Owen’s Oldies: ‘Mobile Suit Gundam: Char’s Counter Attack’

By Owen Glancy Arts & Features Editor Of all the classic anime from the late 1970s, “Mobile Suit Gundam” is still the most popular and influential. As the first “real robot” mecha anime, “Gundam’s” themes of the dehumanizing effects of war and the price of freedom brought an element of realism to the typically fantastical mecha genre and made it the premium way to tell anti-war stories in the medium of anime. However, “Mobile Suit Gundam” was not always a household name. In the early 1980s, the series was at risk of ending permanently. The popularity of action series like “Fist of the North Star” and “Dragon Ball” took the spotlight away from the more realistic and harrowing “Mobile Suit Gundam,” and the series almost never got it back. That is, until the series creators made the decision to re-edit the original series into three recap films and release them in theaters in the mid-’80s. These films single-handedly brought the “Gundam” franchise back from the brink of extinction and reminded audiences of the heart-wrenching story of Amuro Ray and Char Aznable, stories that were about to be brought to an end. “Mobile Suit Gundam: Char’s Counterattack” served as the end to the original stories of Amuro and Char, the hero and villain of the original “Mobile Suit Gundam.” With the momentum of the recap films and the recent popularity of the “Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam” and “Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ” shows, “Char’s Counterattack” was set up to be the biggest anime film of 1988. The film released the same year as “Akira,” “My Neighbor Totoro,” and “Grave of the Fireflies,” three of the most influential and popular films of all time, let alone anime. While “Char’s Counterattack” was the first of these films to release in March of that year, the Studio Ghibli double feature that created both their mascot and their most harrowing film released less than a month later. It was by no means a box office bomb, but the film that should have become the crowning achievement for the “Gundam” franchise financially became simply a footnote in the success stories of two of the medium’s most important releases. However, that’s not to say we should ignore the film all together. “Char’s Counterattack” is a phenomenal movie that acts both as a fun sci-fi action film and a deeply moving character study of the two leads who brought “Gundam” together. The film follows Amuro Ray as the star Mobile Suit pilot of Londo Bell, a new organization created by the Earth Federation, as he combats the threat of Neo Zeon, led by Amuro’s old rival Char Aznable who has come out of hiding with the intent to render the Earth uninhabitable. By this point in the timeline, Amuro and Char have both been chewed up and spit out by the universe. Amuro had his childhood ripped away from him by the One Year War and is now obsessed with battle, incapable of truly loving or getting close to anyone. Char has become so haunted by the death of Lalah Sune, his love interest from the original show, that he’s lost sight of his original purpose of freeing the people in the space colonies from the rule of Earth and now wants to destroy the planet entirely. The relationship between these two characters is what makes this film so excellent today. They’ve both abandoned so much that by the end of the film, neither of them really remembers why they started fighting each other in the first place, but neither of them can back down after having come so far. Amuro and Char are backed up by a great supporting cast as well, notably Bright Noa and his son Hathaway. Hathaway serves as the film’s source of innocence meant to ground the viewer, and he does a great job of it. His desire for things to come to a happy ending clashes with the nature of war and offers one of the most devastating character moments in the entire series. “Char’s Counterattack” is a beautifully animated, compelling, and entertaining conclusion to one of anime’s most iconic rivalries that never got, and still doesn’t get, the attention it deserves. While it does require watching the original “Mobile Suit Gundam” recap films at the very least, this is still well worth that effort. You can stream “Char’s Counterattack” on Crunchyroll.