Friday, April 12, 2019

Mobile Suit Gundam Part 4 Episodes 17-21


Amuro deserts the White Base when the strain of responsibility becomes too much.  As the White Base hunts for him, Amuro does his best to prove his worth by waging a one man war on Zeon forces in the desert.  But Ramba Ral isn’t waiting for White Base and its crew to reunite and make nice.  Low on resources and exhausted from constant battle, the White Base is the perfect target and Ral is ready to strike.  Enemies meet in battle face to face and heart shattering revelations are made as Amuro, Sayla, Bright and their friends engage in their most difficult battle yet…and one cherished crew member will not survive.

We’ve reached the half way point of Mobile Suit Gundam.  As I close out this week of episodes I feel pretty good about the series so far.  Sure, the same problems still persist and they begin with the letter A.  But Gundam is doing everything else so right and so good that you can almost overlook Amuro’s stupidity…until you learn it’s infectious and everyone else starts behaving like an idiot but im getting head of myself.

While he’s been around for a good bit now, it still feels like we’re saying goodbye to Ramba Ral and his crew way too soon.  Much of my wishes he could’ve come back later in the series as either a recurring rival like Char or even a sympathetic Zeon ally.  Still, the series always did the most with him ever since he came on.  From his charm as a leader, to his heart as a husband, to his prowness in battle, Ramba Ral is easily Mobile Suit Gundam’s MVP and even in death he gave the White Base grew its greatest lesson and biggest defeat so far.  It’s a real shame.  I was wondering if there should be a “What If” tale involving Amuro joining up with Ral and Haman after they extended their hand in friendship.  Who knows what more Amuro could have learned hanging around them a little bit longer.

That’s not to say that Amuro’s desert adventures weren’t full of lessons themselves.  On his own Amuro had to…well he did what he usually did: complain, get overconfident, do the wrong thing and live with the mistake.  Though he did help an injured Zeon soldier following a big battle, which involved him crossing paths with Kycillia Zabi (who looks like she’s trying to do a genderbend cosplay of Cobra Commander).  But his break from White Base was brief…and everyone reacted accordingly to his return by throwing him in the brig.  And Amuro STILL wanted to bitch about being the best like no one ever was.  Suffice to say you know you need a reality check when Ryu, the big brother figure, decides its his turn to smack the crap out of you.  The end of this set looked like Amuro was ready to turn over a new leaf.  But it might’ve come at too high a cost, namely the aforementioned Ryu.

This set of episodes had the action at the highest level of personal.  The Mobile Suits were in each others faces most of the time, right down to Amuro getting in close with the Gundam and severing the arms off of Ral’s Gouf.  But then the entire crew had to get in on the action when Ral’s men boarded White Base.  For the first time since the beginning of the series, it felt like all bets were off for everyone.  Even if some minor (or never seen) characters had to be buried in the aftermath, it was nonetheless a hard moment for the crew.  But nothing was harder than an injured Ryu sacrificing his life to kill Haman and protect the family he’d come to find on White Base.  And that term is what makes this all the more emotional.  Ryu’s pointed out numerous times, as if it wasn’t obvious already, that the White Base doesn’t have a normal crew, it isn’t a normal ship.  Most people aboard aren’t soldiers.  Theyre just a rag tag group of suvivors fighting their way through a war they got swept into and trying to stay alive.  They might not realize it but with little support coming their way, especially since Matilda told them flat out that White Base’s main mission was data collection at this point, Bright, Amuro, Sayla and the others only have themselves, their big dysfunctional family.  In time they could become more tight knit.  But that could be tough now that Ryu is dead.  Bright passes out from exhaustion, Mirai panicked while fighting Sayla’s second guessing and the enemy, and Amuro is oddly enough the calmest of everyone right now.  You could not have picked a worse place to leave the cast at the halfway mark.

You know what, I could spend a little bit of time talking about how Amuro’s bratty impulsiveness managed to infect other crew members (making them do stupid stuff) or how I don’t really get why M’Quve wouldn’t back Ramba Ral (I guess he’s helping Kycillia with a power play?).  But for once, im going to let this slide cause I really enjoyed the halfway mark of this series.  This series did a lot of things right by putting every character through the ringer.  You felt the pressure, the sadness, the weight of every decision and sacrifice made.  Best yet, it did this for both sides of the conflict.  You felt just as much for the White Base crew as you did for Ramba Ral, Hamen and their men.  This set of episodes was not without faults.  But when the good outweighs the bad, gotta give credit where credit is due.  

So the White Base heads into a major Federation operation without it’s conscience (Ryu) and Bright temporarily out of commission and White Base itself in pretty bad shape after a M’Quve ambush.  I cant wait to see how the second half of the series kicks off and hopefully capitalizes on all of these dramatic developments.  See ya next Monday everyone.

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