Mobile Suit Gundam: Requiem for Vengeance (Netflix) 2024 miniseries

At first glance, Mobile Suit Gundam: Requiem for Vengeance seems dressed to impress. A gundam co-production done outside of Japan, and meant to appeal first and foremost to the international audience. Its trailer boasts lots of mecha combat action, its synopsis promises a familiar tale the likes of band of Brothers or saving Private Ryan, just set in the Gundam franchise’s universal century timeline. It’s character designs replaces the typical anime aesthetic with a more realistic, looking one. In some measure it delivers, and in others, I feel it falls short. 

The animation on the giant war machines are very well done, conveying that sense of mass and inertia befitting their size. Little details like dents, pockmarks, right down to visible rivets all lend a very gritty feel to the show. On the flip side, the character animation suffers. 

Characters lack the visual polish of CGI animation contemporaries like Sola Digital Arts (Appleseed Alpha, Starship Troopers Traitor of Mars) or Polygon Pictures (Knights of Sidonia, Blame). Instead characters look like they’re from a mid tier video game. 

 The plot is like I said familiar. It follows a squad of Zeon troops, traditionally portrayed as the enemy faction of the original Gundam war, but does a “Letters from Iwo Jima” on them, presenting them in a sympathetic light as people forced by politicians into a war they never wanted to fight. With the war now lost, this rag tag bunch only wish to return to their homes in the space colonies. 

As they journey toward the last remaining spaceport on the continent, they must contend with wavering loyalties, in-fighting, and enemies on all sides as they face a fanatical force of Federation troops and their new secret weapon, a powerful war machine known as a Gundam.  

The show’s portrayal of the Gundam almost as a serial killer out of a horror movie has earned much praise. I love it too though a revelation in the last episode sort of diminishes its status in my eyes. Nonetheless the rest of the characters are relatable and decently written with only a few performances feeling a tad flat. Of particular note is the character of Hailey (pink hair, piercings, can't miss her) who sounds like she is buzzed half the time. 

 The episodes are tightly paced and the whole thing feels like a long movie chopped into 6 episodes so it’s a perfect show to binge watch. As a long time Gundam fan I find it a welcome addition to the franchise and wish more stories of this kind,written in a style and with tropes more familiar to an international audience, would be made. Though with hopefully improved character animation.

 I do recommend MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM: REQUIEM FOR VENGEANCE as a must watch if you like war stories, or are into any giant mecha genre tales even stuff like Battletech. It retains the same underlying messages and themes prevalent in other Gundam productions though those expecting the sleek colorful anime stylings might be disappointed.