OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)A Federation veteran from the One Year War challenges the Pomeranians, with the goal of taking down the Red Gundam.OUR TAKEWe finally reach the episodes that weren’t repackaged into the introductory movie! And thankfully the bar set by those episodes continues, as Machu and Shuji continue with their clan battles that continue to look great. While Machu is still basically the POV character, this episode is more about diving into things happening around her, essentially giving her, and the audience, a deeper understanding of the darker side of this world where Zeon won the war that the Federation did in the main timeline. Their main opponent, Shiko, is one of likely many who fought on the Fed side and is understandably not content with how things ended. Despite looking around Machu’s age, she apparently got a hundred kills to her name but saw her partner killed by Char, who piloted the Red Gundam at the time. Obviously she doesn’t know Shuji, but she may not even care if it’s a different person, just to take out the Gundam itself is enough. And then the Gundam fan in me perks up because she and her partner show up in repurposed Gelgoogs, which were Zeon suits used in the latter part of the war in the main timeline, but with Char pissing all over everyone in his Gundam, they must’ve been shelved until they could be repurposed with Gundam like tech, similar to the GMs that would normally be here.Though of bigger interest to the characters, specifically Shiko, is the concept of a “Newtype”, a concept of major significance across most Universal Century media and even some of the AU spin offs like Gundam X, or renamed like in Gundam Seed where they were called “Coordinators”. Essentially, Newtypes are said to be humans with extra sensory abilities, giving them faster reaction times or even be able to sense people from far away. Amuro, the main protagonist of the original series, was one of these, as was Char, though his abilities were supposedly much weaker. Newtype shenanigans are definitely all over this series, but relevant to this episode are Shiko’s belief that they were the “chosen ones” and the lack of them is a sign that the world has gone mad in some way. However, Machu and Shuji, the latter being the current pilot of the Red Gundam, are also showing Newtype abilities, which seems to help them defeat and kill Shiko, with them seeing her last moments before she dies. Shuji has been shown to have an oddly strong connection to his Gundam, though whether Char has somehow merged with it and is talking to him is another matter. And what is this “Lalah sound” mentioned at the end? I guess that’ll be answered later.
