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REVIEW: Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket DVD


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Ajc228



Joined: 29 Dec 2015
Posts: 264
PostPosted: Mon Mar 13, 2017 9:16 am Reply with quote
How is the video quality on this release? Does anyone know if it is an improvement over the Bandai DVD release? I don't wanna double-dip on this release if there is no reason.
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jroa



Joined: 08 Aug 2012
Posts: 537
PostPosted: Mon Mar 13, 2017 9:20 am Reply with quote
Definitely a masterpiece. This is still one of the best Gundam productions ever made, particularly because it combines some striking visuals with a poignant message about the ugliness and uselessness of war, which is executed in such a way that it's hard for the viewer to remain indifferent. Other entries have tried to do this too, but 0080 is probably the closest that Gundam's "war is hell" message has come to not being seemingly undermined by its own nature as a commercial product.
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Ajc228



Joined: 29 Dec 2015
Posts: 264
PostPosted: Mon Mar 13, 2017 10:44 am Reply with quote
I can't help but feeling knocking the dub down a letter grade is a bit of a knit pick for a few ancillary character performances. I always thought this was one of the stronger Gundam dubs. Chris and Bernie were well-cast and the voice actor for Al does a great job of imbueing the character with the right amount of naïveté without sounding too old or precocious. Everyone is entitled to their opinion but I personally enjoyed it.
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Zetabag



Joined: 30 Mar 2009
Posts: 205
PostPosted: Mon Mar 13, 2017 11:41 am Reply with quote
Easily one of the best if not the best gundam series in terms of writting.

Also, for those of you who don't know, in the English dub Bernie is voiced by David Hayter. That's right, Bernie is voiced by Solid Snake.
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Levonr



Joined: 19 Nov 2003
Posts: 807
PostPosted: Mon Mar 13, 2017 12:08 pm Reply with quote
I actually prefer the dub. Yeah I guess Al sounds more authentic in Japanese since he was voiced by a child but I'm not a fan of child actors. I found Brianne Siddall much more pleasant. Bernie was great in both languages but come on, Solid Snake! The only voiced I liked more in Japanese was Megumi Hayashibara as Chris, but I guess Wendee Lee was decent. I didn't mind some of accents for those minor characters, I didn't think they were awful.
Really I consider it one of the best Gundam dubs.

Ajc228 wrote:
How is the video quality on this release? Does anyone know if it is an improvement over the Bandai DVD release? I don't wanna double-dip on this release if there is no reason.


I think its pretty much the same, I haven't done a side by side comparison but there is no remaster of this anime.
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stowrag



Joined: 16 Nov 2010
Posts: 47
PostPosted: Mon Mar 13, 2017 12:17 pm Reply with quote
So upset this only came to DVD. I highly encourage everyone check it out in case a blu-ray exchange doesn't happen the way it did Turn A, but I think I'll just hang on to my old DVDs thanks.

Also, just want to echo that the dub did feel kind of nitpicky. There's nothing wrong with it, it might feel a little dated to suit the animation, but it's nowhere close to anybody's worst performance ever. And you've got most of the cast of Cowboy Bebop in there. Plus Wendy Lee got to be a Gundam Pilot. I am not opposed to that.
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belvadeer





PostPosted: Mon Mar 13, 2017 12:17 pm Reply with quote
I think the dub wins out in my opinion. I prefer U.S. VAs who can do accents for characters with obvious nationalities than Japanese VAs who can't do an accent at all for the same ones.
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Monster Hunter



Joined: 29 Jan 2014
Posts: 335
PostPosted: Mon Mar 13, 2017 12:59 pm Reply with quote
This was a great Gundam OVA that introduced one of my all time favorite mobile suits the MS-18E Kämpfer. I just love the design and all the weaponry it held. Giant shotguns, large bazookas strapped on it's back, a freaking whip made of magnetic mines it was amazing.
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richfam



Joined: 16 Jun 2009
Posts: 34
Location: Lindsborg, KS
PostPosted: Mon Mar 13, 2017 1:22 pm Reply with quote
jroa wrote:
Other entries have tried to do this too, but 0080 is probably the closest that Gundam's "war is hell" message has come to not being seemingly undermined by its own nature as a commercial product.

I agree; Gundam shows often send mixed signals with a strong anti-war message mixed in with a story that basically glorifies war and blowing things up.

War in the Pocket, however, plays this straight with no glorifying of the effects of war. It sticks a knife in your gut... and twists it HARD. And the final scene may haunt you for a long time.

I haven't seen enough Gundam series to claim that this is the best Gundam ever, but it's definitely my personal favorite. It's also a good introduction to Gundam for anyone who's wary of mecha series: a great story in only six episodes is easy to take a chance on.
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FireChick
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Joined: 26 Mar 2006
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Location: United States
PostPosted: Mon Mar 13, 2017 1:44 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
How is the video quality on this release? Does anyone know if it is an improvement over the Bandai DVD release? I don't wanna double-dip on this release if there is no reason.


That's what I want to know, too. All the copies of episode 3 I found had missing audio in certain scenes. There's no missing audio tracks in this re-release, is there?
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meiam



Joined: 23 Jun 2013
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 13, 2017 1:56 pm Reply with quote
Monster Hunter wrote:
This was a great Gundam OVA that introduced one of my all time favorite mobile suits the MS-18E Kämpfer. I just love the design and all the weaponry it held. Giant shotguns, large bazookas strapped on it's back, a freaking whip made of magnetic mines it was amazing.


Maybe if the blue ray does well they'll make a 2.0... one can only dream
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Monster Hunter



Joined: 29 Jan 2014
Posts: 335
PostPosted: Mon Mar 13, 2017 3:12 pm Reply with quote
meiam wrote:


Maybe if the blue ray does well they'll make a 2.0... one can only dream


Well they did make the Kampfer Amazing in Gundam Build Fighters that was in fact AMAZING!
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Zin5ki



Joined: 06 Jan 2008
Posts: 6680
Location: London, UK
PostPosted: Mon Mar 13, 2017 3:52 pm Reply with quote
I recently finished Gundam Thunderbolt. A staggeringly detailed, exhilarating, stylistically dissonant feat, grizzly and unyielding in its carnage and compounded injury. In spite of what this encomium may suggest, watching Sunrise's latest UC extravaganza nonetheless made me realise something: that no degree of typical Gundam fare—however finessed—can hold a candle to what 0080 achieved.

Thunderbolt, you see, has plenty of time for some of the bloodiest and most riveting battles I have seen animated, though it resultantly consigns its human tragedies to short scenes and flashbacks; mere interludes to another standard tale in which the horrors of war choose only the battlefield as their domain. As Lauren's review neatly expresses, 0080's emphasis is reversed, and the results are more crushing than any mobile suit skirmish.

The stars of its show are the very things that we cherish the most in the face of conflict: home, normality, livelihood, affection and innocence. Rather than one of Tomino's trademark body counts, it is these domestic virtues to which the most violence is brought. And for all the 'hamburger' jokes we like to make, the culmination of these personal setbacks is exquisite. To this end, I would challenge anyone to name a moment in all of Gundam more resonantly cathartic than Bernie's video tape scene in the final episode, in which a small, individual loss comes to mean the world. This is 0080's enduring novelty; to shrink its world until we see its losses for their true and inescapable immensity.
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penguintruth



Joined: 08 Dec 2004
Posts: 8458
Location: Penguinopolis
PostPosted: Mon Mar 13, 2017 6:35 pm Reply with quote
Gundam 0080 does more with six episodes than most, if not all, Gundam shows do with 40+. It has a taught, tense, and well-developed story and characters and hits all the emotional keys in a small fraction of time some of the better entries do. It owes a lot of that to the great pedigree; it was written by Hiroyuki Yamaga of Royal Space Force fame, making it one of the, if not the, best written mecha stories of all time.

I hope they release the Blu-Ray of this, because I could be convinced to double dip.
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xifeng.hu
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Joined: 18 Dec 2014
Posts: 103
Location: Oahu,Hawaii
PostPosted: Mon Mar 13, 2017 9:28 pm Reply with quote
Gundam 0080 is easily my favorite Gundam series. I first watched it when the dub aired on Adult Swim back in in the early 2000's. I personally love the fact there are no "magical" Newtypes and that it doesn't glorify war. Also the Kampfer is one of my favorite mobile suits in design.
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