Among recent, less respectable iterations of the Gundam franchise (namely SEED, SEED Destiny, SEED anything,) I thought it would be nice to look back upon one of Gundam’s best series: Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam which, by some odd chance, I just finished.

Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam starts similarily to its predecessor, Mobile Suit Gundam.  Very similarily to its predecessor.  Almost exactly the same, actually.  "Quattro Bagina" (a.k.a Char is a not-so-convincing costume consisting of him wearing sunglasses and a different uniform sans his infamous mask) sends a small AUEG (a faction rebelling against the Earth Federation and the Titans) squad to retrieve the three prototype Gundam MK. II units.  A boy named Kamille Bidan manages to steal a Gundam for himself before Char does and joins the AUEG in a war against the oppressive Titans. And it continues on from there.

I must say now that this is one depressing series.  Of all the series/movies I’ve watched (MGS, 0080, 08th MS Team, Char’s Counterattack, 0083, W, W: Endless Waltz, some of SEED and Ecole du Ciel,) this, by far, has got to be one of the most depressing Gundam series (although I’ve heard one of the later Gundam series is referred to as one of Tomino’s "kill-em-all" series, like Ideon.)

Most of the depressing stuff is concentrated in one episode, numero 49, the second to last episode of the series.  The odd coincidences in this episode leads to many deaths, thus emphasizing the cruelty of war.  The first death, I believe, is Katz, the child pilot.  Due to his cockiness, he crashes his fighter straight into an asteroid, gets shot, spins out of control, and dies crashing into another one.  His death leads us straight to the death of the captain of the Radish, Henkin.

Emma’s Gundam Mk. II is unable to keep up with Yazam, the pilot partially responsible for Katz’s death, and gets damaged greatly.  Henkin manuevers the Radish to cover Emma while she recovers, making the Radish a sitting duck.  Yazam takes the opportunity and destroys the Radish’s bridge, making the rest of the Radish unstable and killing the crew, which would mean the death of a fellow Titan pilot later.

Kamille manages to defeat Jerrid once again in battle.  The Zeta Gundam shoots Jerrid’s Braund Doc twice in non-lethal spots and sends Jerrid flying.  Unfortunately for Jerrid, he was sent flying towards the unstable Radish, which explodes and takes Jerrid with it, right in the middle of his quote ("If it wasn’t for you, I’d be…")

Emma returns to the battlefield in her somewhat repaird Mk. II only to face former ally Recoa Londe, who she kills while the Mk. II gets severely damaged. While exiting the Mk. II, Yazam shoots the debris of Recoa’s destroyed Mobile Suit, some of which hits Emma, mortally injuring her. Thus ends the string of deaths in episode 49.

The thing is, Zeta Gundam makes you connect with the characters over the course of the series. The series not only takes you through the AEUG’s war with the Titans, but the character’s battles with their own problems: Kamille losing both of his parents and his friend/girlfriend Four Murasame, Emma and her becoming a sister figure to Kamille and her betrayal from the Titans, Katz with his love for an enemy, and many others. Ultimately, most of their deaths are somewhat caused by these problems. It’s all very touching.

Watching the newer Gundam series sometimes pain me because of their lack of the central themes of the older shows (although SEED had some of the same things, it still sucked anyway whilst 08th MS Team focused more on pacifism and was still really great.) I wish I could only express to the newer Gundam fans how much they are missing by dismissing the older titles.

In other news, the Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam compiliation movies are debuting at the Chicago International Film Festival, apparently.