Mobile Suit Gundam AGE-Memory of Eden

Advanced Generation 140.  The decades long war between the Earth Federation and the long lost Humans sent to Mars, the Vagan, rages on.  As the Vagan begin the next stage of their long planned mission to claim Earth as their new “Eden”, two young men will cross paths.  One is Asemu Asuno, son of Flit Asuno, the creator of the weapon that turned the tide of the war: The Gundam.  The other is Zeheart Gallette, chosen by Vagan leader Fezarl Ezelcant, to lead this assault on the Earth Sphere and begin the reclamation of Earth.  They will meet as friends and become sworn enemies.  But Asemu and Zeheart share the same destiny and the fate of Eden lies in their shared hands.

As of writing this review, Memory of Eden is the absolute last note on the Advanced Generation created for Mobile Suit Gundam AGE.  Which, believe it or not is a shame.  Gundam AGE is a show chalk full of mistakes from bad pacing to bad writing to bad planning of a multigenerational storyline.  Memory of Eden attempts to show us what this series could have been if it had maybe stuck to one single Asuno, in this case Asemu.  The results are surprisingly pretty good despite the usual issues that plague a lot of Compilation projects.  

Much like the Rahxephon Movie, Memory of Eden focuses on one core element of the overall Gundam AGE series: the friendship and rivalry between Asemu and Zeheart.  The story starts from their time period and takes shotgun right to the end of the AG story.  The first immediate drawback is having to rush through 40 years of preceding backstory, even barely speaking about the events in which Flit Asuno partook in.  So when various character like the aforementioned Flit, Desil and, though to a lesser degree, Woolf appear, it may leave possible newcomers wondering why theyre all a big deal.  However, it’s a welcome trade off if people like Flit and Kio get severely reduced screentime (Kio is mostly just giving short replies to orders) and many riff raff characters like Girard Spriggan and Ezelcant’s last minute addition clone are totally absent.  Just getting rid of all of that makes this Gundam AGE feature feel so much more lighter without the weight of over ambition.

Back to Asemu and Zeheart, from the beginning, their bromance is at the center of everything and it gets the proper attention it always deserved from the show.  The first half hour is spent with the two plus Romary, in a much more expanded role, just getting to know one another and have fun as part of the Mobile Suit Club.  It speaks to the amount of freedom Memory of Eden has despite being a Compilation Feature that we can see more of what was sorely missing from AGE before Zeheart’s true allegiances were revealed to Asemu and Romary.  From there, the OVA begins moving between the perspectives of both main leads: Asemu helms the second half of Part 1 through the first quarter of Part 2 and then Zeheart takes over for the rest.  This makes sense since Zeheart is around for more of the 3^rd and 4^th Arcs of Gundam AGE.  If im more honest, Zeheart needed more damage control than Asemu did.

Indeed, this deeper and more expansive look into Zeheart’s motivations and deteriorating mindset actually save his character from being the failed Char Clone he was in the TV Series.  There he went from spy to brainwashed “yes man” over the course of a few episodes.  Here, we really get to see the toll of the responsibilities thrust upon him and why he decides to make the calls he makes during the final battles of the series.  Helping considerably are a series of internal struggles where Zeheart is forced to confront the people who have trusted him and continually taunt him over his indecisiveness to his mission and how own wishes.  And just as Romary got an expanded role in the first half of the OVA (she’s pretty much absent for the rest), Fram takes over the expanded love interest role.  She doesn’t have as many new scenes as Romary did with Asemu.  But you can tell that her time with Zeheart is better put to use, even including a rather tender moment between the two that the TV Series never would’ve done for reasons of being stupid.

In fact, by the time you get to the new final battle between Asemu and Zeheart (complete with a red painted Gundam), you know these guys much better.  Scratch that, we knew Asemu well enough but Zeheart recovers from many of his TV show flaws.  When these two fight, you know what’s on the line and you know how much they’ve been through, both together and apart.  And without infuriating and pointless Flit and Kio storylines to bother them, Asemu and Zehearts final duel is allowed to close out their storyline properly, which is fine with me because of the four main arcs of Gundam Age, the Asemu Arc was by far the strongest because of these two being at the forefront.  Memory of Eden saved Asemu and Zeheart’s fledgling development, sacrificed for Flit’s revenge and Kio’s…just being there. 

But, this is a Compilation Feature and there’s always problems that come with condensing about 33 episodes of story into an overall 3 hour feature.  The animation is pretty much the same as the TV Series, flaws and all.  Even the newly integrated segments don’t look as pretty as they could for an OVA.  I talked about the absence of proper background leading into Asemu’s story already.  There are a couple of characters who are given screentime soley because one of them plays an integral role in helping the Diva and that’s all.  Otherwise, there was no reason to include that doomed romance and I think it still could’ve been cut without anything of value being lost.  There’s also an unfortunate downside to removing Kio from most of the movie: it leaves out how Asemu finds out the truth about Project Eden and passes it on to Zeheart.  That’s about it, I think.  I mean yeah we leave out or combine a couple of big battles but that’s absolutely for the best in this case.

Mobile Suit Gundam AGE: Memory of Eden is proof that Gundam AGE could have worked if it were just this confident and thoughtful.  Hell, I’d go so far as to say it shouldntve been a TV Series, it could have been a (much better looking) OVA in the same vein as Gundam Unicorn.  With the extra runtime, character development could’ve breathed better and extra time could have been taken to craft stronger stories for many characters, especially Kio.  Here, one hugely disappointing character received redemption and one of the best characters got an even better beginning to his era.  With all the love Asemu and Zeheart got in this movie, from the staff and their respective love interest, I almost wonder if Asemu’s story was the one everyone wanted to work on the most, hence why Flit became an antagonist and Kio…was just there (poor kid).  Whatever the case, this OVA game me something I never thought id get from Gundam AGE…some good memories.

Mobile Suit Gundam AGE: Memory of Eden gets an 8/10.

And with that, we bid the short lived Advanced Generation adieu.  Tomorrow, we begin looking at the other “black sheep” of the Gundam franchise, though this one has a much better rep than Gundam AGE.  After years of waiting for it, I finally get to watch and review the successor to Gundam Wing, After War Gundam X.  Told ya this Christmas would be awesome.  See ya tomorrow everyone.