An anime film directed by Toshikazu Yoshizawa

Mobile Suit Gundam Narrative is one of those movies I probably should have seen a long time ago – especially considering it scored a Western theatrical release. However, for a while, it just wasn’t that easy to access, and its limited availability kept it off my radar until it finally popped up on streaming platforms. Back in 2018, I wasn’t hitting the theaters much anyway, and the film’s lukewarm reception didn’t exactly motivate me to hunt down a copy through grey market bootleggers or fansub groups. This past week, while browsing Crunchyroll, I figured, “Why not?” and finally gave it a shot. So the question is: was I right to pass on this one, or did I sleep on an overlooked gem? Directed by Shun’ichi Yoshizawa and written by Harutoshi Fukui, the film centers on three childhood friends – Jona Basta, Michele Luio, and Rita Bernal – and the reappearance of the RX-0 Unicorn Gundam 03 Phenex, a powerful and mysterious mobile suit that has gone rogue.

“U.C. 0097, one year after the opening of “Laplace’s Box.” Despite the revelation of the Universal Century Charter that acknowledges the existence and rights of Newtypes, the framework of the world has not been greatly altered. The conflict later dubbed the “Laplace Incident” is thought to have ended with the downfall of the Neo Zeon remnants known as the Sleeves. In its final battle, two full psycho-frame mobile suits displayed power beyond human understanding. The white unicorn and the black lion were sealed away to remove this danger from people’s consciousness, and they should now be completely forgotten. However, the RX-0 Unicorn Gundam 03, which disappeared two years earlier, is now about to show itself in the Earth Sphere once more. A golden phoenix… named Phenex.”

As one might expect, Mobile Suit Gundam Narrative essentially functions as a feature-length bonus episode of the Gundam Unicorn OVA. If I’m not mistaken, it’s adapted from the eleventh book in the Gundam Unicorn light novel series and shares a significant amount of crossover with its predecessor. Because of that, the film doesn’t really stand on its own. For new viewers, the opening moments can be downright bewildering, as the film assumes at least a passing familiarity with major pieces of Gundam lore – including the original Mobile Suit Gundam, Zeta Gundam, and Unicorn. Without that background, much of the plot comes across as obtuse and disjointed.

A perfect example of this comes in the film’s opening minutes: a flashback to the infamous “colony drop” that triggered the One Year War in Universal Century year 0079. It’s a harrowing sequence that truly illustrates the catastrophic destruction of such a heinous act. We’re also introduced to the three principal characters, Rita Bernal, Michelle Luio, and Jona Basta, children who are dubbed the “Miracle Children” for having a vision of the event before it occurred, allowing them to save many people in their town.

But instead of expanding on that moment, the film quickly jumps forward to their time as war orphans, now under the custody of the authoritarian Titans regime, which rose to power following the war. Here, Rita is framed as the “true Newtype” of the trio, and she begins speaking in cryptic, vaguely spiritual terms about souls and the afterlife. And then, with barely a pause, the movie jumps again – this time to UC 0097 (almost two decades later) – where Michelle is now working as a kind of corporate mystic or psychic consultant for her family’s powerful conglomerate, Luio & Co., as she prepares for a mysterious mission. All of that – three separate vignettes spanning nearly 20 years – happens within the first four minutes of the movie, with little in the way of coherent connective tissue to help the viewer make sense of it.

This brings me to the second major shortcoming of Mobile Suit Gundam Narrative: its general lack of character depth. None of the so-called “Miracle Children” are particularly fleshed out. Jona comes across as a man crippled by his past, now serving as a reluctant mobile suit pilot for Luio & Co. His mission is to recover the RX-0 Unicorn Gundam 03 Phenex, a previously unknown third unit in the Unicorn series that mysteriously “went rogue” years earlier. It’s heavily implied that Rita is somehow still trapped inside the Phenex, piloting it in some strange fusion of body and spirit. Jona, unfortunately, ends up feeling like a rehash of Shinji Ikari from Neon Genesis Evangelion – impulsive, emotionally volatile, self-loathing, and seemingly nursing a death wish. Rita, meanwhile, is essentially a non-character in UC 0097. She is the Phenex at this point, only appearing in fragmented flashbacks. Of the three, she is the most sympathetic, but we don’t spend enough time with her to build a real connection.

Michelle, on the other hand, has become cold, calculating, and morally compromised. Shaped by years of abuse and manipulation under the Titans, she narrowly avoided the same experimentation that doomed Rita. Now she uses Jona as a pawn to achieve her own ends, driven by a mixture of guilt, ambition, and self-preservation. If Narrative had been a full OVA or TV series like Unicorn, there might have been enough space to explore the motivations and inner lives of these characters. As it stands, they’re underdeveloped – especially considering the emotional weight the story tries to hang on them.

On the antagonist side of things, we’re introduced to a remnant faction of the Sleeves, a Neo-Zeon splinter group carried over from Gundam Unicorn, now led by Zoltan Akkanen. We’re told he was a failed “Char Clone,” discarded in favor of Full Frontal, the primary antagonist of Unicorn. This version of the Sleeves marks yet another attempt to revive Zeon independence following the failures of Neo-Zeon and the original Sleeves faction. Zoltan, frankly, breaks no new ground. He’s a rejected imitation of a more competent villain, with a second-hand mobile suit cobbled together from leftover parts and a dwindling army of fanatics at his command. He’s cartoonishly unstable, almost laughably so, and is consumed by an inferiority complex. His ultimate goal? Drop more colonies on Earth in a desperate attempt to succeed where Char failed. At this point, it’s a tired trope. The “Char Clone” character archetype is well-trodden, and Zoltan brings nothing fresh to the role – he’s just another iteration of the same recycled ideology and failed plans.

His inclusion is emblematic of a broader issue with the current state of Universal Century (UC) Gundam: the franchise’s persistent inability to move on from the One Year War and its immediate aftermath. It’s like when Star Wars: The Force Awakens trotted out yet another Death Star – redundant and uninspired. What UC Gundam needs more than anything is new ground to cover. Personally, I’d love to see more stories set around the time of Victory Gundam or even beyond that timeline. It’s long past time to leave behind the shadow of Char and Amuro.

I don’t want to just attack Mobile Suit Gundam Narrative, because it’s not all bad. In fact, I wouldn’t even categorize it as a bad piece of Gundam media, it’s just sort of there…. it’s merely okay. So what did the film do well? Visually, this is a very ambitious entry in the franchise. The animation is gorgeous, the mecha designs are interesting, and the battles are crisp and exciting. The Gundam Narrative itself is a highlight – essentially a “normal Gundam” built with advanced technology from the Unicorn program. This hybrid approach results in some seriously cool battle sequences and plenty of standout moments to satisfy fans of large-scale robot warfare.

The film also makes a genuine attempt to further explore the concept of Newtype evolution and, more philosophically, what it even means to be a Newtype. One of the film’s central themes is the blurred line between humanity and the afterlife. From the very beginning of the franchise, it’s been clear that Newtypes aren’t just “espers in space” (though some stubborn fans still insist on treating them that way). So while Narrative flirts with “space magic” territory, a move that sometimes draws criticism, I personally find these developments intriguing. I like that the franchise is still pushing the envelope with these metaphysical ideas rather than retreating into safe, purely militaristic storytelling.

Overall, Mobile Suit Gundam Narrative was fine. As a standalone entry in the Gundam franchise, however, it definitely has its issues. It feels like a condensed version of a much larger story (which it is not), breaks little new ground, and leans heavily on callbacks and nearly fifty years of dense continuity. That said, the film does ask some compelling questions and boasts solid animation, so it’s not without merit. I can’t help but wonder what Narrative might have become had it been delivered in a different format – perhaps as an OVA series or a longer feature with more room to breathe. In the end, I’m glad I finally watched Mobile Suit Gundam Narrative. Despite the flaws I’ve outlined, my long absence from it was probably unwarranted. It may not be essential viewing, but it’s an intriguing side story that adds another layer to the ever-expanding Universal Century timeline.