After the revelation last week that Sayla is, in fact, Char’s sister and her commandeering of the Gundam to take her fight to the Zeon forces, this episode follows the White Base as they attempt to extract information from their Zeon prisoner. But that’s interrupted when they stumble upon one of M’Queve’s forward base! And, hold on, does that title say that Amuro deserts?
Find out more as we share our Five Thoughts on Mobile Suit Gundam‘s “Amuro Deserts.”
1. Another New Opening?
At some point, I’m going to have to stop remarking on these openings because they seem to be updating every other episode at this rate and it’s taking up a full fifth of my space to talk about. Not that I’m complaining about them being updated, mind you, because I love that it reflects that ongoing journey of the White Base. It’s just happened so often in the last few episodes that I think I’m just going to stop mentioning them unless there’s a major development there.
I also liked how the updated intro gives us a solid idea of the White Bases location, crossing central Asia. It gives us a sense of permanence to this new landscape of the Earth and while the show is obviously animated and everything largely resembles the same kind of valleys and deserts anime is known for (looking at you, Dragonball Z), it connects the audience to the White Base’s journey.
2. Combat Simulations
A moment I loved from this episode is the quiet look at Amuro running combat simulations of the Gundam fighting against Zakus on the bridge of the White Base. After capturing a Zaku last episode, it only makes sense that he would use the combat data in the Mobile Suit’s computer to allow him to work out better strategies to use in the Gundam. Even going so far as to attempt to account for the Gouf’s increased speed which, interestingly, doesn’t actually help when Amuro goes up against the Gouf again later in the episode.
It’s a moment that reminds us of Amuro’s beginnings as a tinkerer and a tech genius, who forewent food and human contact while working on whatever project was in front of him. It’s a moment I’m glad was included and I’m fairly sure I’ve mentioned this before, but I love whenever Gundam shows us the quiet moments aboard the White Base and how the crew fill their time between battles.
3. Ramba Ral, For His Men
Ramba Ral is a bit of an interesting guy, isn’t he? While most of the Zeon officers we’ve met have largely been vaguely effeminate (which I feel some kind of way about in how Gundam paints stereotypically camp men as weak and villainous), Ramba is a bear of a man with a great big moustache. Not just that, but he seems to be the most genuinely altruistic of all the military officers we’ve seen so far.
When asked why he’s taking on the hunt for the White Base, he replies that if he is successful in avenging Garma’s death then he will be promoted highly which will secure the livelihood of the men serving under him and will place his lover, Hamon, in the upper eschelons of Zeon society. It’s not for power or for revenge, but to give back to the people who serve with him. It’s another example of Gundam exploring a sense of nobility even in those traditionally seen as villains.
4. Prison Break
Something I’ve noticed in the past few episodes is the introduction of concurrently running plot threads interwoven into episodes. The plots of the earliest episodes of the series were generally pretty simple journeys from A to B with little in the way of cutting away from the main action. Here, though, we not only see Amuro assaulting M’Queve’s forward base, but also follow Sayla on the hunt for the escaped Zeon prisoner inside the White Base.
I’m enjoying this gradually increasing complexity in the storytelling of each episode because it allows Gundam to explore styles and scenes that aren’t simply “Big robot shoots at other robots.” Instead, we get a tense, extended chase sequence as Sayla hunts down the prisoner. It’s thriller-esque, something I probably wouldn’t have expected from this show, and done incredibly well. Even for a show close to 40 years old, the animation was stellar during this chase.
Continued below5. Living Up To The Title
When you title an episode “Amuro Deserts,” you’re going to spend pretty much the entire episode waiting for the shoe to drop, right? Which is why I was surprised that it took until literally the final moments of the episode for it to get to that point. However, in seeing how the episode set up this pivotal moment for Amuro, I can’t say I’m not impressed with the decision. In putting the idea of desertion in the viewers mind, you spend the whole episode waiting for the one massive development that sets it all off.
But it’s not one single moment that drives Amuro away from the White Base, it’s the culmination of many. It’s been building for episodes now, going back to Amuro shutting down over stress and trauma to his decision to leave his mother and remain with the crew and now in disobeying a direct order for a move that, tactically, was sound in the short term, but lacked flexibility. The episode lets these moments and these ideas build until the pivotal moment comes and it’s a small, quiet conversation between Bright and Mirai about taking Amuro off the Gundam.
In many ways, the move would probably prove for the better of Amuro. It would relieve a lot of his stress and mean the security of the White Base didn’t rest solely on his shoulders. But in over hearing this, I can’t blame Amuro for his reaction, either. He’s blood, sweat and tears into piloting Gundam. That connection’s not something that can be turned off. This is surely a major development for the show and I’m really interesting in where it goes from here.
