When the amazing remastered Blu-ray boxset for Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory was originally released last year, many fans outside of Japan felt left out. Well, Right Stuf Anime has recently resolved that situation by releasing this excellent collection in the West.
One of the best aspects about the Gundam OVAs is that they tend to be very good standalone stories that can introduce viewers to the complex world of the saga.
Gundam 0083 covers the events shortly after the One Year War and deals with a small but critical conflict between the forces of that prior war. Swept up in this tale is Federation test pilot Kou Uraki and Zeon ace pilot Anavel Gato, not to mention some very swanky and technologically anachronistic Gundam type mobile suits.
The series delves deep into the lore behind the original Mobile Suit Gundam though, as the ban on nuclear weapons due to the Antarctic Treaty is quietly breached by the Federation with a new nuclear equipped Gundam. Only for the remnants of Zeon to steal said Gundam in the hopes of completing what they classify as Operation Stardust.
Naturally, all hell breaks loose and the Federation ship Albion and it’s very dysfunctional crew are tasked with re-capturing the nuclear equipped Gundam whatever the cost.
However, the real premise behind Gundam 0083 is covered in its title, as it is set after Mobile Suit Gundam and before the events in Zeta Gundam. The whole point of Gundam 0083 was to fill a large gap in the continuity between the two series and with good reason.
The political makeup in Zeta Gundam was considerably more complicated and arguably more hostile than many expected when the series originally aired. In that, the Federation was funding a zealous and nationalist offshoot called the Titans. That in turn necessitated the creation of the AEUG as a means to combat this tyranny.
However, the reasons as to why the Titans came about weren’t really covered in Zeta Gundam and considering how important they were to the subsequent Gundam narrative, you would have thought we would have known more.
In that sense, Gundam 0083 was meant to connect the two works but it did so in a very un-Gundam way. It’s this approach that brings me back to the prior OVA series, Gundam 0080.
One of the defining aspects of Gundam 0080 was that it eschewed the notion of Newtypes. While they are referenced in passing, they are not directly part of the story. Instead, we have a human tale of war and the hardware is treated in a more honest as well as brutal way.
It’s as though Sunrise moved away from the approach Yoshiyuki Tomino took for mainline TV series and movies, instead channeling more of Ryosuke Takahashi’s work from series such as Dougram, VOTOMS and Layzner for these Gundam OVAs.
This is where Gundam 0083 comes in and it too avoids the whole angle on Newtypes. Instead treating the interstitial conflict between the now bloated Earth Federation and the rag tag remnants of Zeon in a grittier and more rule based fashion. The Takahashi references are also more overt, as one of the guest characters in the series ends up being called Kelly Layzner. So Tomino’s Gundam this is not but Gundam 0083 also laid the groundwork for much of what Sunrise would do in the 90s, culminating in the hit series Cowboy Bebop.
Cowboy Bebop is notable because many of the key staff that worked on that series cut their creative teeth on Gundam 0083, from director and storyboard artist Shinichiro Watanabe to character designer Toshihiro Kawamoto, not to mention Shoji Kawamori’s involvement on the mecha design.
In that sense, Gundam 0083 and Cowboy Bebop are tonally quite similar and share a familiar art style. Much of this is also down to the legendary Hirotoshi Sano, who pretty much defined the aesthetic of much of Sunrise’s mecha related anime back in the 90s.
In any case, if you find series like Cowboy Bebop engaging then you might find Gundam 0083 worth a watch.
There are only two points that I still have major issues with when it comes to Gundam 0083; the story arc of Nina Purpleton and the plagiarized music.
When it comes to Nina, the big reveal at the end of the series still makes no sense. It’s very clear in the first episode she has a clear line of sight on a pivotal character and reacts as though she doesn’t know him. Yet by the end of the series, they are somehow former lovers. It’s still massively jarring after all these years and it’s something that still bugs me.
As for the music, much of the score is lifted from a variety of movie soundtracks. With the most obvious of these being Brainstorm and Glory by James Horner and 2010 by David Shire. This is also something that people have delved into quite some detail over the years and it still bothers me when I watch this series. However, the various songs in the series, sung by the wonderful MIQ, and the rest of the score is actually great. So it’s a shame that it still has pieces copied from elsewhere.
This Blu-ray collection is also a lot more comprehensive than prior releases by Right Stuf and not only contains the whole OVA series but also the compilation movie, Afterglow of Zeon. The latter isn’t exactly great and the series is more coherent but the fact we have it is definitely welcomed.
However, the two major additions this set offers is not only the all-new 5.1 surround sound remastered soundtrack but also the Mayfly of Space shorts.
The first of these shorts was included on the original Laserdisc release back in the 90s and it covers the very tragic backstory of a character called Cima Garahau. By the time we see her in Gundam 0083, Cima is a vicious and cruel woman without much exposition as to why she is that way. As you would expect, fans originally despised her but all this changed when we all found out why she had turned out that way.
That said, the original Mayfly of Space short is quite enigmatic if you don’t know much of the events that occur before Mobile Suit Gundam. This is why when this Blu-ray set was originally released in Japan it added another Mayfly of Space short to help fill in more of the details. I will be honest though, compared to the original animation of the series from the 90s, the newer Mayfly of Space short is visually very disappointing and clearly done on a miniscule budget.
Despite this anomaly in quality though, the rest of Gundam 0083 has some of the best animation from the 90s and to have it readily on Blu-ray in the West is a wonderful thing.
Yes, there are parts that don’t hold together but broadly speaking it is a well-made series with a narrative that explains many of the events behind the backstory to Zeta Gundam as well as building on much of the world setting that makes this era of Gundam so compelling to watch.
Overall, this is a great Blu-ray release of a series that would shape much of Sunrise’s output in the years to come and bears many similarities, both tonally and visually, to series like Cowboy Bebop. Despite one narrative blip and some oddly copied pieces of music, Gundam 0083 still holds up and shows that a Takahashi inspired Gundam can work well and bring people into the complex layered world of this long running saga.
Gundam 0083 is currently released on Blu-ray and is available via Right Stuf Anime.
Disclosure: Right Stuf Anime sent me a copy of this series on Blu-ray for this review.
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