Written & Illustrated by Yoshikazu Yasuhiko
Published in the west by Viz Comics (right to left), $7.95 (US) max, available from www.amazon.com or www.amazon.co.uk and any other suppliers of Gundam books.

Overview

Picking up where volume four left off, the fifth instalment of Gundam: The Origin begins the long stint on Earth for the crew of the White Base. They discover their clash with Char has forced them down far from their intended course, deep in Zeon territory. Of course, Garma Zabi and his Gaw are on an intercept to both pick up Char and engage the increasingly infamous ship. As Char and Garma do some friendly verbal sparring onboard the Gaw, Fraw discovers Amuro doesn't want to fight. After receiving word from Jaburo that the White Base is to break through without assistance (and trusting to Mirai's piloting through a canyon, despite the cries of an unwell Lt. Reed from the Salamis capsule), Bright marches down to Amuro's room to slap him around and shout at him. After leaving Amuro, Bright launches the three Guntanks and three Guncannons to fight the incoming squadrons of Garma's Dopps. As expected, Hayato and Ryu are in one Guntank and Kai is attempting to pilot one of the Guncannons. Unfortunately the action focuses on only one half of the defensive force, which means there's only one extra Guntank to observe. At least there would be if it didn't get quickly shot to pieces and fall of the canyon side!

As the explosions of the battle rock the White Base, Amuro relinquishes and runs to the launch bay and the Gundam, which he promptly asks to be fitted with the (until now unseen in action) shoulder cannon backpack. Outside Kai is being completely useless in the Guncannon (as you'd expect) as Hayato and Ryu notice an incoming formation of Magella attack tanks. As they try and deal with those, Amuro launches with only projectile weapons (he believes it would be easier with a bazooka and the cannon, rather than a beam rifle - certainly different from his aerial beam rifle acrobatics in the movie). He proceeds to smash and shoot the Dopps to pieces in mid-air before leaping to Ryu & Hayato's aid and wiping out the tanks with a barrage from the impressive shoulder cannon. As in the movie, this angers young Garma who proceeds to try and take Amuro on in his Dopp. He loses a wing to a beam saber for his troubles. The book finishes up with a very tired and upset Amuro collapsing on his bed and a rather annoyed Garma. Char hadn't taken the Gaw back to pick up Garma, who had to pilot his damaged Dopp back himself. Whilst Char's explanation may have satisfied Garma, those of us familiar with the story know it's rather more sinister than that.

Opinion

The black and white art is mostly very good, though I would have preferred rather more detail in the combat scenes (some of the vehicles ended up being rather shapeless). It's nice to see everything exploding in that very organic and over flexible Mobile Suit Gundam 0079 fashion! There's only one (short) colour section this time, leading on from the end of the last book at this start of this one. Subsequently we get treated to some very nicely mean looking Dopps and a Gaw, as well as some slightly odd bridge scenes from both sides. The colouring in the White Base works for two of the three pages, with the final one being rather scarily pink. The colouring inside Garma's Gaw is rather odd, though I get the feeling a deliberately strange colouring scheme is being adopted for the Garma sections. Nothing here is as good as the best colour moments we've had in other books, but it's still passable at worst and pleasant at best.

Volume five continues the faster pace that four resumed. Whilst the White Base might not get that far in this book, a lot does happen. The battle played out reasonably well, though the pre-Gundam part of it disappointed me for its concentration on just the usual one Guntank and one Guncannon of the anime. I felt a little cheated that the other three mobile suits went off to defend the other side of the White Base and never got shown. As I say though, the Gundam section of the battle was very well done and kept the dynamic feel it had in the movie, with Amuro bouncing up and down whilst causing some serious damage! The character moments in this volume were good, with some nice moments on the bridge and a well done confrontation between Amuro and his feelings, Fraw and Bright. The Char and Garma interplay was also done well and fun to read. The differences with the anime don't really excite here, though I seem to remember the movie had Char entering combat in his Zaku, which didn't occur here. However, it was good to see the shoulder cannon reserved for a time when it was actually very useful, rather than being rolled out as a gimmick. I do wonder whether any of the Super Robot elements of the TV series that never made it to the movies will pop up (the hammer/hyper hammer, beam lance and god-awful G-Armour). A solid volume overall, though not as good as the best episodes of the manga so far.

Written to KoRn - Somebody Someone