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
