Mobile Suit Gundam Narrative

Mobile Suit Gundam Narrative (機動戦士ガンダムNT) is a theatrical movie set in the Universal Century and tells the story in the final Gundam Unicorn novel by Fukui Hirutoshi.  The film premiered in 2018.

    Three young children shared a vision of the impending colony drop in Australia at the height of the One Year War.  Eighteen years later two of them, Michele and Jona, are going to unbelievable ends to find their lost third friend Rita.  After news of their miraculous vision and recent orphan status, they found themselves caught up in the secretive earl stages of  cyber-Newtype experiments.  The lab was unable to confirm which of them had Newtype powers an which didn't.  Michele overheard the quandary and betrayed her friends to escape, telling them she was the Newtype.  This bought her freedom from the lab and into the arms of the powerful Luio & Company where she was made an heir apparent given her value in predicting the future.  Jona and Rita were subjected to all manner of horrific experiments, with Jona finding freedom when the lab was finally shut down.  Rita's whereabouts remained hidden for years.  Eventually Jona joins Luio & Company, reunited with Michele.

    A year after the events of Gundam Unicorn, the search is on for the third Gundam produced in the project, the Phenex.  Michele and Jona suspect that its disappearance has something to do with Rita and flex Liuo & Companies power by forcing the Federation join them in the hunt for the mobile suit.  They aren't the only ones looking for it however.  A splinter group within Neo Zeon is on the hunt for it as well as Minevah Zabi and past members of the Sleeves.  The search leads to a confrontation between the Federation and Neo Zeon and a failed Char clone named Zoltan.  The confrontation was planned to draw out the Phenex which has been able to elude capture.  As Jona looses himself to his own Gundam, his friend Rita, through the Phenex calls to him, urging him to resist losing himself.  Instead they face off against an increasingly vengeful Zoltan, working to prevent another catastrophe on Earth.

    The final chapter in the Unicorn arc of the Universal Century was both better and worse the Unicorn Gundam.  The characters were more approachable, and the story was more fluid even with its vastly shorter time frame.  The Char clone in this one seemed way more purposeful and important to the story than Full Frontal.  While the piece meal flash backs were tiring the pacing wasn't bad.  It was nice to have a legit mature main character in Jona, compared to the line of pubescent wunderkind we've mostly encountered thus far in the UC.  His motivations and baggage made sense and felt natural.

    As a integral part of the Universal Century story line this plays out more like a side story than a conclusion to the Unicorn story line.  It doesn't really get us any closer to advancing the 'narrative' than Unicorn did.  We know have this larger gap in the timeline between Unicorn and Hathaway where not a lot of meaningful events take place leading up to that recent entry into the UC.  I am sure that when I get around to watching F91, which is even further removed in the timeline things will become even more disjointed.  But, I have this desire to watch everything in the UC to form a greater understanding of this integral part of Japanese sci-fi.

The movie is available on Crunchyroll.