Welcome to Cathode Ray Mission, veteran critic David O’Connell’s semi-regular deep dive into the history of genre television. Here you’ll find everything from Gerry Anderson puppets to long-forgotten horror anthologies, one-season wonders, long-running classics, and more – the weirder and more obscure the better. Long live the new flesh!
Creators: Yoshiyuki Tomino, Hajime Yatate
Stars: Ryô Horikawa, Akio Ôtsuka, Rei Sakuma
Mobile Suit Gundam, the show that launched a thousand Gunpla, and the granddaddy of the real robot genre. Launched in 1979, Sunrise’s anime spawned a score of series, films, and manga, and stretches across a half dozen alternate timelines. Through it we’ve seen war, the evolution of humanity among the stars, and a wrestling mecha wearing a giant sombrero with a vaguely racist name (seriously …Tequila Gundam). Although neither the best or most popular show in this series, the OVA Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory (1990) has one important thing that sets it apart from the rest – it’s set in Australia.
Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory takes place in the most sprawling and populated timeline in the Gundam cannon, the Universal Century. This is the original setting of Mobile Suit Gundam (1979), and Stardust Memory effectively takes place in the time between this series and it’s sequel Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam (1985). As such, it charts the political changes that take place in the interim, creating a major military incident to spurn those reformations. In this case it’s the Delaz Fleet, a remnant of the defeated Zeon that has refused to lay down its arms, and seeks to reignite the conflict and restore the empire.
The primary thrust of this plan is a vast and overly convoluted operation called Stardust. It’s a multi-pronged effort, but starts with the audacious theft by Zeon war hero Anavel Gato (Akio Ōtsuka and Kirk Thornton) of an experimental nuclear capable Gundam (Unit 2), from a military base located somewhere nearby the submerged ruins of Sydney. In response to the raid a young trainee Federation pilot, Kou Uraki (Ryo Horikawa and Paul Stephen), jumps into another experimental Gundam in an attempt to recapture the renegade mobile suit. What eventuates is a sprawling chase that spans continents and launches into space, while Uraki comes to terms with the realities of war, and what it means to be a pilot on the front line. Of course, being Gundam, there’s a lot more than that going on, as numerous cabals seek to enact their own plans, as well as the ultimate sinister and secret aim of Operation Stardust itself.
…okay, it’s to drop a six and a half kilometre O’Neill-type colony on Earth. That’d be a spoiler if it wasn’t a plot that Gundam has used a half dozen times, many of them within the Universal Century. At this stage, its pretty much expected, but it also comes with the usual added factional conspiracies, as the numerous arms of the military industrial complex seek to further their own ends at the expense of the troops that do the fighting. Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory certainly doesn’t skimp on the series’ traditional “war is hell” motif, and the profiteering and political jockeying are just one aspect of this thematic element.
Stardust Memory is quintessential Gundam, both for good and ill, drawing on a lot of the common themes and tropes throughout the series. The two main protagonists bear a remarkable similarity to the protagonists in the original series. The themes of “the hero’s journey”, the loss of innocence, the manipulated idealism, and the brutal realities of war are all also touched upon here.
In general, Stardust Memory can be a bit of a mixed bag, having a lot to recommend it, and an almost equal amount to condemn it. Beyond the almost typical Gundam plot, there’s also an awkwardly added third act love triangle. Not only does this lurch out of nowhere, but it also draws attention to the worst aspects of the main characters. Nina Purpleton ( Rei Sakuma, Dorothy Elias-Fahn) probably fares poorest, turning from competent ’80s career woman (complete with the shoulder pads of a linebacker) to wailing puddle of hormones as her current and ex continuously engage in one-on-one combat. Uraki becomes even more prone to vacillation, and begins to whine in a fashion common to so many pilots of 18 meter tall death machines. As for Gato…well, he pretty much remains the pompous Zeon fanatic he always was. A man so overwhelmingly self-important that he’s capable of breaking into a screed right in the middle of a giant mecha brawl.
It does fare a lot better in terms of secondary characters. What’s not to love about a seven foot tall mechanic in a frilly blouse (Mora Bascht), or an enemy captain whose sole ambition seems to be to laugh manically while commanding her battleship from a throne bedecked with tiger pelts (Cima Garahau)? On the whole, the supporting characters are an engaging and well thought-out bundle of misfits, making up for the lack of genuine traits in the lead protagonists.
Then there’s the plot itself. Sure, it’s vastly over complicated with its numerous overlays of conspiracies, and somewhat derivative of the dynamic of the original Mobile Suit Gundam, but it still stands up as a solid story, and can be emotionally affecting when required.
However, the real strength of Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory is in the design. Through a series of OAVs in the late ’80s and early ’90s (Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket, Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team), and the theatrical release of Mobile Suit Gundam: Char’s Counter Attack, Sunrise was able to assign the production resources to the series to really do it justice, honing the look of the mecha and bringing them to life in stunning detail. As such the classic UC mechs are rendered here in beautiful traditional animation. There’s also a sense of realism to the setting, despite the 18 meter tall robots shooting lasers in space. Threading in such legitimate retro-futurist concepts as colonised Lagrange Points and O’Neill colonies adds texture to the world. That, and the extrapolation of real world motives (political power plays to achieve personal gain, the ongoing conspiracies from the military-industrial complex for profit and power) to provide dramatic fodder to for the events does add a believable element to the series.
Not the strongest entry in Gundam, but one that is undeservedly often overlooked, Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory has all the sturm und drang you could desire from Gundam, delivered in a stunningly beautiful package.
