Kidô senshi Gundam: Dai 08 MS shôtai

Unlike most other Gundam series, which take up their majority of their time in space, 08th MS team is 95% ground-based. This thrilling, well-animated OAV series focuses on the 08th MS team, a group of pilots who have limited mass production Gundams for Ground use. Their goal is to search out a Zeon research base holding a powerful mobile armor. However, problems start to emerge when the team leader falls in love with the pilot of the armor. The OAV has some of the best animation in Gundam-there's a lot of movement and detail. The mecha designs by Kunio Ookawara and Hajime Katoki are great-Ookawara gives Gundams and GMs a tank-like feel, while Katoki redesigns classic Zeon mobile suits for the 90's. The story is well-done, with convincing characters and a fully realized love story(Much better than the half-hearted romances in 0083 and Wing) Overall, a great series, I suggest you check it out when it comes to video/DVD next year.

I just re-watched 08th MS Gundam for the 2nd time. It is so much better than Gundam Wing. I can't wait to get the DVD and see what was edited out of the series. This is great to see the Gundams actually move about clumsily through the land. Somebody really thought over writing this move script.

See this today,.

I'm a Gundam fan not a hard core one mind you, what I may say may seem controversial but it's my opinion. "Gundam 08 MS Team" is my favorite series in the franchise and is one of my favorite TV shows in General.

The animation style as usual is great I really like how the warfare was conducted and choreographed making it suspenseful and strangely realistic more than just relying on just mere fighting and technology but on tactical surprise, much reminiscent of Vietnam. It's a first time showing mecha engaged in jungle warfare and they did it well from the use of darkness and plant life. You get a sense on how hard it could be to fight in an enviorment that obscures your vision and it adds to the creeping feeling of paranoia never knowing where the enemy will hit. The music is great it has one my second favorite theme for the franchise.

But that's just one of the positive qualities of the show, what made this Gundam unique from the others was not so much that it was plot driven, even though there is a plot and it does suspensefully develop but that it was character driven by it's main focus on two characters Shiro and Ayna one of my favorite anime couples. It's sort of a Romeo and Juliet story Gundam style but don't fret on being melodramatic which it's anything but, the romance is handled with believability, subtlety and humanity; it's also a long distance romance story which are never my favorite kind but this is one of those rare exceptions I make because of the length of the show, the interaction time both have which I felt was believably sufficient, and the depth of both characters.

It's easy to see how both could fall in love for one another because both are slightly similar despite on opposite ends of the spectrum. Their naive but sweet souls that have done no wrong except love each other. Shiro is a young commander whom despite his age is mature, does believe in what he's doing, but is open minded and has compassion and idealism in him. It's the same with Ayna whom is slight younger than him, she's sweet, pretty, smart, and just as compassionate and idealistic. Both deserve each other from that chance first encounter when both met sealed their fate but as cruel as fate is sometimes both get separated due to the opposite sides their on. It's a bittersweet relationship as both of them always carry that looming threat that the next battle their in they might blow each other away which at time they almost do. It's all a suspenseful build up on when and if they'll get back together, we want them too because their right for each other it doesn't matter who they are. That's another thing I love about this couple is that there's a universal sensibility about them, both could be of different races, class, religion, or disabled.

Indeed we see things do get out of control for both sides, from Ayna's brothers's obsessive need to complete and use the new weapon. And Shiro begins to see the corruption going on with the Federation, from breaching their own ethical boundaries and sickening determination to win. Both sides do stupid and unneeded things to one another but worst of all themselves.

This show has an anti war message, there are times to fight but there are times when someone needs to blow the whistle to say enough is enough, and that ongoing and misguided violence will result in nothing. But most importantly to be human don't be a person that follows orders all the time.

Yeah war isn't simple, but love and peace is even harder.

Rating: 4 stars

Anime has a large variety of characteristics, and among the more under-appreciated qualities are that stories tend to emphasize character interplay with an often striking level of sophistication.

Such is the case with this 1996 anime series focusing on war between Earth's Federation and a rebel empire known as the Zeon. The focus is on two characters, Shiro Amada, a lieutenant of the Federation who, after an attack on a Federation troop ship in space, winds up flying a mobile armor suit into battle against his attacker; the battle somehow goes wrong and both Amada and his enemy are floating in the remains of a destroyed battlestar; Amada's enemy is a Zeon officer, named Aina, and when the two cross swords in the weightlessness of the abandoned warship they get to know each other, and begin to form a friendship.

Both must go their separate ways and are eventually rescued. Later, as the Earth Federation - called Feddies by the Zeon - and Zeon struggle on the planet itself, Amada and Aina meet again in battle, and again fate forces both to cooperate, this time in the deadly frost of a mountaintop. Once again their friendship begins to blossom, and once again fate takes them their separate ways and to eventual rescue.

Both young officers face grave controversies as a result of their encounters. For Shiro Amada, Feddie honchos suspect him of being a Zeon spy, while Aina finds herself clashing more and more with her brother, Zeon commander Gineus, who is obsessed with completing a super-weapon called the Apsalus - even to the point of double-crossing his own officers to get it finished, with his favorite method of doublecross being high explosives.

There is plenty of action involved, and amid the combat, there is a striking moral dilemma involved. Though the Earth Federation are notionally the good guys and the Zeon betray a sinister hue that makes them the notional bad guys, ambiguity pervades the entire conflict - just who IS in the right here?

It is a question that plagues both Amada and Aina to the point they both turn against their nations, leading to a final confrontation on a vast mountaintop when the Apsalus appears and opens fire on Feddie forces.

It all leads to the very best scene of the entire series, a scene played out against an oppressive glow of white light.

This Gundam series only follows Gundam 0083 Stardust Memory. The story takes place during the same time line as the original Gundam in the year U.C. 0079 the time of the One year war, but the mobile suits are designed as new models are and are as a result look more articulate. The Hero of the story is a young Lt. Shiro Amada, who may lack any real combat experience but makes up for it with creativity and effort.

His life get complicated when he meets Aina Sahalin a Jion ace pilot (the enemy), the to end up falling in love and begin to change their attitudes about the war around them. The other cast of characters in the story are not there for background either, every one in this story has a history to them.

There is also another Ace mobile suit pilot in this series that can be added into the pantheon of ace mobile suit pilots. Right up there with Char Aznable and Anavel Gato is Norris Packard, not the top villain in this series, but his presence give the 8th mobile suit team a hard fight. 3 of them against Norris and his single MS-07B Gouf custom mobile suit.

In conclusion This Gundam along with Stardust Memory is a must see!!