Reviews for Kidou Senshi Gundam: The Origin (9.08) 102156

Story - From the moment I started seeing it, I felt as if I was watching an alternative version of Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu. The voice of the primary character Casaval is very similar to that of Yang Wenli in GED. It is such a beautiful voice that brings back so many nostalgic memories, that I stopped the anime in between to check it up (confused too as I knew that the original siyuu has ed away long back). Surprising it is the same seiyuu who voices Luffy in One Piece and its actually a she.

At the same time I was also a little disappointed to see that the hero is sort of an anti-hero. He behaves more like Reinhard from GED. He is ridiculously manipulative and cold hearted enough to kill even his own friends! His sister on the other hand is like Mother Theresa. It sometimes feels a little cheezy, but somehow its she that you are rooting for from your heart. The pain and sadness in the story, we mainly understand from her. They both are the primary characters, and their life is shown from when they are kids, to adult hood, and the galactic war.

The story starts off in a grand way - The starting of an inter galactic war. There are a gazillion characters, yet they are so distinct in their appearance and character that I was surprised that I ed them all (normally it takes me quite a few episodes to get a hang of the characters, when there are so many). 10/10 for character design and profiling.

The Gundams - Thankfully they don't make a big deal of it. Its part of the story and the attention is on the story and the characters and not on robots or visuals. This is a really grown up Gundam anime. A big Thumbs Up! Ofcourse there are tonnes of visuals and the attention to detail is fantastic. I especially loved the way in which the gigantic tanks recoiled when shooting and their inertia during start-stops. The matrix style slow motion of gundam fights are also done exceedingly well. I think this might be the best gundam anime ever made (gundam animation wise). Sometimes its even as stylistic as Gurren Lagaan (but doesn't go overboard).

Becuause the name says Gundam 'origin', I was expecting to see them start from something really small and basic and then work their way up. But the evolution was a little too fast. Like GED, they could have gone really slow, and that would have given greater satisfaction. But on he positive side, this does make it seem like a fast paced and sharply edited movie.

The Animation, Sound and Editing are all on par with the current generation of anime. Nothing more nothing less. Vehicles (and its physics), buildings, people (and their clothes), etc., reminded me of Ghost in the Shell.

Highly Recommended - You can happily watch it even if you are not a Gundam fan.