Anime Review: Gundam F91

Review Gundam F91 Written by Warpshadow Rating good

As great as the Gundam universe is for offering quality anime not all of it is that great. Even with a famous Director and a high animation budget something with a shoehorned plot can fall flat.

It has been thirty years since Char Aznable tried to make the earth uninhabitable but failed. However if there is one constant in the Gundam universe it is that peace is never permanent. This time the name of the enemy is the cross bone vanguard who work for the aristocratic Ronah family. The movie opens with an attack on the frontier four colony. Seabook, an engineering student is caught in the crossfire along with his friends. One of these friends is special because she is actually the heir to the Ronah family.

I heard a rumor that Gundam F91 was originally supposed to be a thirteen episode Oav. If it was made that way it could have been a quality show but the movie version is a mess. Namely imagine trying to cram a thirteen episode series into two hours and you get something like this. The story is horribly rushed and several story threads feel unexplored. Even with all these serious handicaps there is some good points to the movie, most notably the animation. The characters also show remarkable verisimilitude given the sizable cast. This movie is something that I could only recommend to hard core Gundam fans and they would probably see it regardless of what I said.