GundamReviews

Gundam Ep. 13: Coming Home

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Summary

The White Base stops for some shore leave, and Hayato and Ryu practice martial arts. Mirai and Sayla sun themselves by the water and enjoy natural sunlight. Kai asks where Amuro went off to, and they explain that his mother Kamaria lives in a nearby town. Kai assumes that because of that Amuro is one of the Earth-born elite. Amuro arrives at his house and is shocked to find a bunch of drunken EFF soldiers inside. He asks about Kamaria, and the soldiers say that the house was empty when they found it. He has a flashback of his father Tem taking him into space because Kamaria didn’t want to go. He goes outside and sees two other soldiers harassing an old lady who sells apples. He attacks one of them, but the two start beating him up. The old lady recognizes Amuro and remembers that he used to play with her daughter. She gives the soldiers back their money and asks them to leave. Amuro talks to the old lady, and she tells him that her husband and daughter are dead. Amuro is sad to hear that his old friend is dead and wonders where his mother is. The old lady tells him that Kamaria is volunteering in a refugee camp. The White Base detects two Lugguns approaching, and Ryu is sent out in the Core Fighter to destroy them. He manages to destroy one, but he’s forced to chase the other. Amuro lands his Core Fighter at the refugee camp and is told by the people there to hide it because the Zeon patrol the camp daily. He sees Kamaria, and the two embrace. Amuro then hides the Core Fighter and lies down on a bed in the infirmary to disguise himself. He tells his mother the story of what happened, and she wonders what happened to Tem. Two Zeon soldiers then pull up in a jeep to begin investigating the refugee camp.

Ryu manages to damage the remaining Luggun, but his fuel tank is also damaged in the process. He calls Bright, and Bright orders Sayla to page Amuro. The Zeon soldiers enter the infirmary and ask if anyone has seen a plane in the area. Amuro’s pager goes off, and the Zeon approach him. Kamaria tries to pass him off as a wounded boy, but they want to have a look. They push her away, and Amuro shoots one of the soldiers from underneath the blanket. The other one runs away in shock, and Amuro shoots at him too. Kamaria asks how he could be so violent, and Amuro notes they are in the middle of a war. She says she didn’t raise him to be a killer, and he thinks she doesn’t love him. Kamaria is ashamed to call him her son, and he asks if she’d rather the Zeon had shot him instead. He runs off in anger and takes off in the Core Fighter. He follows the Luggun back to a small Zeon air base. The Luggun crashes before landing, and Amuro begins a berserker attack on the base. Dopps begin to attack him, and he receives a call from Kai in the Gunperry. Kai has the other two parts of the Gundam, and Amuro performs a risky midair docking. He then goes into a killing frenzy and destroys the base. The White Base arrives, and Bright is mad that Amuro wasted resources in attacking a strategically pointless enemy base. Kamaria asks Amuro to stay with her, but he says he can’t because he finally feels he belongs somewhere in his life. Bright explains to her that Amuro has saved their lives many times and fought bravely. Amuro says goodbye to his mother and returns to the ship with Bright and Fraw. As the White Base takes off, Kamaria breaks down in tears.

Commentary

Instead of having Char or Ramba attack the ship, we instead get a character development episode for Amuro. This episode also appears in movie 1, but it was moved to take place before episode 12. It makes sense because 12 is a great episode to end the movie at. We’ve seen in past episodes that not all Zeon soldiers are evil, and here we see that not all EFF soldiers are necessarily good. The ones we see here are probably worse than the Zeon, because they have wild parties and harass defenseless civilians. We also see that though Amuro has matured as a pilot, he’s still a kid. His wild Zeon killing spree is a temper tantrum in response to his argument with his mother. However, if there’s one universal constant in Gundam, it is that war forces people to grow up quickly.

Overall Rating
4/5

Mobile Suit Gundam Info

Director(s):
Yoshiyuki Tomino
Ryoji Fujiwara (movie 1)

Writer(s):
Yoshiyuki Tomino
Masaru Yamamoto
Kenichi Matsuzaki
Yoshihisa Araki
Hiroyuki Hoshiyama

Mechanical Designer(s):
Kunio Okawara
Yoshiyuki Tomino

Character Designer:
Yoshikazu Yasuhiko

Musical Composer(s):
Yuji Matsuyama
Takeo Watanabe

Format:
43 episodes; 3 compilation movies

Airdates:
Japan 04.07.1979 – 01.26.1980
U.S. 07.23.2001 – 09.12.2001

Theatrical Release:
Japan 03.14.1981 – 03.13.1982

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