Kidou Senshi Gundam: Dai 08 MS Shoutai - Miller's Report

This is a sort of recap episode. Most of the run time is just the 7th and 8th episodes of the series in nearly their entirety. It contains some flashbacks of episode 1. It contains a few small additional scenes sprinkled throughout with a new character that only appears here. It does not really add much to the story and can easily be skipped.

A 12 episode OVA series with a recap episode that only really recaps 2 episodes seems very strange and there's a particular reason for that. The director of the first 6 episodes of the series, which were ... all released across four dates in one year, died during production. A new director was brought in for the remaining episodes but from that point on production slowed and the last 6 episodes were released 2 per year for 3 years. The longest gaps in production were between episodes 6 and 7, and episodes 10 and 11, each being nearly full year gaps. This recap film was released during the second gap. Without the troubled production of this series, this film likely would not have been made.

08th MS Team is one of the best anime I have ever seen and definitely the best Gundam anime I have watched. That is why I wanted to watch Miller's Report to see if I can get some more from this anime that ended to soon. I was hoping for a side story, but unfortunately it did not live up to the anime and was just a recap episode that dumbs down some of the best scenes from the anime.

Story: There is really no story to this. Miller's is a earth fed that has to write a report on Shiro Amada ... if in fact he is a double agent for Zeon. So basically all they do is recap what has happened in the anime so far that has led up to this point. They had some extra footage with most of the characters with great dialogue but it was short. I was hoping for more of this, like stuff that was going on during the base when Shiro was under house arrest since they were vague in the anime, but nope we get 40 to 45 min of recaps from the anime.

I am not going to write about sound and animation because it is similar to the anime since most of the recap footage is from the anime it self.

Character:The new character introduced is Alice Miller a earth fed internal in fairs kind of person and she is pretty tough on Shiro because of her job and also a personal reason. All the main cast makes small appearance in the extra footage except for mabey Kiki but definitely everybody is in the recaps.

Enjoyment. My enjoyment was killed by the recaps first of all they took up most of the time on the film and second the recaps were taking away from the series because these episodes they tried to recap were some of the most beautiful and entertaining episodes in anime. I don;t believe those great scenes should be watched in a recap and if you want to see them you should just watch the series again like I have. It is way more enjoyable just to watch the series again than this movies recap.

Overall: I don't recommend watching this unless you want to see that 5 to 10 min extra footage with your favorite characters from the 08th Ms Team. This movie could have been much better if they eliminated the recaps and just added some dialogue for the characters and thrown in some fights just for fun. 6/10

(Check out my profile for a link to my site containing more up-to-date reviews and bonus media!)

The 08th MS Team is a top tier Gundam series, but I'm not going to talk about why here. This 50-minute movie, "Miller's Report", takes place two thirds of the way through the series. I watched it hoping for a decent amount of new footage since it's framed with an original story as intelligence officer Alice Miller investigates Shiro Amada. Sadly, this ended up just being what it was meant to be: glorified padding between releasing episodes of the OVA. The movie recaps most of the events surrounding Shiro ... and Aina's relationship, and combines it with the aftermath of what happened when the OVA took place with some footage cut out and some footage added. Structurally, it's very weird in this way. It's chronologically consistent at the beginning, then delves into a long flashback, then goes back to chronology and follows the OVA in an abridged format until it ends before the final act. Miller is only given basic characterization and is only seen in a few minutes of the total running time. I guess if you're super desperate for more of The 08th MS Team then this could do as it retcons some additional detail into certain episodes, but it doesn't really improve the experience much. The best part of watching this was OZC's encode, which was absolutely incredible. If more encodes of old series got this treatment then maybe life wouldn't be so terrible. Go watch "A Battle with the Third Dimension" instead.