機動戦士ガンダム /Kido Senshi Gundam episode 39
Mobile Suit Gundam – 39

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

As Federation forces begin gathering at their newly captured base at Solomon, there are a series of explosions that slowly happen over a period of time, whereby ships, mobile suits, and more blow up without an attacker being in the area.  White Base, which is on its way to Solomon, is put on alert and launches Guncannon, G-Fighter, and Gundam.  As the staggered explosions continue, on a nearby asteroid, Char sits in his Gelgoog and observes Lalah, in her Elmeth mobile armor unit, as she uses her Newtype abilities to target and destroy Federation assets at Solomon. Her next attack is sensed by both Sayla and Amuro, but only Amuro is able to use his own Newtype abilities to sense Lalah. However, Char has Lalah stand down to take a break as he notices she’s become exhausted, denying Amuro the chance of finding her.

Challia Bull, the commander of the Jupiter Energy Fleet, is summoned to Gihren’s office after his successful helium harvesting operation. Gihren tells Challia that Challia is a Newtype and shows him the data gathered on his recent Jupiter mission. As such, Challia is being given a new assignment, which he immediately determines to be a transfer to Kycilia’s forces. Gihren is bemused by Challia’s ability to figure this out and confirms it, stating that Kycilia has a special mobile unit for Newtypes so that Gihren can bring an end to this endless war. He asks Challia if Challia knows the other reason for being transferred to Kycilia, but Challia wisely answers that he does not know but will do his best. As Challia is about to leave, Gihren gives him a friendly warning not to read the minds of his superiors.

When Challia arrives at Kycilia’s base, Kycilia is there to greet him, giving orders that should he prove to be more powerful than Lalah, he’s to be given the Elmeth. For now, he’s put into the Braw Bro to further test his abilities. On the Zanzibar, Char is inquiring about Lalah’s exhaustion and is informed that Elmeth’s psy-commu system will have to be altered as it is causing feedback to Lalah, meaning her range won’t be as great. Char orders it to be done as Lalah expresses concern over Challia’s imminent arrival, something Char tells her not to worry about.  When Challia arrives on Zanzibar and introductions are made, he remarks on how powerful he senses Lalah is. At Char’s prompting, he expresses his admiration for Char and states how he feels Char would be even better. The two shake hands and Challia is briefed on Gundam and its pilot possibly being a Newtype before he takes off in Braw Bro.

On White Base, Sayla asks Bright to come by her quarters, where she comes clean on her relationship to Char. Since she finds Char to have twisted their father’s ideals and basically be a monster in her eyes, combined with the fact that she’s attached to everyone on White Base, she will not leave the ship. Instead, she tells Bright she wants to give the gold Char gave her to everyone on the ship, which he agrees to. Challia arrives in the Braw Bro along with support craft to observe and support. Amuro senses Challia and knows it is not Lalah as Challia attacks. Amuro avoids all the attacks but is having problems with Gundam. Amuro orders the others to retreat as the Braw Bro takes Guncannons legs off. The others are reluctant to obey but again Amuro orders them to retreat as he knows they have no chance against this enemy.

Amuro uses his Newtype ability and senses where Challia is at. He charges, avoiding all of Challia’s attacks even as Gundam is overheating and not reacting as fast as Amuro wants. Challia orders the observer, Simus, to retreat, which she does. Amuro finds the Braw Bro and destroys it. As he heads back, he understands that something has to be done for Gundam to be able to keep up with him. On Zanzibar, Lalah wants to engage Gundam but is denied by Char. He doesn’t want to risk her life and he wants to pay respects to Challia, whom he knows was manipulated by Gihren and Kycilia but whom Char knows was an honorable soldier. He reminds Lalah that Newtypes aren’t omniscient and that they may be just mutants created from war, something Lalah refuses to believe.

Thoughts/Review:

I think that Challia is the first of the Zeon military mobile suit pilots who isn’t an arrogant so-and-so.  I don’t count Lalah because despite what Char said and her supposed rank, I think Char is keeping her out of uniform on purpose to say, “Lalah’s not part of the official military.”   Anyway, despite Challia being a welcome change from the normal fence-urinating posturing from normal Zeon mobile suit pilots, the man had a death flag set the moment it was revealed that he was a Newtype and would be piloting a special mobile armor. Well, he got some respect at least with Char saying what he did. I liked how that made Char as a villain character because it further takes him out of the traditional villain cliched roles and makes him more real as a character.

Interesting that Amuro is finding that Gundam cannot keep up with him, thus the reason Gundam is overheating and why Gundam now seems too slow to him.  Remember the good old days when it was Gundam that did all the work and Amuro lucked out?  *lol*  Well, I guess Amuro is going to need to put his Newtype skills to work coming up with some sort of fix for Gundam or else Gundam will get him killed since the Zeon Elmeth mobile armor was specifically constructed with Newtypes in mind. So in a fight with Lalah, at the moment, Amuro would seem to be at a serious disadvantage where he’d know an attack was coming but could do nothing about it.

Speaking of Newtypes, what the heck is going on with these psychedelic scenes to show Newtype abilities at work?  I couldn’t help but wonder if the production team had either done some bad acid or had possibly watched 2001: A Space Odyssey a few too many times. ^_^;

I liked how Sayla came clean with Bright. It will be interesting to see how the crew reacts to suddenly getting a bit of gold from her.  Anyway, her own Newtype abilities were shown in that she could sense Lalah’s attack but considering how the writers did nothing more with that, I think we can infer that she’s not growing in power like Amuro is.

Finally, Hayato returns to combat.  I half expected him to die since I thought he was simply pretending to be OK because he was desperate to get back in the war.  However, other than reacting as he normally does when Guntank is shot or nearly shot, he gave no signs of faking so I guess he’s OK.  It just seemed odd the way he got up, followed by everyone reacting to him being up in a way that said, “You shouldn’t be up,” but for him to be OK just the same.

While Hayato may have gotten through combat cleanly, Kai loses Guncannon’s legs. I guess that means that Guncannon is out as a military unit unless they have spare legs around.

So, an interesting although fairly predictable episode.