English Dub Review: Mobile Suit Gundam – Hathaway: Sorcery of Nymph Circe

Five years since the release of its first part, Mobile Suit Gundam Hathaway returns for the middle part of its trilogy. In case you need a bit of a recap, this is the sequel to a spin-off to a nearly forty year old movie which was itself a sequel to at least two full length television shows in the overall Gundam franchise. As is usually the case with recent projects in Universal Century (the original Gundam timeline), you are going to need a lot of prerequisite knowledge going into this to even remotely know what the hell is going on, and that is slightly more excusable when it’s the middle part of a trilogy. You wouldn’t have people expect The Two Towers or Empire Strikes Back to be that friendly to newcomers, after all. But as for what is actually happening, the first movie centered on Hathaway Noa, son of veteran captain Bright Noa who was a major character of the first three Gundam shows. Hathaway himself got his first major appearance in Char’s Counterattack, where he briefly fell for a girl named Quess who defected to the bad guy’s side, but saved Hathaway in the battle that would claim her life. In that same battle, Hathaway would make his own first kill against an ally who killed Quess, but former main protagonist Amuro Ray and former main antagonist Char Aznable would also die in the battle’s climax. Twelve years since then, Hathaway has seemingly taken on the ideals of both Amuro and Char and started heading up an anti-government terrorist group called Mafty, as the Federation his father still fights for has only grown more corrupt. On what was meant to be a routine trip, Hathaway met a mysterious woman named Gigi who takes a liking to him and a Federation colonel, Kenneth Sleg, who is the head of an anti-Mafty squad, both of whom quickly peg him as the organizations eponymous leader. He also gets a new Gundam, the Xi (pronounced “ksi”) and wallops a pilot in a slightly less advanced Gundam.

With the first movie establishing this new cast, their dynamics, and the state of the world that they are all living in (as well as five years for viewers to sift through every detail), this second movie expands on what each of them are dealing with. Kenneth is on the hunt for terrorists and using every possible advantage, including Gigi’s uncanny and possibly Newtype abilities or precognition. Gigi reflects on her affluent lifestyle and decides to risk it all for what she has her heart set on (though arguably we kinda spend a bit too much on this in a musical montage). And of course, Hathaway is dealing with his mistakes in the present and his regrets of the past, as his commitment to his organization’s ideology costs him relationships and lives, all while he can’t escape haunting hallucinations of people he’s lost in the past, including Quess and Amuro. Specifically, during a battle in the climax when an enemy pilot uses a mass produced version of Amuro’s old Gundam, Hathaway faces a vision of the man he looked up to as a spirit of his conflicting ideals, and how his desire to save others from a tyrannical system will only lead to more bloodshed on his hands. Given the slight fantastical bend to Gundam’s sci fi with its idea of Newtypes, humans who seem to receive extrasensory abilities while in space, including speaking to the deceased, it could go either way as to whether it was truly Amuro speaking to Hathaway from beyond the grave, or if Hathaway is simply that mentally unstable. Regardless, it’s a visually amazing scene, replicating the visuals of the 1988 Char’s Counterattack movie that will immerse anyone who’s seen that movie before seeing this one.

As for potential issues, this and the previous film share the problem of not much happening for long stretches, with the bombastic mech combat only slightly evening that out, even if it is exceptionally thrilling. It also doesn’t help that this second movie is kinda dark. And I don’t mean in subject matter, I mean that there are considerable moments where it is incredibly difficult to see what is happening, even in a dark theater that I saw this in. Then there’s the needle drops which are kind of strange and distracting, in particular the Opening credits song, Snooze by SZA, and the Ending credits song, Sweet Child O’ Mine by Guns N’ Roses. These are not bad songs by any means, and I’ve seen many an anime make use of western music in interesting ways, but these selections just don’t really fit with this kind of movie. If I had to guess why they were included, it would be for potential broader appeal to a western audience, but I don’t think it will accomplish that, not just because this is a movie that as mentioned requires a lot of previous knowledge of the franchise, and also that these are just not good picks.

But overall, as a follow up to the first movie and another example of how engaging Gundam movies can be, Hathaway 2 is a success. It covers a dark part of the story’s timeline that sours a bit of the hopeful message that previous chronological installments like Char’s Counterattack and Gundam Unicorn left on, but is also especially poignant for the current state of our modern world. Most notably, these are based on novels written decades ago by the franchise’s original creator, Yoshiyuki Tomino, making this feel all the more genuine and authentic to the root of what made Gundam as a series so iconic and influential today, not just in mecha anime, but sci-fi in general. Like superheroes, mecha use the idea of giant robots to signify what we wish we could do if we had the power to do so, so one following someone who is working for a revolution to overthrow a totalitarian government, even at the cost of their life and their soul, feels like it fits right in with the politics of today. There’s no word on when the final installment of the trilogy will be released, but hopefully it won’t be another five years to see how this ends. From what I know of the final novel, it’s nothing short of tragic, but all the more reason that it’s something I need to see on the big screen like I did here. Though with Mobile Suit Gundam’s 50th anniversary fast approaching, I doubt we’ll be starved for Gundam content for time being.