[Anime Review] A Child of 0079

Despite being born in 1979, I feel myself to be a child of 0079.


This date is of course entirely symbolic, not only of the Gundam universe, but of a certain trend in popular science fiction that can generally be summed up as futuristic fatalism.

Tomino, the creator of the Gundam series, was given a moniker: 'kill ' em all Tomino '. It rightly alludes to the grim and systematic fate of most of the characters who populated the anime master's stories, particularly in Ideon which features the death of literally everyone. However, this nickname can be misleading for the uninitiated because it suggests a form of gorophilia all too common in the world of popular entertainment. Tomino is no precursor of contemporary brutalism. He is rather someone who is cognizant of the disharmony between scientific progress and the permanence of human nature with its adjoining follies.

Mobile Suit Gundam 0079 is fatalistic because it is realistic. In fact, Tomino may have been too optimistic. Looked at from our perspective, we humans seem to be on course for the horrific destruction seen in Tomino's space epic without actually reaching space. The O'Neil cylinders which Tomino showcases as human space colonies have long been abandoned, replaced by a space shuttle program which itself was abandoned.

The present state of affairs is a constant and systematic marketing campaign wherein governments and billionaires interchangeably announce that they will colonize portions of space next year, next decade, next week. Deadlines are announced and forgotten. Meanwhile the casualties of ever widening wars accumulate here on Earth. If Gundam was a grim vision of the future, reality has proven far grimmer. We are still chained by gravity. No New Type can be dreamt of down here.

The futility of war was, of course, another important theme in Mobile Suite Gundam, as was the humanity of the enemy. Tomino achieves this with subtle beauty. The Zeon soldiers wondering about the result of a vicious battle are told by a young woman: "it doesn't matter. The result will be mothers without sons and widows without husbands." Those same Zeon soldiers are shown giving aid and comfort to women and children while the nominally virtuous Federation abuse civilians. We are told Zeon is building a dictatorship, but we are shown an honorable people with a code of ethics.

Our heroes on White Base are likewise not professional soldiers but mainly civilians drawn into the war and fighting for survival. This choice of heroes is important insofar as Tomino idolizes neither formal side of the conflict, but rather the survivors who struggle to preserve their humanity (both physical and spiritual). These heroes are relatable insofar as they are representative of the civilizational instinct according to which war is unnatural. The White Base crew are effectively refugees forced to fight for survival in a war beyond their power to control.

Of course, this by no means suggests Tomino is a pacifist. If anything, Gundam romanticizes military virtue, particularly insofar as the theory of Minovsky particles renders advanced technological weapons useless due to tracking interference and compels the development of mobile armor which reverts warfare to the level of a medieval conflict between honorable knights. This aspect of the series is likewise a token of Tomino's optimism which had not born itself out in reality. In our world, death from above is the preferred method of warfare. Soldiers primarily sit behind monitors and order distant strikes. Terrorists meanwhile kill indiscriminately in order to inflict fear in the survivors. There is hardly any honor in modern warfare despite the whole idea of war being rooted in the thymotic sense of human nature.

What does this all mean? It means that Mobile Suite Gundam is no longer a morbid warning of what could be, but (horrifically) an indication of how much worse things really are in the future that is now. Unlike Tomino's characters we do not live in space colonies, but our wars are just as brutal and there has been no restoration of honor to warfare, only the omnipresent anonymity of carnage.