Published in the west by Tokyopop
Price - $12.99 (US) - Find it on www.amazon.com or www.amazon.co.uk

Technical Manuals Overview

These are small pocket sized books released in the west by Tokyopop. They are translated versions of books from the Data Collections series in Japan, which were rehashings of the superior Entertainment Bibles. Each technical manual comes in standard English format, left to right and front to back, with roughly half of it devoted to a colour section for lineart and half in black & white, mainly text with illustrations and extra lineart. Several of the books have a few mislabelled illustrations in the black and white section and some mistranslated text (usually quite obvious if you know the subject matter).

What's in the book

The third instalment of the technical manual series covers the mobile suit ridden OVA, 0083: Stardust Memory. The colour section of this book is a mixed bag but mostly in a good sense. The print quality varies but for 99% of it surpasses or equals the 08th MS Team manual. There are some pages with the lineart depicted better than anything in the previous manual, others where the quality drops down again. My copy (I don't know if this is true of all) had a printing error on two pages where the pictures appeared vague and the colours washed out. However the visual quality of this section is overall very nice, with clear and vibrant colour lineart and clear standard lineart interspersed.

The suits actually covered in the first half of the book range far past the confines of the 0083: Stardust Memory OVA. It begins with two pages covering a lot of the MSV suits such as the Perfect Zeong, various Zaku types and various GM types. Despite the small size of the pictures and short text it's still a welcome addition. The next few pages are somewhat baffling as they cover a selection of mecha from the 08th MS Team OVA. It would seem to be rather redundant to repeat suits like that between manuals. However I presume their reasoning (other than to fill empty space) was to make the mobile suit section a complete run down of the OVAs as the 0080: War In The Pocket mobile suits hit the next few pages. It actually covers all (I think) of the 0080 mecha, which is a nice addition as they don't get a manual to themselves and they're such excellent designs. Finally the other half of the colour section is devoted to actual 0083: Stardust Memory suits, with one page at the end covering video game mecha, primarily the Blue Destiny units. This whole section suffers the usual problem of only repeating information you can find online but once again provides some lineart (alternate angles, detailing etc) that you won't have seen before. The pointless summing up of the series continues in-between sections too.

The black and white section of this manual takes an unusual step in using a streaked grey background rather than a solid colour. The mind continues to be baffled by their attempts to lower legibility. As with the 08th MS Team manual, this book begins its text section with a mobile suit development history. Now as it covers some of the same ground as the previous manual it therefore repeats or merely rewords information in its pages on the RX Project. Two pages are then devoted to the MS-V and MS-X lines of One Year War designs, which is sadly not long enough or in-depth enough. It's still interesting but a little too vague for my liking. The following two pages provide information on the various One Year War leaders' treatment of Newtype research and the development of Newtype mobile suits. This is more interesting but again could do with more information (I don't think there's as much text on a page in this section as there is in the 08th manual MS Development pages). The final three pages cover the Gundam Development Project featured in 0083, which is quite interesting but I found I already knew a lot of it. Basically if you're looking for a good MS Development section then buy the 08th MS Team manual, this one is decidedly average and sadly lacking in text.

The history section of the black and white portion on the book is much better than the MS Development. There's a quite comprehensive (for these books) timeline beginning at UC0001 and ending at the start of the Zeta Gundam TV series in 0087. However you can find a much more detailed chronology at the website High Frontier, but this is more than adequate as a quick reference. The history section covers Earth Drop Operations (from the One Year War), Post War Management, Post War Government, Axis, Delaz Fleet and the Titans. The Earth Drop Operations pages would have fitted better into the 08th MS Team manual but they still provide a good addition to the information found there. The sections on Post War Management & Government were perhaps the most interesting to me. They flesh out the political background to 0083 quite nicely. The section on Axis is also quite interesting, providing some pre-Zeta backstory to the place that plays important roles in the Zeta and Double Zeta Gundam TV series.

The Delaz fleet is fleshed out in two pages of information that explain their preparations and operations before the animated part of UC0083. However they insist on wasting space by repeating the events of the TV series on paper in a condensed form. I still don't see the point of this when it adds nothing to what you already know. The Titans, the organisation that would shape the events of half of the 0080s are given three quite interesting pages of backstory. The politics and set-up of the Titans are explained, as well as their actions up to the events of Zeta Gundam. The last few pages are given over to vehicle and character lineart as usual, with the exception that this time the vehicle lineart is totally obstructed by the streaked background.

Opinion

Well the 0083 manual always feels like the largest of the bunch due to the large period it encompasses. The redundancy between this and the previous manual is rather annoying and seemingly pointless as there was plenty of other material (from 0080 perhaps) that could have filled in the space. The colour mecha section is quite comprehensive, and whilst providing no new information (just the usual bonus angles on the lineart) does form a handy quick reference for a lot of early UC mecha. The values of these manuals, however, rides as always on the text section. The history pages are for the most part very interesting, and whilst never going into the depth that you might want (but isn't that always the case), are a good read. The MS Development section is disappointing after the previous manual, presenting some good information but being generally too vague in comparison. So if the history sections interest you and you have more than a passing interest in the rest of the manual then I seriously recommend the purchase. However I think overall that the 08th MS Team manual is superior in merit to this, which is good but feels lacking.

Written to Box Car Racer - Elevator