KIDOU SENSHI GUNDAM: DAI 08 MS SHOTAI

DESCRIPTION

CAST

SPECIAL ActionKidou Senshi Gundam: Dai 08 MS Shotai - Sanjigen to no Tatakai
MOVIE DramaKidou Senshi Gundam: Dai 08 MS Shotai - Miller's Report
ANIME DramaKidou Senshi Gundam
SPECIAL DramaUchuu Seiki Yowa
SPECIAL Mecha30th GUNDAM PERFECT MISSION

REVIEWS

• 

  Shellshock

  60/100
  Somewhat underwhelming considering the popularity of Gundam.

  This series contains some spoilers till Episode 6 (Roughly). Because thats how long it takes for the main plot to start back up again.

  MS Team is about a group of soldiers and there commander Shiro (The MMC) and the enemy's commander's younger sister Aina (The FMC). They originally meet in the first episode and are nice to each other despite being on the opposite ends and trying to kill each other just moments earlier. Surprised at the humanity from each other they promise to meet again and stuff. Now with that interesting start out of the way we are now going to sharp left turn and develop characters no one is going to give a shit about. This series starts decently enough but we get this development on characters I don't like for like 4 episodes and this is a very downwards in quality. The rest of the series is quite good. but the 4 episodes bring it down a notch.

  The romance is passable. I'm honestly pretty disappointed you have the main characters confessing there love for each other. But they met once. They didn't even like fall in love at first sight. They Just met and boom they wanna start a family. What the fuck, even shoujo romance isn't this lazy come on. I did like some of there intimacy but you would expect more. This does not pass the bar for minimum romance. Regardless I accept it.

  The action in this series is a hit or miss. I don't like how slow the characters move sometimes. They use guns and its not as enjoyable to watch just these big mecha army just shooting machine guns. What is fun is when they are punching each other. Steel smashing Steel. This is why you watch a mecha series. Some of the gun fights were also good. There are some inconsistencies as well but thats not really an issue as long as it looks cool. Sometimes the can move fast but if that is the case why don't they do it all the time.

  The series also starts in space so why does the rest of the anime set on earth. Really got upset over that. Feel like I got blue balled.

  But the strongest part of this series is still the Music. The Music always hypes me up. Every time I'm like, I wanna do something else BABABABA. It just grabs me back in. The music just kills and its so entertaining when the music perfectly aligns up with the action on screen Emotional or otherwise.

  Post episode 6 we also say the effects of war, death and Obessession and again this is the part where the series became enjoyable It just kinda sucks that it takes so long to get there. In a series that only has 12 episodes 3 episodes of bullshit is a lot.

  Character wise, It has a red head tomboy because other type of Tomboy's don't exist in Japan. It has this pervert who is unlikable as many series do. It has a Naive dude who i'm not actually sure did anything in the series. Also I completely forget there was like an attempt of a love triangle that didn't go anywhere. Guess when that happened. The Boring episodes that when.

  I do hope this isn't the best that Gundam has to offer. But I have seen many people refer to this as one of there favourite Gundam series which is more than a tad disappointing. In the end I like the series. The characters were actually the weakest part of a series I liked which is rare.

  Overall Its nothing special but it is an enjoyable time Killer nonetheless. 6/10

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• 

  TicTacTacitus

  80/100
  A nice spin-off within the UC 0079 events.

  Prior to watching 08th MS Team, I had seen Gundam Wing, Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz, G Gundam, Mobile Suit Gundam, Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket, and Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory (in that order). Up to this point, I had synonymized the word "Gundam" with "God-like," and 08th MS Team changed that to a degree.

  Some potential spoilers ahead.

  08th MS Team takes place between October 6th, 0079 and November 30th, 0079 (episodes 1-11), with the 12th episode largely taking place sometime in early 0080 (I would argue sometime around late February/early March) with some prequel events occurring on December 24th, 0079 (one week before the end of the One Year War).

  (For Gundam fans, I got these dates from Episode 1, which references Garma Zabi's Funeral and subsequent speech by Gihren Zabi, and the final few episodes that reference the Earth Federation Forces' victory against Zeon in the Battle of Odessa which took place between November 7th and 10th, 0079. The Battle of Jaburo took place on November 30th, 0079, and the Asperus was created specifically to destroy Jaburo.)

  Some of the themes relevant to the War in Vietnam as depicted in media are fairly observable in this series, chief among that is the importance of guerilla warfare, and themes of post-traumatic stress, and the dissolution of war and combat.

  To my point above, about Gundam's being god-like, it was refreshing to see the Gundam prototype as a limited production unit for ground operations, and ultimately seeing them as equally capable of defeat as a typical GM or Zaku. To that end, it was also refreshing to get a cast of characters that largely had a decent amount of combat experience by the start of the show save for perhaps one. Shiro Amada, the main character, maintains a sense of idealism without so much naivety that seems to be the main trait of pretty much every other Gundam pilot in the U.C. Universe. It is worth pointing out that Shiro is 23 in this show, whereas other Gundam pilots had been between 13-18. TL;DR, we get a show with a cast that are adults who have been in war already. This sets a very different tone than that of the other Gundam shows preceding the events of 08th MS Team.

  I also really enjoy the design work in this show (0083 and Char's Counter Attack are my other two favorites). It is a bit more evolved from the original Mobile Suit Gundam. It is also a bit grittier, in some contexts, with my favorite episodes being the ones in which there is a lot of mobile suit action in either the jungle or city. I think the animation gives a real sense that gravity is a difficult thing to manage (the Ez-8, for example, is about 71.1 tons, which is equivalent to the Statue of Liberty without the base). It would take a great deal of thrust to lift off of the ground, and generally a lot to just move. It's easy to take for granted, but this show, I think, captures this physical fact of nature pretty well. Though, admittedly, it ignores this almost entirely by the end of the series with the Asparas' III, but I guess we can't have everything. But it isn't just with the mobile suit action, it's also with the arc of the bullets, surviving in space or the cold, using the tools available to result in extended life. The guerilla tactics were also on par.

  If I had to pick my number one favorite element of this show, though, it would be the closeups of the internal workings of the RX-79[G] (which is my favorite Gundam model in the UC Universe), and the Hover Tank. If there was a show dedicated just to the maintenance crew of a Gundam unit (or mobile suit unit) with lots more of this, and it was as detailed as some parts of this show, I'd probably give it a 10/10 (and I don't do that pretty much ever.)

  I would have liked to have seen more discussion on Shiro's arch prior to the events of the first episode, mainly because it isn't well explained, and so it is easy to perceive all of the events happening inside of 55 days as being absurdly fast. Like pretty much every other Gundam pilot, Shiro, too, despises the war (which makes sense, since we know that before even the half-way point, millions of people had died on both sides, which is a point that is easy to forget throughout this brief installment). To this end, the pacing can seem off, with one potentially getting the sense that it goes like this: the main character goes to war, falls in love with the enemy, gets emo about it, and then decides that war is dumb because people are fighting for dumb reasons. Ultimately, war is awful, and I think Shiro's attitude towards it is appropriate, but the writing doesn't capture that very well.

  Another note that I'd like to bring up relates to themes of aiding the enemy. Some folks who watch this might feel that some of Shiro's actions aren't consistent with what would happen in real life. Such as shooting at Aina in the first episode, only to help her so that they both survive (Episode 1), or later in Episode 9 when Shiro tells the Gau pilot to stop shooting so that they can safety get to where they are going. To this, I would point out that there have been numerous experiences throughout history in which enemies show compassion towards one another. Examples include the World War I Christmas Truce, in which fighting ceased, and enemies sang together. Or the story involving a German Me Bf 109 pilot escorting a P-47 - that he had just shot down - to a channel for them to live another day (they later became friends after the war).

  All in all, a solid addition to the Gundam franchise, and a solid addition to the U.C. Universe.

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• 

  Taikongen

  55/100
  A decent watch, especially recommended for fans of intricate mecha animation.

  The 8th MS Team is one of the most popular UC Gundam spinoff series, particularly due to its fluidly animated Mobile Suit battle sequences. And while the animation is definitely worth the praise, the 8th MS Team might not be as good as some diehard fans might regard it.

  Compared to other UC spinoffs (War in the Pocket, Gundam Thunderbolt), this series has a longer runtime of twelve episodes and takes place mostly in Earth during the final months of the One Year War. The protagonist Shiro Amada, unlike the teen protagonists of the main UC series, is a fairly experienced Earth Federation ensign who is assigned as the commander of a ground division at the Far East front. One of the series most important developments take place at the beginning: while traveling to Earth from the space colonies, Shiro has a fateful encounter with the beautiful Zeon soldier Aina Sahalin and spares her life. After arriving to Earth, Shiro receives a hostile welcome from his new teammates, formed by two tragic war veterans and two inexperienced youngsters. Their first team operations are pretty rough, suffering mostly due to the team´s initial lack of communication and distrust on Shiro´s abilities as a commander. After lots of infighting mostly to help character development, the team gets to face the series´biggest threat: the return of Aina now as a pilot of an extremely dangerous experimental armor that puts the Federation´s advantage on Earth territory on risk.

  Shiro´s reunion with Aina on the battlefield sets an important change on both the pace and tone of the series, now advocating for peace, Shiro and the team try their best at stopping the weapon´s development while trying to reason with Zeon foes with non lethal tactics and attacks. Aina, initially indifferent to the morality of her side´s actions, starts to question her orders and rebels against her superior and older brother. While star-crossed lovers from different factions is an usual trope present in most Gundam series, Shiro and Aina are one of the most proactive couples, actively pursuing each other on the later half of the series regardless of the consequences. Although the romance aspect of the series is present from the first episode, the development of Aina´s and Shiro´s relationship is extremely rushed. Having just shared a few words and tender moments, both characters fall madly in love with each other, becoming brassy and reckless and enforcing their own vision of pacifism.

  While Shiro´s teammates get their fair share of character development and are overall likeable and relatable characters, the characters present on the Zeon faction are, for the most part, cartoonishly evil and terribly one dimensional, failing to give a realistic look on the struggles of said faction. One of the series´most interesting aspects is the showcase of non aligned civilian guerrillas, their focus episodes displaying a realistic portrayal of war. Even so, this gets overshadowed by the borderline cliche writing of later episodes and the cheesy love story.

  Mobile Suit battles are very present in this series, their detailed animation being some of the best in the franchise. The battles portrayed are extremely gritty, while not being gruesome, displaying the particularities of Mobile Suit combat on Earth and ground support from tanks and such. Tactics inspired by guerilla fighting are also portrayed frequently, giving a fresh approach in comparison to other Gundam series. The mobile armor and main threat on the series is similar to other armors seen before in the Gundam series, but its absurd power level seems extremely unrealistic for this specific series and its realistic approach to battles.

  On the sound department, the 8th MS Team has wonderful OP and ED themes fitting with the mild optimistic tone of the series. Sound effects are very well done and the Japanese voice acting is very good, especially for the members of Shiro´s team and Aina.

  Overall, the 8th MS Team is a decent watch, especially worth it for fans of mechanical animation and UC completionists (though you can always watch the fight compilations on Youtube). While the plot is not offensively bad, the romance could´ve been handled better, as seen in the more subtle Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket. For non Gundam fans, this series might be hit or miss depending on how high are your expectations.

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