English Dub Review: Mobile Suit Gundam the Origin: Advent of the Red Comet “Goodbye, Artesia”

Overview (Spoilers Below)

Things are rotten in Munzo. Astraia is dying as she realizes she’ll never see her children again. Hamon is by her side, as they reminisce about their old Club Eden days until the grieving mother passes away. Ramba is also feeling useless as he continues to help Dozle Zabi develop his new, more powerful mecha robots. The trials are going quite well, but Ramba can’t help feeling like a sellout. Hamon assures him that Dozle isn’t like the other Zabis, but it’s a minor, cold comfort, and nothing more.

Casval and Artesia are now living in Texas Colony with their guardian Teabolo. The family that owns the estate they inhabit have a son named Char who happens to look exactly like Casval but with different colored eyes. The kids get along with him as he teaches them to ride horses and enjoy the open-air ranch. However, their spirits are soon dampened when they learn of their mother’s death. Artesia receives another serious blow when her beloved cat, Lucifer, also dies.

To top off Artesia’s extremely horrible week, Casval is kicked out of school and decides to abandon his sister to attend boarding school on Zeon—at least that’s what he tells everyone. Little by little, Casval has been getting increasingly angry and violent. While consistently kind to his sister, guardian, and the owners of the estate, the boy takes out his frustration on his classmates and even the school faculty. Teabolo, while defensive of the child, thinks it’s a good idea for him to seek refinement on Zeon—especially after he nearly kills a man in a bar fight over a (paranoid?) sideways glance.

Casval comes to his decision after Char gets accepted into a military academy which is also located on Zeon. Despite Artesia’s fractured state, the two boys leave her on the same day. They enter the docking station with two separate paths—or so it seems.

Security finds a gun in Char’s bag and they detain him at customs. The boy has never seen the weapon before and denies ownership. The guards, despite believing his pleas, can’t allow him to board the shuttle. When he freaks out about missing his first day, Casval comes up with a plan. The boys switch clothes in the bathroom, and Char takes Casval’s place on the rocket.

Unfortunately for the trusting boy, Casval predicted that day’s events in advance. The Zabis placed a bomb on the shuttle which blows up as soon as it reaches orbit, killing everybody inside. And while Char is the one who dies, everybody believes it’s Casval who perishes. Instead, Zeon’s only son shows up to the first day of military academy wearing sunglasses to hide his baby blue eyes.

Our Take

After watching Casval brood episode after episode, the young man finally takes the first step toward bringing down the Zabis. With Jimba Ral dead and Ramba complacent, he has become the Deikun family’s last and best hope. So long as he can keep up his cover—which might not be easy since the academy if full of Char’s old school chums—he has the opportunity to be trained to kill his enemies by his enemies.

While this episode was titled “Goodbye, Artesia,” it just as easily could have been called “Artesia’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.” Throughout the entire episode, this girl got crapped on by everybody in her life. But hey, at least she learned how to ride a horse before her tutor got blown up. And it’s even worse from her perspective because as far as she knows, her brother is dead. That’s a rough blow for anybody. Here’s hoping she can keep it together.

Casval’s last line is about growing up and setting aside childish things. Even though he said this while pretending to be Char, it was definitely a personal affirmation. Children brood. Children lie in wait and do nothing. But adults take action. It’s unsettling how he can send an innocent child to his death without batting an eye. But that’s how he must act as Zeon’s heir. If he doesn’t, the ruthless Zabis will be in charge forever, and that’s not an option he’s willing to consider.