Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket (1989)

Description

December U.C. 0079 - January U.C. 0080

A young lieutenant of the Zeon's special unit, Bernie, secretly enters the neutral Space Colony Side 6, where he meets Al. He and the innocent boy become friends. Bernie also becomes attracted to Al's neighbour, the beautiful Chris. But Chris is in fact the female test pilot of the latest Gundam, which is exactly what Bernie's unit is trying to destroy.

Main Characters

Photo	Name	Description
	Alfred Izuruha	Al is a fifth-grade student living at Side 6's Libot space colony. To distract himself from his parents' strained relationship and his own troubles at school, he spends most of his time collecting military paraphernalia with his friends and trading breathless stories of the ferocious battles taking place outside the neutral colonies of Side 6. Al's fascination with war takes a new turn as the conflict begins to directly affect his home colony.
	Bernard Wiseman	This novice pilot is one of thousands of ill-trained students whom Zeon sends to the front lines as its military situation worsens. Shot down on his first mission, Bernie accidentally obtains vital intelligence on the Federation's new Gundam, and on this pretext he is assigned to the elite Cyclops commando team. His new teammates stick Bernie with the chore of babysitting the curious Al, and this odd pair soon strike up a strong friendship.
	Christina Mackenzie	Al's former neighbour, who left Libot to attend the Earth Federation's military academy. Chris returns to the colony just before the first Zeon attack, and quickly becomes a surrogate big sister to her old friend Al. Her current assignment is as a test pilot, fine-tuning the Gundam NT1 and "training" its learning computer - a piece of information she keeps from Al, since the Gundam's presence at Libot is a top military secret.

Episode List

Fun Fact

• The shooting game in the Al's room uses sound effects from Super Mario Bros. 3
• In a April 1989 issue of the "Newtype" magazine, this series was praised by a Yoshiuki Tomino himself after watching just first episode, saying that it did a great job not focusing on the Mobile Suits alone, but he pointed out two things that bothered him:
  1. Portrayal of the blue sky rather than showing the other side of the cylinder which is only 6.4km away.
  2. Children being out during wartime alert. Tomino thought that the school resuming with the combat in such close range was unrealistic. He thought it would've been better to close the school and guide childrens to the shelters

My Review

In my opinion, it did a great job showing the war from the eyes of just a little children for it's run (not to say that it didn't previously tho, White Base's crew was just teenagers/early-adults, but you get me, 19 is bigger than 8). It's not like GQuacks where i'll say it needed 20+ episodes, 6 is just enough to show everything it wanted. Characters get to show off themselves just in this, in fact, short duration of the series, you get to know everything that was redone after 0079's OYW, to know characters, they're backgrounds, they're goals and opinions. And also, from my personal experience, god it's a great show to rewatch from time to time, it's not only short, but melodramatic and even addicting to me. Score: 10/10, yep, i understand the praise like none other. But please Sunrise, show us adult Alfred, i NEED to know how this boy grows up without him.