Mobile Suit Gundam, Vol. 10: Lalah’s Fate (1979)
Review by Doc Ezra
Film:
DVD:

Written by Hiroyuki Hoshiyama, Yoshihisa Araki, Masaru Yamamoto, Kenichi Matsuzaki, and Yoshiyuki Tomino
Directed by Yoshiyuki Tomino
Character Design by Yoshikazu Yasuhiko
Mechanical Design by Kunio Ohkawara

Features:

• Mobile Suit Encyclopedia
  
• Trailers
  
• English and Japanese audio
  
• English subtitles
  

Doc’s Anime Warnings

• Tragedy galore
  
• Good things coming to an end
  
• Frustrating ethical blinders
  

Rating: 13+

Anamorphic: N/A

My advice: Own it.

The end of the One Year War is at hand. Earth Federation Forces, led by the White Base, are closing in on the Zeon capital. And Amuro Ray’s NewType abilities are expanding by the minute. Unfortunately for Amuro, the Zeon NewType named Lalah is still a few steps ahead of him. Char Aznable continues to hound the White Base at every turn, and has embraced the idea of a NewType military to the point of building a unit of NewType troops to help crush the Earth Federation.

Lalah’s Fate concludes the original Mobile Suit Gundam television series, bringing to an end the One Year War and resolving (at least for a time) the rivalry between Gundam pilot Amuro Ray and Zeon ace Char Aznable. As one might expect, these last few episodes are the very definition of the word “epic.” A war, built up for forty episodes, culminates in an all-or-nothing assault on the last Zeon base. A rivalry between two quasi-telepathic mobile suit pilots resolved by a space battle that lasts most of an episode. The White Base destroyed in a last ditch assault, and its crew blasting their way through the enemy in hand-to-hand combat. Excitement abounds.

Sometimes, an anime series will lose its steam before finally wrapping up and calling the show finished. Not so Gundam. The show’s story, which in previous volumes has occasionally strayed into labyrinthine subplots and unnecessary digressions, tightens up remarkably in these final moments. The show begs to end with intensity, and delivers--few other shows have ever gone out with quite as big a bang. It also doesn’t flinch from a little bloodletting--this is the story of a war, after all, and wars get people killed, even when they’re on the side of the good guys.

Tomino’s epic distills nicely into these last few episodes. And other than needing a touch of background regarding things like NewTypes and some of the characters, they stand pretty well alone, so that someone with a working knowledge of the Gundam universe (perhaps gained from some of the other TV shows or movies) could watch this disc by itself and not feel completely lost and bewildered.

The animation is excellent, perhaps even a touch better than is normal for the series, as if they pulled out all the stops for the big finish. Audio is solid in both English and Japanese. The voice acting pulls ever possible ounce of emotion out of the script and shines here like it has throughout the series. Basically, every aspect of the production on these final episodes is ratcheted up a notch from the previous volumes.

DVD extras are a bit thin, but the quality of the shows is such that it shouldn’t be a deterrent. If you’re a fan of the show, then you can’t live without this one. If you’re a more general anime watcher, this disc makes a good “best of” for the original Gundam series, after which the movies should suffice to complete your collection. Anybody that’s a fan of space epics should get a little background knowledge (any of a number of websites or the collection of reviews here should suffice), and check this one out.