The golden child of 90s gundam! The one who was foretold in prophecy, and definitely the best part on the Universal Century. I had seen a little bit of 08MST before, but never in it's entirety until now. It is a 12 episode mini-series that aired pretty much right after Wing, in 1996. It's a favorite for a lot of people, including several of my friends.

Overview

08th MS Team takes place during the One Year War, the same conflict the original Gundam series revolves around. But instead of focusing on the grand scale of war-ending fleet actions, the rarified realm of capital-p-Protagonists, we follow a rag-tag unit of misfits, a bunch of normal folks trying to survive the war.

The main villain of this show is a Zeon scientist developing a super-weapon that he hopes will end the war. But in a tragic twist of fate, his sister Aina has become entangled in a Romeo+Juliet style romance with our (lower case) protagonist Shiro. Ensign Shiro is the leader of the titular 08th mobile suit team. As per the standard Gundam practice, our main characters don't like war and killing, and their forbidden romance etcetera etcetera, you know where this is going.

Review

It's real fuckin' good.

Ok but really though. The limited episode count really let the animators go ham. A lot of old designs from Gundam '79 show up, but they look so... so good. There's a lot more detail on the mechs, and they feel properly BIG and heavy when they fight. You aint ever seen a Zaku like this.

The story is also solid. It shows us a slice of the soldier's life while gradually building to the primary conflict. It's Gundam Vietnam, and it's awesome. Even the ending is immaculate... until it isn't. Let me explain.

There's actual spoilers in this paragraph, which I've never warned about before, but whatever. Skip this part if you want to go watch 08th MS Team yourself. So the ending is properly tragic. Aina and Shiro prevent the mad scientist from blowing up a Federation base, but they get killed in the process. It's the cost of war. But then you notice this is only episode 11. The final episode is totally disconnected from the main story. It's a year or so later, and two of the secondary characters go looking for Aina and Shiro, because they haven't given up hope. It meanders for a long while, and then they are finally found! But... I mean, we saw them get vaporized. You know, in a big doomsday laser. There was nothing left. But I guess they were fine. I don't know why this episode exists.

Anyway... weird final episode aside, 08th MS Team is fantastic. It's easily one of the best Gundam shows. I give it a KILL ALL ZEEKS out of ten.