"At last, an origin story for Small Zam" - Hayley on important lore gaps which needed filling.
"This is a Saturday morning cartoon." - Hayley on the gritty realistic Gundam OVA
For the most part I haven't discussed the opening credits for the serial shows in this project. Even as early as 1979 the art of the opening credits sequence as a way to introduce the audience to themes, tone, characters, stakes and tease details to come later in the story is all pretty well established. I think this one's worth discussing though. More than any other Gundam opening (except arguably 0083's second) this one is pitching the concept to you: troops storming the fields of battle. The blazing heat of automatic firearms. The logistics issues and huge manpower required to wage war with humanoid piloted robots. The misery of hostile environments and the plight of our lovable underdogs who try to hold onto their humanity throughout. We're here for a grizzled, realistic take on Gundam through the lens of some no-name scamps just trying to make it home. This sequence pulls well above its weight in getting across the idea of the show and makes you want to root for its cast incredibly well.
Thing is, the opening's supposed to be an appetiser. Here it's the main course.
Across the 12 episodes of this show, the premise isn't really explored with more depth than you'd hope. Sure the first episode has some flies buzzing in the jungle but you don't really feel the sticky heat of the Amazon the way decades of films on the Vietnam War cover that region. Sure there's some extra maintenance required on a mobile suit limb while traversing the desert, but to be frank ZZ Gundam pulled those logistics issues off with more depth and for longer. For a prestige serious OVA, it sure is losing to the show where our boy Judau ate some ice cream quickly.
Our underdogs the 08th MS Team don't feel that much more professional or disciplined than your average Zeta episode either. Squad leader Shiro Amada makes a speech about the need to stick together or we'll all die and then spends the rest of the show rushing ahead of his squad or hurling himself into solo diversions. We spend more time on dealing with Sanders' superstitions about his previous squads dying off by their third mission than we do on forming any really close bonds. On top of that, the second episode has a deeply uncomfortable moment where a 14 year old girl's breasts are in full display. The camera leers with glee. It's the sort of stunt you can get away in direct to video releases and it's also the sort of stunt that makes people groan when you start trying to talk about an anime as a serious story.
That's not to say all the character writing is bad. Shiro's arc begins as a fresh-faced academy graduate fully gung-ho about killing on behalf of the state. Over the course of befriending an enemy soldier and witnessing some truly gross war crimes by his commanders he slides towards pacifism. Yet this isn't the absurd and unrealistic hardline Relena Darlian Peacecraft Darlian took while the head of an autocratic state. We see a guy genuinely struggle with what he should when his job and circumstances require to kill for the state and to stay alive. He's given a terrible time by a Federation which we've had 16+ years of media depicting as corrupt and cruel so he finds a way to resolve the immediate crisis and get the hell out.
I ragged on how 08th MS Team isn't as realistic as it first seems earlier, but there is one way it is more believable than almost any other story in fiction: our boy abandons his previous beliefs to try making it past second base with Kikuko Inoue. Their relationship is quite cute and refreshing after how weirdly aromantic every relationship in Wing was. Unfortunately for them, G Gundam will cast a tall shadow over this franchise for a long time.
After 99 episodes of high camp Gundam television, it is nice to see combat with some weight and heft to it. There's tension around how to disable mobile suits without damaging their surroundings. Our squad of kinda shitty gundams slowly become more like GMs as parts are swapped out after damage. The fight with weekly Original Show enemy reject Norris Packard is a genuine delight of creative setpieces. While the cast never grows more complex than the opening credits, the overall package is very easy to watch. If we're going to revisit the One Year Again, it's nice to enjoy a fun romp like this over 0083's fascist dick-waving.
That's the question though: should I ever talk about a war which wiped out half of all of humanity in its opening months as a fun romp? The contradictions of Gundam as shows exploring the nature of human conflict versus its need to sell merchandise and plastic model kits rears its ugly head in all sorts of ways and when you start thinking about it here, the sweet pleasant taste of 08th MS Team starts to feel a bit rancid.
It'll be a while before we get to the most wretched Universal Century works but I'd say this is probably the 6th worst. It's just above the line where I'd declare works "Thing Bad". Watch it if you want to spend six or so hours reliving Gundam's origins without playing one of those great PS2 games.
