Kidou Senshi Gundam: The Origin - Zenya Akai Suisei

What was the tragedy that decided the fates of Char Aznable, the man later nicknamed the "Red Comet" as an ace pilot of the Zeon forces, and his sister Sayla Mass?

The two siblings' journeys, brought on by the sudden death of their father Zeon Zum Deikun who was a leader of the Spacenoids, are depicted in the four episodes of "Chronicle of Char and Sayla."

The Zabi family who seize control of Side 3 and lead the Principality of Zeon, the early days of many renowned Zeon ace pilots who later fight in the One Year War, the secrets of mobile suit development, conflicts with the Earth Federation Forces, and the road leading to the outbreak of war—all will be revealed.

(Source: Official Website)

Aznable, Char Main

Ikeda, Shuuichi Japanese

Ray, Amuro Main

Furuya, Toru Japanese

Mass, Sayla Main

Han, Megumi Japanese

Noa, Bright Supporting

Narita, Ken Japanese

Haro Supporting

Arai, Satomi Japanese

Ral, Ramba Supporting

Kiyama, Shigeo Japanese

Zabi, Garma Supporting

Kakihara, Tetsuya Japanese

Shiden, Kai Supporting

Furukawa, Toshio Japanese

Sune, Lalah Supporting

Hayami, Saori Japanese

Zabi, Gihren Supporting

Ginga, Banjou Japanese

Taniguchi, Osamu Producer

Yasuhiko, Yoshikazu Director, Character Design

Imanishi, Takashi Director

miwa Theme Song Performance

Reviews

Aug 15, 2019

MrLegitimacy

Recommended

Real quick, the Gundam: The Origin anime is the best supplement to the original series. Period. Now, there are three ways to consume it! First is the Origin manga which retells the entire original Gundam story with additional backstory, and over the last few years the additional backstory has been adapted into a series of 6 OVA movies. This year, in true budget fashion, the OVA has been recut into a 13 episode series with minimal new content produced. The TV version, Advent of the Red Comet, is one of the best seasonal anime I've seen this year. The crisp animation and story make it ... worth watching for any UC Gundam fan, and the shorter run time of the TV version may make it a more appealing option than the OVAs.

The animation in this series is literally movie quality. Sunrise dumped a lot of money into the animation because they knew UC fans would eat it up and buy the model kits (They were right). The line work on all of the characters is sharp and consistent, and adeptly adapts Yasuhiko-sensei's art style. There are a wide variety of backgrounds, all of which are vivid and detailed. All of the mobile suits are done up in conspicuous CG which looks fantastic. It lends these classic MS designs a sense of fierceness and rigidity that could only be inferred due to the soft, bubbly animation of the original anime. The colors used in the animation are somewhat drab, which also keeps The Origin from looking as candy coated as some of the original.

The soundtrack is every bit as grand as the scale of the One Year War. The crisp orchestration expertly conveys the tone of each scene, with infrequent guitars and synthesizers to spice things up. The opening and ending songs added to the TV version are hit or miss for me, some of them put me to sleep but a few left a good impression. I was especially taken with the first ending theme and its powerful refrain, as well as the final opening theme which is a remake of the classic Gundam song "Beyond the Time." I don't think I'll be defaulting to this new version any time soon, but I appreciate that they did remake it to include in this release.

According to Gundam Wiki, The Origin anime adapts volumes 5 to 7 of the manga, with Yasuhiko-sensei on board as the writer to aid in adapting his pages to the screen. It fleshes out the backstory of the One Year War, several characters from the original series, and most of all Char. We see Char's development from childhood all the way to the beginning of the original Gundam series. I think The Origin honestly does a pretty believable job setting up his character for the most part, but some plot points are needlessly contrived or depict Char doing extravagantly badass things just because he's Char. However, that did not hinder my enjoyment of it, and I still think this serves as a fine backstory even though it was not written by series creator Yoshiyuki Tomino himself.

Compared to the OVAs, Advent of the Red Comet is a much quicker watch. There are almost 100 minutes of footage from the OVA that have been omitted from the TV version. Add on the fact that the OVA has viewers sit through a cumulative 30 minutes of recaps, and the TV version saves a pretty significant amount of time. The team that recut the OVA did well picking what to omit, because you still receive the entire main plot. The OVAs go out of their way to show tons of little details and character interactions which nearly amount to fan service, so you will miss out on some things watching this version. Being that it follows the main character growing up over so few episodes, the story pace is fairly unique for a TV anime. Finally, the new opening and ending sequences are all nice to look at, with the final opening standing out in my mind as far better than the rest.

So who should watch Gundam: The Origin - Advent of the Red Comet? I can safely recommend this to any fans of the original Gundam anime or the UC timeline. I might even go so far as to suggest it as an entry point into the franchise to be followed by the original, because the OVA version is loaded with extras that can't be as fully appreciated without seeing the older series first. If you happen to watch this before the original Gundam then reach out and let me know; I would be very curious what the experience is like.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Aug 20, 2019

CodeBlazeFate

Recommended

*Spoilers ahead. TL;DR with the bottom two paragraphs*

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin is one of my favorite anime of the decade. It is a prequel done exceptionally well, and it is easily one of the best installments in the franchise. While it did have some stumbles, its growth as an OVA series over the course of its three-year run is one of the most rewarding experiences I've had with an anime in years. It is one of the most compelling space operas and political anime I’ve seen, and it exemplifies a sense of wonder and charm that few in this franchise can match. As such, ... you can imagine my worry when this adaptation was expecting a TV re-edit. I knew that no matter what, it would still be a good show and perhaps a more accessible way for certain fans to get into the series, but I also expected it to hinder the material with unfortunate removals and jarring edits. That's exactly what happened and then some, though that isn't enough to make this a bad series.

This is going to be a more critical look at how this TV version handles the material, rather than a review of everything we were presented, as I already did that with the review of the OVA which ended last year. As such, this review may sound more negative than the score would imply. The core narrative and feel of Gundam Origin is stellar enough that a good adaptation of such material almost inherently warrants a high rating. It's just that Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin - Advent of the Red Comet provides several inconveniences and removals that make this supposedly more accessible rendition serviceable at best.

The first problem this series has is its pacing and how the OVAs and by extension, the manga, were not designed with TV pacing in mind. This is most noticeable in how episodes end, often resulting in cliffhangers that feel limp instead of enticing, as these endings are generally abrupt, resulting in no fanfare or impact. The pacing also highlights how disconnected certain scenes tend to be. Some of it comes down to simple removals and awkward edits like when a scene in episode 5 goes from Char laughing when Garma tries to befriend him to an explosive mock battle that comes out of nowhere. Other instances are simply due to how rushed the pacing of some of the weaker episodes of the OVA --namely 1 and 4-- were. Truncating that even further makes the first and fifth episodes of this TV version feel like a series of disconnected scenes happening in rapid succession. Each episode of the OVA had a natural and visible through-line to them, and it sometimes took a while for them to reach their strides. Even when the pacing felt abrupt, it somehow still felt deliberate. It no longer feels deliberate when the true Char Aznable that our protagonist eventually takes the identity of only gets three scenes in episode 4, has an important scene demonstrating the rift between him and his family get cut down heavily, and then dies at the end of that same episode as opposed to having more of a presence in the second OVA episode before dying in the third. It also doesn’t feel deliberate when they further truncate the most rushed plot point in all of Gundam Origin, that being the relationship between Dozle and Zenna from the military academy.

Noticeable cuts include the removal of Amuro’s interaction with his father and some interactions with Frau Bow. However, the one I’m going to be focusing on as it’s one of the more detrimental alterations is the removal of how Astraea's house arrest was partially motivated by the house owner's jealousy. We know it was mainly done under Zabi orders but removing this detail while keeping the scene in instead of just altering it to make it solely an act made by the Zabis feels wrong. This makes it so the scene of the owner of the house bitterly reminding Astraea of how her husband sometimes used these chambers for his influential thought feel needless. Knowing where Zeon Zum Daikun, Char's father, sometimes thought of his speeches wasn't the important part. What was important was highlighting how Astraea was never an intellectual partner for him and what that meant for both her and the owner who resented her. Chalk this one up to a nitpick but it's omissions like this and the aforementioned scenes with the original Char that cause the characters to lose some of their vibrancy when the cast of characters was perhaps the most defining aspect of Gundam Origin. The main cast is largely as wonderful as ever but a lot of the side characters a tad hung to dry this time around. It isn't as egregious as the general pacing and scene sequence issues, but it emphasizes how this version is about rushing to get to the meat of the story regardless of how tactlessly it may do so. Then again, at least it didn’t play a scene twice halfway into episode 3 like Unicorn Re:0096 did when the people involved thought keeping both the end of the first OVA episode and the beginning of the second one was a good idea.

The only things left to cover are the opening and ending themes, as well as a few thoughts regarding the audiovisuals in general. The OVA boasts a fair amount of terrible environmental CGI, so the removal of several scenes for the TV version means the removal of some of said CGI. The rest of the CGI outside of the first episode still ranges from good to downright stellar, with the mechs being particularly great in several instances. The direction is mostly kept intact and along with the crisp animation and expressive character designs, it leaves the series looking gorgeous. The dub retains the same level of quality as the dub of the OVA, so much so that they may have just been ripped straight from that. If not, then the rerecording must have been impressive.

The music is still well-composed, with a few particularly incredible tracks such as the main theme of the OVA and the remix that plays when Char launches into the battle of Loum later into the series. The OPs performed by LUNA SEA are generally good, although visually the first two are nothing more than spoiler-filled montages. The first OP, “Higher and Higher” is easily my least favorite, though things only pick up with the more inspiring second OP, “Hisoubi”, which sports the feeling of a folk tale. The final OP, which is a cover of “Beyond the Time” from the film Char’s Counterattack, is my favorite opening of the year, with a sense of pride and finality matched only by the visuals, which present the current state of affairs with incredible transitions before whisking us away to the original Mobile Suit Gundam from 1979 and returning to the events of this TV edit from 2019. I can’t even begin to do justice to how much this works at celebrating 40 years of Gundam far more than the show itself does. As for the ED themes, almost none of them are particularly worth mentioning in my eyes aside from the colorful visuals in the second ED, as I don’t particularly care for the first two and I only find the third one to be a decent song. The only one I genuinely like is the ED that plays in the final episode, that being a somber song known as “Hikari no Hate” by SUGIZO by Aina The End (BiSH). The final OP and the later EDs provide the only bits of genuinely new content in this show, though since you can simply look them up elsewhere, they don’t necessarily provide much of any real advantage for this version of the series.

I won’t lie when I say I am disappointed with this TV re-edit. That isn’t to say I didn’t enjoy it, especially given how spectacular Gundam Origin tends to be. However, there were times where I was actively bored or annoyed by the handling of certain episodes, which was never the case with the OVA. I expected some of the pacing and editing issues presented here considering they needed to adapt from a more theatrical OVA format to a more controlled and limiting television format. However, even considering that, sometimes this show failed to properly do even that material justice, like with the first and fifth episodes. Certain characters feel particularly left out to dry compared to previous iterations of this story, and the pacing occasionally leaves the show feeling like a series of disconnected sequences. Often times, episodes end without the final scene having any impact or even feeling like a proper conclusion to an episode. It’s even worse when said episodes include a scene that feels like the proper end to an episode occurs long before the actual end, and they work much better than the limp cliffhangers and conclusions the show gives us. On top of that, most of the faster-paced moments and certain plot points that already felt rushed were condensed even further. It leaves the pacing feeling a lot more awkward and disjointed than before. I see no benefit to separating the contents of the episodes in and of itself, but the way they truncated and edited them only puts this version at a further disadvantage.

Some may consider most of these nitpicks, but even then, these issues snowball into a substantially inferior experience. Some may not even notice these faults, however, especially if they haven’t seen the OVA or read the manga. Hell, some may even prefer the more truncated version as it allows for binging or digesting the material at a slower pace of 22 minutes a day compared to 55-95 minutes a day or what have you. It’s their choice, honestly. Even a mediocre retelling of wonderful material still leads to a good show. As for me, I’ll stick to the OVA and begin wondering if manga fans had similar feelings regarding it to what I felt here.

Written and Edited by: CodeBlazeFate
Proofread by: Peregrine

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Sep 22, 2024

_Lazaroth_

Mixed Feelings

(LAZAROTH REVIEW - LONG - NO SPOILERS)

This anime is both Brilliant and Disappointing.

"Mobile Suit Gundam: Origin - Advent of the Red Comet" is a prequel anime to the first ever Gundam anime from 1979. However, the anime sometimes fails to feel like it is in the same universe.



Story/Action/Characters:

The anime sometimes completely goes against everything its retro sequel stood for. The tone and vibe are sometimes all over the place and feels so starkly different from the original Gundam to the point of absurdity. The contrast is INSANE at times, something that you just CANNOT do when you are a direct prequel. Consistency is ... key, lest they feel utterly alien to each other. This anime uses a lighter, sometimes even childishly comedic tone, that does not mesh well with the tone conveyed in the original anime. I get whiplash when a tough man booms about ordering the killing billions of people in the worst war crime imaginable only for him to get comedically shocked by electricity with a stupid face. The subject matter does NOT match the vibe they are setting, to the point of parody. It is by far the most egregious thing this anime does. To make matters worse, the tone and vibe bounce up and down often like a yo-yo, rather than being consistent, leading to the anime feeling like it has a lack of identity and integrity. This problem does thankfully lessen the more episodes you watch, but it is still a problem even later in the anime. As much as I hate to say it, these two shows feel nothing alike. Especially if you watch them back-to-back like I did. It goes without saying, but this anime fails to achieve the same atmosphere that the original anime conveyed so brilliantly. It does manage to do so in some points, however.

The pacing is also extremely fast. You can barely wrap your head around one plot point before another three have already happened. It damages the immersion that the 79' anime had. Yes it is unfair to compare a long running anime to a one-off season of 13 episodes, but even for a 13 episode or 6 OVA episode series, it still feels very tight. Perhaps an extra few OVAs and episodes would help alleviate the tight pacing issue. Just like the tone contrast problem, this contrast between the original anime and the prequel is also egregious as it further alienates the two. A prequel should feel like an proper extension or beginning to its sequel series, but these two feel like they are set in two entirely separate universes. The fast pace harms the plot because nothing is built up properly, nor is there enough jumping between perspectives like how the original anime showcased the POVs of both the Federation and the Zeon Empire. This anime may be focused on the Zeon side, which I will praise later, but I still wanted more Federation viewpoints to immerse myself deeper into the conflict between the two sides.

I love that we got more backstory, this was exactly what I wanted from the original anime. However I just wish it was longer and properly paced to fit with the original anime. Still, the awesome reveals and the catalyst events that led to the start of the one-year war were brilliant and answered a lot of questions while changing my opinions on many characters for the better. Speaking of, a lot of characters feel either very similar or identical to their sequel counterparts, which I really enjoyed seeing. Alas, some characters are completely different, like Kycillia. She was a scheming femme fatale in the original anime, whether as she is an overbearing, female badass with an overwhelming aura of masculinity in this prequel. They don't feel like the same character, though this may be intentional as it is hinted she adopted her more submissive persona in order to curry favour with Gihren in order to sway things in her favour that she could not do while she remained in her aggressive and butch demeanour. If this is the case, then that is genuinely brilliant, however if it isn't, then I dislike that the two characters feel so different from each other, as it seems like lack of artistic integrity.

Char's excellent and fun to watch mindgames and intellect are on full display in this anime and I love it. He's an amazing and iconic character, but I still feel like I wish there were at least some mystery to his character. I loved every moment he was on screen after he fled his home and grew up. The anime's first episode might just be one of the worst episodes of anime I've ever seen (more on this later), however things REALLY begin to pick up after Casval adopts the identity of Char Aznable. The extra dimensions this anime gives many of its characters are great and totally put into perspective many of their actions in the sequel, which is also why I really liked the dynamics some characters had with each other in this anime, particularly the dynamic between Char and Garma. The reveal of what sparked the one year war and subsequent dooming of half the human population was incredible, it feels like it's actually built up like an real world war would be, and is one of the things that doesn't suffer from the build-up problem that this anime has. The implications it has on the character that was a catalyst for it and the emotions and burden they must be feeling for being responsible for such a heavy act totally puts into perspective the utter lengths that this character will go to in order to achieve their goal. It is one of the best things this anime does and is in keeping with the themes of the original anime.

One of the BEST things this anime does is portray the Federation in a bad light, or rather, in a an unbiased light. It tells a side of the war that the original anime did not, because we were biased by viewing it through the lens of the Federation army. The way this anime shows that there are no good guys in war and conquest is reminiscent of some of the themes from the original anime, while actually being a unique aspect we hadn't seen until now. It does suffer from the tone problem this anime presents because such atrocities are often muddied by extremely obvious and unwarranted comedic relief. The comedic relief in the original anime was subtle and few and far between, fitting for a war story. The way this anime handles comedic relief despite its abhorrent setting reminds me of a quote from Tim o' Brien:

"If a story seems moral, do not believe it. If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if you feel that some small bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie. There is no rectitude whatsoever. There is no virtue."

In a show where I just watched half of humanity die in front of my very eyes, I should not expect the creators to be trying to make me laugh.

War has no good guys. And the way this anime portrays that fact is one of the only ways this connects it to its father anime in terms of atmosphere and theming. I found myself rooting for the "bad guys" (Zeon) over the "good guys" (Federation). Sure, when the villain or antagonist is the main viewpoint of a piece of media, like the criminal you play as in "Grand Theft Auto" games, you don't typically root for the police or other standard good guys, do you? However despite the two sides being bad guys, the Federation are the lesser evil in this universe. Although I think it was an brilliant idea to have us root for the Federation's comeuppance by the Zeon Empire. Despite the Zeon's dictatorship and over-the-top evil nature, the Gundam universe has shown us definitively that at the end of the day, they are all human, and ultimately, that's the root of evil. Unlike animals, we don't act on instinct, we have the ability to freethink, and hence, evil is a human creation.

The "Origin" of many things in this anime are awesome. Full stop. Especially the Mobile suits. While it could've been longer, the introduction of the Mobile Suits into this universe was splendid. You can feel their impact immediately as humanity realises that the scope of war has now changed forever. Char's scenes with the mobile suit, despite seeming out of the blue that he has sudden mastery over it with no military Mobile Suit training realistically, are at least very epic.

The action is decent but mostly unmemorable, barring one or two amazing moments. The final battle is genuinely great however and features some incredible choreography. I don't have much to say on it honestly, It's just decent with some banger moments here and there.



Animation/Art/Music:


For someone who just came off of the 1979 original anime, the anime was instantly far too "clean" for me due to the contrast. But that's also just a problem that I have with modern anime in general. The contrast is my own fault for watching them back to back, but I still wished we had some sort of film grain in our anime these days to make it look less plastic. Alas, onto this section we go.

2D animation is just average, with some very small snippets of good animation here and there.

The CGI is not the best, particularly for a modern show. The worst thing about the Mecha genre after the late 2000's was the switch from 2D to CGI mechs. I cannot fathom why they would downgrade like this for no reason. It shows a lack of backbone. The crowd CGI is laughably bad, but at least the Mecha and vehicle CGI are pretty decent to actually good at times, but nowhere near as good as other shows like Chainsaw man or 86, though that may be a slightly unfair comparison since they came out a few years later. Still, the CGI can actually take away from the designs of the Mechas, particularly the "one eye" the Zeon Mobile suits have, as they are no longer shrouded in black, and instead, the CGI clearly shows that the "eye" is just a camera on a swivel, lessening the scary and oppressive design.

Music is either painfully generic or just painful, full stop. Some tracks are actually grating and insulting to the scene and audience with how poorly they are placed and composed to the point of parody. Many tracks fail to sell the scene, particularly the song at the end of episode one with the confrontation between Char and Kycillia, one of the reasons why I DESPISE that episode. There are VERY few tracks that are good. Considering how memorable the music from the original anime was, I see this as a massive downgrade.

The cinematography is usually really tight. So many scenes are just very close up shots that make it seem like characters are not even in the same room as another, or just standard camera work that loses the subtle brilliance of the camerawork did in the original anime that I forgot to mention in my review of that anime until I saw the juxtaposition from this anime. It's hard to explain, but when you watch the two side by side, you will see it too. The 79' anime gives so much more room for the characters to breathe, whether as Origin has usually claustrophobic camera work. Some of the battles have amazing choreography however.

From what I've seen, the anime adapts the manga pretty much page for page visually. I just wish they had stuck to the tone of the original anime in order to be more fluid and consistent.



Overall:

"Mobile Suit Gundam: Origin - Advent of the red comet" often doesn't feel like a direct prequel to the original anime, leaving me disappointed. However there are some brilliant aspects and moments in this anime that I am thankful I watched it for. The backstory and origin of so many things being revealed such as Char, the one-year war, and mobile suits, are incredible. But I don't think I can recommend this to anyone who isn't that attached to the Gundam franchise already. It's a good supplemental show, but I don't think it's strong enough to stand on its own, or even be enjoyed by someone with only fleeting interest in the franchise. Still, I'm glad I watched it, even if I couldn't stand some small parts of it and only found it to be highly decent overall.



Bonus:

This is my second GUNDAM anime, I watched it right after the original anime from 1979: "Mobile Suit Gundam". If I had watched this FIRST, I may have enjoyed the '79 anime less, because I'd go into the anime thinking that the franchise was supposed to be lighter in tone and vibe and to expect comedic relief despite the subject matter being so atrocious. So people's opinions on this anime may be different from mine depending if they saw it first or second, but most people would've seen it after the original anime.

I am not going to let this speedbump slow me down on my GUNDAM franchise binge! I really like this universe and find it promising, especially after the perfect character work of the original anime and my boy Char being a brilliant character. This anime had its moments, but it was a disappointment with some brilliant aspects to it.

Yes I uploaded this review twice, one for the TV version and one for the OVA version.

Animation: 6/10
Music: 3/10 (The OPs and EDs seem great though!)
Characters: 3-8/10 ( flip flops at the beginning :/ )
Plot: 8/10
Action: 6-7/10
Ending: 8/10


Overall: 6.6/10

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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