"Don't cry, Al! Soon there'll be an even bigger war, with even cooler mobile suits than the last!"
0080 is one of my personal favourites of all the Gundam side stories, and as the first major OVA in the Gundam continuity, it's an experimental, and incredibly enjoyable encapsulation of the One Year War, with a focus on war's effect on children.
Returning again to provide mechanical design is the usual UC team, including Okawara. Due to 0080's return to the One Year War, many mobile suit designs were "updated" to have a more current look compared to their 1979 iterations. In-universe, this is explained as Zeon's last ditch United Maintenance Plan, where in the final phases of the war Zeon's mobile suits were overhauled. As a result, the mechanical designers can flex the skills and experience they have developed working on the sequel series, giving us amazing designs like the Hy-gogg and the Zaku II FZ, who remain reminiscent of the MS they are based on, but with that late 80s chunkyness that made the designs of ZZ and CCA so intimidating. On the Federation side, we see the beginning of a long tradition of GM variants, such as the super popular but comically underrepresented GM Sniper, a design so powerful that it spawned countless gunpla kits, despite being destroyed before even touching the ground in the series it was introduced.
Character design is handled by Haruhiko Mikimoto, whose round, friendly faces will be instantly recognisable to Macross fans. Al, Christina and Bernie look suitably youthful in contrast to the grizzly looking cyclops team members, and costume design all around is great, especially Bernie's cool jacket.
Being a short OVA, animation is a big selling point for 0080, taking the fluidity and readability of CCA's brilliant MS fights as a baseline and even pushing past it at times. Compared to series like Zeta, where oftentimes the MS animation can feel very human and expressive, there is a coldness in 0080 when they move, and especially when they kill. 0080 kicks the "robot gore" up a notch with some brutal fight scenes, like the opening scene at the polar base, and the fight involving the Gelgoog Jaeger, two near-perfectly choreagraphed battles with animation that no doubt blew minds when it was released. I know I was impressed over 30 years later, and it's in large part because of its clarity, there's a lot of dedication to longer cuts of animation, and the brightly coloured MS really stand out. Aside from MS, the characters are very expressive, and there's a lot of subtlety and detail in the body language of non-speakers in scenes, which I feel is fairly rare, even for projects on the level of 0080. Al is a very readable character, and that's much of what makes him enjoyable to watch. Also of note is the amazing scene of the failed infiltration of the Federation base, proving much of what makes robot gore effective is applicable for human gore!
I'm also a particular fan of the ending animation, war photography is something I've always found fascinating, and it makes me geniunely emotional with how believable it looks, to the point where I'm pretty sure some of the images are referenced from actual war photography.
Sound-wise(man,) both opening and ending are just ok, and in general not a whole lot of the score stands out to me, it's fairly low-key and doesn't accurately reflect the energy of the scenes it is played against in some cases. The track that plays during the Kampfer's rampage is very good and iconic for sure, but I feel that the score could have benefited from a change in instrumentation during action scenes to properly contrast from the more peaceful scenes. VA work is brilliant as expected from Sunrise, my favourite among the cast being Bernie, voiced by Kōji Tsujitani. Bernie has a youthful voice and appearance, but is on the cusp of adulthood, and the tone chosen definitely fits someone who comes across as mature to some, and immature to others.
I see 0080 as a distillation of 0079's early themes, which is made fairly obvious when looking at a synopsis for the story: Zeon infiltrates a neutral colony believed to house experimental Federation mobile suits, involving civillians in the One Year War. However, that's only part of the story; living on the colony is Al, a young boy with the comparatively smaller issues of having divorced parents, and no motivation to study. He's an only child, and despite having friends at school, he feels alienated and lonely because he thinks Zeon's mobile suits look cool. The story mostly revolves around Al's life, and while the perspective of a child on a neutral colony during the OYW isn't entirely unique, Al's particular experience is incredibly valuable for understanding the UC. Towards the start of the series, we see Al's friends discussing and speculating about federation mobile suits, and the legendary Gundam. The kids are far from any conflict below earth's surface, and in their eyes, the sight of a Mobile Suit, a deadly vehicle for many of the UC's recent atrocities, is more cool than horrifying. Al shares this enthusiasm, and is even treated to a glimpse of the Gundam, but soon enough, he'll see it push a beam saber through his friend. It's this core tragedy of the loss of innocence that marks the start of countless mecha protagonists, but it comes to Al far too soon, and he's left to live with all he's seen. After seeing the reality of war, his friends' giddy insistance that "soon there'll be an even bigger war!" is recontextualised to something entirely more sinister.
It's this sentiment that makes up the biggest part of 0080, being youth and childhood. Bernie and Christina, like Al, are extremely young to be risking (and losing) their lives for any ideology, and the tragedy is pushed as far as possible towards the end. 0080 is one of the shortest, and one of the most complete UC stories, it has an impeccable narrative arc, realistic characters, and more than any other Gundam series, it tugs on your heartstrings like nothing else. It's not terribly hard to come across, I've seen the Blu-ray in a few shops, but I'd highly recommend watching 0080 if it ever appears on streaming sites (or the Gundaminfo youtube channel, always worth checking!)
