Reviews

After deciding to wach the entirety of Gundam by emission order I was very disappointed with what i'd seen so far. The OG show has more value as the precursor and the start point of the franchise than by being a good show on its own. Zeta was very, very good. But sadly his sequel ZZ Gundam became one of the most horrendous pieces of media in the history of anime, and the first non-compilation feature film in the saga, "Char's Counterattack" was underwhelming and painfully mediocre at best.
For a moment I considered dropping the franchise as a whole and just enjoy the Gundam Model Kits without really knowing anything about the show. However, since 0080 War In The Pocket was a very short 6 episode OVA, I decided to give it a try.

Best decision of my life.

0080 War In The Pocket is a touching, sad, and introspective story about childhood, innocence, and our weird enjoyment of war.
There are many complex emotions and themes handled with extreme care and subtlety thru the OVA, something not really common in action anime or even prior Gundam work.
I was very happy with the decision the creative team took about developing the story in such a small scale and realistic scale.
There are no psychopathic children that get to be extremely skilled pilots with no prior experience just because the writer wants them to, and so, they just get slapped with the newtype mark. (I'm talking about you, Quess Papaya, I'll hate you all my life.) Instead, we meet real children, that behave like real children. Being immature but in a relatable and understandable way. They are innocent, and in the end they sometimes do things that they don't really understand. Alfred, our main character is the perfect example of that.
Blown away by our romanticized visions of war, he just desires to be a cool soldier and witness cool battles, completely unaware of the reality that brings.
Ultimately War In the Pocket talks to us about the depressing reality of war without being cheaply cynical. It talks to us about our weird fixation with the glorification of violence without being preachy or pretentious. It talks to us about the nature of human empathy, and how even when there's a very clear good and bad side, good people can be on both sides, unable to do much because of how tiny they are in the grand scheme of things.

War In The Pocket wants us to reflect, about our values, about our ideals.
And I think if a show produced with the sole purpose of selling model kits of giant mechanical weapons of mass destruction manages to be so sincere and profound in his message about the futility of war, it's a very good damn show.