September 20th, 2010 
AstroNerdBoy 機動戦士ガンダム /Kido Senshi Gundam episode 06
Mobile Suit Gundam – 06
SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:
As the senior officer, Reed takes over command of White Base as Garma’s giant Zeon Gaw plane retrieves Char’s shuttle. Char and his former academy comrade exchange pleasantries and remark on the situation and the difficulties that Char has had with White Base and Gundam. Garma orders a full-out assault on White Base as his plane launches fighters to join the other Zeon fighters that had been flying in formation. Back on White Base, Reed wants to break through enemy lines and use the Gundam to do so, but Bright advises against this since Amuro is still new and the non-stop fighting must be getting to him. Amuro says he’s ready, but Hayato has a better solution than Gundam — fit the Gundam cockpit into Guntank and let Amuro use that.
The White Base heads for some mountains for additional cover against the fighter attacks and to allow the launching of Guntank. Garma sees this and orders the ground forces in the area to attack. A division of Magella Attack Tanks takes off as Amuro, now in the Guntank, lands on the ground and opens fire, destroying two Zeon fighters. The Magella Attacks open fire on both White Base and Guntank. Reed now wants to retreat, leading Bright to remind him that Reed had previously wanted to break through enemy lines. Reed concedes and Bright decides to bring Gundam into play now. He explains to Amuro that if he’s up to in, Amuro will bring out Gundam and allow someone else to control Guntank. Amuro agrees and launches Guntank back up into White Base‘s hold.
Garma receives the first analysis report on Guntank, which is revealed to be another Federation mobile suit. He orders the launch of his three Zaku mobile suits while on White Base, Amuro transfers from Guntank to Gundam, pausing briefly to drink a nutrition supplement provided by Frau Bow. Ryu launches in the Core Fighter while Sayla makes Amuro wait for Guntank to be relaunched. When Sayla gives the order to launch, Amuro finds himself a little annoyed at taking orders from a woman. Because his last launches were from space, Amuro is not used to Earth’s gravity and has some difficulties in landing. However, he makes it safely to the ground and sees Ryu in trouble. Amuro opens up with the Gundam’s Vulcan cannons, destroying the fighter on 
Ryu’s six.
The three Zaku units are on the ground and the fight is full on. However, the Gundam’s power is so much superior to anything the Zaku have in the air or on the ground that Amuro quickly begins to thin their ranks by destroying tanks, fighters, and a Zaku unit. After Amuro destroys a second Zaku unit, Zeon forces begin concentrating their fire on Gundam. Gundam takes no serious damage but the massive attack causes Amuro to snap. Tossing his shield aside, Amuro brings out his energy sword and wreaks destruction upon the Zeon forces, causing them to try to 
retreat. In the air, Garma sees the battle is lost and orders a return to base. He stops by to see Char, who’s in the shower, and the two have a chat where Char offers his support in the next conflict. Garma is determined to change strategies and capture this new mobile suit. Meanwhile, Amuro ignores the welcome of his jubilant crewmates, including Frau Bow. When the orphans say there’s to be a party, Amuro tells the disappointed children that he wants to be left alone and retreats to his room, where he falls into bed and thinks.
Thoughts/Review:
I mentioned this before, but it is really hard to gauge the amount of time that has passed from the moment that Side 7 was attacked until present. Maybe it has been a week, but I don’t know. What is certain is that the rookie crew of White Base has been in almost non-stop combat since they fled Side 7. While I’m sure this has been difficult for everyone, the writers chose to focus on how hard it has been on Amuro by making him snap. It is understandable that he’d have the hardest time of it since he’s the only one who can pilot the Gundam and the Gundam is the only thing that has really kept them alive. So in essence, it is only Amuro doing the heavy lifting and with no break.
While cliched, I will say that I enjoyed Amuro going off on the Zeon forces and causing major destruction there. There’s a certain allegory in what happened to Amuro that I’m sure a lot of folks can relate to. Amuro was under constant attack and eventually just had enough of this. I’m sure that we’ve all had times in our life when we’ve been under what we feel are non-stop attacks and just want to end the attacks one way or another (whatever the “attack” is doesn’t matter). At times like that, we need to let off steam and Amuro did it by slaughtering the Zeons and destroying nearly their entire attack force.
Anyway, I don’t fancy the notion of this becoming some angst-fest, but I do appreciate the realism of the moment, right down to ignoring ones friends. Well, I guess we’ll see where this goes with Amuro’s mental state.
One of the things that has frustrated me about the series is the writers desperately need to play up elements by weakening others. This came up initially when Char casually cruised through the docking area of Side 7 despite being under heavy fire. It also comes up whenever other elements are brought in to support Gundam. Oh sure, Guntank and Core Fighter did shoot down that 
supply ship, but for the most part, they don’t do much at all and all of the outbound fire from White Base can’t hit anything. That’s why I laughed when Reed demanded to know what the gun crews were shooting at because I wondered the same thing since they couldn’t hit a thing. Meanwhile, Amuro farts and manages to destroy a Zaku, two battle tanks, and a half-dozen Zeon fighters (though we want Zeon to die so that’s OK, right? ^_~).
On the good side, there was no Amuro vs. Char battle this episode. Yay! ^_^
Back to the gunning issue and White Base, this time we seem to have actual gun crews other than Kai, Hayato, and Ryu. Of course if Ryu is manning a gun, then he can’t be out in the Core Fighter fighting. So it was good to see actual gun crews this time, with Sayla jumping in to work one of the gun pods. On one hand I liked that but on the other hand, Sayla is supposed to be a controller and be responsible for deployed units. So in my mind, she should stay there, but I suppose we needed the blonde babe seen in action.
The interchangeable cockpits I can sorta understand but it seems that a standardized cockpit for 
all the Gun-units would be better. After all, how much time is wasted having to swap out cockpits while you are under heavy attack?
Also, what good are tank gun turrets that pop off of a tank? Other than an ejection-escape mechanism, I don’t see any advantage to this ability by Magella Attack battle tanks.
We get a new name drop in “Kycilia,” who’s the older sister of Garma. I wonder how that’s going to play in and what Char’s ultimate game is. Also, why is Garma’s skin a weird color? Had you guys not told me that the Zeons are in fact human rebels, I would have assumed that Garma was the true Zeon because of his skin color and an alien at that.
So, an interesting episode to be sure and I look forward to more.
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Garma’s skin is a different color for the same reason Ryu, Kai and Hayato’s are all different.
When they developed the Magella Attack tank the people behind it didn’t factor in the lower G environment of a colony. Originally built in mind with the top being a sort of flying command that could scout the battlefield then rejoin with the tank. This didn’t work out because it would run out of fuel too quickly.
There is nothing wrong with Garma’s skin color. Now wait until you see Dozle Zabi. I was wondering how the hell a Zentraedi got into Gundam.
Then again, I could be wrong. Mobile Suit Gundam was the first Real Robot (Mecha as military hardware) anime made, so it still carries a lot of baggage from the Super Robot genre, notably that Gundam Hammer, the upcoming G-Armor, and the somewhat alien-like look of Zeon vehicles and probably the names as well.
On a slightly spoiler-ish note, since you brought it up: There probably won’t be any more Amuro-vs-Char battles for quite some time. Garma will be the first of a line of Zeon commanders and aces the White Base will be facing.
The Gundam is rather gimmicky, with a number of features that aren’t really all that useful. Thus the swapping of the cockpit.
Though it’s also worth pointing out that the Gundam’s cockpit is really a Core Fighter – thus the name, because the “fighter” is the “core” of the Gundam…
There’s a little bit of transformation involved, but it’s not hard to spot the similarity between the two.
Most of the extra Gundam goodies were removed from the movies as they’re not really important to the plot.
Garma’s skin color appears to be a yellow-green tint, thus my mentioning it. *lol* Normally, such a skin tone would be used to denote someone who’s not human. ^_^;;;
@Anon — thanks for the info on Magella Attack.
@SAMAS — Yeah, I can see how the first “Real Robot” series would have elements from the popular Super Robot genre.
@Junior — And here I thought “Core Fighter” was just the name of the fighter that Ryu pilots. ^_^;
This comment is three and a half years later than the above, but having read the recent hardbound version by Yoshikazu Yasuhiko, I can see that the new manga marches in very close cadence with the old anime. No glaring anomolies due to publishers’ tyranny. I haven’t seen the movie, but every part of ANB’s recap above was immediately transparent to me. Same story! Exactly.
Sayla’s move did not seem weird to me. It’s just one more desperate action by the whole, extemporaneous crew of White Base. “Military protocol be damned” is one of the plot themes.
I attribute the great mix of personalities, space-culture and terrific battle-action to “Yas,” the artist, but it may just be a recap of an old story. Whatever the genesis, his work is out-there fantastic.
Its hard to believe its been that long since I watched the series. ^_^;
I guess. However, coming from a military background, with her being the lifeline to the deployed units outside of White Base, she shouldn’t be abandoning her post.
Ooh. Yeah. An obvious techno glitch — rare in Japanese anime-manga. Looks like the authors removed it from the manga 2013 – 2014 version, “Mobile Suit Gundam, the Origin.” Not having been in the military, it never occurred to me, but it really is obvious after you point it out. So far in that manga I haven’t found any scientific, technologic or continuity missteps!
I couldn’t find where Sayla mans a cannon in the manga, so maybe the correspondence between anime and manga isn’t exactly one-to-one. But I do have a favorite “blonde babe in action” sequence. Amuro defeats a Zaku and they capture the pilot, Kozun Graham. Outside protocol, Sayla visits Graham in his prison cell with the idea of snaking info about her brother, Char Aznable, from him. Char’s an elite with the enemy and Graham definitely knows something. The action in which Graham escapes and Miss Sayla hunts him down is great. Lots of acrobatic one-on-one fights between them. Once, she does a scissor kick escape followed by a two-heels kick to his chin, drawn superbly by Mr. Yoshikazu. All of this takes place inside White Base during the battle with the special ops Zaku squad — from pages 250 to 300 in Volume 3 of “Mobile Suit Gundam, The Origin” © 2013 by Vertical.
The best art of manga manages the lacunae and switching optimally. What the artist leaves out, that the reader must fill in, and what scene-switching he puts in the middle of the action, that the reader is forced to follow, defines greatness here. Very delicate balance between too much and too little. This manga succeeds excellently. Great stuff.
I loved Sayla as a character. I wish a bit more had been done with her character in the anime.^_^
Anyway, I need to look into that manga something.
I don’t remember if I asked this or not, but where Japanese honorifics retained in the official English translation?
Not in my copy of “The Origin” © 2014 by publisher Vertical.
Girhen Zabi reminds of photos of Reinhardt Heydrich, the worst Nazi. On page 104 of Vol. III he leads the multitudes on the mob rousing cheer “Seig Zeon.” Like Hitler at Nuremburg.
That’s what I thought. Thanks for the clarifications.
Purposefully so. ^_^
Yes, I did finally perceive that evil Nazi ancestry of the Zabis. How is Char going to take them down? Will he switch sides? Who will win the ultimate confrontation between him and Amuro? So far, after six volumes, their one-on-ones have been exciting draws. Is Char Achilles? Another obvious derivation of “Gundam” is from “The Illiad.” Reference to the name “The Trojan Horse” given to White base — the mother ship for “the white one,” the Zeon soldier’s term for the mobile suit.
I think I’ve been lucky not to have had any aquaintance with the superpopular Gundam culture until now. The new “The Origin” is so good I can wallow in prostrate appreciation without any nagging preconceptions.
I hadn’t actually thought about that, but you have a point.
I was pleasantly surprised by how enjoyable Mobile Suit Gundam (anime) was, especially considering how old it is. I still need to watch more in the franchise. I just haven’t had the time.
NB: The Gundam story is not set in Japan, so their honorifics would be out of place. Also, hasn’t Japan been destroyed? I think I remember that somewhere in the content.
I want to say that the anime only had a few characters use Japanese honorifics regularly. Many were without, but I think there was an occasional Western honorific used (can’t recall for sure). I know Sayla only addressed Char as “Niisan.”
Arg. More ambiguity. “NB” above is old shorthand for “nota bene,” Latin for “note well.” Not, fortunately, for “NerdBoy.”
Yes. Sayla’s very cool. Initially, “cool” meant “imperturbable under stress”. My generation invented it, and it included “laconic”. All of which she has in spades. Sort of a female Steve McQueen. Amuro, like us, is smitten.
I did start looking at that manga. Looks like they tightened some things up over the anime, including not having Sayla abandon her post to man a gun turret. And there’s more of the Newtype sense from the start.
I conjecture that Amuro Rey could immediately kick butt in the gundam, at age 15 with no experience, because he’s clairvoyant. He can see his opponent’s next move instantly and counter. Doesn’t Sayla tell him, “You could be clairvoyant.”?
In the anime, I can’t remember. The whole thing about Amuro being clairvoyant didn’t come up until much, much later, as I recall it. Early on in the anime, Amuro’s being able to use the Gundam was attributed to him picking up an operator’s manual on the ground after the initial Zaku attack, and the Gundam being so advanced, it could compensate for loser wannabe Gundam pilots. ^_^;
It wasn’t Sayla that told Amuro he could be clairvoyant, it was Lt. Matilda. She says to Amuro on p. 225 of Vol II, “You might be psychic.” In manga “psychic, new type and clairvoyant” all mean the same.
Did they use the term “new type” in the manga?
Yes, but rarely. I know certainly of only one: on page 257 of Vol. 4 the team leader of a motley crew of scientists says, ” . . . we’re far behind Zeon in the study of newtypes.” They will subject Amuro to machine analysis in something that looks like a magnetic resonance imager (MRI) until Amuro’s consequent dreams cause acute physical reactions. So they stop the experiment. Every humerous characature of a scientific power player appears on pp. 256, 257. Funny stuff, but they’re not to be trusted.
Later, on p. 311, Vol. 4, Sayla throws away the psychotropic drug pills they had given Amuro, telling him, “These drugs aren’t safe . . .You’re not sick . . . You can just say you’re taking them.” Amuro remains clueless!
So far, these mentions of Amuro’s possible extrasensory abilities have been short pings in the plot. Also, it’s been obvious that Sayla can “see” people, places and things that haven’t appeared yet, but only in passing with no mention of esp. I like the way all this has been presented. Very plausible.
Well, the term “Newtype” does come from the Zeons, so that makes sense that they’d use the term.
It seems the manga is playing up Sayla’s Newtype abilities more than the anime did.
More “newtypes” On page 213 of Vol. V (5) Casval’s old man explains to a bored Casval (young Char) that the era of spacenoids (newtypes) had to evolve to get man back to earth — a pipe dream in which man’s cognitive abilities became fully developed. In fact, the old man is probably ignorant of genuine extrasensory abilities. It appears to me that the subsequent awakening of Amuro’s, Sayla’s, Lt. Matilda’s and probably Char’s esp traits are serendipitous and independent of the old man’s dreams.
These authors do great plot. Convoluted, but consistant.
And I continue to rave over Yoshikazu Yasuhiku’s fabulous artwork.
Technically, there’s only one author since the anime was the initial creation. The manga is just an adaptation of the anime.
In the first chapter of the manga, Amuro has snuck into his father’s study and is viewing schematics of Zakus on a computer screen. Apparently, he’s figuring out what his dad’s working on. Zakus, under command of Char Asnable, soon attack the colony, the second Gundam’s transport gets crashed, mayhem ensues and Amuro watches the Zakus kill civilians, including Fra Bow’s mother. Fortunately, he’s right next to the recumbent RX-78 02, the second Gundam. He climbs the huge foot, uses the “pass code,” probably from his father’s computer, to enter the body and falls into the pilot’s seat. As with any space colony 15-year-old he snatches the side hand grips that have thumb-buttons and frantically finds and turns on the view screen. There’s a Zaku looking right at him! In the ensuing fight, it appears that Amuro naturally fires the weapons with the thumb buttons while the Gundam mimics his stride, postures and gestures while grappling with the Zaku. The graphics here are terrific. I’ve always loved heavy metal and there’s lots of it. The apex of the action is the scene in which someone, or something, yells, “USE THE BEAM SABER,” and Amuro slices a couple of Zakus to pieces with it. But there’s a big problem: the Z’s contain a fusion engine that explodes disastrously, blowing irreparable holes in the colony.
All this appears without the least hint of “new type clairvoyance” or fortuitous handbooks. Very plausible, and every time I read it I’m right there with Amuro in the RX-78 02 blasting and slashing the bad guys.
Great fun.
More Char re Sept. 17 @ 9:07 above. Is “niisan” familiar for “oniisan?” (big brother) Or “oniichan?”
It occurrs to me Char also resembles Edmund Dantes, the protagonist in “The Count of Monte Cristo” — spending a lifetime getting revenge successfully, but becoming not happy and not nice in the process. I hope that he won’t, but it doesn’t look good. I really like his character. Hope he doesn’t work his agenda so long he can’t escape the dark side.
Every time I watch Sayla in this manga I want to recruit her for my team of ops. And of anything else we might think of. I know, take a number and go to the back of the line.
In order of familiarity, it goes Oniisan, Niisan (dropping the O makes it less formal), and Oniichan.
QSL thanks
No problem. ^_^
Re “Technically” above on Sept. 20. On the cover of the “The Origin” manga volumes “Story by Yoshiyuki Tomino * Hajime Yatate” always appears. Also Yoshikazu Yasuhiko, the artist for “The Origin” manga, in his afterward for Volume V mentions that Tomino tells him that he, Tomino, is going to kill off Sergeant Ryu, alas. Notwithstanding that hint that Mr.Tomino is the director for “The Origin,” the afterword in Volume I explicitly states that Yasuhiko managed 1) character design, 2) visual direction, 3) animation director, 4) cells and layout, and 5) illustrator for the first Gundam over twenty years ago! And now he’s drawing every panel of the manga? So Yasuhiko and Tomino together? Somebody is definitely cleaning up the original story because I still can’t find any mistakes worth mentioning. If Yasuhiko gets the credit, okay by me. His work is fabulous.
My understanding is that Tomino is considered the brains behind the franchise. He was the one who wrote the novels after the anime came out.
Ah, thanks. I see Tomino’s the one creating all those great characters, plots, subplots and counterplots, that are so gloriously illustrated by Yasuhiko.
More “Mobile Suit Gundam the Origin.” If the RX-78 02 gundam has a warrior’s artificial intelligence built in, then with Amuro in the seat it definitely forgot any wrestling moves, which would be vital for a battle-ready mobile suit. On p. 194 of Vol. III it allows itself and Amuro to be caught in a simple, clumsy hold from behind that any high school wrestler could easily counter. Drop to the left knee (which is now a stub but shouldn’t matter for a mobile suit) , lower the left shoulder, rotate counterclockwise as violently as possible and ram the right forearm under the Zaku’s crotch. Use the right leg and shoulders to lift and throw “Cousin” in his Zaku onto his back, again as violently as possible. College wrestlers routinely get this “firemen’s carry” from the knees. The Cozun-Zaku’s move is so amateur it would be easy, and an AI-equipped Gundam should be able to do this so fast that the older Zaku would be scrap.
But apparently the RX-78 02 doesn’t yet have an AI built in. Its plight on p. 194 appears terminal with Amuro helpless on p.196. However, Kai saves him from behind in an old suit and they capture Cozun, the Zaku driver. The subsequent sequence in which Sayla tries to get information from Cozun about Char, who is really Casval Mass, her brother, is one of my favorites.
That, or the AI element was forgotten, possibly on purpose to help create drama. Just a speculation on my part.
As you can see I love to speculate. All kinds of conjectures come to mind about the absence of the Gundam’s intelligence, including done on purpose by Tam Ray, Amuro’s father and chief developer of the Gundam. My idea was that it either hadn’t matured beyond the simple code stage without its coupling to the machine’s actuators; Dr. Ray made it optional to be awakened by the driver but was afraid of disaster if it malfunctioned; or gasp it doesn’t exist because the author’s working some plot meander yet to be seen.
On page 121of Vol. I Amuro, who is in the seat for first time and is pretty desperate, yells, “Damn it . . . Gundam MOVE!! And it does, but it may just be Amuro’s hand on the side grip because of his desperate attempts to start the Gundam. Also, and this is very interesting to me, on page 141 ” USE THE BEAM SABER” comes over the comm link. Who spoke? Amuro’s father, who has been following the action? My favorite conjecture is that it’s the Gundam itself! But that doesn’t square with the subsequent absence of its AI.
Conjecturing has the downside that you can fall in love with your guesses. One must always be willing to abandon obviously false conjectures immediately. And keep sposin’ until something actually flies.
Based on watching the anime, I think that the AI was just a convenient plot element to all Amuro to be a hero. But that’s just my opinion.
That’s true. I’m guilty of that.
Do you suppose the Gundam’s AI must learn up to preset level to turn on? Anything like this in prior Gundam culture?
I don’t know about that. I honestly think it was a story gimmick to allow the untrained Amuro to compete with Char. The story explanation would be that in the hands of a trained pilot, the Gundam units would be superior to anything Zeon had out.
How ever it turns out, I’m lovin it so far.
And I appreciate your updates. I really should get the manga myself.
They’re expensive, but after I saw that glorious artwork in Vol. 1, I didn’t hesitate for the other five volumes. Chronologically, the story starts in Vol. 6 (VI). Then it proceeds with Vols. 6, 5, 1, 2, 3, 4. I like it so much I just assume everyone else will. I hope this isn’t an example of a conjecture becoming a false assumption.
Weird. I don’t remember the anime doing some kind of massive jump back in time.
They’re just prequels created later in “The Origin” manga. The story sequence proceeds as usual. The artist, YoshikazuYasuhiko, just started “In medea res,” in the middle of things, with the activation of the Gundam for Volume I. That’s a long tradition among adventure authors — start in the middle of the action to grab the reader immediately. I’ve also read the volumes chronologically, 6, 5, 7, 1, 2, 3, 4, for the story, and nothing seems amiss or anomalous.
Volume VII out today at my bookstore. I immediately got it and devoured it. It turns out to be another prequel, that covers the sequence of events up to the activation of the Gundam suit at the beginning of Volume I. Interesting afterword by Mamoru Nagano. He natters about characters, creators and plot lines in the first Gundam anime and immediate sequels. He includes strong hints about the outcome of the story — The failure of the Zeons and Sayla’s fate. Boy am I glad to see that Char takes down the Zabis. From within.
Thanks for the info. ^_^
This new gundam version “The Origin” spotlights war, but it does not celebrate the glory of war. For every great battle sequence, like the mobile suit confrontations in Volume I, there are often more than one very tragic and unnecessary deaths, like Lt. Matilda’s and Sgt. Ryu’s. They are both heroic and die going way beyond the range of their duty, but in the process save Amuro and White Base from demise. These tragedies remain in my backpack long after I’ve lunched on the battles.
And I can’t ignore the uncomfortable feeling that Sayla’s not going to make it. Her story’s already very sad because she’s lost everyone she has been close to. Her evolution as a character qualifies as one of the best features of this great work — from trusting, innocent child dependent to cool, skeptical adult soldier.
I must change the last word from “soldier” to “operator.” Sayla has developed from a trusting, innocent child dependent to a cool, skeptical proficient operator.
Sayla was my favorite character.
I’m saying nothing. ^_~
Oh good. I’ve got lots more ideas.
:o)