Mobile Suit Gundam: Cucuruz Doan’s Island

Among anime fans, Mobile Suit Gundam is considered the granddaddy of the mecha genre. Yet, during its initial series run, budget shortfalls constantly forced producers to cut corners. Series director Yoshiyuki Tomino believed the economizing was particularly conspicuous throughout the fifteenth episode, so he withheld it from most subsequent distribution packages. However, he still believed the story had potential. Years later, this interlude from the Earth Federation’s battle against Zeon separatists gets a feature-length remake in Yoshikazu Yasuhiko’s Mobile Suit Gundam: Cucuruz Doan’s Island, which releases Tuesday on BluRay.

All you really need to know about the Battle of Jaburo is recent momentum has favored the Federation, but Zeon has a major game-changing counter-offensive planned. According to his orders, Captain Bright Noa dispatched Amuro Ray and his comrades Kai Shiden and Hayato Kobayashi on a “mopping up” operation, targeted suspected sleeper operatives on Alegranza, perilously near their Canary Islands base.

Unfortunately, after the disoriented Ray separates from his unit, he is ambushed by a vintage Zaku, a Zeon mecha suit. Per protocol, Shiden and Kobayashi must leave him behind. However, he will not face the sort of peril they fear. Instead, Cucuruz Doan, the pilot of the Zaku, helps nurse Ray back to help and offers him hospitality in his farm, a refuge for two dozen or so war orphans.

While Ray is eager to rejoin the war, Doan has declared his own separate peace. He bears Ray no ill-will, but he will not do anything that could bring warfighting back to his island. Consequently, Ray wastes days searching for the Gundam Doan hid alongside his Zaku. Yet, as Ray comes to know the orphans, he better appreciates Doan’s desire to protect them and his aversion to the ongoing war.

Of course, war inevitably returns to Alegranza, whether Doan likes it or not. Having lost contact with their sleeper operative, Doan, the sinister Zeon commander M’quve deploys a unit of Zakus to take charge of the doomsday weapon buried in the island’s subterranean caverns. Ray’s friends are also on their way, since Captain Noa conveniently feigned engine trouble, to facilitate the unsanctioned rescue operation he knew they would launch.

The contrasting ways Ray and Doan relate to war gives this film some intriguing philosophical heft. It is easy to see why Tomino considered the original episode lost a lost opportunity. The storyline is also easy to carve out of the overall series narrative. However, much of the business involving the orphans is a way too precious.

Indeed, the best stuff in Doan’s Island are the mecha fights, which look cooler than ever, thanks to the advances in animation techniques. Wisely, Yasuhiko and company maintain a look largely consistent with the original anime series. It is just more colorful and more smoothly renders the rock-‘em-sock-‘em action.

Somewhat ironically, for series newcomers, the most intriguing character will be Doan—although perhaps that is fitting since his name is the title. Ray presumably matures quite a bit during this adventure, but it does not showcase any of the other series regulars. However, the way screenwriter Toshizou Nemoto’s adaptation of Tomino’s episode challenges the implications of both Doan’s pseudo-pacifism and Ray’s zeal elevates Doan’s Island above a lot of the mecha anime that preceded it. Recommended for mecha fans, particularly those looking for an entry point into the franchise, Mobile Suit Gundam: Doan’s Island releases Tuesday (9/24) on BluRay.