Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack

After years of war the federation has recovered and formed a new special unit. Amuro is in it now. Char has built his own movement and has a plan: to drop a large rock from space onto the Earth, make the planet unliveable and force humanity out into space. In his view people will change no other way. Amuro tries to stop him. The two men have known each other since they were young and this time the account will be closed. Yoshiyuki Tomino wrote and directed. It is the first original story written for the cinema by the creator of the series. It is a Japanese production. The narrative is set years after the television series and expects the earlier stories to be known. The matter it treats is despair; Char does not believe humanity will change by itself and looks for the answer in force. While the film puts Char in the wrong it does not leave him entirely wrong. The battles are crowded and fast; the narrative moves without explaining itself to the viewer. The character and mechanical designs influenced the later work of the series. The narrative gives little room to its secondary characters and some of them disappear suddenly. The film gives the last meeting of its two leads as a personal fight. The ending is left uncertain. Its limit is density; the narrative is very fast, the characters too many, and a newcomer to the series will lose the thread. Who it is for: viewers of Gundam and lovers of eighties science fiction anime. Who it is not for: it needs context, it is fast, and the ending dark.