Mobile Suit Gundam, Part 2
Episodes 13, 20, 32
“War is sweet to those who have not experienced it”
-Anonymous (Latin)
The fight continues in Mobile Suit Gundam, but these episodes go deeper into what the first episodes barely scraped the surface of, and that is how war affects one’s personality and interpersonal relationships.
In Coming Home, we see the loss of focus those involved in a war see as it drags on. The Federation soldiers in Amuro’s Mother’s village have been cut off from most of the conflict, and thus have no distraction from the constant anxiety that war brings to a soldier’s psyche. Instead of funneling their energy to the war effort, the only way to soothe this stress is drinking and bullying the locals. We’ve seen this innumerable times throughout our history, particularly from occupying forces. Thus, if a society must go to war, Mobile Suit Gundam suggests that it should be won as efficiently and quickly as possible, and the integrity of the group’s ideology should not be compromised by its discouraged members. The soldiers we see in this episode are polar opposites to those presented in Episode 8.
Even more important is how this episode relates the relationship of Amuro to his mother. She is mortified to find out her son is involved in combat, to the point where she nearly disowns him. This, along with Mirai’s persistent ex-fiance in Farewell in Side 6 serves to show that a big issue in war is that civilians tend to not truly understand the conflict. Amuro’s mother is not terrified that her child has been coerced into the military, but rather, that he is committing acts of violence, ignoring the fact that there’s a war going on. He even saves her life by shooting the Zeons, but she still bickers with Amuro over it all. Mirai’s fiance does something similar, assuming that he is more important than all of Mirai’s comrades and responsibilities. Civilians can never truly understand how dire the situation is unless they are there, and war tears apart families not only physically, but on all levels.
In Sorrow and Hatred, there is a strong statement made on the futility of war itself. In war, a military unit sees their bonds develop much faster than the friendship of civilians, since they are put into intense and deadly situations so soon after meeting. The bitter irony in this, however, is how quickly these bonds are severed by the veil of death. Ryu puts himself through a lot of pain to get Amuro out of the brig, and he dies to save his life. These bonds were made, only to be broken quickly, because in war, it’s not territories that are taken, but lives. Furthermore, this will be a source of long-term trauma to the main cast, because they all took turns blaming themselves for Ryu’s death. Survivor’s guilt and a feeling of responsibility can cause problems throughout the series, or throughout life, as they did to Akiyuki Nosaka.
I didn’t think about the message of futility of war but I reallya agree that these soldier who are always in mortal danger form quick and deep bonds that are usually ended tragically by the death of one part.
