Kidou Senshi Gundam Thunderbolt

In Universal Century 0079, forces of the Earth Federation and Principality of Zeon engage in a battle within the Thunderbolt Sector during the One Year War. This section of space—known for its constant strikes of electricity—proves to be a deadly battlefield, as Federation pilot Io Fleming leads a charge against Zeon's ace Daryl Lorenz and his squad of snipers. With the fighters on both sides proving to be formidable soldiers, neither side is willing to back down, fighting strategically amongst the remnants of colonies.

But when Io gets a hold of a prototype Gundam, Daryl will have to make a sacrifice in order to obtain enough power to crush his enemy and ensure that Zeon is victorious, or watch as his comrades are slaughtered by a single man.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Fleming, Io Main

Nakamura, Yuuichi Japanese

Lorenz, Daryl Main

Kimura, Ryouhei Japanese

Sexton, J. J. Supporting

Tsuchida, Hiroshi Japanese

Mitchum, Karla Supporting

Ohara, Sayaka Japanese

Peer, Claudia Supporting

Yukinari, Toa Japanese

Ness, Fisher Supporting

Graham Supporting

Sakuya, Shunsuke Japanese

Kaka, Cornelius Supporting

Hirakawa, Daisuke Japanese

Burroughs Supporting

Sasaki, Mutsumi Japanese

Ogata, Naohiro Producer

Matsuo, Kou Director, Script

Kimura, Eriko Sound Director

Yoshizawa, Toshikazu Episode Director

Reviews

Sep 24, 2024

_Lazaroth_

Recommended

(LAZAROTH REVIEW - LONG - SPOILER FREE)

"Mobile Suit Gundam: Thunderbolt" Movie/series 1: "December Sky" is an absolute visual spectacle with an promising dark plot, but with some bad execution.


Story/Characters/Action:

Just when you think that Gundam has exhausted its unique or interesting battle concepts, here comes Gundam Thunderbolt with a space battle among a thick debris field with an even thicker Minovsky particle density that prevents long distance communication. Combined with the high number of deadly snipers and beams that could hit you from any direction unseen, and you have an more terrifying setting than even the jungles of "MSG: 8th MS team". It's a very ... unique idea that sets the stage for many great battles and drama. The setting goes hand in hand with showing the utter destruction of war, as even space itself is filled with the deaths of man and machine alike. The hazards it presents leaves you on the edge of your seat!

The focus on Zeon soldiers with prosthetic limbs is really unique, instead of being disabled, they fully embrace their second chance to fight for their homeland. The entire Zeon fighting force in this sector is called the "Living Dead", an appropriate name since they are all mostly those who have barely escaped death. Reborn as lab rats, they are tasked to defend their sector to the death, all the while the scientists work frantically and are sometimes even forced to alter the soldier's bodies in order to work on experiments and to improve their performance at any cost, all just to win the damn battle, not even the war. It's a very engaging plotline that's perfect length for a short movie (or an entire movie if you watch the sequel back to back, which I recommend).

As usual, the fact that the anime portrays each side as having good and bad people within it helps to show the true nature of war and humanity, and that the actions of a few can have a profound impact on the many. By the time you're down watching all these Gundam anime, you really come to despise war for the havoc it causes as well as the people who started it. You are able to sympathise with both sides of the conflict, almost to the point of not knowing which side to root for. A true Gundam principle that I always love seeing.

There's a theme of classism that's got a pretty sick undertone in this anime. The "Elite", who are high ranking members of society, were practically handed top roles in the Military despite lack of experience. The men who serve them hate their guts so much due to their inabilities that they view them as expendable. as they expect them to crack at any time from pressure. The theme of pressure is an overlooked aspect of the Gundam franchise, and in this case, it's quite prevalent as of the effects it can have on people. To the point of even using drugs in order to cope.

As per usual of the Gundam franchise, the theme of OBSESSION is carried into this anime as well. In this case, the obsession is between two arch rivals who will stop at nothing to kill each other in battle, risking life and (literal) limb in order to do so. The theme of Obsession continues to be one of the best aspects of the Gundam franchise.

The worst thing about this story is the romance. It's rushed, bad, and unbelievable. I have no idea why it's even here.

I didn't care about any of the characters, though that may change in the next half, I still feel nothing for them. Their ideas and such were great, but not that well executed.

The action is the best thing about this anime. It is utterly incredible to witness! Seeing two SUPER Mobile Suits go against each other was a sight to behold and an visual treat. Definitely some of the best fights in the Gundam franchise. I particularly love the memorable moment when we look through a POV shot of a Zeon soldier as he gets completely pummelled by the Super Gundam. It shows you first hand how deadly and scary it is.


Animation/Art/Music.


I was genuinely shocked to see a Gundam anime made in MODERN TIMES to have NO CGI in it! It's all beautifully hand drawn.

Deep space has never looked more beautiful in Gundam. The anime constantly changes the colour of cosmic fog and gasses in order to give the usual boring black space backdrop a much needed visual makeover. A brilliant idea and a feast for the eyes.

The actual ART of the anime is awesome. The thick black lines stand out and the shading reminds me of the shading from the 1979 anime.

The animation in this OVA is stellar across the board. I can't praise it enough, so see it for yourself!!!

Music was pretty decent, If you love Jazz you'll like the soundtrack. Nothing I'd want to hear again though.


Overall:


"Mobile Suit Gundam: Thunderbolt" OVA Movie/series number 1, titled "December Sky", is a brilliant visual spectacle with a dark and sometimes engaging plot that explores aspects of the one year war we hadn't seen until now. But outside of its action, setting and animation, I find myself not caring about the characters at all, despite inheriting some of the amazing themes of the Gundam franchise. This may be a length issue, but I will have to wait and see the next OVA in order to have a definitive answer overall...

Also, the romance was hot garbage and didn't need to be included.


Bonus:

There's a sequel to this movie/series, be sure to check it out for the full story! Very soon I will have watched everything about the One year war storyline, as I'm watching everything in chronological order now (I watched the '79 anime first, then origin, after that, it seems fine to watch from chronological order!)

Animation: 9.9/10
Action: 9.6/10
Plot: 7.2/10
Characters: 7.2/10
Ending: (since this is only a half of a story, I will reserve the ending for the next OVA.)

Overall: 8.6/10


(Yes I uploaded this review twice, once for the compilation movie and once for the OVA series).

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Jul 14, 2016

abovetheveil

Mixed Feelings

Do you have a good understanding of the background to this story? If no, you'll definitely struggle with this. I know I did.

Do you like jazz music? Me neither, so subjectively I didn't like the soundtrack at all. I prefer something more along the lines of Gundam Wing.

Story 5/10 -
I will start with a question to Sunrise - What was the point of this? I mean you have a great setting - adult Gundam pilots in the middle of a war and you decide to squeeze out only 4 episodes? I felt I was thrown in the middle of something that could have been very ... interesting if given more context and background information. If this was at least 12 episodes, then it would be a smooth 8 but the lack of closure, the rushed beginning and lack of context left me lost the whole way through.

Art 8/10 - Love it, it's dark, detailed and mezmerising. Unfortunately the Gundam designs are unimaginative.

Sound 5/10 - I don't like jazz which dominates the whole way through so I'll leave it as that.

Character 8/10 - These characters were conflicted, powerful and motivated. The dynamics were perfected and I was thoroughly disappointed that we didn't get to learn more.

Enjoyment - 5/10 - It was too short lived for me to get anything out of it. this deserved more time to get lost in the universe.

I'm sad because this had all the potential that was brutally butchered by the lack of air time. No time to explore the reasons why everyone was fighting, why certain characters were so conflicted either. The dust never settled and this was a story that lifted off without a foundation to go from.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Sep 22, 2017

FrozenRoy

Not Recommended

Funny

I went into this show with some knowledge of Gundam, although I have not watched much, and with the idea of reviewing a short series for the night I watched it. Robots, dark stories, the combat of war...these are all things that interest me, so with a solid score, I dove into Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt.

The tone of the show's darkness definitely strikes right away, after a jazzy start of a space army getting ready and then going right into getting blown away. While Thunderbolt gets right to the point, in this regard I feel it suffers, giving little room to consider or process events ... and frequently moving too fast to really create an investment with the characters. Talking about the overall plot and narrative of Thunderbolt is hard because, honestly, it...doesn't have much of one, despite the dark atmosphere, the plot is very barebones: I know it is a four 18 minute episode anime, but I feel even something like Space Patrol Luluco (13 episodes of 7 minutes, 91 minutes of runtime compared to Thunderbolt's 72) had a stronger plot and Luluco's plot wasn't even anything special. The strongest theme is pretty obvious: War has a lot of hard descisions you have to make and that sucks. Any meaning or plot aside from that basically is "Federation vs. Zeon!", little to it.

The problem with this largely comes down to the characters, which are almost entirely exceedingly flat. The only one with any life in them is one of the main cvharacters, Daryl, who gets some level of characterization over his Paraplegia and flashbacks...but, in part due to the constant flow of interrupting nothingness, the fact that the flashbacks give little context or reason to interest us aside from the most obvious, and the lack of seeing Daryl doing things not related to it, it comes off as rather trite, and his reactions to the events of the story around him are mixed in interest. This is especially notable near the end when his rival, Io Fleming, makes a line that the show presents as dramatic and meaningful, with the exception that it is rather counter to his emotional reaction and the story beforehand, which basically makes it come across as trying to be deep but ending up cheap.

Pretty much everyone else in this show is flat. Io Fleming, the rival to Daryl, who is nothing you haven't seen before if you have seen a cursory amount of media in general, the guy who has thrills for battle with a cultural twist, in this case jazz music. Karla and Claudia have no impact on the story despite the amount of time devoted to Karla and she comes off as somewhat of a caricature of the common character archetype (non-fighter forced to fight/do combat research/etc) with her vanilla backstory and lack of scenes NOT relating to that. Claudia's character barely is expanded on and seems like she is supposed to serve as something to relate with Io, except their interactions pretty much mean nothing. Death in this series is hardly a spoiler when so many characters die, but Claudia's is noticeably disappointing as it is clearly meant to serve as an emotional/dramatic high point. I found myself unable to care. Nobody else is even worth mentioning, and there's lots of characters who exist as throwaways to show the "dark" setting: These characters usually get a handful of scenes where they show little or no traits outside of what is necessary for the story, making connection and thus caring about them beyond the cursory "oh, they died" extremely difficult.

I'm sure it can be argued that, as a short anime, I should expect characters to be more shallow and for them to get more time to grow as things go on. The problem with that here is that, frankly, I'm not given much of a reason to BE invested in these characters, with the majority being cannon fodder as well, and no plot to really hook onto or become interested in. If this was, say, the 4-episode start to an anime, I doubt I would be very interested in watching the rest of the show. It isn't a good anime as a standalone and it isn't an interesting start: Other Gundam series certainly have superior starts, let alone counting other depth naturally.

If there is one good thing in the series, it is the music, which not only sounds quite nice between both how it sounds and some good uses of merging of it with the show, and is pretty much the high point of the series, merging music with flashbacks, action and the bits in between. The animation generally looks nice, but fight choreography is rather disappointing, and the "Thunderbolt" of the title so far is useless aside from Deus Ex Machina at certain points in the series, although given how it is used I assume that it will actually mean something later in the series. Only the last fight is notable for much and it isn't honestly all that great in the context of Gundam, let alone all other anime and shows.

In conclusion, I would personally avoid Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt for all but diehard fans of Gundam, as it is not an especially good or deep representative of the series, nor is it especially interesting on its own. with trite and shallow characterization, little is left to the show except for action set pieces, which do not properly utilize the animation that it has. Plot is largely non-existant, although it at least manages to avoid major issues due to the lack of it, so unless you really like mixing in music into animation, it doesn't really have much to offer on a watch.

Reviewer’s Rating: 2

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