Mobile Suit Gundam MS IGLOO (series 1) is a six episode OVA animated entirely with CGI. It follows a team of Zeon soldiers during the one year war whose assignment is to test experimental prototype weaponry against the Federation. Each episode introduces a new weapon and often a new operator. The series gives us a fairly detached bird’s-eye-view of the one year war from the Zeon perspective and a glimpse at some of its less influential and successful engineering experiments.
I usually stay well away from anything done with computer generated graphics, both because the quality is so far below cell animation and because all CGI productions somehow seem to always be the bottom of the barrel in terms of story telling. I’d known about ‘IGLOO for some time and had ignored it until I read a post at The Animanachronism that caught my eye. It was the format – six interconnected yet separate episodes – and the subject matter – experimental weapons testing during the one year war – that pushed me to give MS IGLOO a chance.
Although I have yet to cross paths with the computer animation that can compete with the old pencil and paint style, ‘IGLOO is about as good as it gets. Facial expressions don’t appear entirely unhuman, the physics of mobile suit movement are convincing and explosions look great. I suppose the days of beautifully perfected cell animation are all but done with anyway, and if I had to choose between this and the flat, cardboard cut-out style used in ‘Seed, I’ll go with this.
The Zeonic prototypes we get to see in action are notable for all being failures in one way or another. They’re either rendered obsolete by the circumstances of the war or are simply poorly conceived, impractical constructions. It was interesting seeing these half-baked ideas being put to practice,a change from the usual Gundam attitude toward experimental weapons, where the word prototype is apparently a synonym for unstoppable god-machine.
The sheer novelty of some of the designs were enough to keep me watching even if the mobile suit battles weren’t always spectacular.
For me, one of the most attractive features of any Mobile Suit Gundam series is the pseudo science and engineering. Hearing about the weight, thrust or reactor power of a given mobile suit grounds the show in that hard science fiction category and keeps things from getting too G-Gundamish. MS IGLOO carries on this tradition, as we see totally impractical weapons, such as the Mobile Diver System, fail in the face of simple Federation countermeasures.
The major failure of this little series are the painfully melodramatic characters. Any kind of believability or realism in the personalities and actions of the characters seems to have been thrown out the window in favour of caricatures and soap-opera style acting. Mobile Suit Gundam is nothing if not an exaggerated drama, but ‘IGLOO often goes too far.
There are times when the adult military cast of characters have more in common with a pre-school class than soldiers. There’s at least one point in each episode where one or more characters will go on a meaningless emotional tangent dripping with unconvincing angst – usually about such abstract themes as war, death and duty. But none of it seems to fit and it all ends up being a jumbled mass of raw emotions that crop up at seemingly arbitrary points. This was a surprise, considering MS IGLOO was directed by the same man who oversaw Stardust Memory, a fairly serious and adult production by Gundam standards.
But aside from the annoyingly childish characters, MS IGLOO isn’t half bad. Decent animation, some interesting weapons concepts, and a format you don’t need to get invested in. Not a bad deal, especially considering this is the first Universal Century offering since The 08th MS Team.
Agreed. I only enjoyed this using an ‘anti-oreo’ consumption method” I watched the beginning, the end, and completely avoided the filling/filler.
The first episode is good in that Char in his custom Zaku made a fantastic appearance. The final is good because it was another perspective on the massive battle at A Baoa Qu. I guess I’m a sucker for these things.
MS Igloo 2 is much better. I have no qualms of recommending that one to you, especially since you managed to enjoy yourself just fine with this one.
I don’t think I’ve ever found anyone who’s really been impressed by Igloo’s characters. Given that its intended audience must presumably be people who are already fans, that’s probably a fault that’s easily forgiven.
Anyway, as you say, there’re some really fun designs. The Mobile Diver is a favourite of mine, because it has a very slightly comic, extreme sports-y edge to it. I wonder if the idea of treating the Earth’s atmosphere like an ocean is the sort of thing that spacenoids would naturally come up with?
Like Ghostlightning I liked Char’s brief appearance in the first battle (some fans complain that it’s not exactly as the battle’s described in other media, but it’s useless to get hooked up on canon issues). Another thing I liked about that first battle is that it has echoes of the replacement of battleships with very large guns by carriers armed with aeroplanes during WW2. The giant cannon that is tested in the first episode is a kind of ultimate extrapolation of the out-dated space battleship design philosophy.
ghostlightning: I’m definitely going to check out IGLOO 2 when all the episodes are out. According to wikipedia the third is due in April, so at least I won’t have to wait too long. I’m trying to keep my hopes at a reasonable level though, as one of the reasons I think I moderately enjoyed IGLOO was because I wasn’t expecting much.
The Animanachronism: Yeah that giant laser definitely brought the Yamato to mind (the original, not the space battleship). I would have loved it if, instead of a static long range cannon, it was a huge battleship bristling with big guns that got put down by mobile suits before it had a chance for glory.