Space becomes the battlefield once again as the Earth
Federation launches a massive attack against Zeon’s Solomon space
fortress. While the victory here is
significant, it pales in comparison to two encounters elsewhere. At Side 6, Amuro meets his rival, Char
Aznable, for the first time, as well as a beautiful girl who will change the
course of his destiny forever. And Sayla
encounters Char as well, finally ready to confront him and his true
identity. In the sea of stars, a tragedy
Amuro never expected is about to take place, one that will set the stage for a
long battle yet to come.
Welcome to the beginning of the end of Mobile Suit
Gundam. We’ve come quite a long way
since Episode 1 a few weeks back haven’t we?
Our main character, Amuro Ray, has grown from whiny pain in the ass to
confident ace pilot. His companions have
overcome various challenges and shed the shells of their former selves to
become a fighting force that seemingly could win the One Year War all by
themselves. And Char…has remained the
same amazing bad ass he’s always been from Day One. Point is, a lot has changed and if everything
that’s come before in the first three acts were just quizzes, then these final
two reviews will be the final exam for the White Base crew.
The Battle of Odessa from last weeks set really set the
bar for large scale epic battles for this series. Since then, the series has been steadily
taking it up a notch with the Battle of Jaburo and even smaller skirmishes
heading to and leaving Side 6. Turns out
they were all good appetizers for the Battle of Solomon, the big centerpiece
fight of this set. With hundreds of GMs
and Balls (basically the space pod from 2001: A Space Odyssey with a giant
cannon on its head) and dozens of battleships firing back and forth, this was everything
teased at and promised since the very beginning and it didn’t disappoint. There was even a boss battle with Dozle Zabi
and his big Zam terrorized the much tinier Mobile Suits until Amuro defeated
him. And the series continued to keep
the characters at the forefront of the spectacle too. Special shoutout in this battle goes to Dozle
Zabi, who turns out to be way more likeable and respectable than his younger
brother, Garma, despite his monstrous size and facial scars. Dozle held the line and was wise to dismiss
his men when he knew Solomon was going to fall.
We also saw his softer side as Dozle bid farewell to his wife and infant
daughter (our first look at Mineva Zabi, who will play a much larger and
important role in the Universal Century saga).
We knew Dozle wasn’t going to make it, especially when Amuro saw that
giant demon appear behind a desperate Dozle (more on that in a bit). Still, Dozle went out bravely when his
equally monstrous Big Zam was disabled.
He got out and took a simple rifle to try and take down Gundam. It’s both foolish and brave and worthy of the
upmost respect and we can add Dozle to the ranks of Char and Ramba Ral as Zeons
actually worth rooting for.
Solomon wasn’t all wins for the Federation or White
Base…and kind of the viewers too.
Miriai’s love square subplot was never really engaging for me and felt
unnecessary. It might’ve been ok if it
was just a brief battle for her affections between Bright and Cameron Bloom
(her now ex-fiancee I guess?). Adding in
Sleger, that I didn’t get. Sleger was
never a favorite character for me and came off less like Roy Focker and more
like a poor mans Kamina from Gurren Lagann.
He was less of a big brother and more of an annoying addition who felt
he needed to posture and slouch to prove he was superior when the whole of
White Base was fine without him. And
then they shove in Mirai falling for him pretty hard, almost out of
nowhere…when Bright has been there for her the whole time and basically told
her during the Solomon battle that he’d always be waiting for her, you don’t
get a much deeper love confession from Bright than that. So when Sleger bit it at Dozle’s hands, I
didn’t really care. I mean I felt for
the crew having lost another team member.
But Sleger was never a good replacement for Ryu and Im not going to miss
him (everyone seemed to move on faster than they did with Ryu too so there’s
that).
I guess I should talk a bit about Lalah Sune, the girl
who will probably define a lot about Amuro going forward. Not only is she very beautiful but Lalah also
embodies something that hasn’t really been brought up yet in Gundam: the
subject of Newtypes. Lalah embodies the
Newtype theory, a human who has evolved to a new stage of mental awareness to
better live in space. Lalah listens to
the world around her and can empathize with all of it. Basically, Lalah is an example of world peace
if humanity ever embraced it. Amuro can
see something special in her too and it resonates with him. And while Amuro is a peaceful boy, its clear
his Newtype abilities making him damn near close to precognitive are making him
a beast on the battlefield. One thing I
did like was Amuro noting that Gundams reaction time was beginning to slow
down. As he evolves as a human, he’ll
need a better weapon…also this is sort of addressed in Gundam 0080 with the
reveal that the Alex Gundam was meant for Amuro. Still, we’re getting into the soul of space
and the evolution of the human mind now.
Which is an interesting door to open so close to the end, but as we know
Newtype and the theories behind them get explored a lot deeper in later Gundam
entries, and it all begins here with Amuro, Lalah…and Char.
Oh yes, Char had a couple of fun interactions this
week. Not only did he get to square off
with Amuro once again (Amuro actually getting in a win btw) but he also met
Amuro in person. I like how Amuro was so
in awe seeing the man he’s faced for months now and yet Char only had a (Newtype)
intuition about meeting Amuro somewhere before.
It’s funny, with Lalah as middle ground, it does feel like Amuro and
Char could have been good friends had they met without the One Year War around
them. We also got an actual more than
two second conversation between Char and Sayla to hash out their backstory and
Char’s motives in the war. Yep, it’s all
about revenge against all of the Zabis, specifically Degwin himself, for
killing their father but I feel like Char’s gonna wipe the Zabi bloodline clear
before he decides to call it a day. I
felt for Sayla, who was unable to make her brother change her mind. She has become a lot stronger as a person and
a pilot, but she’s still got a soft spot for the man who is her only remaining
family and White Base’s mortal enemy, that cant be an easy position to be in.
Hard to believe, but there’s only five more episodes to
cover in one final set. Are we going to
dig deeper into Newtypes? Will the One
Year War end in victory for the Federation?
What other tricks to the Zabis have up their sleeve? Will we get a definitive final battle between
Amuro and Char? Five episodes and a lot
of ground to cover and more. Check back
Friday for the epic series finale of Mobile Suit Gundam and find out once and
for all “who will survive.”
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