This 90-minute anime is about the final duel between the Federation and the Neo-Zeon armies in UC0093. On a personal account, it is also the final battle staged between Amuro Ray who piloted the famous RX-78-2 Gundam during the One Year War and Char Aznable, the Red Comet. And, finally, Char don’t have to wear a mask anymore like he did in the original Gundam series, or a sunglass which he uses to disguise himself as Quattro Bagina in the Zeta series. Char finally achieves his political goal by becoming the leader of the Neo-Zeon, while Amuro Ray becomes the spearhead of the special task force called Londo Bell, which is formed to counter the threat of the Neo-Zeon.
Nice to see Amuro back in action again after some brief appearance in the Zeta series
Char is not wearing mask anymore, but why is his pilot suit in yellow not red?
Char tries to drop asteroids onto Earth, so that human beings living on it will be forced to move to space colonies, and Earth can once more be free of pollution and human occupation. At the same time, human race can evolved to the next level: Newtypes. Such ideology is not new to Gundam fans who are familiar with Char. His idea of human beings’ souls being pulled down by the gravity of Earth, and the only hope is to move to outer space where the human race can receive their Illuminations and becomes Newtypes like Amuro, Kamille Bidan of the Zeta series, or even Char himself. As a matter of fact, Char managed to drop an asteroids named the Fifth Luna onto the city of Lhasa in Tibet, destroying the headquarter of the Earth Federation situated there.
Char’s cunningness and perhaps the evil within him prove too much for Amuro Ray and co, as they continue to be outsmarted by Char in almost all battles. The flagship of the Londo Bell is the Ra Cailum, with Bright Noa as the captain. It’s such a pity to see that Char, Amuro and Bright Noa who once fought together against the Titans in the Zeta series now becomes enemies. Nevertheless, Char is such an intriguing character, who always seeks to hold true to his own vision for the human race to advance. After seeing the arrogance of people on Earth not recognizing their fault and continue to have discrimination and animosity against the Spacenoids, Char decided that he will not wait for the long and slow evolution to take place, and he would use his own power to forge the destiny of the human race.
The crew of Ra Cailum, sitting in the middle at the back is Captain Bright Noa
On the other hand, his arch-rival Amuro Ray tries all his best to save Earth from entering a period of Nuclear Winter due to all the asteroids being dropped. He picks up a brand new Gundam, the Nu Gundam from Anaheims Electronics which features six powerful funnels to counter Char’s crimson Sazabi. The Nu Gundam seems to have some sort of connection with Sazabi, as both incorporate the a mysterious material called psycho-frame in the cockpit, that relay not only the pilot’s thoughts but emotions as well to the MS, which allows almost perfect human-like reflexes. The psycho-frame’s effect also makes the MS to have some sort of ability to think on its’ own in some cases, make response without waiting for the pilot’s command, which sounds quite frightening.
Nice to get a glimpse on how Nu Gundam is constructed
When the cockpit is in the head, and the head is so big, you’ll get the picture of the size of Sazabi
The MG version of Sazabi gave the big guy bigger shoulder armors and a more ‘pointy’ chest armor
I always find the launching sequence of Sazabi to be very exciting, amidst all the battle sequences
Also joining the battle are Gyunei Guss and Quess Paraya piloting their respective Jagd Doga, which also incorporate funnel system. Gyunei is a Cyber-Newtype, aka artificial Newtypes who always tries to prove his worth by acting over his head in the battle field. Quess on the other hand, is a natural Newtype who has a crush on Char, and being emotionally unstable in MS combat, since she is not originally a soldier. Char sees the opportunity well, and use her ability as a Newtype to fight against the Londo Bell well. Eventually Quess becomes the pilot for the ultimate MA Alpha Azieru which lay waste to many of the Londo Bell MS troops.
Meet Quess Paraya, a strange girl with a strange name. The hair color doesn’t look normal to me either
As compared to Stardust Memory with tons of MAs, we only get one in Char’s Counterattack – Alpha Azieru assigned to Quess Paraya
On the other hand, the Londo Bell seems to be depending a lot on Amuro Ray and his Nu Gundam. They lost a few good pilots like Kayla Su piloting the ReGZ in an early battle, and Chief Mechanic Astonage from the Zeta and ZZ series is also killed in this movie. Nonetheless, Amuro’s amazing skill as a MS pilot allows him to outmatch all the Neo-Zeon forces, including Gyunei Guss, and eventually leading to the final duel between him and Char.
The complete version of Nu – the six funnels are attached to the backpack
The funnels form a beam capony to protect Nu Gundam. Now that’s awesome
The climax of the movie is when Char tries to launch the asteroid Axis, which used to be the stronghold of the Haman Kahn’s Axis before she was defeated by the AEUG. The dropping of Axis onto Earth will definitely cripple the Earth’s ecology, massacring millions of people. Bright Noa’s fleet launches nuclear assault to break the asteroid, but all his nuclear missiles didn’t make it pass Sazabi’s funnels. Amuro meets Char and have their long awaited duel. Bright Noa decides to take the chance to go off his ship with his crew to plant explosives on Axis to break it up at the last minute. His plan eventually backfires when he realizes that one half of Axis detonated is heading straight for Earth.
Amuro is running out of energy for his beam saber!
At the moment only HCM Pro Sazabi is able to mimic that kick. MG? No way!
Sazabi lost his left arm
Come on pal, I saw you hid a card just now. Give it up!
Amuro, who gets the better of Char in the duel rushes to the asteroid to push it back using the Nu Gundam’s verniers. The captured Char in Sazabi’s cockpit pod starts to lecture him on his stupidity. Amazingly, many EFSF and Zeon MSs come to help to hold off the asteroids, but most of them are destroyed during atmospheric re-entry. As Char reminds Amuro about the lost of Lalah Sun during the One Year War, the psycho-frame of Nu Gundam overloads and the combined psychic power of Amuro and the psycho-frame pushes Axis of its course, creating a very beautiful wave-like light rays, while both Amuro and Char has vanish.
As Nu Gundam tries desperately to push the asteroid Axis off Earth's gravity pull...
...many Geara Dogas from the Neo-Zeon army start to help out as well
The light of the psycho-frame can be said as the will-power of Amuro and Char
Can anyone think of a better way to finish the story between Amro and Char?
So, what really happened to Amuro and Char in the end? Perhaps nobody will know. However, that’s quite an intelligent way to finish the fuel between the two ace pilots. I mean, you can’t let Amuro kills Char and live on. All the fans of Char will probably tear down Sunrise and Bandai :-) and the same goes for Amuro as well. The emotional part of Char’s Counterattack is pretty interesting. It seems like the personal issue between Amuro and Char is still regarding the death of Lalah Sun during the One Year War. That’s like 14 years of hatred because of a girl! There’re many other interesting characters as well, Quess is one strange character, and the three way love-hate relationship between her, Char and Hathaway, Bright Noa’s son is quite an intriguing one as well. Hard-headed Cyber Newtype Gyunei Guss is pretty cool, though you might not like him anymore after a while.
Hathaway tries to get through to Quess with his stolen Jegan
A very persistent Gyunei in his blue Jagd Doga. After a while you’ll find his persistence to be annoyingly insistent
In terms of MS design, Char’s Counterattack has some of the best MS design in all Gundam anime. Mecha such as Sazabi, Nu Gundam, ReGZ and Jagd Doga has been around for quite some time, and they are still among the favorite designs of all. My personal favorite is the crimson Sazabi. Look brilliant in the movie, with many flexible close-combat actions, which are pretty close to martial art fight. How I wish my MG Sazabi can have that sort of actions as well. The basic unit for Londo Bell is the Jegan, which is a very distance relative of the GM; for the Neo Zeon, they have Geara Doga, which still maintain the spiked shoulder armor design resembling that of their ancestors, Zaku IIs. There’s one customized blue Geara Doga belonged to the very aggressive female pilot Rezin Schnyder, whom reminds me of Cima Garahau in Stardust Memory.
Not a real transforming MS, the ReGZ’s backpack increases the MS’s mobility while adding a bit more firepower
Without the Backpack Weapon System (BWS), ReGZ seems a bit plain to me
Nevertheless, Amuro fences off Char’s Sazabi with ReGZ before upgrading to Nu Gundam
How many star out of five to be given to Char’s Counterattack? Definitely five from me. As a matter of fact, this movie is so good; it makes me wonder what went wrong with Sunrise’s design of the Gundam anime after Char’s Counterattack. Gundam F91, Crossbone Gundam and V Gundam may have their own originality, but their storyline and MS design are no where near the standard of this movie. Not only the Gundam and other MSs become smaller, those stories seem to be relying on the many number of Gundams appearing in a single anime to win the hearts of the fans. Too bad, I guess.
Anyway, the bottom line is, you’ve got to check Char’s Counterattack out!
