This series was avery enjoyable little side story that takes place during the final months of the OYW. Consisting of only 6 episodes, it's a very easily digestable story that can be experienced with very little prior knowledge to the UC timeline. This story takes place on the neutral colony of side 6, and follows the perspective of a 10 year old civillian boy named Alfred Izuruha who understandably does not have the most nuanced understanding of what it means to be at war. As this is a neutral colony, there are both citizens who harbor pro-Zeon seintiments, as well as pro-Federation sentiments, and this series offers a glimpse into a different side of the OYW than any of the other series taking place around this timeframe.
The opening scene in this series is super sick i my opinion; showing an operation undertaken by Zeon intelligence to capture an experimental Gundam being developed at a Federation base in Antarctica. I love the way mobile suit combat is portrayed in this sequence, and especially love the introduction of the MSM-03C Hygogg, one of my favorite Zeon designs in the series. The sky blue coloring and the Arms reminiscent of the Robots from Castle in the Sky look sick as hell and it's definitely a much needed upgrade from the lovable yet admittedly very goofy designs of other OYW amphibious MS such as the Z'gok and Gogg(which the Hygogg, as the name suggests, is a direct successor to) All of the characters are also quite likable, besides the ones that are obviously created to be unlikable bastards (Col. Killing comes to mind)
These are all supposed to be spoiler-free pitches to watch these shows so there's not much more I can say about the series, as it is only 6 episodes so there isn't much filler at all. Much like the other OYW side story OVAs(and Stardust Memories), The animation is absolutely beautiful, and has that late 80s-early 90s sci-fi anime charm that I can't get enough of. I feel like this series encapsulates the "cool robot/war is bad" meme extremely well by using the perspective of a kid who's opinion of the war is entirely informed by the cool robot aspects on the surface level of the war (and by extent, the series itself) and through experience learns to understand the brutal reality of the conflict. In the same way, this show is a great paralell to the way a new viewer who goes into the series with the expectation of seeing "DBZ but with Mechs" experiences the themes and subversion of expectations that many have come to expect from Mobile Suit Gundam according to it's image in pop culture.
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