Universal Century 0079.
After a slew of victories across the planet, the Earth Federation now
feels it’s ready to take the fight to Zeon as they prepare for Operation Odessa. To assist with the prep, the White Base is
assigned to mop up various Zeon outposts along the route to Odessa. Their primary target is “The Island of No
Return”. Gundam Pilot Amuro Ray encounters
a lone, powerful Zaku and becomes trapped on the Island, where he finds a group
of war orphans and a guilt ridden Zeon pilot looking for atonement. Prepare to witness one of the long lost
missing chapters of the One Year War in this return to the original Mobile Suit
Gundam series that started it all.
Welcome to a very special First Impression Friday.
Not only is this coming out right at the
start of
Gundam Month Mark VI-The Undiscovered Country, but today we’ve
got a rare opportunity to look at one of the most highly anticipated Gundam
projects to come out in the last few years.
Last Friday, Sunrise released the first 10 minutes of the new Cucuruz
Doan’s Island movie only (sort of like what they did for Mobile Suit Gundam
Narrative a few years back).
That’s plenty
of time to write a quick First Impression.
Only major hurdle is, unlike the Gundam Narrative preview, this didn’t come
with English Subtitles and this is a dialogue heavy preview.
Still, I think I can share a couple of
initial thoughts on this very curious Gundam project.
So for those who aren’t aware, Cucuruz Doan’s
Island is based on a Gundam episode that has rarely seen the light of day and
has never had an official US release in any Gundam collection due to Yoshiyuki
Tomino himself despising the episode that much.
When I first heard a new project was being built around it, I assumed
this would be a short OVA special with new animation.
Nope, this is a full length Anime feature
film, stretching out a 22 minute episode into an almost 2 hour movie.
After this 10 minute sneak peak, do I still
think this is a good idea?
The first couple of minutes feature the most action in
the preview and holy crap, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Zaku look this scary
since the psychological traumas of Gundam Thunderbolt.
The poor, yet heavily armed GMs that go up
against this thing are simply no match as the Zaku tears them apart with such
ferocity.
It’s such a chilling intro and
reminds viewers why the Zaku has always been such an iconic mainstay in the Gundam
franchise, particularly during the Universal Century era.
I should also note that this movie looks like
it’s continuing in the animation stylings of Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin,
from character designs to the CG on the Mobile Suits.
That’s a good move considering we’ve all
wanted some kind of new Original Mobile Suit Gundam project done in the style
of The Origin for years.
That said, everyone from the original series (who was alive
at this time) is back and man is it good to see everyone again: Amuro, Bright,
Sayla, Mirai, Kai, Hayato, even supporting cast like Jobe John get a lot of
screentime in the preview.
Again, all of
this had no subtitles so I had no idea what was going on, only assuming they
were getting their post Jaburo marching orders.
I like how Bright is more visibly irritated when everyone, mostly Amuro,
gets on his last nerve.
There was a brief
scene I really enjoyed between Bright and Mirai because, honestly, there should
have been more of these two kind of relaxing off duty in the show.
Bright and Mirai have one of the longest
lasting romances in the Universal Century and I never thought it got enough
attention, mostly because we hardly saw them together post Mobile Suit Gundam
with Mirai retired from the military and Bright the eternal noble Captain who
always answers the call.
These two are
cute and if a reinterpretation of the original series is to be done, give us more
scenes like this.
Naturally, the preview
ends with the OG RX-78-2 Gundam being unloaded and I cannot wait to see it in
2022 CG Anime glory.
Usually I’m not a
big fan of CG in most Anime but with Gundam’s last few projects, it’s been the
rare exception.
Unicorn, The Origin,
Narrative, Hathaway, Gundam seems to be the one mecha franchise that can do CG
Mecha right (Code Geass did a good job too in the Akito the Exiled OVA but that
was also Sunrise).
If nothing else, it’s really good to see the crew and
Mobile Suit that started this franchise back together again.
But, did this 10 minute preview change my
mind about doing a lot of work to extend a short TV Episode into a Movie?
Ehhhh…I’ll need to see more.
Most movie adaptations of TV Shows are often
criticized for being a bad two part episode of the Series theyre covering…though
I guess in Cucuruz Doan’s Island’s case that’s actually kind of true.
Still given the project is high profile, I’m
sure I’ll find a way to watch and review this sometime in the future (if not by
the end of 2022 then def by 2023).
And
for those of you lucky enough to see it in Japan this weekend, I hope the movie
rocks cause Gundam Hathaway was just ok.
Gundam could use a slam dunk, even if it means revisiting the Universal
Century well to give some failed ideas a second chance.
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