Christmas means a lot of different things for different people. For me and other mecha fans it signals the yearly rewatch of Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket. Why celebrate Christmas this way? Well, I’ve watched 0080 over Christmas and New Years for the past two years and I plan to do so again this year because it’s by far my favourite Gundam series and since the last episode is set on Christmas Eve it seems appropriate. It also never hurts to have a little heartbreak and some tears to go along with the happy times that the holiday season brings.
0080 has often been called the “Gundam for people who aren’t Gundam fans”. I can see where this comes from because it is different in the scope of the story and isn’t a packed with the usual narrative clichés used in Gundam. It isn’t about a protagonist who is special and gets to pilot a giant robot and change history. Instead of the usual protagonist we have Alfred Izuruha, who is an ordinary 11-year-old who likes giant robots and because war hasn’t effected his pocket of space he thinks it is the cool stuff of movies (Basically, he is the perfect audience avatar). The extreme ordinariness of all the characters, not just Al, is pretty a huge difference from Gundam-as-usual. There isn’t a single ace in the whole show and, while I don’t want every mecha show to go this way, it is refreshing.
At the same time, 0080 is still very much a Gundam show in theme because war is still hell and the way to show that is through children or teenagers suffering and coping with it. Al doesn’t just around doodling Zakus and dreaming about piloting, through a series of coincidences fueled by his eagerness to be a “hero” he manages to meet a Zeon soldier, Bernie, and play out his dream. Of course, he ends up realizing that war isn’t a game he gets to play with no consequences in the worst possible way.
The ending is pretty brutal and heartbreaking in part due to the way Al comes to learn about the real cost of war. However, the full brutality — and also what makes the entire show for me — is the shear pointlessness of Bernie’s death. The moment I realized that Bernie will die trying to save a colony that doesn’t need saving went beyond simply tragic irony to making me feel the a touch of absurdity. Everything Al and Bernie did is futile, despite all heroism and sacrifice we see that the world really is out of the control of the protagonists. There isn’t inherent meaning in Bernie’s death and all the meaning is in what Al and ultimately the audience take from the story.
Yes indeed.
I’ve had conversations regarding the pointlessness of Bernie’s death, and indeed it is pointless in the whole scheme of things in the OYW — Amuro never needed the Alex to change the course of the war, not that the Gundam itself changed it. Bernie didn’t even ‘save’ the colony by dying.
But as he told Al, he needed this; or at least wanted this. This fight was meaningful and significant to him on a deeply personal level, and he can accept the risk of his own death. As a counterpoint, Christina’s desire to stay and fight (expressed in her hypothetical sermon to Al) was a very personal matter as well.
On this level, the fighting was rather meaningful; only that it’s being representative of shifting signifiers as opposed to some important essence about human life or reality makes it indeed absurd.
That’s what I was getting at. While Bernie doesn’t realize the full meaninglessness of his sacrifice, even he knows that he’ll probably die and have zero effect on the universe yet he chooses action over inaction. In a way that makes him Camus’ Absurd Hero, even if his next step is pretty much suicide.
It kind of makes me wonder how my opinion of 0080 would have changed if he actually saved the colony or if he’d have left.
Had Bernie left, it would be very interesting actually. It won’t make for the same dramatic conclusion — but it would imply much:
1. It’d confirm that Zeon is indeed a people of dubious quality; wasting the sympathy Bernie and the Cyclops Team have somehow gathered.
2. It’d put the narrative on a different level of tragedy: People can’t be trusted. Al is doomed on a personal/psychological level. Bitterness is the dominant aftertaste.
But to deny us the duel would rob the show of much of its suspense… and the hope of Bernie actually winning was a huge deal for me. Like Iknight said, I too kinda forgot — as Al didn’t understand… that the Gundam always wins.
The subsequent time I read a website, I hope that it doesnt disappoint me as very much as this one. I mean, I know it was my choice to read, but I actually believed youd have one thing interesting to say. All I hear is a bunch of whining about something that you could fix in the event you werent too busy searching for attention.