"The horror of war isn't enough to stop the intense Baby Fever my brain's dealing with right now." - Hayley after spending 3 hours watching a little shit of a kid.
Gundam turned 10 years old and so it was decided to make a 6 episode direct to video special set during the original show. It was also a good business opportunity for a large-scale retcon of mechanical designs, numbers and starts related to said show's war. Why do that? So you can better sell tabletop RPGs and supplementary materials of course!
The original show was a military sci-fi drama trying to portray the horror of War through the lens of a 70s super robot show. Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket adapts this concept by portraying the horror of War through the lens of a 80s Hollywood Family Movie. To say it succeeds is an understatement.
The corny synth. The "stop the Gundam or the rec centre will close down!" vibes. The cute romance between Bernie and Christine while her parents nod approvingly. Setting the damn thing at Christmas time. It is everything a heartwarming tale of a precocious, bratty child learning to grow up thanks to his found family should be.
Too bad fucker, that's not your arc. The main plot begins with a 10 year old child excitedly talking about which military death machine is the coolest. It ends with him learning that war is a place where your friends and loved ones will be abandoned and slaughtered with such impunity that the recovery team will make hamburger jokes about your unrecognisable corpse. Al begins with a bright smile and ends in tears while his friends, still children in life experiences cheerfully encourage him with a message of "don't worry, we'll have another war to enjoy soon enough!"
Do I really need to say more? Haruhiko Mikimoto's adorable faces I love so much from Gunbuster add to the innocence we are crushing. So too do their interpretations of our beloved grizzled Zeon NCOs. When the robots fight it's with such gorgeous, intense motion that's impossible to look away. The tension as we try to run against the inevitable, only to find that once the plans of war are in motion they cannot be slowed down.
Gundam 0080 didn't need to be this good. In most worlds it probably isn't. Instead we have a vision for the future of Gundam that some will learn from: you can meet the demands of the suits to move product and make real art in the process. It's only 3 hours. Please watch this.
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