In contrary to SEED everyone is so familiar with, or UC0083: Stardust Memory reviewed in my blog quite some time ago, Gundam F91 is a movie released in the early 90s, not a series. Unlike the development of Gundam anime now, where the different timelines, such as CE in SEED, AW in Gundam X, AC in Gundam Wing and FC in G Gundam are used for different series, Gundam F91 is set in the Universal Century, just as any other Gundam anime before it. Back then, it was even perceived that no alternate timeline can be designed for Gundam.
Seabook Arno - the "Amuro Ray" or "Kira Yamato" if you will, of this story
The story of Gundam F91 is set in UC0123, some 20 years after Char Aznable’s Neo-Zeon War. Peace seems to settle in for the Earth Sphere, as the residents on a space colony are shown having a festival. Some of the characters in the anime, such as Seabook Arno and Cecily Fairchild, are being introduced during the scene of a beauty pageant. In the middle of the fun, some Crossbone Vanguard MSs infiltrated the colony and start attacking the Earth Federation MSs defending there. The Earth Federation proves too weak against the agile enemy MSs, as they are being defeated one by one.
The Feddie’s MS are just useless machines. How did they maintain control of the Earth Sphere all this time? I wonder
Crossbone's Den'an Zon. Look! My goggles can double as torches! Cool!
Seabook's friends, with a few surviving kids saved from the war
Seabook and his friends start to escape, and they are shown the atrocity of war with so many death and destruction taking place in their place. They rescued a few children on the way and head for an escape pod in the space wharf. As for Cecily Fairchild, her father reviews himself as being under the command of the Crossbone, and presents Cecily to her rightful family, the Ronahs who runs the Crossbone. She is being taken to her father, Carozzo Ronah who always wears an iron mask (in fact, it is an iron helmet which covers his entire head) and her grandfather. The Ronah family’s justification to overthrow the Earth Federation’s rule on that colony is again the old topic used in the previous anime: corruption of the Earth Federation, animosity of the people, pollution happening on Earth, etc. Cecily’s grandfather wishes to build a peaceful world, starting from the space colony recently captured which he calls Cosmo Babylon.
Carozzo’s mask/helmet is so huge he almost looks like a machine
Like father like son? I guess not!
On the other hand, Seabook and co escapes to a training ship called the Space Ark, which carries Gundam F91 intended for field testing. However, the engineer could not understand the circuit that runs the MS, as the bio-computer system is just too sophisticated. Much to Seabook’s surprise, F91 is developed by his mother, Monica. When F91 is being shown to Seabook’s young sister, she figures out that the circuit follows the rope game she used to play with her mother. Finally, with the discovered theories, Gundam F91’s final development is complete. Since no other pilot is available, and the family ties with the developer, Seabook becomes the pilot of the Gundam.
Gundam F91’s design is exceptionally good, amidst so many weird looking MSs
This is Seabook’s mom, Monica Arno, the developer of Gundam F91
The crew on board the Space Ark. Only the one on the far left is a guy, well, just in case you would like to know
The F91 is immediately being deployed, fighting against the Crossbone MSs. Its advanced equipments, such as beam shield, VSBR (Variable Speed Beam Rifle), as well as its smaller size made the Gundam incredibly agile and powerful. The bio-computer system helps Seabook to perceive the enemies’ movement better. In one sortie, Seabook fights against Cecily, and almost destroys her. After reuniting with Seabook, Cecily defects to the Space Ark, and start fighting against the Crossbone instead, particularly her father Carozzo. The Iron Mask seems to have an evil plot to realize the so-called ‘better world’. The plot is finally revealed when unmanned weapons called Bugs are being deployed into the colony. The bugs are flying discs capable to detect human presence in the colony and kill them, making the structure of the colony perfectly intact while the entire population dead. The plan is kept in secrecy from the rest of the Crossbone, who are sure to go against the plan. Anyway, the massacre starts and Gundam F91 with Cecily’s Vigna Ghina fight desperately against the killing machines.
Cecily Fairchild’s MS – Vigna Ghina. The name of the MS was never mentioned anywhere in the anime
The Vigna Ghina’s near whitish paint scheme is the reason why her alliance with F91 doesn’t look so dodgy
Stay away from me, I warn you. I hate bug!
The war goes to space, where the two face the ultimate foe of the Crossbone: the MA Rafflesia piloted by Carozzo. The MA takes the shape of the giant flower Rafflesia, with weapons being controlled via a psychomu system connected directly to Carozzo’s iron helmet. The Rafflesia destroys Cecily’s Vigna Ghina, and she is being thrown to space. Seabook fights on, and the lighting moving of F91 creates after images which confuses the MA. When F91 moves closely to the cockpit, the beam weapons fire at the after images near the cockpit and destroys the entire MA. In the end, Seabook uses the F91’s bio-computer to locate Cecily. The ending is the very lovely embracing scene between the two lovers.
This is probably what you will get when you cross breed a Rafflesia and an octopus
Yes! Now I’m on God-mode!
Well, who ask the Crossbone to design the cockpit to be so exposed in the first place?
Well, that’s it. The whole movie stops there, and leaves many questions and confusion unresolved. Don’t get me wrong, the quality of the animation is superb, and every scene is original. No repeated scene is used, which made SEED Destiny looks so lame with so many repeated scenes. The fight scenes are pretty cool as well, particularly the final combat between F91 and Rafflesia. However, the storyline is just too weak, and it seems like the animator or the script writer supposed everyone who watches the movie will understand immediately what’s going on without much explanation needed. For example, in the case of Annamarie, one of the Crossbone’s commander who defects to the Space Ark. The reason of her defection is never explained, and it’s funnier to see that the crew of the Space Ark accepts her without any question at all. More over, they let her MS to re-supply on the ship and send her out for combat in no time. How naïve and kind, I thought.
Annamarie should stay with the Crossbone. Really, she died five minutes after defecting to the Space Ark. Walau!
On a personal note, I truly think that the Crossbone’s MS design is horrible. They look like… ghosts! Especially the grunt units Den’an Zon and Den’an Gei deployed in the first operation to take over the colony. Thanks to them, Zakus and GINNs look great to me now. Plus, who gave them those names in the first place? They are so hard to remember, even the Croosbone don’t seem to like to pronounce those names. The bridge crew or operators just go, “Launch, Annamarie’s forces…”, or “Zabine’s troops, roger!” instead of “Launch, Annamarie’s… err… let me check the name… … ah yes, Annamaries’s Dahgi Iris” or “Zabine’s Berga… err … Gemos, oh no, Gino, no no, Giros, yes yes Berga Giros, roger! … What?! He crashes into the hanger?!”
Hellish!
Den'an Gei. The bad guy’s design just gets uglier by each series.
Not only his MS’s name is annoying, his full name is pretty hard to pronounce as well: the pirate-like Zabine Chareux
Also, why must there be a masked character in each Gundam anime? Characters like Char Aznable, Zack Maquise, Raw Le Cruze, Neo Lornock, and Carrozo Ronah all wear mask. And all of them started off being the bad guys (some are bad to the end)! Wearing a mask seems to be a tradition now for Gundam anime :-)
Another important note is the size of the MSs. It is imperative to know that as the anime follows the chronicle of the Universal Century timeline, technological advancement of the MSs is definitely moving forward. MSs are smaller now (16 meters tall) in contrary to the ones in the past which are much taller (18 meters) and bulkier. Everyone is carrying beam weapons now, and F91 is the first anime featuring beam shield as well. The size of MSs may not be a problem on screen, but in terms of models, that means a lot. When models are developed smaller, the design of details and action becomes much harder, as parts of the models become smaller and delicate. Bandai finally achieved the peak of molding technology when they are able to incorporate PG level of inner frame and playability into a model which is close to an average 1-144 scale one, and branded it as MG. You can probably see why Bandai gives so much emphasis to the release of MG F91 now.
Seabook finally reunites with Cecily in the end
"This is the beginning" A beginning to what?
The ending is pretty beautiful, but showing Seabook spending 10 minutes in F91’s cockpit focusing hard to find his girlfriend is a bit too much, I think, when the anime seems to be rushing all the time to get there. Again, like what I said earlier on, there are so many things lack explanation in the ending, for example, what happens to the Crossbone now that Carrozo is dead? What about the Earth Federation? Since the Crossbone’s threat is real, are they going to retake the colony? What happens to the Space Ark after the war? And Seabook? F91? If you intend to watch this anime, get ready to ask more questions instead of more understanding about the Universal Century after Amuro Ray and Char Aznable.
