Gundam 08th MS Team
Director
Takeyuki Kanda
Production
Bandai, Sunrise
Country of origin
Japan
Format
OVA
Running time
11 vol
Year
1996
Gundam 08th MS Team
By Eric
28th Apr 04  FINALLY, a gundam series I can get on board with! Thank you, God! See, I could never get into Gundam Wing that much. Yes, it's the most popular; no, I don't care. It was a decent show, but it just didn't wow me. It had too much talk about politics that don't even exist in real life. It also had way too much teenage angst and psychological profiling.It's boring. HOWEVER, Gundam 08th MS team does the two things that all animes about war---especially giant robot war---should do: One, it does not spoon-feed you and cram political ideals down your throat. Watching shows like this gives you enough to form your own damn opinion. Second, you don't see things from the point of view of the commanders. Sure, they're worried, but who cares? Theydon't contribute anything. No, the common soldier is what we see here, not just the elites. The regular guys serve as more than just cannon fodder. You'll seethe pilots slowly form bonds of brotherhood with one another, become homesick and, in one case, even fall in love with someone on the side of the enemy. War is a monster that ravages lands, tears apart families, and destroys nations, whether it's a war fought with tanks or with mechs. Until now,the gundam series had only made that clear in lame epiphanies and soliloquies from people I don't give a damn about. Now we see what gundam isabout. Sure, the mechs are sweet, but they should never overshadow the people who are fighting inside of them. Their plight is more interesting to me than watching them mow down enemy units with their mech's machine guns and then walk away and fade into obscurity until the next battle. It's ok to like the battle scenes, just don't overlook how the burdens of fighting are slowly eating away at the fighters' hope and humanity. 9/10
-- Eric 28th Apr 04
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