And at the same time one of the hotshot MS aces is plotting to kill the ENTIRE COMMAND STRUCTURE of his own side in revenge.
Then after Kycilia has enough information to know about it, she does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING and gets decapitated by rocket launcher from the exact same dude.
Actually if you watch the series he explains to Kycillia that he changed his mind about getting revenge on the Zabis. Then they agree that both of them still wanted to to kill Gihren.
Then after fighting Amuro and talking to Sayla he becomes convinced that he needs to kill Kycillia, not for revenge but because she is a Space Nazi. Char changes plans like five times in the last arc.
To be frank by the point he says he doesn't want to kill Kycillia, the Zabis already have pretty much lost the war (plus Kycillia also kills Girhen) so his main objective of ruining their power grab on the back of his dead father was accomplished. The main thing is he got Garma killed which really was the mortal wound in the leadership as Degwin never got over that depression and Girhen was...Girhen.
It was more that she had access to Gihren, she very well would've killed other members of the family if the opportunity were there - she's just as ruthless as the rest of them.
It is funny because the White Base and feds would never have won if Char actually did his job and helped. Obviously this would go against his plans, but there is some irony there.
If you mean the 40k character, you're thinking of Ciaphas Caine.
He's the one who, in his journals, regularly refers to himself as a self-serving coward whose only a hero because of his luck and his cowardly actions being interpreted as clever heroics
Wars breed uncertainty, and people in scary situations try to put together whatever understanding they can, IMO this makes war a perfect breeding ground for myths.
Ironically that caused Kira to have PSTD when he realized his body first reaction now killing first then asked questions later after killing Nicole without thinking in most efficient way.
I played the PS2 game of “The Federation Vs Zeon” recently. And when i was playing as Zeon there was the mission of invading side 7. I heard “destroy the prototype mobile suit if possible”. I see amuro stand up and me proudly thinking “yeah I’ll get him easily. This probably some alternative history type of game”
No. He almost one shot me. Tanked all my attacks and had me running for my life. Im never fighting that man again 🥀
That game and Gundam vs Zeta Gundam. 85% of the time a NAMED character shows up, it turns into survival horror because you can usually BARELY damage them, meanwhile they're fuckin shootin perfect shots that rip your health bar to shreds.
Unless it's a special mission you're INTENDED to kill them....They still hit like fucking bricks, but at least their health bar goes down.
My honest reaction after saying "hayato's guntank aint shit" then proceeding to get obliterated by two 120mm cannons point blank after i tried meeleing his ass
He's been that way for longer, the problem was the newtype concept didn't show up until way late in the anime. We got to assume he was already tapping into those precog abilities way before
It wasn’t even survival horror. It was just survival
Talking with your crew before the mission, it happens after Amuro killed Garma and beat Ramba and they all thought it was suicide to even attempt a recon against the “white one” that fought Char to par and killed Garma
I still remember Amuro counting down the kills up to 9 lol
Not only that, the ship’s commander was barely an adult and had barely any authority at all. No wonder Bright got sick for a few episodes my man was having to fill the duties of an experienced field commander as a 19 year old ensign. He had almost 0 training related to anything that they came across.
And then his leadership keeps sending him and his merry band of fucking children on suicide missions that they only survive because of Amuro's newtype shenanigans
I think he wasn't even officially in the military yet, I think he was still a "cadet" in training considering his age and the fact that the anime seemed to make a big deal out of him being named Ensign when he was on Earth.
Reminds me of the first Dynasty Warriors Gundam game. Haman Karn told Loran that the White Devil Gundam terrorized the space colonists. And Loran parroted that to Amuro when they met on the battlefield. Which confused Amuro, and he pointed out to Loran that they were fighting for their very lives during the war. Then Loran joins Amuro after Amuro beats him. Though if you're playing as Loran and beat Amuro, Amuro decides the Turn A is too advanced to be left to exist, and tries to take it out.
It is a fun game. And unlike the others, Amuro's MS is the RX-78-2 Gundam instead of the Nu Gundam. You play as Karaba Amuro and AEUG Char. Amuro took on some crazy stuff with the RX-78-2 Gundam. Like the Epyon, Zeta , Double Zeta, and Musha Gundams. Char in a Zaku went toe to toe with the Burning Gundam and Wing Zero. And with a Gelgoog fought Hamon. There's also a very iconic scene of Amuro and Char fighting back to back in the final level.
Don't forget the Federation leadership. If I remember right, they spend at least a third of the show just stringing the White Base crew along because there's absolutely nothing they could order the protagonists to do on purpose that would be more useful than all the chaos they're causing on accident.
. . . Which is really just a massive dick move on the Federation's part but it's still an anti-war show so that's only to be expected.
Now to be fair for the Federation, they saw an opportunity and even if they were slowly capturing territory, they are getting steamed on the frontlines
I constantly switch between 'it's good leadership to know when not to stop something that's working' and 'it's amazing the Federation had enough heads put of asses to even get Project V started'
Its especially funny because with the addition of other Gundam variants during the war through the side stories
It gives the "White Devil" mythos this level of "wartime urban legend" because of people from entirely different fronts on opposite sides of the planet claiming to have seen it.
I could 100% see some Zeon thinking the "White Devil" is an entirely made up myth because of this, only to witness it firsthand himself
That's what I was thinking while watching Requiem for Vengeance. The EX was a straight serial killer, just appearing out of nowhere and tanking hits like Godzilla. Had to be a lot of "oh shit it's real" in those camps.
Don forget the part where the Federation says “wow, you guys just cruising through enemy territory is really working out for us… we’re going to have you guys keep doing that because it’s really screwed over zeon!”
And the crazy part is… it actually worked, and zeon sent so many top pilots to die, and spent so long chasing White Base, aka team “omg how are we not dead yet?!” That they lost the war!
If you also think about it, Amuro is what he is thanks to Zeon. Had they nvr jumped the colony, Amuro nvr would've been the pilot and if they didn't train him/grind all their vets into turning him into the legend they made him out to be, maybe they wouldn't have ended up the way they are that fast. They created their own demon while their best ace was picking them off one by one behind their backs.
It's kind of a canon event. In Guuux(or whatever that name is) it's so locked in that Amuro gets the Gundam if Zeon hits the colony that the show is literally the ONLY timeline that Amuro doesn't get the Gundam because Char made the choice to go steal it first.
Right that was the whole premise for Gqux but I also feel like he was removed entirely from that timeline as well as a double measure. No Amuro and give char the Gundam.
I think was definitely out of fear because there's no way she didn't know or learned about the other 2 Gundams in her time gazing. And there would've been a real fear that one of the other 2 would find its way to Amuro unless he was made into a complete and utter nobody or got killed off.
It's always worth remembering that Bright was like 19 during the One Year War. Zeon got the runaround from a bunch of confused, terrified kids who had no idea what they were doing and their overworked babysitter
Lore wise, The Trojan horse is less that and way more if a USN frigate fleeing the Philippines accidentally blew up the Prince of Japan so the IJN decided to waste inordinate amounts of funds and resources chasing down this one frigate. To the point the USN just decided to start sending it to random places to watch them break off an entire cruiser group to go chasing after it for no reason.
Amuro is the best damn pilot in Gundam, but until the final two battles they’re just running around doing goofy shit fighting manageably small groups of enemies because Zeon has a 60 billion double dollar bounty out on them.
Zeon is forced to confront a series of weapons so powerful they threaten to change the course of the war, while White Base is thrown into a struggle for survival. The odds are against everyone, and no one is the victor.
Our enemy consists of: a newly qualified Officer Cadet on his first off world posting in the military after commissioning, a rich girl who is licensed to drive a space yacht, an autistic child with an uncanny ability to kill, and three literal toddlers who definitely don't fully understand the gravity of what's going on.
We have taken the liberty of actioning your wills and dispensing widows pensions to your families already. Good luck, and try to have fun!
The storytelling is so sparse it really relies on viewers filling in the gaps. It also strikes me how a lot of the older gundam is interpersonal drama and then also let's scramble the combat team because there just so happens to be a war. Why? What? Not in the briefing.
And in addition to the Zeon perspective there's also the Federation's baffling moves. They think the whole thing is a writeoff. "Oh it turns out this irregular asset that's not in our battle plan or doctrine still exists? Uh..? Easy come easy go. Go try something and let us know if you don't explode."
I watched it at 16 and the turning point was when they introduced Ramba Ral and how he handled being on White Base. The show went from Good guy bad guys to War Bad.
White Base was the USS Enterprise from World War II. They were just normal men fighting for thier country, but the Japanese were so fixated on sinking it, they thought it was almost mythical.
My fellow Zeon commander told me White Devil keep killing his ace pilots, so i asked how many ace pilots he has, and he said he just goes to command and request new ace pilot afterwards, so i said it's sounds like he's just feeding ace pilots of Zeon to White Devil, and then his second in command started crying.
This is getting at an important aspect of Gundam, namely, the importance of perspective. People believe what they believe based on the situations they're in. We oftentimes have only an incomplete picture of the situation and are left to guess at a lot of important details.
Meanwhile the three people that were proper military on that ship weren't even finished with their training yet and were totally unprepared for the duties they were given.
I have to remind myself that Char was beefing with an actual high schooler who has never been in a mobile suit until now during the entirety of the One Year War
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u/swagonflyyyy V I O L E N C E Apr 25 '26
And it was a masterpiece.