Mobile Suite Gundam Cucuruz Doan's Island

 So the latest Gundam movie, based on a single episode of the original season (episode 15 to be precise), was watchable on Gundam Info's YouTube channel.

So of course I delved right in and gave it a watch!

 

Because seeing the classic story in modern day animation, that is definitly worth it! Of course, if you have seen the old episode, you know the plot, but as it is extended to a 1 hour and a half movie, you can imagine the heaps of additional material that has been added.

And it opens with a Zaku II making short work of some GM mobile suits in a visual spectacle.  With the White Base docked in Las Palmas, captain Noa receives orders to clear the path of the closeby island for a fleet carrying the admiral Gopp.  Amuro, Kai and Hayato are send out to scout, but while Kai's Guncannon gets pelted by stones by children, Amuro's Gundam is attacked by the Zaku and falls off a cliff, forcing the other two to retreat.

Amuro wakes up the next morning, meeting Cucuruz Doan, a former Zeon ace who deserted to protect the children, orphans whose parents where killed in the early days of the One Year War.  While helping him out on the land, Amuro nevertheless keeps looking for his Gundam.  M`Quve threatens in the meantime to nuke several cities if Gopp doesn`t stop his advance on Gibraltar, and orders troops to the island to restore the missile base.

Amuro finds his Gundam in a deserted Zeon base, where he also learns Doan has been coming every night.  White Base launches a rescue for Amuro led by Sleggar Law and Sayla Mass, but they encounter the elite Zeon team who take out Kai and Hayato's Guncannons and heavily damage Law and Mass's suit and corebooster.  Doan boards his Zaku to confront his former teammates, taking some of them out.  In the base, two others try to activate the nuclear weapons, but Amuro takes them quickly down in his Gundam.  The missiles launch though, but harmlessly self destruct, revealing Doan had been sabotaging them all this time.

Doan lays down his burden of war as the Gundam throws the Zaku of a cliff, and cheered on by the children he takes his leave, rejoining the White Base to go to Belfast for the next operation.  Doan looks on approving, glad that for him the war is finally over...

Okay, so this was a great movie, with vibrant action scenes.  The original episode has been extended without feeling so, great work, and the updated animation still "feels" like the old one, drawn in the same style but better, hard to explain honestly so well worth to check it out yourself!