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My entry into the universe of the Mobile Suit Gundam came in the form of Mobile Suit Gundam Wing. I remember wanting to be cold and in control like Heero Yuy as he piloted the Wing Zero Gundam and was uttering cool shit. Here he was being straight up savage!

[credits to AleXa 2255]

I would make sure to tune in to Cartoon Network and watch as these big mechas battle in space and Earth. Each one had a very unique Gundam machine that was a match for a hundred of the OZ units that they simply decimated. Nothing is more satisfying than seeing Wing Zero Gundam bust out his twin beam rifle and shoot through a military base.

Mobile Suit Gundam Wing made me want to watch other Gundam shows and expand more on what I know of its universe, its conflicts, beliefs, characters and of course the mechas!

I have watched Turn A Gundam, Gundam Zeta, Gundam 00, Gundam Seed. Mobile Fighter G Gundam, Gundam X, Crossbone Gundam, Gundam Unicorn, Gundam Thunderbolt and even those Gundam Build fighters and Gunpla shows which is really not of my liking.

So far on the top echelon of my favorites has good to be Iron Blooded Orphans. It is gritty and shows a lot of emotions and great character development in its cast and that ending was pure goosebumps.

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There will be some minor spoilers ahead though so read on knowing that!

So that is how I came to appreciate The 08th MS Team OVA. It is a relatively short series that was released on January 25, 1996 and follows in the timeline of the One Year War of which is about the conflict that involves the Federation fielding Amuro Ray in the prototype RX 78 Close Combat Gundam and the Principality of Zeon having their ace pilot Char Aznable using his Red colored Zaku II that earned him the nickname Red Comet that both made his feared and respected by his enemies and comrades.

While a space battle was happening. War was also happening in Earth and we follow the path of Lt. Shiro Amada who having some experience in space battles has been assigned to command the 08th Mobile Suit team in an undisclosed location in South East Asia.

The first episode gives us a glimpse of his skills in space as he battles a Space Zaku with a Ball type Mobile suit (called the RB-79 Ball)

I kid you not as I watch Shiro board this to fight off a Zaku. While in some of the other series I have seen the protagonist get into mass produced units to fight off the enemies it still gave them a fighting chance but a Ball! That is some cojones from Shiro (pun intented!)

We are then introduced to a slew of characters from Aina Sahalin who is a Zeon soldier and will become the love interest of the protagonist.

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Aboard the space shuttle is Michel Ninorich who is also assigned to the same team and writes off early that his commander is going to die. He often voices the disbelief that I have during the series.

Once they reach Earth they are met with Karen Joshua who is one of the vets of the unit and is exasperated by this new commander they have been assigned with and you can see how displeased she is with the situation.

Then you have Eledore Massis who is part of the support unit and acts as the eyes and ears of the team. A songwriter/DJ who takes pride in his taste of music

And lastly Terry Sanders Jr. who is called behind his back as Sanders the Reaper. This is because all teams that he joins all die off except him. So talk about bad luck.

Mobile Suit Gundam

I will just focus on the machine that Shiro pilots but all three Mobile Suits units utilized by the 08th MS team are Ground type RX 79 Gundam models that were mass produced after the Original Close Combat RX 78 used by Amuro was made.

Unlike the other series this was no space ship busting type that had over powered weapons or a system that gave their pilots an advantage over the enemy.

Most of its armaments were standard issued military weapons that were used by their other units. In fact since this was a land based battle and it was a desperate at that, supplies were not easy to get by for both sides.

It was a war of attrition that was heavily reminiscent of the Vietnam war but with giant mechas.

The show used the different units in conjunction with the RX 79 EZ8 unit. It was not a special type that when deployed it would sway the tide of the war over.

In fact they showed that they were having difficulties with battling Zeon units, bunkers and turrets and needed to make use of battle tactics instead of relying on overpowered weapons and suits.

There were several episodes that they used flanking and tricks in order to prevail over the enemies.

In a lot of the series the protagonist will go through several battles and most of the time it is shown that being in a mobile suit made of Gundamiun alloy almost makes you invincible until a new weapon turns it into butter and it provides the show to make it damaged or even destroyed and off they will roll out a brand new and improved version of the mobile suit.

While this is great to get to see new Gundams there is an underlying reason on why this is done and not just to move the narrative or to provide the show some tension. The reason why we get new suits is to drive toy sales.

Yes the Gunpla or Gundam Plastic toys industry is a multi million dollar industry of avid fans who wants to collect all the latest mechs and get perfect or master grade units that really look great.

There are a lot of competitions on making damaged, custom and sticking to the source material that highlights the collectors skill in building the models. I have brought a lot of models before and it lined up in several shelves before a lot of those were lost in a flooding incident that we had in my country.

Yet in The 08th our team had to make do with a lot of spare parts and junk that were attached in order to have a functioning mobile suit. They were not gifted with a new top of the line model in their desperate fight for survival.

All Hail Zeon!

The Principality of Zeon in most of the stories has been used as the antagonists of the series. I get it dropping an island sized Space Colony in Australia is not exactly going to win you any Noble Peace prize and is really a dick move.

They are also not afraid to make use of nuclear weapons or experiment of children. Okay I know what you mean then.

Yet the Federation is not that good either and various series has shown that the war of both sides brings out the best and the worst of mankind.

In this show both the soldiers and their officers show their morals and honor or complete lack of these attributes making us see that war in itself is terrible and often people pick a side not because they want to be good or evil but because they need something.

Love and Mechas

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What is it with giant mecha series and love. Majority of shows often show the protagonist falling in love with the enemy, a teammate or a damsel in distress.

I remember watching Daimos as a kid and the whole Richard (Kazuya Ryuuzaki in the Japanese version) and Erica was cringe inducing for me. Thank goodness for the kickass karate!

The Gundam series is not immune to these as several shows had star crossed lovers. The 08th MS team as short as it is with practically 11 episodes and the 12th I'd rather forget.

The love story between Shiro and Aina feels a bit too much because from one episode thinking if he likes her to fullblown saying shouting I love you between communications while they are fighting.

Is it worth watching?

If you loved Iron Blooded Orphans then you will definitely love this OVA. It shows both sides of war, it is gritty and aside from the forced love story I really dig the entire story (well except episode 12)

It is good enough if you want a starting point in the Gundam Universe before you embark on the convoluted timeline.

Be a Gundam fan today!