Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam

In accordance with the brutality of it's prequel, Mobile Suit Gundam, Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam followed after greatly, improving everywhere it had previously lacked before. Beautifully improved animation and Mobile Suit designs, a brilliant continuation of the story and characters after a long time skip, a hauntingly sounding orchestrated soundtrack used impressively in execution, and even more chaotic space battles, furthering the self-destruction of mankind. The structure of the dialogue, pacing, and progression of the story all flowed amazingly. As the episodes went on, there is massive build up as the political struggles savage the colonies, and death soon follows.

Alongside the old cast, as they slowly get pulled back again into a new war, a bright and shining new cast emerges. Kamille follows in the spirit and greatness of Amuro and Cosmo from space Runaway Ideon. A hot tempered boy with many insecurities, he many times too honestly confronts and fights. He has a soft side, and yet the tragedy is the war begins to break him mentally as he gets accidentally throw into it and becomes an important part of it. After meeting Jerid, a furious new rivalry begins as they become the Amuro and Char of Zeta.

From within different corners in space, the peace that was achieved eventually expired, as new powers begin to emerge with lustfully brutal ambitions. The Titans emerged in order to prevent the Zeon from reviving, and yet the leadership of the Titans has a different agenda. Through political trickery, they begin to take over the federation through key campaign victories and force. Thus, their corruption expanded, until it was met by the creation of the A.E.U.G.

Among them is Quattro Bajeena, who immediately is shown to be a fake identity and is actually the supposed deceased Char Aznable. As a key member of the A.E.U.G., he once again enters a new war to fight the Titans and to secure peace. Still, he seems more of an independent force with his own agenda above it all. He may be a man that lives for war. He might even have a love for it. Without war, Char seems to be the type of man that loses purpose. He is fighting because he has noticed the rise of the corrupt Titans. Then again, despite that this seems to be a noble cause, he admitted early on in this series that being a soldier is the only way he knows how to live. He needs an enemy. I would have a bad feeling if he didn't have one. As a result of all this, he never married as to bring a potential family into all this madness. He now seems much more level headed and not as sadistic as in Mobile Suit Gundam. Despite that, just his appearance alone still scares people. As he grows his resistance, he begins to take notice that the crew of the White Base is slowly re-emerging, including Amuro, and fighting alongside him against the Titans. There is an irony in this as they were his mortal enemies just a few years ago. As the struggle continues, he gets thrown into and propped up as a leader. Despite this, he is not one to be leader. He'll throw his pride away if he has to, and make speeches if need be, but what really is he up to? The mystery of his character continues.

Among the Titans and Federation, there is an obvious third power slowly rising. The Zeon are still around. It's clear as it was shown in the prequel that the baby of the Zabi survived. They are the 3rd key into opening a possible end for the human race.

The Newtypes get expanded upon. It's an interesting theory, that as humans venture out into space, they begin to evolve and develop a new sense. This is a power that later on gets abused as humans try to manufacture it as a weapon of war. This gives people abilities that probably inspired how sensing worked later on other anime such as Dragon Ball.

If I was to complain, I wasn't satisfied in how some character were teased, and barely there. It felt so shameless in one character as she didn't even speak. I also found it odd that the former crew of the White Base seemed to just accept Char. This is odd because Char was trying to kill them beforehand and caused a lot of their own comrades to die. Kai seemed to be the only one with any kind of sense about this. You could say the war brought the necessity of them to have to struggle together, and yet I still found it a bit strange for Char to be breaking bread with both the strict and disciplined Captain Bright and Amuro. The limitations are there as it is an older work, and yet I have more respect for how natural they try to make movement and body language feel with the characters as it puts to shame a lot of lazy still frame and slide show animation that still goes on today on a grand scale.

In the second half of the story, even more new characters appear that definitely make an impact and change the story a lot for the better. The war intensifies as Tomino reaches brutality that nears that of Ideon. I can't deny this was one of the best experiences I've been able to have with anime. This was everything I wanted it to be and more.