Frankly we see for the majority of the Universal Century timeline Newtypes as the central characters for the story. Yet again branching from it comes Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team, an OVA series set before, according to the timeline, Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket, even though production wise, this is succeeded by the popular Gundam Wing. This OVA series also deals with the One Year War period, viewed in the perspective of the average soldier.
You can say that the plot deals with star corssed lovers, and the story of 08th MS Team is a Gundam series take on Romeo and Juliet. Ensign Shiro Amada is the newly appointed commander of the titular unit under the Earth Federation Army. He is sent to Southeast Asia to assist in a guerrilla war against Zeon forces, who has on their side an experimental mobile suit and its pilot Aina Sahalin, someone Shiro knows thanks to a resuce in space. Realizing who the pilot is, Shiro is reluctant to fight her, which prompts the Earth Federation to arrest him for treason. Given one final chance, he must make a painful choice: lose to Zeon and not kill her, or side with the Earth Federation and lose someone important to him.
Created in the Sunrise studio, this OVA series featured 12 episodes in total, but only 11 were televised on Cartoon Network's Toonami block, with the final episode, an epilogue episode, included in the DVD release with the others. In addition, a compilation film Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team Miller's Report featured a new character, investigator Alice Miller, and the story more or less focuses on the court martial of Shiro Amada for his actions towards the enemy. While it had additional footage, it also borrowed those of the OAV episodes to use as evidence against him. While this scenario isn't exactly unique (since the original Mobile Suit Gundam had a similar scenario, which was repeated), it showed the follies of personal feelings affecting a soldier's judgement during war. Shiro Amada is voiced by Steve Staley in English, while Aina Sahalin is voiced by Emilie Brown. As such, the machines would be featured in games like Gundam Battle Assault and Mobile Suit Gundam: Journey to Jaburo, and even Gunpla models were made afterwards. This series would also premier the Ground Combat Gundam, a model rarely seen in the Gundam universe in general.
Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team gets a 7 of 10 from me, mainly because it was a fairly decent take from their usual works, though it does prove once more that romance and war don't go well hand in hand.
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