Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: The Afterglow of Zeon

Universal Century 0083.  A three year period of peace is shattered when Zeon remnants known as the Delaz Fleet begin their plan for revenge.  They start by stealing a prototype Gundam equipped for nuclear warfare.  The Federation battleship Albion is sent in pursuit, carrying with it another Gundam prototype, the hot headed pilot selected for it and the beautiful engineer who designed it and its nuclear brother.  Can a rookie Federation pilot defeat a legendary Zeon ace and prevent the rebirth of Zeon?  And what is the true secret objective behind the ominous Operation Stardust?

See this, this is the reason I don’t really do reviews of Compilation Films.  The only exceptions I make to that little ruling are if I know they change or add something substantial to the original (or tell the original in exactly the same manner) or if I don’t have some time to kill in a review slot.  In spite of my stance on Compilation Films, I have reviewed more than a few from the Gundam Franchise.  In my mind, I know the high and low bars for this particular series: the original Mobile Suit Gundam Compilation Trilogy brilliantly retold the complete One Year War saga with new twists and new animation throughout, basically taking a series that was already great and making it even better.  On the low end, you have the Compilation Duology for Turn A Gundam, which rushed through 50 episodes across a 4 hour combined runtime and added nothing, in fact it reinforced that Turn A Gundam is meant to be watched in full and not in a half assed, shortened manner.  So where does the Gundam 0083 Compilation, The Afterglow of Zeon, fit on this scale?  Oh it’s at the low end, right there with the Turn A Movies. 

The plot of the original Stardust Memory OVA is ripe for a movie adaptation.  The scale and direness of the story scream for this and I think it is possible to boil it down to a 2-2.5 hour feature.  However, Stardust Memory ended up having plenty of plot and character issues confusing everything particularly in the second half.  Afterglow of Zeon cant fix any of these problems and in fact, it only made them worse.  Kou Uraki and Nina Purpleton are two of the worst leads in the franchise and somehow I found myself either hating them more or reminding myself why I hated them in the first place, I really couldn’t choose.  Kou’s still a whiny Gato obsessed fanboy who wont stop until Gato accepts him, so blinded in his quest im not even sure he cares about the Operation Stardust endgame so long as he gets to fight Gato.  And Nina, God she was a pain to begin with but that last minute plot twist from 0083 with her character is still here and it makes even less sense, especially with her pointless narraration throughout the film.  Unfortunately, while he is still the best character of the story, Gato feels underserved and a casualty of the rushed storytelling Afterglow uses to fit 13 episodes of plot into 2 hours.

There’s a lot of corner cutting from the very first seconds of Afterglow of Zeon.  Several episodes and sequences are cut out but they aren’t replaced with anything meaningful to help move the story along or set up certain characters and plot points in return.  One particular main character just vanishes without an explanation or any other mention later on in the film.  And if you are thinking about it, aside from a few seconds of a new opening, there are ZERO new sequences in this movie.  To be honest, the Stardust Memory OVA looked freaking fantastic as is but that’s no excuse to not include anything new beyond a few sparce seconds of added footage.  The end result is Afterglow becoming a Frankenstien’s monster, cut and spliced together all over the place and hoping for the best.  The animation still looks good and the action is still some of the best in Gundam to date.  But without a solid emotional core OR a more clarified narrative, there’s nothing to keep Afterglow from just being a greatest hits compilation of Stardust Memory…with all the crappier elements of that OVA intact and unchanged.

Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: The Afterglow of Zeon is a prime example of how to NOT do a Compilation Film.  The same things that weight down Stardust Memory are worse than ever without context.  The lead characters are more annoying than ever and even the stellar antagonist suffers from rushed characterization.  No matter how much good animation and battle sequences you bring over, Afterglow has none of the soul or intrigue that made Stardust Memory a fun watch even when it was at its weakest.  It brings nothing new to the table and thinks it can get away with it just to make one more miniscule buck out of the Gundam 0083 story.  Honestly, just skip this incredibly pointless film and go right to Zeta Gundam once you’re done with the vastly superior Mobile Suit Gundam 0083 OVA.  Cant promise Kou Uraki or Nina Purpleton will be any less weak sauce…but Anavel Gato gets so much better treatment over there than he does here.

1/10