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Gundam 0083

Dinosauricon

Dinosauricon

Lieutenant
Anybody remember this series? It was a Gundam OAV released in the early 90s, and basically tried to unite the original Gundam and Zeta Gundam (But also opening/retconning certain continuity problems between the two). Technically, it's perhaps the most well-animated of the series outside of the theatrical films, and one of the few animes out there that seems to rely more on a more naturalistic, small-eyed character design (Especially when compared to say, Gundam Seed which is very generic). The dub is pretty good, although Kou's voice is a bit wooden.

The mecha designs by Shoji Kawamori and Hajime Katoki are pretty nifty, and much smoother than the more blocky suits we tend to get in the TV shows.

The only real let downtown are some of the story, including the Nina/Gato former romance that kind of comes out of nowhere. Plus Kou, despite being one of the older Gundam pilots, is even more immature than Amuro, Kira and others....

Gundam 0083 was shown on Toonami, but seemed to confuse viewers who were unfamiliar with the original Mobile Suit Gundam, which had yet to air at that point if I recall correctly.
 
Dinosauricaon wrote:
Anybody remember this series? It was a Gundam OAV released in the early 90s, and basically tried to unite the original Gundam and Zeta Gundam (But also opening/retconning certain continuity problems between the two).
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I remember this series, what were the continuity problems they had to retcon and deal with?

Dinosauricaon wrote:
Gundam 0083 was shown on Toonami, but seemed to confuse viewers who were unfamiliar with the original Mobile Suit Gundam, which had yet to air at that point if I recall correctly.
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Correction Gundam 0083 was not shown on Toonami it was on Adult Swim. The original Mobile Suit Gundam was aired on Toonami months prior and was canned to my dismay.:mad:

As for the show itself I thought it had a great musical score and the mechanical designs are superb although I don't think they are any sleeker than most other designs they fit in quite nicely. I liked how characters from Zeta like Haman Karn and Bask Om had cameos. I found the main characters less interesting than the backround characters like the bridge crew.
 
Miraclefan wrote:
It was good, but could have been MUCH better.
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The same could be said for SEED Destiny, well the could have been better part anyway.
 
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I do find it funny how after the Delaz Group crashed a Colony into the American Midwest the Federation "covered it up". How exactly do you cover up a Colony crash?
 
Did they really cover it up? I don't think so... The whole idea was that they were going to force a revival of Zeon by exposing the Federation's own illegal use of nuclear weapons (by stealing and revealing the Physalis and its nuclear warhead), wiping out much of the Federation fleet (using said nuke on the assembled naval review), and then smashing a colony into North America, and its granary, making Earth even more dependent on space-based agriculture. They succeeded in all these things.

What they DIDN'T expect was that Delaz and his officers would all be assassinated or KIA, and the Federation using the above events to form the Titans to hunt down any remaining Zeon factions. The Axis fleet wouldn't risk joining in the fight as they'd still be outnumbered by the surviving Federation ships, and made the correct decision to collect the Delaz survivors and hightail it back to the asteroid belt.

In the end, no one really won; it merely delayed the attempted return of Zeon by a few years while Axis rebuilt and rearmed, while the Titans became the baddies of Zeta. This is one of the best things about the original Gundam stories, in that the stories and politics stretch far beyond using a different robot every week to attack the main character and his friends. 0083 was my favorite of the UC productions. Must have watched those fansubbed tapes a hundred times!

Mark <--- old school Gundam Freak
 
Been awhile since I've seen it but I don't think the feds covered up the colony drop as much as use it as an excuse to form the Titans. The stuff they did cover up was the development of the GP01,GP02, and GP03 that's what got Kou off the hook.
 
Dinosauricon said:
Anybody remember this series? It was a Gundam OAV released in the early 90s, and basically tried to unite the original Gundam and Zeta Gundam (But also opening/retconning certain continuity problems between the two). Technically, it's perhaps the most well-animated of the series outside of the theatrical films, and one of the few animes out there that seems to rely more on a more naturalistic, small-eyed character design (Especially when compared to say, Gundam Seed which is very generic). The dub is pretty good, although Kou's voice is a bit wooden.

The mecha designs by Shoji Kawamori and Hajime Katoki are pretty nifty, and much smoother than the more blocky suits we tend to get in the TV shows.

The only real let downtown are some of the story, including the Nina/Gato former romance that kind of comes out of nowhere. Plus Kou, despite being one of the older Gundam pilots, is even more immature than Amuro, Kira and others....

Gundam 0083 was shown on Toonami, but seemed to confuse viewers who were unfamiliar with the original Mobile Suit Gundam, which had yet to air at that point if I recall correctly.
Click to expand...

To date (and I'm a long time anime fan around when the original MS Gundam was first released); Gundam 0083 Stardust Memory is still (overall) my favorite UC timeline Gundam story (even though the Nina Purpleton character REALLY grates on me in spots). ;)

As for continuity issues, I didn't see any. In fact the final scene is the crew changing from the original 'Amuro-era' uniforms into the Zeta Gundam era uniforms, meaning it took place just before the starting events in Zeta.
 
^ Not everyone switched over to the Titans the Earth Federation military still existed some stayed with the old guard most notably Bright Noa before he went with the AEUG.
 
I really liked it, as well, it was one of better Gundam OVA series. Probabally, because it's mostly self-contained and doesn't really require you to have seen the rest of the massive UC Gundam universe to understand it. 08th MS Team was better though.
 
I think the constant theme with Gundam is that the world operates in shades of gray while the higher ups may be corrupt individual soldiers can still be good people.
 
Yes, that's one of the more important underlying messages in most Gundam series, I think.
 
Tomino himself said that he wanted viewers to reject both sides.

Though, as the series went on the bad guys he made for the other UC series got more and more evil: The Crossbone Vanguard weren't very nice people (and the actual Fed crew were all good people), and the Zanscare Empire were pretty inhuman. Not much ambiguity there.
 
Regarding the timeline, the 13 episodes of "Stardust Memory" occur over roughly five weeks in October-November, 0083, ending with the colony drop. The Titans are formed in December of the same year, and presumably the Albion's crew transfers over to a shiny new Alexandria class cruiser shortly thereafter. This gives them over two years to realize what dicks the Titans are and siwtch back to the complacent Federation armed forces, or join up with AEUG before the Argama pulls their own Gundamjack in the first episode of Zeta.

Anyway, 0083 does keep with most traditions of Gundam TV Series, unlike most OVA series. Among the staples of a Gundam series:

- Moral ambiguity of both sides, where both tend to be pretty bad on the whole
- Leaving the main character and his ships of morally correcter young folk to fight groups of bad guys who really aren't that bad
- The main character who isn't a Gundam pilot ends up piloting one anyway
- Said Gundam is upgraded (or the main guy gets a new one) at some point
- Someone switches sides halfway through the show, or is revealed to have a relationship with the main antagonist
- The main character (and often his ship) end up renegades from their own military

And so on. God, I love Gundam. :)

Mark
 
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