Mobile Suit Gundam: Collection 01 Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.0

Mobile Suit Gundam: Collection 01 Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman November 10, 2015

For those anime fans who have grown tired of debating the relative merits of, say, Dragon Ball Z versus Dragon Ball Z Kai or, say, Ghost in the Shell versus Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (or even Ghost in the Shell: Arise), take heart: there’s always the Mobile Suit Gundam franchise to keep things contentious. Perhaps not surprisingly for a multimedia enterprise that is quickly approaching its fortieth (!) anniversary, Mobile Suit Gundam has split and/or refracted into any number of various offerings, though for a certain element of the anime fan base, the original series is always going to be “the” Mobile Suit Gundam, for better or worse. Much as with the original formulation of Dragon Ball Z, the initial two season Mobile Suit Gundam established its mythology from virtually the get go, while also suffering the brickbats of aficionados who felt that the show engaged in too much padding for its own good. That may be one reason why while other, later, Mobile Suit Gundam releases have seen the high definition light of day (Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn Vol. 1, Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn Vol. 2, Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn Vol. 3, Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn Vol. 4, Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn Vol. 5, Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn Vol. 6, Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn Vol. 7, Mobile Suit Gundam 00: the Movie - A Wakening of the Trailblazer), the original series is only now being released domestically on Blu-ray. Those with a nostalgic bent will no doubt be interested in the release, though even those with rose colored hindsight glasses firmly attached may find some of the going in this series a bit problematic at times.

Those who are new to Mobile Suit Gundam may watch this circa late seventies — early eighties series and think “been there, seen that”, without realizing that in at least some cases, Mobile Suit Gundam got there first, only to see certain plot and character tropes repeated ad infinitum by other anime later. Interestingly, at least considering how many of Mobile Suit Gundam’s aspects approached cliché status later, and how indelibly the series has been imprinted on countless anime fans’ minds, the show wasn’t that much of a cultural bulwark when it first aired, and in fact for a while at least seemed to have drifted off into a kind of netherworld after the first series completed its initial two season run.

There’s no denying that Mobile Suit Gundam traffics in many typical mecha aspects, including a hero who almost stumbles into being a formidable pilot. In this case it’s Amuro Ray, a kid who comes from a venerable family involved in making “mobile suits”, but who isn’t really involved in any of the incipient tensions between the Earth Federation (the good guys) and the Principality of Zeon (the bad guys). That all changes when a rogue Zeon reconnaissance soldier attacks the space station where Amuro lives, forcing the young man to take matters into his own hands.

Mobile Suit Gundam is not exactly a model of intricate plotting, and in fact there are a number of kind of funny things that happen along the way, many of which tend to grease the wheels for further plot developments. Right off the bat, in fact, as space community Side 7 comes under attack, Amuro just so happens to have the top secret instruction manual for a Gundam mobile suit fall pretty much literally in his lap as the result of a nearby explosion. That at least gives the boy a clue on how to operate the machine, something he does with unexpected flair, leading to an at least temporary vanquishing of the Zeon forces.

Despite Amuro’s propensity toward heroism, his geeky personality may be one reason why Mobile Suit Gundam’s villain Char Aznable actually became the favorite character of many of the anime’s fans. Char is himself kind of a nerd, less nefarious than you might initially expect, and in fact relatively low key in the grand scheme of anime bad guys. The struggle between Amuro and Char continues to inform much of the rest of the episodes, with a coterie of supporting characters offering various sidebars.

Despite only lasting two seasons, there's a certain clunkiness to Mobile Suit Gundam's presentation, where seemingly picayune plot elements will be given undue weight for apparently no other reason than to fill up a little time. Perhaps because there weren't hundreds of episodes to redact, Mobile Suit Gundam never underwent a "Kai" revision, which, considering the many, many, many other offerings in this franchise might be a good thing.

Mobile Suit Gundam: Collection 01 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Mobile Suit Gundam Part 01 is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Right Stuf with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.33:1. This is "old school" anime, and as such, the design aesthetic may strike younger viewers as hopelessly quaint and out of fashion. This transfer has some anomalies which fans may find less than optimal, chief among them being a fairly high degree of filtering. What's interesting about this is that while grain comes and goes (mostly going), other elements like speckling and white flecks still crawl up and down the image (typically these things tend to disappear along with the grain when noise reduction algorithms are employed). Colors are rather robust looking most of the time and are probably this presentation's best feature. Line detail is spotty, occasionally exhibiting signs of instability. There are also passing issues with macroblocking. All of this said, this is a watchable if awfully "smooth" looking presentation.

Mobile Suit Gundam: Collection 01 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Mobile Suit Gundam Part 01 features LPCM 2.0 mixes in both English and Japanese. There are some interesting differences between these mixes, for those who enjoy toggling between various soundtracks. The theme music is noticeably louder on the Japanese track, something that leads to a bit of distortion and crackling. The actual mixes are occasionally disparate as well, with elements like underscore or sound effects sounding slightly more vivid in one track or the other at any given moment. Dialogue is cleanly rendered and is typically well prioritized.

Mobile Suit Gundam: Collection 01 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Disc One

• Clean Opening (1080p; 1:32)


• Clean Closing (1080p; 1:02)


• Blu-ray and DVD Commercials (1080p; 3:43)

Note: There are no supplements on the second disc of this two disc set.

Mobile Suit Gundam: Collection 01 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

There's a kind of innocent sweetness that underlies much of Mobile Suit Gundam, despite occasional "grittier" aspects like Amuro and his friend Fraw Bow coming to terms with the deaths of some of their friends and family. The series may not have aged particularly well, but for certain nostalgic types, the fondness the series engenders probably overcomes any qualms. Video and audio quality have issues on this release, but with those issues understood, Mobile Suit Gundam comes Recommended.