機動戦士ガンダム /Kido Senshi Gundam episode 11
Mobile Suit Gundam – 11

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Within the Protectorate of Zeon in the one space station that holds the Zeon capital of Zum City, Garma’s older brother Dozle arrives as does his older sister Kycilia.  The arrive to find their oldest brother Gihren waiting along with their father.  All are still shaken by the loss of Garma, whom Dozle assumed would make it to Admiral and eventually give him orders.  Degwin wants a private service for Garma but Gihren objects, stating that Garma was popular with the people and that in a time of war, the people need something to rally around.  Kycilia agrees with this.  Dozle wants Char punished for negligence and Degwin agrees to have Char reassigned.

Elsewhere, Icelina gets a Zeon lieutenant to take her up in a Gaw as she is angry with the Federation for killing Garma.  Three Gaw’s are dispatched to where the White Base is still making its way to Federation airspace.  Seeing these craft, Bright orders Gundam and Guncannon (with Ryu) out to attack.  Both leap to the nearest Gaw where they land on it and damage it enough to force it to crash before they head to the next Gaw.  Meanwhile, Sayla has the latest orders from the Federation and it appears they won’t be getting any help or resupply though the civilians will be taken from the ship and White Base is given rendezvous coordinates and alters course.

Meanwhile, Char arrives in a Luggun plane and launches an attack on White Base, figuring that this will make him look good no matter what.  A torpedo hit to the already damaged engine of White Base causes the ship to smolder and lose stability and make a hard, emergency landing in the desert.  Despite the sandstorm, Char has Dren land the Luggan so that Char can make a visual check of White Base.  Char is impressed the ship has made it so far and on board, Bright thanks Mirai for her piloting skills. With White Base on the ground, some civilians attempt to leave despite some of the crew attempting to stop them.  However, they quickly see Char who opens fire.  Bright leads the charge to nail Char but Char gets back to his Luggan and takes off, fleeing the area.

Back with the Gaw’s, Amuro and Ryu destroy a second Gaw before heading to the ground.  As Char launches another attack before leaving the area, Icelina takes control over the Gaw she is in and points it at the Gundam unit, determined to take it out.  She crashes the Gaw and since Amuro made no attempt to get away, he’s caught in the crash and the Gundam is damaged.  He leaves this cockpit as the sole surviving Icelina emerges from the wrecked Gaw.  She sees Amuro and yells her desire for revenge before falling off the plane and dying.  Amuro, Kai, Hayato, and Ryu bury her with Amuro wondering who she was and why she wanted revenge on him.  At the same time, the remaining civilians, save the orphans, leave White Base where a Federation convoy is coming to retrieve them.

Thoughts/Review:

So, Icelina returns to again put a human face on Garma and the Zeons, only to be slain herself in the next battle.  While I thought her introduction wasn’t the best, I did think that her reaction to Garma’s death was understandable.  I’m guessing that based on the mansion she lived in and the staff around her who all addressed her as “Ojousama,” the war has never touched her despite the destruction nearby.  However, Garma’s death obviously caused the war to touch her and she wanted the Federation scum who killed her beloved to die.  I wonder if Amuro and company will ever learn her name now that they’ve buried her in the desert.  Her words seemed to play on Amuro’s emotions and that suggests he’s about to get angst-filled again.  We’ll see though.

We get to see Garma’s family, sans his mother.  It makes sense that the children of the ruler of Zeon would all have positions of high authority.   I was surprised to hear that Dozle believed that Garma, despite being the youngest of the bunch, would eventually outrank him and give him orders. Gihren seemed to be the one to make lemonade out of the situation with his suggestion of a public funeral for Garma.  I couldn’t get a good feel for Kycilia, but based on Garma’s desire to impress his older sister, I’m guessing she’s pretty formidable.  Their father, on the other hand, is mourning a great deal from what it appears.

I was a bit surprised to hear that Char will be punished but apparently not too severely.  We’ll see how that goes against his plans.

Well, save for the orphans, the whiny civilians would appear to all be gone.  I guess the orphans stay because they are orphans but one would think that they’d be better off out of the war zone.  However, I suspected they might hang around based on how they often scored cameos.  So, hopefully there are no more civilian issues to deal with.

White Base gets to have some repairs done after being shot down.  I give the writers credit for thinking about things like making ship repairs and resupplying the ship as well.  Gundam was seen getting maintenance which was nice and it gets damaged for the first time, though lets be honest, Amuro should have been able to get out of the way.

So, another interesting and good episode.