Seeing Red

I was stoked for the Gundam: The Origin OVA when it was first announced. Obviously seeking to take advantage of the excellent Gundam Unicorn's success, I looked forward to revisiting the franchise's roots with the best effort modern animation has to offer. What I got was a personal odyssey that began with crushing disappointment, grew into anger, and eventually blossomed into a detached acceptance. With the OVA three-quarters finished, I might as well reflect on those mixed feelings.

To be perfectly fair, this OVA truly fails in only one area: the characters. But in that area it fails hard. Remember Casval Deikun, aka Char Aznable from the original series?

He's the central character here, and boy is he a bore. Revenge is on his mind, which wouldn't be such a bad thing if there were other aspects to Casval's personality, but there aren't. Even as a young child, when he should be at his most active and expressive, I'm reminded of nothing so much as the kid version of Rorschach from that Watchmen movie. He says and does little for 80% of his screentime besides quietly watch and wait as those around him fail to pick up the obvious clues that this little bastard is a powder keg. Even when lashing out at his oppressors, it can still feel a little hollow because, frankly, his murdered father seems more like a raving lunatic than loving parent whose death would inspire vengeance.

Not that Gundam: The Origin doesn't try hard to make us hate the Zabi family Casval hates. We're sure to root for our blond-haired little hero after Kycilia Zabi beats his nine-year-old ass immediately after his father's murder, right? Who cares if this departs from her character in the original series, who was ruthless enough but would have seen such an action as a stain on her honor and/or a waste of time! When a childhood friend is killed in a failed attempt on Casval's life, it cuts right from the explosion to her sneering face, because she's the big bad guy, everyone.

Only Casval sets it up so his friend will die instead of himself. Our hero, everyone.

Casval is a wildly different character than the original series' Char Aznable, who at least made you wonder if and when he'd stab someone in the back. Anyone who could potentially stand in Casval's way in the future (read: his “friends”) will die in Gundam: The Origin, no exceptions. Except a stranded and defenseless Garma Zabi, one of the few people he's actually sworn to kill, because he's alive in the original series. Explain that one away.

But as I dwelt once more on how bad a prequel The Origin was due to inconsistent characterization, I finally recalled that this is normal for Gundam. Remember the jarring tonal shift from Zeta to Double Zeta Gundam, where characters that had gone through hell were suddenly involved in cartoony hijinks? Remember how often Char goes from hero to villain throughout the course of Gundam's timeline, or even over the course of one show? How something as hopeful as Gundam Unicorn and as bleak as Gundam Thunderbolt can technically exist in the same universe? The surest way to enjoy any entry in this franchise has always been to focus on the story being told now, not what's come before.

And taken alone, Gundam: The Origin works quite well as a straightforward revenge story. Although I initially balked at how complex characters were simplified into clear heroes and villains, it works here because nobody really matters but the main character. Some bad guy done him wrong, so of course he'll have to do shitty things and use people like pawns to get his revenge; that's the whole appeal of revenge stories! Even if I like the versions of characters I'm used to a lot more than these, I can at least respect them if I stop trying to figure out how some douchebag eventually turns into a badass, or how someone's actions now do or do not line up with their actions down the road.

So, look forward to the upcoming final episode. Look forward to the awkward-yet-not-terrible CGI and shoehorned-in giant robots. Look forward to the gratuitous cameos and shout-outs. Look forward to the inevitable betrayals as one boring asshole tramples countless more boring yet likable characters in his overly-complicated plot for revenge. This time, I'll be right there with you.