Mobile Suit Gundam: Char’s Counterattack
Synopsis
Thirteen years have passed since the One Year War of 0079 in the original Mobile Suit Gundam series (making it 0093). A lot has come to pass since then for the Earth Federation and the colonies, and now Char Aznable (with his Sazabi) has come back yet again, this time with a Neo Zeon Army backing him up. His plan is to drop colonies and asteroids on Earth until it creates a nuclear winter and every human will be forced into space and evolve into Newtypes. There to stop him are Amuro Ray (his arch-rival) and his army unit, the Londo Bell. Amuro has a new, all-powerful Gundam on his hands (the Nu Gundam) to stop Char and save the earth from a nuclear winter.
Review
Man oh man. A Gundam fan’s wet dream. Char’s Counterattack came out in 1988 to finally finish the Zeon/Federation and Amuro/Char rivalries once and for all. Everything comes to a head in this film, with people dying left and right and political betrayals up and down the ranks. Despite being the end film after the release of three major Gundam series (Mobile Suit Gundam, Zeta Gundam, and Gundam ZZ), the only returning characters are from Mobile Suit Gundam, which has already been released in the States. So my recommendation is you make sure to definily watch that, and then you can watch this with relatively free hassle.
Being the end of an era, there’s a massive amount of action scenes, a lot of people dying, and a lot of philosophizing. If your a Gundam fan, you’ll love this. If you’re not, then you won’t like this. It basically comes down to that, since Counterattack is a Gundam show through and through. There’s lots of awesome Gundams in this one, a lot of Newtypes, and a lot of useless technical jargon. The music isn’t anything special, but the animation for a film from 1988 is wonderful. The mobile suit action sequences are done with a style and veritas I rarely see with giant robot anime, and I can see myself watching these again for fun many times over.
The Breakdown
As I keep saying, only the Gundam faithful should watch this, since otherwise you won’t really understand what’s going on. If you are a Gundam fan, this is exactly what you’re looking for. Tomino couldn’t have resolved everything any better.