Review of Mobile Suit Gundam I

Surprisingly well held up visuals for an anime from 1981, and some real nice sounding audio design. It's lacking in the striking visuals of something like Eva, which comes out much later, but nonetheless remains a visually pleasing piece of work for its time; it sort of has a "rustic charm" to it. The real star of the film is the characterisation of Amuro and his struggle with PTSD, which grows over the course of the film to excellent pacing, until he's incapable of sleeping or eating almost entirely, barely being animated for anything but the Gundam he pilots. It completely does away with the culturalidea that all mecha anime pre-Eva was lacking in any sort of psychological conflict or focus; the image of war is vivid: it's not just Amuro who gets subsumed by the pointless and eternal war, but all of his friends and neighbours, who quickly assume their roles in the military as if it were second nature.

Certainly, the writing is good, excellent, even: Amuro's portrayal of PTSD, and the war he's fighting in, feel grim and real, often lacking in some of the theatrics and eccentricities that come with a lot of anime, but if one thing can be said, it's that the film likes to announce "this is war" just a little too much.