Zeta Gundam Volume 1

The first five episodes of Zeta Gundam are mostly setup, introducing most of the main characters before the story's main conflict begins in earnest.  During my original viewing, I struggled greatly to understand the show's teen protagonist, Kamille Bidan.  Everything he said or did was annoying and/or baffling.  It often felt that he got certain breaks or opportunities simply by being the hero of the story.

Rewatching these episodes, my opinion has improved.  Kamille is still a bit annoying, but I can understand (most of) his behavior.  The trick was in remembering that there are many reasons why adolescents act foolishly.  In addition to being hot headed, they like to act without thinking, and without understanding the consequences of their actions. They believe they know more than the adults in their life, and will rebel against authority in order to establish themselves as an individual.  They also tend to be ignorant of a certain selection of current events.  Together, all of these traits gave explanation to Kamille's stupidity, which is clearly meant to be seen as stupidity, in order to show us how much he has to grow.


I also got a better sense of the Titans, why they're hated and how they're able to act like such thugs. I don't think the Universal Century shows do a great job of emphasizing the state of the planet, but it is important to remember that the One Year War wiped out about half of the human population, that the Earth is all sorts of fucked up, and that those pesky Minovsky particles make communications all screwy.  The Earthsphere is in awful shape, and it would be plausible for the planetside government to be too busy to keep close attention to what is happening in space.  It is also believable that they lack strong leadership with so many people being dead.  We tend to think of governments as being all knowing entities, but this is perhaps due to modern technology more than anything.  Rome once ruled only a fraction of Earth, and yet Ceasar was able to use his army to come home and take control.  In regards to Zeta, the Titans are still a bit convenient as an enemy, but they aren't unbelievable.

By the end of this disc, the AEUG have pretty much successfully escaped with the Gundam prototypes, and Kamille's parents are dead, which locks in his fate whether he knows it or not.  I found myself genuinely sympathizing with the boy this time. As he states in the fifth episode, his might have fought bitterly with his parents, but they were still his family, and now they're gone.  I thought this highlighted a very important point about teenagers - their supposed disdain for their parents is mostly smoke and mirrors. And even when they do have  good reason to be mad at their folks, deep down inside they would rather things be better.  Kamille's anger at his parents is no doubt genuine, but their death leaves him with absolutely nothing, including the hope for having a better relationship with them in the future.  He's thrust himself into a world of shit, and it won't get any easier.