I don't even know where to begin with this. Too preface this, I am writing this almost purely out of contempt for Ren0001's review, as I literally could not disagree more strongly. This is one of my all time favorite anime's, as this isn't some derivative, overdone, generic anime with their "Tsundere, "B-B-aka, look up my skirt you pervert!" bullshit anime's that every main stream anime publisher seems to be pushing out in vast numbers these days. Rather, this anime actually does convey the horrors of war and the underlining tragedy that marks the whole, damn series! Seriously, in just the first two episodes we havethe main federation charter already trying to recover from the loss of his quasi friend/love interest Claudia by recouping with a new female interest, minor characters from both Zion and the Federation shown realistically having to deal with the loss of their friends and family (the guy suffering from alcoholism after the loss of his wife and newborn child), and the humanization of traditionally antagonist opposition characters on the Zion side from something as simple as a love of bobble-heads to the morning of that charters death from a simple salute rendered from his friend. How you can look at this and not even begin to understand that the whole show is about something more than just two charterers fighting each other is beyond me!

This season was amazing from beginning to the end. From the musical scoring, action, to even the seemingly minor actions each unnamed character committed out of emotion grief or just out of character eccentricity/personality. Rarely have I ever seen an anime which actually left a lasting impact or had something real to say as much as Gundam Thunderbolt did. We need more of this. Not Ironblooded Orphans, not ZZ, not any generic anime, but something like this with real messages beyond just action scenes. I could not rate this highly enough, and as such I enthusiastically give this a 10/10. I hope I see more from this director as I believe he truly knows the spirit of this anime and is one of the few directors who seems to be able to convey the spirit behind the original anime concept!