Mobile Suit Gundam Part 3 Episodes 12-16

The death of Garma Zabi rocks Zeon’s ruling party to its core.  While Degwin Zabi mourns the loss of his favorite son, his other children use their brothers death to rally Zeon into a new offensive.  The slayers of Garma, Amuro and the White Base, now find themselves facing Zeon legend Ramba Ral and his elite unit.  Amuro finds himself outclassed by a new breed of Zeon Mobile Suit and a pilot who can outmatch him worse than even Char Aznable.  How much more does the young Gundam pilot have in him to fight?  And what will happen when Amuro finally breaks?

Before I began rewatching Mobile Suit Gundam to review it for the blog, I had to consider something that might affect some reviews.  By this point ive reviewed a ton of Gundam entries far younger than this series, much of it Universal Century stuff.  So ill be honest, it’s hard for me to determine how to react to certain events and character decisions because I know how things play out in Zeta Gundam and Char’s Counterattack.  Amuro being a spoiled brat is chief among those observations.  He’s a bad ass in Char’s Counterattack, a battle hardned Gundam veteran who built his own Gundam from scratch to fight Char and Neo Zeon.  Even if I hadn’t seen that movie by this point, had I watched the original series to this point and then heard about the greatness Amuro achieves…I wouldn’t believe you.

 

Amuro’s bitching and moaning has been nigh unbearable til now.  Sure he’s a gifted pilot but whines about being forced to pilot and whines when his tactics aren’t considered.  This set of episodes saw him taking out an inconsequential Zeon base to sort out his mommy issues, take out the Guntank when the Gundam was specifically ordered to sortie.  And then to put the icing on the cake, when Bright announces he’s taking Amuro off of Gundam cause he doesn’t listen…Amuro just flat out steals Gundam and deserts White Base.  Our hero ladies and gentlemen.  When he isn’t slaughtering Zeon soldiers when he feels like it, he’s demanding his own kingdom and running away when he doesn’t get it.  Char’s Counterattack Amuro would have slapped him worse than Bright has thus far.

 

We’ll see the fallout of Amuro’s brilliant decision next time but for now we should focus on other fallouts.  As expected, Ghirren Zabi used his brother Garma’s death as a rallying cry to the Zeon war cause.  In truth, Episode 12 might be the best episode so far partly because of this scene.  Ghirren has a passion to his words.  Misguided as they may be, they have power and its something to hear the White Base crew hear the chant of “Hail Zeon” being echoed by thousands of space citizens.  Talk about looking directly at the odds.  Meanwhile, Char’s been kicked off the White Base pursuit, at least for now.  Luckily, the man taking over his Gundam capturing duties is just as charismatic and fun as the Red Comet, complete with his own new Mobile Suit.  The arrival of Ramba Ral and his unit is another reason Episode 12 rocks.  Seeing his Gouf towering over Gundam upon a sand dune with lighting in the background signals this is no ordinary opponent.  Having seen what Gouf’s can do in the right hands in Gundam: The 08^th MS Team, it’s good to see that the OG Gouf did set the standard and did so in terrifying fashion.  Gundam was in trouble for sure and it’s only because Ral and his men were doing battle recon for a later fight that Amuro even survived.

 

Ral and the Zabis weren’t the only side of Zeon we got to see in this set.  While ive noted that some episodes could just be removed completely cause theyre more or less filler, one episode beat that mindset.  Not only did a random Zeon unit manage to put Gundam in a tight spot with nothing more than a couple of powerful bombs and some hover…things, but when Amuro managed to get rid of the bombs with the help of the White Base crew, those same soldiers disguised themselves to congratulate him.  It’s not often you see the enemy do something so nice.  It’s one of Gundams many strengths across its entire lifespan, being able to even give the enemy side characters to root for like Char, Ral and these kinder Zeons.  We did also see the more scumbag side of the Federation when Amuro went to his old hometown to see his mother.  Seeing “the good guys” get drunk in empty houses and abuse the citizens for supplies makes you think that Amuro and the White Base crew might be on the wrong side.  To offset this, we got the return of the sexy Lt. Matilda, who was introduced last week.  She has an elegance and sense of hope about her.  Plus she’s basically the speaking voice for the unseen General Revel, who has a ton of faith in the White Base crew.  No wonder Matilda has become a new crush for Amuro, poor Fraw Bau.

One point that definitely left me scratching my head was Sayla’s sudden decision to fly off in Gundam and look for Char in the middle of a battle.  Up until now she’s kind of kept her connection to the Red Comet under wraps (for obvious reasons).  So it strikes me as odd as now being the time she wants to risk her life to find her brother.  I don’t know, I guess everyone on this crew is gonna make an Amuro level of dumb decisions at some point.  No wonder even Bright needed to take a breather.  At least for him, he has Mirai to confide in.  I like these two together.  True the banter between the core crewmates has been pretty solid but there’s something sparking between Bright and Miriai.  She’s keeping him on his toes and he’s actually willing to hear her out and respect her opinion.  Hell Bright even wanted Miriai to be on the same page with him about kicking Amuro off of Gundam.  Feel like early days Bright wouldn’t have been so open like this.

 

Before I close out, a minor fun fact about the series.  There’s actually an episode from the original Japanese run of Mobile Suit Gundam that has never seen the light of day in the United States, an episode director Yoshiyuki Tomino considers so horrible that he never wants it to air here on his orders.  WOW.  From what little I know of this episode, it involves a Judo capable Zaku and a Zeon pilot trying to find redemption raising kids who lost their parents during an attack he was part of.  Sounds like a solid plot for exploring the psyche of a pilot and the further effects of the war on Earth.  Apparently though, the animation is so bad, Tomino openly states he never wants it to reach our shores.  I think that’s kind of funny but that does mean the episode count is off slightly, not by much so I guess this can be ignored, just as Tomino wishes.

So Amuro’s in the wind.  Ramba Ral’s still running around and White Base is without it’s greatest weapon…again cause Amuro threw a temper tantrum.  Why do we ever root for this brat in this series?  His stupidity aside, this was the best set of episodes from Gundam yet, correcting some issues from the first two parts while improving on aspects already great.  Friday we reach the halfway mark of the series.  Let’s hope the Prince of the Anime Brats can somehow get his mess sorted (and if youre asking, the King is always going to be Shinji Ikari from Evangelion, no competition).  See ya Friday as Mobile Suit Gundam continues.