Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin - Advent of the Red Comet

*Spoilers ahead. TL;DR with the bottom two paragraphs* Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin is one of my favorite anime of the decade. It is a prequel done exceptionally well, and it is easily one of the best installments in the franchise. While it did have some stumbles, its growth as an OVA series over the course of its three-year run is one of the most rewarding experiences I've had with an anime in years. It is one of the most compelling space operas and political anime I’ve seen, and it exemplifies a sense of wonder and charm that few in this franchise can match. As such,you can imagine my worry when this adaptation was expecting a TV re-edit. I knew that no matter what, it would still be a good show and perhaps a more accessible way for certain fans to get into the series, but I also expected it to hinder the material with unfortunate removals and jarring edits. That's exactly what happened and then some, though that isn't enough to make this a bad series. This is going to be a more critical look at how this TV version handles the material, rather than a review of everything we were presented, as I already did that with the review of the OVA which ended last year. As such, this review may sound more negative than the score would imply. The core narrative and feel of Gundam Origin is stellar enough that a good adaptation of such material almost inherently warrants a high rating. It's just that Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin - Advent of the Red Comet provides several inconveniences and removals that make this supposedly more accessible rendition serviceable at best. The first problem this series has is its pacing and how the OVAs and by extension, the manga, were not designed with TV pacing in mind. This is most noticeable in how episodes end, often resulting in cliffhangers that feel limp instead of enticing, as these endings are generally abrupt, resulting in no fanfare or impact. The pacing also highlights how disconnected certain scenes tend to be. Some of it comes down to simple removals and awkward edits like when a scene in episode 5 goes from Char laughing when Garma tries to befriend him to an explosive mock battle that comes out of nowhere. Other instances are simply due to how rushed the pacing of some of the weaker episodes of the OVA --namely 1 and 4-- were. Truncating that even further makes the first and fifth episodes of this TV version feel like a series of disconnected scenes happening in rapid succession. Each episode of the OVA had a natural and visible through-line to them, and it sometimes took a while for them to reach their strides. Even when the pacing felt abrupt, it somehow still felt deliberate. It no longer feels deliberate when the true Char Aznable that our protagonist eventually takes the identity of only gets three scenes in episode 4, has an important scene demonstrating the rift between him and his family get cut down heavily, and then dies at the end of that same episode as opposed to having more of a presence in the second OVA episode before dying in the third. It also doesn’t feel deliberate when they further truncate the most rushed plot point in all of Gundam Origin, that being the relationship between Dozle and Zenna from the military academy. Noticeable cuts include the removal of Amuro’s interaction with his father and some interactions with Frau Bow. However, the one I’m going to be focusing on as it’s one of the more detrimental alterations is the removal of how Astraea's house arrest was partially motivated by the house owner's jealousy. We know it was mainly done under Zabi orders but removing this detail while keeping the scene in instead of just altering it to make it solely an act made by the Zabis feels wrong. This makes it so the scene of the owner of the house bitterly reminding Astraea of how her husband sometimes used these chambers for his influential thought feel needless. Knowing where Zeon Zum Daikun, Char's father, sometimes thought of his speeches wasn't the important part. What was important was highlighting how Astraea was never an intellectual partner for him and what that meant for both her and the owner who resented her. Chalk this one up to a nitpick but it's omissions like this and the aforementioned scenes with the original Char that cause the characters to lose some of their vibrancy when the cast of characters was perhaps the most defining aspect of Gundam Origin. The main cast is largely as wonderful as ever but a lot of the side characters a tad hung to dry this time around. It isn't as egregious as the general pacing and scene sequence issues, but it emphasizes how this version is about rushing to get to the meat of the story regardless of how tactlessly it may do so. Then again, at least it didn’t play a scene twice halfway into episode 3 like Unicorn Re:0096 did when the people involved thought keeping both the end of the first OVA episode and the beginning of the second one was a good idea. The only things left to cover are the opening and ending themes, as well as a few thoughts regarding the audiovisuals in general. The OVA boasts a fair amount of terrible environmental CGI, so the removal of several scenes for the TV version means the removal of some of said CGI. The rest of the CGI outside of the first episode still ranges from good to downright stellar, with the mechs being particularly great in several instances. The direction is mostly kept intact and along with the crisp animation and expressive character designs, it leaves the series looking gorgeous. The dub retains the same level of quality as the dub of the OVA, so much so that they may have just been ripped straight from that. If not, then the rerecording must have been impressive. The music is still well-composed, with a few particularly incredible tracks such as the main theme of the OVA and the remix that plays when Char launches into the battle of Loum later into the series. The OPs performed by LUNA SEA are generally good, although visually the first two are nothing more than spoiler-filled montages. The first OP, “Higher and Higher” is easily my least favorite, though things only pick up with the more inspiring second OP, “Hisoubi”, which sports the feeling of a folk tale. The final OP, which is a cover of “Beyond the Time” from the film Char’s Counterattack, is my favorite opening of the year, with a sense of pride and finality matched only by the visuals, which present the current state of affairs with incredible transitions before whisking us away to the original Mobile Suit Gundam from 1979 and returning to the events of this TV edit from 2019. I can’t even begin to do justice to how much this works at celebrating 40 years of Gundam far more than the show itself does. As for the ED themes, almost none of them are particularly worth mentioning in my eyes aside from the colorful visuals in the second ED, as I don’t particularly care for the first two and I only find the third one to be a decent song. The only one I genuinely like is the ED that plays in the final episode, that being a somber song known as “Hikari no Hate” by SUGIZO by Aina The End (BiSH). The final OP and the later EDs provide the only bits of genuinely new content in this show, though since you can simply look them up elsewhere, they don’t necessarily provide much of any real advantage for this version of the series. I won’t lie when I say I am disappointed with this TV re-edit. That isn’t to say I didn’t enjoy it, especially given how spectacular Gundam Origin tends to be. However, there were times where I was actively bored or annoyed by the handling of certain episodes, which was never the case with the OVA. I expected some of the pacing and editing issues presented here considering they needed to adapt from a more theatrical OVA format to a more controlled and limiting television format. However, even considering that, sometimes this show failed to properly do even that material justice, like with the first and fifth episodes. Certain characters feel particularly left out to dry compared to previous iterations of this story, and the pacing occasionally leaves the show feeling like a series of disconnected sequences. Often times, episodes end without the final scene having any impact or even feeling like a proper conclusion to an episode. It’s even worse when said episodes include a scene that feels like the proper end to an episode occurs long before the actual end, and they work much better than the limp cliffhangers and conclusions the show gives us. On top of that, most of the faster-paced moments and certain plot points that already felt rushed were condensed even further. It leaves the pacing feeling a lot more awkward and disjointed than before. I see no benefit to separating the contents of the episodes in and of itself, but the way they truncated and edited them only puts this version at a further disadvantage. Some may consider most of these nitpicks, but even then, these issues snowball into a substantially inferior experience. Some may not even notice these faults, however, especially if they haven’t seen the OVA or read the manga. Hell, some may even prefer the more truncated version as it allows for binging or digesting the material at a slower pace of 22 minutes a day compared to 55-95 minutes a day or what have you. It’s their choice, honestly. Even a mediocre retelling of wonderful material still leads to a good show. As for me, I’ll stick to the OVA and begin wondering if manga fans had similar feelings regarding it to what I felt here. Written and Edited by: CodeBlazeFate Proofread by: Peregrine

**Warning: contains spoiler** (More so if you are unfamiliar with the UC Gundam stories.) Mobile Suites Gundam: The Origin is first and foremost a powerful human story. It is also a war and politics epic. Of course, at the same time, it is a gundam show. Char Aznable is a rich character. And Gundam: The Origin shows why. The Origin follows the trajectory of Char's life from his early youth to the establishment of his fame as the ace pilot of Zeon. Along that trajectory, Char's life started in one of the most privileged families, then thrown by external forces to the worst bottom, and later climbedback to moments of glory. In his childhood, Char saw his father murdered and had his family torn apart in midst of political intrigues. He had to fend off assassination attempts while in exile. Nevertheless, he grew up intelligent, strong, sensitive, but also bearing a sense of deep hatred. My English is not sufficient to depict the heart-wrenching and absorbing stories of Char's early life. But Gundam: The Origin is. Gundam: The Origin takes the care to develop the personalities and growths of Char with as much care in moments of thrill as in mundane details -- how he consoles his sister Artesia upon the news of their father's death when he was barely elder; how he stays firm at the last sight of their mother, when he understood it was the last sight; how he became aggressive with a spy upon hearing his mother's death. Those moments make you relate and root for Char. And the experience is enhanced by solid voice casting. In that moment Char is angry with a spy, his voice is angry. In the moments Char is calm but also cold, his voice is gentle but aloof and also masculine. Char is not the only one The Origin excels at depicting and voice casting. Dozle and the Black-Tri sound like the muscular men they are on screen with their coarse voice and swift intonation. Artesia's voice cast has a nice gradient of pitch change -- from childish to mature -- as she grew more confident and independent in the series. The Origin offers a cast of characters each with their convictions and vices, virtues and flaws. For example, the monologue of Dozle vowing to protect his wife Zenna, while seemingly lacking in intellectualism in his choice of words, strikes at the core of wars in metaphoric terms. I enjoyed how Kycilia is shown to have conflicting traits -- honorable at times, cruel and bloody at times; ruthless and efficient at times, soft and gentle at times. The Origin (and to an extent the original '79 Gundam series) does not shy away from having characters who are conflicted internally -- just as how in real life humans are. The Origin also does not shy away from showing nuances in politics: from Gilren's zeal to Degwin's moderation, from riots on the street level to backroom negotiations. From yet a different perspective, in anime terms, Char is shown to be extraordinarily talented yet he does not come off feeling OP in a contrived way. That showcases the strength of the series. With strengths come relative weaknesses. The character pool of Gundam: The Origin is on the bloated side. Its ties to the seminal Mobile Suite Gundam in 79' blesses The Origin with an abundance of attention, and with it funding and production quality, but also curses it with unique restrictions. The Origin has to make connections to all major characters in the 79's Mobile Suite Gundam. The characters on the Federation side, however, are less connected to Char's early life. They are thus spared less time to develop, which only adds to the feel of disjointedness. The flaws in the 79's original haunt The Origin. The group of civilians fighting as well as professionals left so big of a plot hole that only proper developments for all of them can do justice. The same can be said of Ramba Ral and Black Tri-star on the Zeon side who in the original were only 2-dimensional mini-bosses for Amuro Ray to practice on. I love what is done. Still, with 13 episodes, The Origin does not have the time to develop them all. And if it did, the disconnect can still remain an issue. Having said all the above, it is a paragraph of equal length to critique the weakness in characters of The Origin as to praise its strength. In actuality, the strengths easily eclipse the weaknesses. The elephant in the room is, of course, the gundam. Gundam: The Origin is somewhat focused on mechas just like the other gundam series. That is not a vice to me. I think it is ok to assume and accept some elements of fantasy as long as the fictional universe comes with a rule set: in which fantasy elements blend with real world physics and social interactions to create something believable. So I have criticisms in that regard. Since war and mecha make a focal topic, quality and precision is called for. Impractical as they are, I can ignore the (lack of) rationale on having arms, legs, sensors in a "head", etc on mobile suits. I can ignore the impracticality of directed energy weapons against armored targets (along with their inexplicable colors). I still need other believable elements of warfare in order to not laugh at what is supposed to be a politics and war epic. In other words, realism inspires immersion. There needs to be enough realism to support immersion. In some places, Gundam took particular care with realism in combat and succeeded. In others, not so much. For example, I appreciate the depiction of spaceship turret mechanisms and ammo racks based on battleships of WWII -- it later helped to explain why Char is able to take out warships quickly with precision shots. I appreciate the depiction on battle formation -- although scant, recon rotation, the effects of Minkowski particles -- although also scant, the normal suites, the actions of the auxiliary thrusters, etc. They all played a role in building up the intensity of battles and the sense of realism in operating in space, which is a theme of the series. Nevertheless, certain things are wrong: spaceships do not sink; there is no deflection shooting in space; HEAT warheads need to raise elevation in flight and then drop on to MBTs in order to kill them; accelerating with Zaku does not create airflow in the cockpit; particle cannons do not have recoils; Ortega's Zaku flies backward relative to thruster direction when killing Revil's flagship; etc. Most disappointing though is the way the revolutionary strengths of Zaku is foreshadowed. And that's done by one thing only: [pointing to guncannon, Tem Ray shakingly said] this is not the Mobile Suits of Dr Minkowski! "Boss A is super strong. Because A is 10x stronger than B!" Why? No why. How? No how. So there we are back to kindergarten. _Not_ the politics and war epic we can immerse in. The real underlying reason is, supposedly, Zaku's Minovsky reactor has much higher output -- both in energy and in the quantities of Minovsky particles produced. (The series should clarify this for itself -- not through me.) The thrusters of mobile suits are supposed to use Minkowsky particles. Hence the enhanced mobility. Minovsky particles absorb/deflect radar and other electromagnetic waves. Thus guided weapons are useless in battles of the Gundam world. That explains the kind of warfare we see in Battle of Loum. Shying away from technical details creates serious plot holes. The Origin did spend time on technical aspects of warfare. It just all went to Tem Ray mumbling nothingness. So that is a failure of the series. Also, even after excusing the omission on Minovsky particles, it is not excusable how imprecise AA fires are without explanations and how fighters of the Federation fleet seemed to have done nothing. They resemble plot armor too much and thus hurt immersion. For full disclosure, actions of Federation fighters are cut away in the TV series from the original OVA series. That brings to the next topic, which is editing. My above complaint with fighter scenes, among with a rare few others, are the only issues with the TV cut. In all other places, the TV cut adds to the fluidity of the series. For example, while Garma can certainly be meek, insecure and driven by emotions at times. He nevertheless was able to follow Char in military academy exams. Garma is shown by the series to have true abilities and he works hard for it. I am glad the TV version cut away the numerous flicking hair scenes of Garma. Being superficial and infantile to such an extent would undermine the narrative with Garma. So the TV version did away with them. Along with other edits, the cuts propelled the series to a different level. A quick note on sound. I watched the series through Crunchyroll. And boi that site sucks in so many ways. (I pay a yearly subscription so I have the right to complain.) It completely butchers the audio track. For example, remember episode 10 when Char heads out with his Zaku? (Ignore his waving clothes, ofc. That's silly.) The drum beat sounds like a toddler's murmur with the Crunchyroll version. If you just came from Crunchyroll, you probably didn't know there are drum beats. With that in mind, I have found the BGM in Gundam: The Origin mediocre. By all means, I have no quarrel with Takayuki Hattori's compositions. To the contrary, I revere him as a composer. I particularly enjoy the use of brass in the series' compositions. Brass, along with other orchestral instruments, sound.. a bit old... but in a good way that adds to the feel of politics and war epic and it feels like a nod to the series' long and lasting history. What I do have complain with is that the soundtracks do not seem to organically interact with the scenes much. Without access to the alternative, I am really not sure if Crunchyroll is the only one to blame. All in all, I loved the series. I loved the human stories. I enjoyed the sense of scale. I liked the subtleties that the series did not shy away from depicting -- be it in personalities, in politics or in warfare. Although it being a war focused series, I do wish for more attention to details in combat and warfare. If only The Origin can continue into an alternate version of the original Mobile Suit Gundam in '79. To Gundam haters: this series is worth your time. With a bit of open mind and willingness judge a series by its content, you won't find the feature of mechas a burden. To Gundam fans: re-joice, Gundam: The Origin is a treat. More likely than not you will find it the best Gundam series -- and I say that with classics like 08th in mind. Gundam: The Origin brings new depths to the whole UC universe. Enjoy the show.

(LAZAROTH REVIEW - LONG - NO SPOILERS) This anime is both Brilliant and Disappointing. "Mobile Suit Gundam: Origin - Advent of the Red Comet" is a prequel anime to the first ever Gundam anime from 1979. However, the anime sometimes fails to feel like it is in the same universe. Story/Action/Characters: The anime sometimes completely goes against everything its retro sequel stood for. The tone and vibe are sometimes all over the place and feels so starkly different from the original Gundam to the point of absurdity. The contrast is INSANE at times, something that you just CANNOT do when you are a direct prequel. Consistency iskey, lest they feel utterly alien to each other. This anime uses a lighter, sometimes even childishly comedic tone, that does not mesh well with the tone conveyed in the original anime. I get whiplash when a tough man booms about ordering the killing billions of people in the worst war crime imaginable only for him to get comedically shocked by electricity with a stupid face. The subject matter does NOT match the vibe they are setting, to the point of parody. It is by far the most egregious thing this anime does. To make matters worse, the tone and vibe bounce up and down often like a yo-yo, rather than being consistent, leading to the anime feeling like it has a lack of identity and integrity. This problem does thankfully lessen the more episodes you watch, but it is still a problem even later in the anime. As much as I hate to say it, these two shows feel nothing alike. Especially if you watch them back-to-back like I did. It goes without saying, but this anime fails to achieve the same atmosphere that the original anime conveyed so brilliantly. It does manage to do so in some points, however. The pacing is also extremely fast. You can barely wrap your head around one plot point before another three have already happened. It damages the immersion that the 79' anime had. Yes it is unfair to compare a long running anime to a one-off season of 13 episodes, but even for a 13 episode or 6 OVA episode series, it still feels very tight. Perhaps an extra few OVAs and episodes would help alleviate the tight pacing issue. Just like the tone contrast problem, this contrast between the original anime and the prequel is also egregious as it further alienates the two. A prequel should feel like an proper extension or beginning to its sequel series, but these two feel like they are set in two entirely separate universes. The fast pace harms the plot because nothing is built up properly, nor is there enough jumping between perspectives like how the original anime showcased the POVs of both the Federation and the Zeon Empire. This anime may be focused on the Zeon side, which I will praise later, but I still wanted more Federation viewpoints to immerse myself deeper into the conflict between the two sides. I love that we got more backstory, this was exactly what I wanted from the original anime. However I just wish it was longer and properly paced to fit with the original anime. Still, the awesome reveals and the catalyst events that led to the start of the one-year war were brilliant and answered a lot of questions while changing my opinions on many characters for the better. Speaking of, a lot of characters feel either very similar or identical to their sequel counterparts, which I really enjoyed seeing. Alas, some characters are completely different, like Kycillia. She was a scheming femme fatale in the original anime, whether as she is an overbearing, female badass with an overwhelming aura of masculinity in this prequel. They don't feel like the same character, though this may be intentional as it is hinted she adopted her more submissive persona in order to curry favour with Gihren in order to sway things in her favour that she could not do while she remained in her aggressive and butch demeanour. If this is the case, then that is genuinely brilliant, however if it isn't, then I dislike that the two characters feel so different from each other, as it seems like lack of artistic integrity. Char's excellent and fun to watch mindgames and intellect are on full display in this anime and I love it. He's an amazing and iconic character, but I still feel like I wish there were at least some mystery to his character. I loved every moment he was on screen after he fled his home and grew up. The anime's first episode might just be one of the worst episodes of anime I've ever seen (more on this later), however things REALLY begin to pick up after Casval adopts the identity of Char Aznable. The extra dimensions this anime gives many of its characters are great and totally put into perspective many of their actions in the sequel, which is also why I really liked the dynamics some characters had with each other in this anime, particularly the dynamic between Char and Garma. The reveal of what sparked the one year war and subsequent dooming of half the human population was incredible, it feels like it's actually built up like an real world war would be, and is one of the things that doesn't suffer from the build-up problem that this anime has. The implications it has on the character that was a catalyst for it and the emotions and burden they must be feeling for being responsible for such a heavy act totally puts into perspective the utter lengths that this character will go to in order to achieve their goal. It is one of the best things this anime does and is in keeping with the themes of the original anime. One of the BEST things this anime does is portray the Federation in a bad light, or rather, in a an unbiased light. It tells a side of the war that the original anime did not, because we were biased by viewing it through the lens of the Federation army. The way this anime shows that there are no good guys in war and conquest is reminiscent of some of the themes from the original anime, while actually being a unique aspect we hadn't seen until now. It does suffer from the tone problem this anime presents because such atrocities are often muddied by extremely obvious and unwarranted comedic relief. The comedic relief in the original anime was subtle and few and far between, fitting for a war story. The way this anime handles comedic relief despite its abhorrent setting reminds me of a quote from Tim o' Brien: "If a story seems moral, do not believe it. If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if you feel that some small bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie. There is no rectitude whatsoever. There is no virtue." In a show where I just watched half of humanity die in front of my very eyes, I should not expect the creators to be trying to make me laugh. War has no good guys. And the way this anime portrays that fact is one of the only ways this connects it to its father anime in terms of atmosphere and theming. I found myself rooting for the "bad guys" (Zeon) over the "good guys" (Federation). Sure, when the villain or antagonist is the main viewpoint of a piece of media, like the criminal you play as in "Grand Theft Auto" games, you don't typically root for the police or other standard good guys, do you? However despite the two sides being bad guys, the Federation are the lesser evil in this universe. Although I think it was an brilliant idea to have us root for the Federation's comeuppance by the Zeon Empire. Despite the Zeon's dictatorship and over-the-top evil nature, the Gundam universe has shown us definitively that at the end of the day, they are all human, and ultimately, that's the root of evil. Unlike animals, we don't act on instinct, we have the ability to freethink, and hence, evil is a human creation. The "Origin" of many things in this anime are awesome. Full stop. Especially the Mobile suits. While it could've been longer, the introduction of the Mobile Suits into this universe was splendid. You can feel their impact immediately as humanity realises that the scope of war has now changed forever. Char's scenes with the mobile suit, despite seeming out of the blue that he has sudden mastery over it with no military Mobile Suit training realistically, are at least very epic. The action is decent but mostly unmemorable, barring one or two amazing moments. The final battle is genuinely great however and features some incredible choreography. I don't have much to say on it honestly, It's just decent with some banger moments here and there. Animation/Art/Music: For someone who just came off of the 1979 original anime, the anime was instantly far too "clean" for me due to the contrast. But that's also just a problem that I have with modern anime in general. The contrast is my own fault for watching them back to back, but I still wished we had some sort of film grain in our anime these days to make it look less plastic. Alas, onto this section we go. 2D animation is just average, with some very small snippets of good animation here and there. The CGI is not the best, particularly for a modern show. The worst thing about the Mecha genre after the late 2000's was the switch from 2D to CGI mechs. I cannot fathom why they would downgrade like this for no reason. It shows a lack of backbone. The crowd CGI is laughably bad, but at least the Mecha and vehicle CGI are pretty decent to actually good at times, but nowhere near as good as other shows like Chainsaw man or 86, though that may be a slightly unfair comparison since they came out a few years later. Still, the CGI can actually take away from the designs of the Mechas, particularly the "one eye" the Zeon Mobile suits have, as they are no longer shrouded in black, and instead, the CGI clearly shows that the "eye" is just a camera on a swivel, lessening the scary and oppressive design. Music is either painfully generic or just painful, full stop. Some tracks are actually grating and insulting to the scene and audience with how poorly they are placed and composed to the point of parody. Many tracks fail to sell the scene, particularly the song at the end of episode one with the confrontation between Char and Kycillia, one of the reasons why I DESPISE that episode. There are VERY few tracks that are good. Considering how memorable the music from the original anime was, I see this as a massive downgrade. The cinematography is usually really tight. So many scenes are just very close up shots that make it seem like characters are not even in the same room as another, or just standard camera work that loses the subtle brilliance of the camerawork did in the original anime that I forgot to mention in my review of that anime until I saw the juxtaposition from this anime. It's hard to explain, but when you watch the two side by side, you will see it too. The 79' anime gives so much more room for the characters to breathe, whether as Origin has usually claustrophobic camera work. Some of the battles have amazing choreography however. From what I've seen, the anime adapts the manga pretty much page for page visually. I just wish they had stuck to the tone of the original anime in order to be more fluid and consistent. Overall: "Mobile Suit Gundam: Origin - Advent of the red comet" often doesn't feel like a direct prequel to the original anime, leaving me disappointed. However there are some brilliant aspects and moments in this anime that I am thankful I watched it for. The backstory and origin of so many things being revealed such as Char, the one-year war, and mobile suits, are incredible. But I don't think I can recommend this to anyone who isn't that attached to the Gundam franchise already. It's a good supplemental show, but I don't think it's strong enough to stand on its own, or even be enjoyed by someone with only fleeting interest in the franchise. Still, I'm glad I watched it, even if I couldn't stand some small parts of it and only found it to be highly decent overall. Bonus: This is my second GUNDAM anime, I watched it right after the original anime from 1979: "Mobile Suit Gundam". If I had watched this FIRST, I may have enjoyed the '79 anime less, because I'd go into the anime thinking that the franchise was supposed to be lighter in tone and vibe and to expect comedic relief despite the subject matter being so atrocious. So people's opinions on this anime may be different from mine depending if they saw it first or second, but most people would've seen it after the original anime. I am not going to let this speedbump slow me down on my GUNDAM franchise binge! I really like this universe and find it promising, especially after the perfect character work of the original anime and my boy Char being a brilliant character. This anime had its moments, but it was a disappointment with some brilliant aspects to it. Yes I uploaded this review twice, one for the TV version and one for the OVA version. Animation: 6/10 Music: 3/10 (The OPs and EDs seem great though!) Characters: 3-8/10 ( flip flops at the beginning :/ ) Plot: 8/10 Action: 6-7/10 Ending: 8/10 Overall: 6.6/10

First a warning to everyone, this 13 episode TV version of the show has around 100 minutes of content cut from the original 6 OVA's so i would watch the original OVA's instead for the extra content, I only realised when i was halfway through so just carried on with this version. For all I know the original version could be paced weirdly and wont be as good but its MAL score is higher and really the more the better so i will watch that version eventually. Now onto the review. This series although set before the original 1979 gundam I would say is bestenjoyed after as it will answer all your questions about the mysterious Char who was one of the coolest characters in that show. To begin with the animation is great and very unique as it looks modern and yet keeps the look of the original 1979 series, the main difference in animation is CGI mobile suits and its some of the best anime CGI I've seen and is a nice change of pace to all the 2D gundams I've seen so far while watching gundam. The series may feel a bit slow if you watch this before the original but for those who have they are constantly answering questions we've had and something that stood out to me from the beginning is that it feels like this series was planned from the beginning of the series unlike some prequels which feel unnecessary. All of the openings and endings are great too and the music in the show overall are great with completely new tracks and remixes of old classics. I also like how we see loads of characters from the original series before those events took place and how their relationships were formed such as how Char and Garma met. Its not only Chars origin story but also the origin of the war so events we only hear about or see short clips of in 1979 gundam, we get to see in detail here. I also feel in the original gundam had good world building and scale but it wasn't great and was sometimes unclear to me, however this series has a great sense of scale and clearly showed how sides are structured and how the world is laid out. Overall I highly recommend this especially for fans of the 1979 original gundam. The story, animation and music are all great and answered all the questions I had so i gave it a 9, the OVA with extra content could be higher or make this version lower, i cant wait to see what I missed out on and revisit this series.