Mobile Suit Breakdown Season 1 Episode 1.2: No, She's Too Strong

Mobile Suit Breakdown Season 1 Episode 1.2: No, She’s Too Strong! Mobile Suit Gundam Episode 2: Destroy Gundam! Podcast Transcript Original Publication: September 8th, 2018 Intro music plays THOM: This is Mobile Suit Breakdown, a podcast about Japanese Sci-Fi mega-franchise Mobile Suit Gundam for new fans, old fans, and not-yet fans, where we watch, analyze, and review all forty years of the iconic anime in the order it was made. We research its influences, examine its themes, and discuss how each piece of the Gundam canon fits within the changing context in Japan and the world from 1979 to today. THOM: This is Mobile Suit Breakdown Episode 1.2: No, She’s Too Strong!, and we are your hosts. I’m Thom, giant robot enthusiast and real, honest human being, I swear! NINA: And I’m Nina, Gundam n00b and podcast enthusiast. THOM: We now return you to the destruction of the Side 7 space colony, already in progress. This episode sees our heroes shift from defense to escape, from the terror of the battle to the dread of knowing that the colony is bleeding oxygen and Zeon is coming back. There is no way out for them--except aboard the very same Federation warship that inadvertently led Zeon here in the first place, and brought the war to this neglected little island in space. THOM: This week we’re going to talk a bit about how the events on Side 7 reflect two related events during World War II. The first one was the bombing and firebombing of Japanese cities by American forces during the war, but the second was the Battle of Okinawa. This is, perhaps, the less obvious allegory and so I think it deserves a little bit more attention during this episode. We’ll talk more after we watch the episode and give you the recap and our first impressions about the Battle of Okinawa but it might be helpful to have a little bit of background upfront. NINA: Okinawa is a large-ish island, about 460 square miles, making it the largest in the Ryukyu Archipelago. It is roughly equidistant from Taiwan, mainland China, and the southern tip of the Japanese home islands. All the Ryukyu islands have officially been part of Japan since they were annexed in 1879, but the Ryukyus have their own distinct culture that was, until the modern era, at least as much influenced by China as by Japan. Even today Okinawa Prefecture remains culturally distinct from the rest of Japan. They have their own language, unique Okinawan religion, and even a significant Okinawan Independence movement. THOM: The Battle of Okinawa was the last major battle between US and Japanese forces in the Pacific, and it was viewed by both sides as deciding the ultimate fate of the war. The US intended to use Okinawa as a base from which they could launch air raids of the Japanese home islands, and as a staging ground for an eventual invasion. For the Japanese, hilly, densely-wooded Okinawa looked like the perfect place where they could make their final stand. A natural fortress, where they could lure in the American invasion force and destroy it. If they could succeed, they could break American morale, and perhaps even turn the tide of the war in the Pacific. But if they failed, and Okinawa fell, then so would Japan. As for the unlucky civilians living on Okinawa when the army decided to turn their home into a battlefield? Well, let’s watch the episode… [03:14] Twinkling stars music to RECAP NINA: Decimation. There are no pilots for the Gundam, no gunners for the defense turrets, no helmsman for the ship. The colony is bleeding precious air through a breach that cannot be sealed. The ship’s captain, Paolo, is badly wounded by shrapnel while personally manning a turret, and command falls to the only surviving officer--nineteen-year-old Ensign Bright Noa. It is only his first trip into space, and now he is in command of the Federation’s most advanced ship, far from any friendly forces, with nothing but a bunch of untrained civilians to operate the White Base, and some kid piloting the Gundam. He almost orders Amuro out of the Gundam, but Captain Paolo hangs on to consciousness long enough to remind Bright that, historically, there have been 15-year-old soldiers before. NINA: On the Zeon ship, Char reports to his commander, Vice Admiral Dozle Zabi, and receives his new orders: capture or destroy the Gundam at any cost. While he waits for a supply ship carrying more Zaku mobile suits, Char himself launches with a small commando team in normal space suits to infiltrate the colony. Once inside, he is spotted by Sayla Mass, another Side 7 civilian out searching for survivors. She holds Char at gunpoint, but is distracted when he removes his mask. The face revealed is much like that of her long-lost older brother. Char escapes by jetpack, remembering his gentle sister, Artesia. Surely the young woman he just met is too strong to be her. NINA: While Char had his team escape, Amuro has them in his sights, [but] his hands shake, [and] his fingers won't respond. A scream tears itself from his throat. Shooting humans is very different from destroying mobile suits. As the White Base tries to leave port, Char sorties personally in his custom red Zaku, sending the Federation officers into a panic when they realize that their enemy is none other than the famous Zeon ace known as the Red Comet. It’s immediately clear that Amuro is no match for Char, but once again, the Gundam’s superior specs allow it to survive the furious assault. With a single shot from the Gundam’s powerful new beam rifle, Amuro destroys Char’s wingman. Realizing that the Gundam wields firepower to rival a battleship's main cannon, Char panics and flees. Amuro has won the day against one of Zeon’s finest aces, but Acting Captain Bright only chastises him for continuing to rely too much on the Gundam’s technological superiority. [05:34] Twinkling stars music to TALK BACK THOM: Okay, so these are our impressions from the second episode, but the first thing I wanted to talk about actually is from the intro sequence that every episode gets. The very first shot in the intro is the planet Earth, looking sort of grim and cloudy, and there’s a bright sort of bubble of light on one side, and then a halo of light that spreads, starting from that bubble then goes all the way around the planet. This is a very “space-y” kind of image, y’know the Earth and the sunlight falling on it, etc, etc, but I don’t think that’s sunlight, I think-- NINA: That’s an explosion. THOM: --I think that’s the colony drop. The bubble of light is too big to really be anything else. NINA: Oh, see I actually assumed that it was the colony drop-- THOM: Mmmm NINA: -- I never thought it was just [cheerily] “Sunrise, over the Earth!” THOM: So, the first image we see is the most cataclysmic act of human genocide that you can imagine. Everything in this show, both artistically and narratively, follows in the wake of that. NINA: Well, and there’s a line in the opening about humanity being horrified by its own actions… THOM: You’ll notice that doesn’t stop the war. NINA: Right, that, that means they want to end the war more quickly with more horrifying weapons rather than, “Oh, we should try to negotiate some sort of peaceful resolution to this. Too many people have already died.” THOM: And what a joke when Amuro’s father, Tem Ray, says, “Oh, now with our more powerful Gundam we’ll finally be able to bring the war to a conclusion.” NINA: When we think about the mid-to-late ‘70s and into the ‘80s, and the Cold War, and the nuclear escalation, and this idea of, “Oh, they’re just a deterrent, we’ll never use them. But we have to have hundreds or thousands of nuclear weapons so that we never have to use them…” THOM: Mm-hmm. NINA: ...And I think in a lot of ways the Gundam is an analog to that. Like, “Oh, if we have a bunch of Gundams no one will ever go to war with us ever again.” The opening also talks about, and I didn’t think about this in the first episode much, but that Zeon is the furthest Side from Earth, and so, y’know, it’s the most removed. For that reason it’s the least visited, perhaps the least well understood in terms of its population and their needs, the least well represented in terms of, y’know, access to central government. Which means that they're some of the most likely to want to be independent. And also theoretically the most likely to be able to get independence. It’s that much harder for the Federation to get to them. THOM: Zeon, Side 3, is located opposite the Moon from the Earth. Even with the most powerful telescope you could never see Zeon, and vice versa. NINA: So very quickly in the opening we get introduced to Vice Admiral Dozle of Zeon. I think this is one of first unsympathetic looks at Zeon, like a very hierarchical, like everything in his comments about “Aargh, I was gonna throw a banquet for you and you've ruined it by dawdling, everything and all my banquet preparations were for nothing!” It feels ridiculous, it feels very, sort of aristocratic and excessive, especially in the midst of war… THOM: It’s interesting that you picked up on that so quickly in those couple of lines, ‘cause you’re absolutely right, and that’s going to be a major theme going forward as we see the leadership of Zeon.

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