0083: Stardust Memories Ova review

After watching the unique ova 0080: War in the pocket, i moved on to 0083: stardust memories. War in the pocket was a refreshing departure from usual gundam storylines and does a pretty good job of a short but gripping 6 episodes ova. Stardust memories, being 13 episodes, is more than double the length, and lets see how well it goes.

The ova starts off incredibly well, with a flashback to the battle of A Baoa Qu in the one year war. Our main antagonist, Anavel Gato, did not get to sortie in his MS as his mothership had already been destroyed and the Zeon had lost most of its fleets to the Federation. I thought this was a much better and promising start as compared to war in the pocket where Alfred and his friends were being annoying kids doing annoying things.


The year is UC 0083 and the legendary one year war had ended. Protagonist Kou Uraki is a federation soldier. He pilots a captured zaku ii in a test for the Powered GM, which is pretty cool in the show until it got destroyed pretty early.

Powered GM

GP01 Zephyranthes in hanger

GP02 Physalis 

Like always, any base with the latest mobile suit prototypes have extremely poor security measures. Gato and other zeon remnants hijacked the base and made away with the gp02 which coincidentally happens to be light grey/ brownish compared to the usual gundam white.

Gp02 hijacked.

This is followed by kou taking gp01 and attempting to retrieve the stolen gp02.

Of course, this being episode1, Gato wins and the base got destroyed.

The Federation sends a battleship and gp01 to chase after the zeon remnants and battles ensued as Gato tries to bring his gp02 into space.

There was a particularly interesting scene where a Zeon dom fights a zaku that was captured by the Feds.

GP01 fights with Gp02 in an awesome battle. Kou survives with sheer plot armour.

Kou was also ostracized by other pilots, and had to battle one of them to show that he is worthy of being a gundam pilot.

 Gp01 vs powered GM.

As the battlefield is shifted to space, Kou gets his gp01 critically damaged as it was not fitted for space operations. While the Gp01 was being upgraded by Anaheim Electronics, Kou becomes pretty miserable and whinny, and he meets the warrior of Von Braun.

The warrior of Von Braun.

He is a former zeon soldier who has lost left his arm. Thinking that he could still contribute to the last strike of zeon, he secretly builds the Val Varo, a mobile armour. Kou, being borderline retarded, helps in the construction as well. Seriously, Kou could not tell he was helping to build a zeon ma?

When the battleship was about to leave Von Braun, it was attacked by Val Varo. Kou sorties in his upgraded GP01 FB, and was actually surprised to see the mobile armour attacking them.

Nina interferes and got hit by the MA, she survives due to overwhelming plot armour.

Gp01 Fb trapped by Val Varo.

Kou manages to pull off a impulse style attack and finishes off the MA.

The epic battle finally starts as the federation faces the zeon remnants. Gato Anavel manages to sneak pass a fair amount of the Fed's forces and fires Gp02's atomic bazooka. 

Gp02 fires its atomic bazooka.

This wiped out or disabled two thirds of the fed's forces. Kou arrives and the 2 gundams fight again. With the full burnier upgrade, Kou was finally able to match up to the Gp02.

Both gundams were destroyed in the battle.

Not long after, the gundam with the craziest High grade model appears.

The Dendrobuim

As in turns out, the zeon remnants have a diabolical plan, which sadly still involves dropping a colony on earth.

Kou, Gato and Nina had a faceoff at the dropping colony and it turns out that Nina purpleton was Gato's former girlfriend before meeting Kou. 

Neue Ziel vs the Dendrobium

Without spoiling the ending, the series finishes with the creation of the Titans, who are the main antagonists in

Zeta gundam. 

Story wise, i think this ova is somewhat cliched in terms of the gundam universe. Gundam hijack, colony dropping among others, are plot lines used several times. However the execution of the plots is very good and makes me want to know what happens next. I had already watched zeta gundam before this ova,  so i know *spoiler* that whatever plans the zeon remnants have will fail. Despite this the ova still interests me and kept my attention throughout the 13 episodes. Also, Haman Karn appears as a cameo in the ova, which really made my day. The creation of the Titans at the end also bridges the first mobile suit gundam and zeta gundam really well.

Character wise, i do not like the main character Kou. He is a pretty whinny main character, though less so than amuro ray in UC. It is good that he is does not exhibits superhuman newtype abilities, as that will reduce the realistic effect in the ova.

 Nina is also annoying at times, and interferes in battles unnecessarily. 

Gato Anavel is cool at first, but it is clear as the ova progresses that he is rather similar to Char Aznable.

Battle scenes are done extremely well in the ova, especially for an anime first released in 1991. No reused footages like gundam wing. The appearance of the dendrobium is epic.

Conclusion:

A well though out anime that successful bridges the timeline between the one year war and the Grpys conflict. While not without its fair share of faults, i enjoyed the ova very much.

Goods:

1. Mecha design was excellent, such as the GP02, Gm custom etc.

2. Fluid battle scenes.

3. Explained the origin of the titans in Zeta gundam.

Bads:

1. Kou and nina were rather whinny and annoying at times.

2. Gato spared Kou in more than one occasion, quite inexplicably.

3. The usual gundam jack.

Verdict: 8.0/10 

An excellent ova that fits well into the UC timeline.

When gundams are going to be on the "bad" side, u can tell from its paint job.