July 17th, 2011 
AstroNerdBoy 機動戦士ガンダム /Kido Senshi Gundam episode 43 (final)
Mobile Suit Gundam – 43
SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:
Amuro and Char continue to battle outside as Guncannon and Guntank open an entrance into A Baoa Qu. White Base takes a hit on one of its engines and is forced to jettison it. Bright orders the ship to land on the A Baoa Qu asteroid, where they take fire from Zeon mobile suits, destroying their other engine. Both Guncannon and Guntank attempt to cover White Base but are soon taken out, forcing Kai and Hayato to eject. G-Fighter gets shot down as well, with Sayla having to eject. Amuro’s and Char’s fight takes them inside the A Baoa Qu base where Char destroys a head and arm of Gundam but loses everything but Zeong’s head. Amuro ejects and has Gundam on auto pilot walk into Char’s trap where Gundam is destroyed but not before destroying Zeong’s head.
Char and Amuro still continue their fight as Sayla tracks them. Char leads Amuro into what he hopes is a trap since even Newtypes need training and he thinks Amuro won’t have the stamina. Amuro’s abilities keep him on par with Char has they sword fight. Amuro demand to know why Char isn’t fighting the Zebi, the true enemy, but Char sees a Newtype as strong as Amuro to be the real enemy. Sayla finds them and pleads with them to stop fighting. Amuro’s blade cracks Char’s suit’s face visor and Char manages to get Amuro in the shoulder. The three of them find themselves in an “astral plane” where Lalah is seen. Again, Amuro argues against the fight, citing Lalah and again Char rejects it, even though Sayla agrees with Amuro. Sayla thinks Char is going mad but when an explosion sends her crashing into a wall, Char saves her.
Now separated, Amuro tends to his injuries while Sayla and Char find a wounded officer who’d been helping Kycilia escape. At that moment, Char decides to kill Kycilia rather than fight Amuro and leaves Sayla in Amuro’s figurative hands. He then takes a bazooka and fires into the bridge of Kycilia’s departing ship, killing her. Amuro makes it back to Gundam and ejects the upper body before realizing that he can now see all of his comrades and friends. After a few words of encouragement from Lalah, Amuro telepathically instructs Sayla on how to escape. He then makes telepathic contact with Bright, Mirai, and Frau Bow so that the crew abandon White Base for the launches (shuttles). He also contacts Kai and Hayato and the result is everyone gets off White Base and clear of the blast zone before it explodes.
Both launches away, it is soon discovered that Amuro isn’t on either shuttle. Bright feels that as a child of Zeon, Sayla has the best chance of making telepathic contact with Amuro, but she doesn’t know how. There’s a general feeling of depression over the potential loss of Amuro, but the three orphans seem to know he’s OK and even count down to an explosion, where a damaged Core Fighter emerges with Amuro in it. Hayato uses a signal lamp to get Amuro’s attention and after making one pass over the shuttles and his waiting comrades, Amuro apologies to Lalah for not joining her, saying he can do that anytime but he has people who need him now. With that, he abandons the damaged Core Fighter and joins his waiting comrades on one of the launches. It is after this that the war between Zeon and the Federation comes to an end.
Thoughts/Review:
The final battle between Char and Amuro was interesting since it got to a personal level, including a sword fight (rapiers). Either Char underestimated Amuro’s stamina and strength, or Amuro’s Newtype abilities allowed him to overcome any physical weaknesses. Either way, the fight ending with Amuro getting an injury and Char barely escaping death and having to save Sayla worked OK for me. I wasn’t so convinced on Char’s sudden decision to change priorities and go after Kycilia though. I’m guessing the scene with he and Sayla finding the wounded officer is supposed to make him see the light and that Kycilia escaping to fight another day is not a good thing as well as apparently telling Sayla to hook up with Amuro. Oh well.
So, most of the folks on White Base are Newtypes, as Bright had previously speculated, with varying degrees of abilities. Char’s statement that he put Lalah into the war to bring out her powers was interesting. Apparently, without the war, Lalah wouldn’t have developed the powers she had and by that logic, nor would Amuro. I guess that who gets powerful and who doesn’t is pretty much like anything else — genetics. Then, based on that, the circumstances one finds oneself in determines whether or not one becomes powerful. So, Amuro in desperation manages to tap his Newtype power and Char, who was highly trained, had no reason to tap into said power. At least, that’s how I see it but I could be easily wrong.
I’m kind of surprised that the remainder of the crew survived the war. I’d been kinda thinking that Sayla might bite it to add to the tragedy of Char and give something more for Amuro to be upset over as well. Instead, that officer that helped Kycilia attempt to escape bought the bullet and Sayla lived as did everyone else.
On the other hand, I’m also surprised that White Base, Gundam, Guncannon, Guntank, G-Fighter, and Core Fighter were all destroyed in the fight. After forty-two episodes of always getting by, this time, everything just had to be obliterated, I suppose. It seemed rather weak that White Base just HAD to land on the asteroid, which started the destruction chain, but on well.
Its a shame there wasn’t an aftermath episode but oh well. I’ll write a final thoughts post soon but this was a good ending to the series.
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As [I’m pretty sure] I’ve said, the rushed ending gets really apparent. The whole finale just shifts between preaching and combat. Even one more episode could have really helped to flesh it out better.
Kycilia’s death is something you have to watch frame-by-frame. At normal speed it’s not as noticeable, but it’s really, really gruesome.
I (or even another of the regular Gundam commenters) can give a spoiler-free-as-possible where-are-they-now on the better part of the cast in the final thoughts post.
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Its a shame there wasn’t an aftermath episode but oh well. I’ll write a final thoughts post soon but this was a good ending to the series.
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Of course, there might have been one if the series hadn’t been cut short. We’ll never know. Gundam Z also ends rather abruptly, but that was more because it had already been planned that Gundam ZZ would pick up pretty much right where Z left off.
Char’s fate is left vague in the TV series. But a scene was added to the end of the third MS Gundam compilation movie showing his silohuette on the bridge of a departing Zeon cruiser.
One of the interesting things is looking at the three MS Gundam novels that Tomino wrote and noting the differences. iirc, the novels were written after the TV series ended, and it’s impossible to be certain whether they’re closer to what Tomino wanted or just an alternate take on the story. Some notable differences are –
– In the TV series, the base ship is ‘White Base’, a Pegasus-class mobile suit carrier. In the novels, the base is is ‘Pegasus’, a White Base-class mobile suit carrier.
– Amuro starts out in the military; he’s onboard Pegasus as it heads to his old home at Side 7. He still more or less falls into the cockpit, but he’s had training on the Core Fighter in the novels.
– Lalah’s death is an accident. Amuro and Lalah are fighting their duel in their respective machines, and suddenly establish their psychic bond. This distracts both of them and Amuro’s beam saber slams into Lalah’s cockpit before either is aware of what’s happening.
– Amuro and Sayla have sex at one point. Sayla asks Amuro to kill her brother shortly afterwards, and Amuro begins to wonder if Sayla’s merely trying to use him. He breaks things off as a result.
– There’s a second Elmeth, and Amuro forms a psychic bond with its female pilot as well. But she rabidly hates the Federation and he’s forced to kill her.
– The big one… Amuro *dies*. Char realizes that he needs to get Amuro’s help to bring an end to the war and in the middle of a battle manages to form an uneasy truce with him. Unfortunately, one of Char’s teammates sees him in close proximity to the Gundam and mistakenly thinks that the Gundam is attacking Char. The teammate opens fire to cover his boss… oops…
– At the end of the last novel, Gihren’s safe in his capital when Kycilia comes in with a team of mobile suits (Char’s unit along with the “captured” Pegasus and its crew – including Kai’s Guncannon). Gihren comes out of the capital building to see what the fuss is all about, and Kycilia hops out of Char’s cockpit and onto the arm of his mobile suit. She calls out her brother for what he did with the colony laser, and then shoots him in the head. Then Char rotates the arm she’s standing on. After seeing the deaths of the siblings, Kai decides that he *really* doesn’t like Char…
– The novels end with Sayla sitting on the beach, when Amuro, Lalah, and the other Newtypes that were killed make contact with her.
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I (or even another of the regular Gundam commenters) can give a spoiler-free-as-possible where-are-they-now on the better part of the cast in the final thoughts post.
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Probably best to leave that alone for now, given that nearly all of them show up in Zeta in one capacity or another.
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Probably best to leave that alone for now, given that nearly all of them show up in Zeta in one capacity or another.
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I figure it’s fairly safe. Considering that when most of them show up in Zeta the entire “what have I been up to?” is summed up in a single line or two immediately, the spoilers would be incredibly minor. Still, just waiting to see ANB’s opinion on whether or not to.
As [I’m pretty sure] I’ve said, the rushed ending gets really apparent. The whole finale just shifts between preaching and combat. Even one more episode could have really helped to flesh it out better.
Yeah, it is apparent and yeah, one more episode would have been nice.
Kycilia’s death is something you have to watch frame-by-frame. At normal speed it’s not as noticeable, but it’s really, really gruesome.
Yeah, she got her head blown off. Pretty nasty. ^_^;;;
@Junior — thanks for the 4-1-1. I’m going to look for the novel with the updated names (the 3-in-1).
I figure it’s fairly safe. Considering that when most of them show up in Zeta the entire “what have I been up to?” is summed up in a single line or two immediately, the spoilers would be incredibly minor. Still, just waiting to see ANB’s opinion on whether or not to.
I’ve decided to go ahead and watch Zeta Gundam so no spoilers, please. The novels are fine because I did look at them already when trying to decide if I wanted to read the novels or not.
Interestingly, if you look at the map of he Universal Century during the One Year War, the Federation was on the doorstep of the Zeon homeland, and the Lunar Colonies. Should the Federation have gone through with invading either the Lunar Colonies, or the Zeon homeland it would have endangered innocents. I tend to think that is why Char decided to kill Kycelia, from here on out.
That and because going back to his conversation with Sayla in episode 39, Char also mentioned that, even if the Zabis fall, there will be no peace with the Federation in power, because they will continue to oppress the colonies, echoing Zeta Gundam. So this also puts Char in a moral dilemma; either he helps the Zabis win the war, and allow them to cause further tyranny towards the peoples of the Earth Sphere, or pick of the remaining Zabis, thereby helping the Federation win, and become the author of tyranny. Hence, Char exchanges one totalitarian regime for another.
So yeah, that’s my two cents on the matter.
I like this line of thought. It makes a lot of sense to me. Thanks for writing! ?