs away and finds Christina near some wreckage. Al asks her a hypothetical: if you knew the colony was going to be destroyed, what would you do? Christina replies that she would fight to protect those she cares about, but running is an okay option as well. Al then heads to his school, where his friends Chay and Telcott are excited about the school being destroyed and picking up shell casings. Bernie all the while is at the spaceport and buying a ticket to the colony of Francheska.
In other parts of space, the nuclear warhead is loaded on Captain Von Helsing’s (not even kidding) ship. He objects, but Colonel Killing orders the mission be carried out.
Al heads to the police and tells them of the coming attack, but because of the stunt he pulled a few days prior, they don’t believe him and kick him out. At the spaceport, Bernie heads to a bar and buys a drink. As he reaches for money, he finds the rank patch Al threw at him during their argument. He then overhears a drunk woman rant on the phone about her mistakes and how bad the Francheska colony is. Bernie reflects on his time with Al and the bond they built. He gets a phone and calls Al and informs him that he’s not running away: he’s going to stay and fight the Gundam.
Episode 6: War in the Pocket
The final episode begins with Al and Bernie repairing the Zaku with what little tools they have. They can salvage parts from the GMs across the colony that were destroyed, and obtain weapons that Mikhail left in two trucks parked in an extended parking lot. They go to get the weapons, but one truck is being towed. Just as the other one is found by two guards, Al feigns being a kid who lost his dad to their war while Bernie steals the truck.
Back in the woods, the truck only had one heat hawk (super heated axe) and 12 hand grenades. While thinking of different weapons to use, Bernie thinks of using some of the mobile suit-sized Christmas balloons throughout the city as distraction tools. That night, Bernie steals some of the balloons from a factory. They continue working the whole night and have the Zaku ready by the next day on Christmas Eve. At the Christmas Eve Parade, Bernie gives Al a letter and disc containing a video that Al needs to play in case Bernie dies. That night, Al prays for Bernie to win the battle and save the colony.
The next day on Christmas, Al’s father arrives at the spaceport where he and his mother are waiting for him. Al’s father mentions that he was late thanks to being caught up in a battle. He mentions that the Zeon ships destroyed in the battle were carrying nuclear missiles. Al then realizes that Bernie doesn’t need to fight; the colony is safe. Al runs from his parents and rushes through the city to find Bernie before the fight starts.
Unfortunately, Bernie is already in actions. He makes his Zaku known to the colony, and the Gundam Alex is the only usable mobile suit. Christina launches and she starts chasing him. Pink smoke planted by Bernie goes off in the woods and heads towards it. Bernie’s Zaku heads into the forest, knowing the Gundam will follow to avoid civilian casualties. Bernie sets off the Christmas balloons, distracting the Gundam for a couple seconds while he attacks from behind with his heat hawk. However, Christina is able to hit the cockpit with her gatling guns and wounded Bernie, but Bernie was able to cut off the Gundam’s gatling gun on the right arm (the left arm out of ammo from the fight with the Kämpfer). Christina is even wounded in the attack. Christina pulls out a beam saber and the two do battle. Al arrives, screaming to get Bernie’s attention and trying to stop them. The Gundam and Zaku charge at each other. The Gundam’s beam saber goes through the cockpit and vaporizes Bernie while the heat hawk takes off the head. The Zaku’s reactor explodes, sending Al and Christina’s Gundam away by the blast.
Christina is alive, while Bernie has been “reduced to a pile of hamburger”. Al is motionless; stil registering that his best friend was killed right in front of him. Even worse, he watches as Christina is pulled out of the Gundam.
The tape Bernie gave Al is played in the next scene, with Bernie sitting in front of the Zaku before going to battle. Bernie instructs Al to give the letter and video to the Federation; both of which reveal his team’s involvement with the whole fiasco. Bernie tells Al to not hate Gundam or the Feddies, because they are just like them: soldiers.
Weeks later in January, Al awoken by his mother for his first day to return to school. Christina sees Al as he is walking out, saying goodbye and that she’s leaving the colony. Christina asks Al to say goodbye to Bernie for her, which almost makes Al start bawling. At the school, Al and his classmates are listening to their principal making a speech about the war. As Al finally starts crying, Dorothy heads to find a teacher while Chay and Telcott think he’s crying about the war being over. The two morons encourage Al, saying that another cool war will start soon. Roll over-enthusiastic music themed credits.
This anime is…really good. I’m sure it’s not a good idea to review what’s technically a sequel anime, but the season just seemed right considering…
I’ll start off with what I like most about this anime: the story. The story is honestly a masterpiece, telling a gripping story about the realism of war. Whereas the original Gundam did have realistic moments about the horrors of war, it was still bound by the 80s super robot cage built around it. This series however takes a hammer to your nuts over it and make you wanna stop buying your 8 year olds Call of Duty.
To simplify it: it’s a story about how youth often makes fun of war and thinks it’s cool with the evolution of weaponry and how kids can treat it very much like a game; wanting to be a part of it and be a hero. But when that war starts knocking on your door and bodies start hitting the floor, you’re going to learn just what war is all about. War is a serious subject and should be taken lightly. Even more so, it shouldn’t be praised and hailed as some big action event where heroes are born and the good guys triumph over evil. Morality is a gray area in war and there really are no good guys or bad guys: just soldiers following orders and fighting for what they think is right. Granted, in this case Zeon is evil in only that it’s ruled by a family of psychopaths who want to rule the world and the leading member considers being compared to Hitler as a compliment.
The characters all have their own little charm to them; most development going to Bernie and Al over the course of the show. Everyone is pretty flat, but interesting enough. Al is one hell of an annoying kid, but you get to revel in his idealism and ignorance getting smashed into bits. Bernie is the best character in the whole show; being the ONLY Zeon soldier to ever destroy a Gundam other than Char (if you want to argue technicalities, he really IS the only Zeon soldier to do it). Garcia was honestly a surprise, his development showing just on the episode he dies, showing his concern over his junior Bernie and sacrificing his life to destroy the Gundam. If I had to pick a character I just didn’t care about, I’d say Mikhail. He has very little lines and has no presence other than being a Russian stereotype; big, quiet, and keeping a flask of whiskey in whatever mobile suit he’s in. Runner-up has to go to Christina, who doesn’t really have any kind of effect other than making Al cry; so she at least has a few points under her belt.
I watched this show in dub because I like dub. Get over it, Sub Purists. The voice acting was rather good, but this series was released in America in 2001, but was still reeking of 90s dubbing. Mikhail, Garcia, and fucking VON HELSING all have accents (Russian, Latino, and German respectively). And let’s be honest: Brianne Siddal voiced every damn kid in this show that wasn’t Dorothy (as she did every kid in 90s anime). Steve Blum even makes an appearance as Al’s father. A small appearance, but impactful nonetheless (it’s Steve Blum, man!). David Hayter as Bernie was fantastic in the whole show, and I wish he broke out more in the voice acting world.
The animation was VERY good for 1989 anime. Every single little detail as smooth, detailed, and just a thrill to watch. What I liked especially as that this show started a little tradition among Gundam spinoffs of the One Year War: redesigning old suits. In this case, redesigns of the Gelgoog, Z’Gok, Gogg, and expanding the GM designs. The faces and eyes were a little “buggy” here and there just looked strange. The biggest plus is the animation during motion: avoiding speedlines (thank god).
When asked about, Tomino only had really two complaints about the series. One was that whenever there was a shot of the sky, it was blue rather than the other end of the colony. Small, but logical when considering the environment. The other criticism was that during the first Zeon attack, there was still school despite the attack. Listen, I know the education system is shit and you want to get this over with, but between saving my ass and learning when Genghis Kahn conquered all of Asia, I’ll take my own damn life thank you very much.
My only real complaint of the show: why the hell was the Zaku still there? Seriously, they mention that they took its weapons but they didn’t think to move it. Was it too much just to take the Gundam out and drag the damn thing some place where civies won’t accidentally take control and cause hell.
Overall, I would highly recommend this show to just about any anime fan. It would help if you watched or at least know of the main Gundam series prior to watching, but I honestly think non Gundam fans can enjoy this show all the same.
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