You're listening to season eight of Mobile Soup Breakdown, a weekly podcast covering the entirety of Sci-fi mega franchise, Mobile Soup Gundam, researching its influences, examining its themes, and discussing how each piece of the Gundam canon fits within the changing context in Japan and the world from 1979 to today.
This is episode 8.7. The danger is unleashed only if you substantially disturb this place and we are your hosts. I'm Tom, Gundam fan, and the only thing that matters to a podcaster is the instinct to broadcast.
And I'm Nina, new to Stardust Memory, and have to admit that, yes, I did squeeze. Mobile Suit Breakdown is made possible by the support of 729 patrons and subscribers. Thank you all. And special thanks to our newest supporters. Mark G-J-V. Aaron D and Chris Falion. You keep us genki. And an extra special thank you to slice the light and anonymous for supporting us on Kofi. MSB is just us, Nina and Tom, and is entirely listener supported. If you'd like to hear us reach the Gundam of the beyond, become a monthly subscriber today@gundampodcast.com. Patreon.
This week Stardust Memory episode Seven al Ku Kagayaku Hono Day Its English title is With Shining Blue Fire. And its original English title was Burning Heart. It was released on December 1991. This is the last episode for which Kase Mitsko received credit as chief director starting in episode eight, and for the rest of the series, Imanishi Takashi will be the sole chief director. Imanishi also wrote this episode's script under the pseudonym Olkuma Asahide, and he is going to write the scripts for most of the remaining episodes. Although by this point a relatively experienced director, Imanishi had only a handful of writing credits to his name. In 89, he wrote the screenplay for an episode of City Hunter. In 1990, he wrote storyboarded and directed a 30 minutes OVA adaptation of the romance manga Milky Passion, and in early 1991, probably while working on 83, he co wrote and directed a 45 minutes OVA adaptation of the fantasy manga Capricorn Akane. Kazuki drew the storyboards and was the episode director. The animation director was Kawamoto Toshihiro. While I'm talking about the staff, let me note that the name Kelly Leisner seems like a probable reference to 1985 Sunrise Mecca show. Auki Ryu say Spt Reyzuna or Blue Comet. Spt Lesner. Besides the nearly identical names, the show's Japanese name was Rezuna, while Kelly's is Rezuna and the connection to the color blue I E blue Comets and Blue Flames w 83 was also something of a reunion for the staff from Lesner. Chief directors Kase and Imanishi had both been episode directors on Lesnar. Episode director Watanabe had been a production manager. Scriptwriters Endo and Fuyunori both wrote for Lesnar. Animation directors Kawamoto Nishimura and Osaka had all been key animators, as had mechanical animation director Yoshida Tohru. Urugami Yasuo was sound director, and Matsuda Akihiko handled sound effects on both projects. Ueda Masuo produced both of them. Even Takahashi Riosk, chief director, writer and original creator of Spt Lesner among many other Mecca shows is going to write the scripts for two of 80 three's remaining episodes. Also notable Genda Tesho, voice of Kelly Lesner and Kobayashi Yuko, voice of Latura both lent their voices to Spt Lesner, albeit in unlisted and presumably minor roles. I think our animation consultant and friend of the show, Mateo may have mentioned in a previous guest appearance that Sunrise was divided into different studios with different studios developing their own projects and staff members tending to work within the same particular studio. The original Mobile Suit Gundam was produced by Studio One. But starting with 1980 Three's Combat Mecca Zabungle Tomino himself worked mostly with Studio Two, making Dunbine Elgaim Zeta Double Zeta, Shar's Counterattack and Formula 91 there. Stardust memory, however, was made in Studio Three, the home of City Hunter and before that, Spt Lasner. Interestingly, although they never worked on W 83, both Formula 91 screenwriter Ito Tsunehisa and SD Gundam chief director Amino Tetsaro worked on Lasner, meaning that for the period of 1990 and 1991 the entire animated output of the Gundam franchise had become thoroughly lasenerified. Now the recap.
Testing for the Unit One is proceeding smoothly and Cole seems to have hit his stride helping the Anaheim team collect data on the most recent set of upgrades. After the latest session, he runs into Keith who, appalled by his friend's total lack of game, encourages Cole to finally ask Mina out. She obviously likes him, they've all seen the flirting, and after all, none of them know when they'll have leave. Again honoring his own advice, Keith is there to meet. Maura and the pair leave for their date, arms around each other, leaving Cole polaxed but thoughtful. At the Anaheim offices, Nina receives some unwelcome news from her section chief. She is being reassigned to R and D and will not be going back aboard the Albion. Though he hesitates to call it an order. The section chief says it's not open for discussion and that he cannot risk his own job to fight the reassignment. Meanwhile, Kelly meets with one of Shima's henchmen to confirm that the mobile armor valwallo is fully repaired and ready for use. Kelly is surprised to receive a suitcase full of gold bars. Pilots don't typically receive their pay in advance and is stunned when the henchmen lasts in his face. They never intended to bring Kelly along or to waste a mobile armor on a pilot with one arm. This is payment for the valwallo, nothing more. Disappointed and struggling to decide what to do, Nina and Kelly sit alone at their respective desks Nina holding her head in her hands, wishing Cole would help her Kelly drinking and staring at the video message he received inviting him to join Operation Stardust from his old comrade Gato. The next day, Cole visits Nina in her office. He stammers and sweats and in spite of all Nina's encouraging looks. He cannot bring himself to ask her on a date and turns the conversation back to the Gundam. Smacking her hands onto the desk. Nina stands, calls Cole coward and storms out. When he follows her, she is already out of view, but one of her friends looks at him critically and asks if mobile suits are the only thing he knows how to handle. Cole comforts himself with the thought that he still has plenty of time to ask Nina out. But that night, on a video call with her father, nina decides to quit and move home to new Antwerp. Shema's ship launches, expecting the VA Wallo to join later, and Kelly has come to a decision. While Nina is on her way to the port to catch a flight home, the Valwallo bursts up from the middle of the junkyard, throwing the city into uproar. Kelly's intention is to prove himself and fight alongside his old comrades, but shema thinks that having been betrayed by his own side, he is taking the Valwallo to the Federation Pitiless. She sends the henchmen who was supposed to secure the mobile armor out to fight it alone in Azaku to take responsibility for his mistake. It's over fast. The mobile armor flies straight at the Zaku, and it breaks apart before exploding. The balwallow is unscathed. A warning shot clips the crater ridge around von Braun city as Kelly threatens to attack. If the Gundam does not come out and fight him one on one, nina hears the threat on the radio, recognizes Kelly's voice, and takes a small vehicle out to intercept him. Just before the city goes on lockdown outside, Cole launches and tries to talk Kelly down. It only takes a moment for surprise to be replaced by resignation. Kelly hadn't known Cole to be the Gundam's pilot, but he knew they would have to face each other one day. Shots from the Gundam's beam rifle fail to penetrate the Bawallo's armor and its own cannon melts the Gundam's shield and sends Cole diving for cover. Then the mobile armor drops what appear to be dummy shells until they open and form an electromagnetic cage that freezes the Gundam inside it in place. Desperate to save coal, keith launches from the Albion and reaches the fight at the same time as Nina. Heedless of her own safety, she parks near the site and pleads with Kelly to have patience, that the change they want is coming, but needs time. Kelly is unmoved, but in this brief moment of distraction, Keith fires on him. The VA wallow returns fire, missing Keith's Jim cannon's who but hitting Nina's vehicle. She's thrown clear, but it's impossible to tell how badly hurt she might be. Seeing Nina's tiny, limp form bounce across the surface of the moon, cole finally treats this fight as life and death. With a few well placed shots, Keith destroys the weapon that held the Gundam in place, and Cole takes off to fight with everything he has. Despite the Unit One's speed and agility, the Valwallo manages to poker the smaller mobile suit, trapping it against the mobile armor's body. But the Gundam still has a trick or two, and Cole releases the upper body from the lower, leaving the legs trapped, but the upper body free to stab a beam saber hilt deep into the enemy mobile armor. The one repair Kelly didn't have time for was the Ejection system. Before he dies, he tells Cole that he has no regrets. Immediately, Cole goes to retrieve Nina and is beyond relieved to see her regain consciousness. After all this happened, he is finally able to tell her how he feels, declaring, I want you with me always. At the insistence of the Lunarians, the Albion leaves immediately for the Solomon Sea sector. Elsewhere, all of the fleets participating in Operation Stardust have gathered, and Gato laments that his friend and comrade Kelly is too late to join them.
If I may pull back the curtain a little bit on my process here at MSB, a lot of the things that we talk about first enter my mind because I'm watching the show and something will just seem like a little weird. It'll be like, Why did they spend so much time on that? Why is that in focus and not that other thing? And in this episode, that happens a couple of times. But the biggest one by far is those movie tickets that Keith gives to Co that are shown like center screen, nice and big. All the text readable, you could see what theater they went to. It's the Apollo, which is a great name for a theater on the moon, especially because von Braun is built around the first moon landing. You could also see what seats have been reserved for Co and Nina, what row and what seat in the theater. They have rendered these tickets with a level of detail that was not necessary. And if they put it up there like that, clearly they want you to read it. They want you to see the title and think something about it, but it's not immediately evident what you're supposed to take away from those tickets.
I don't know. My question would be, what seats did Keith get them? What does he think are great seats for a movie?
They're in row S, seats 52 and 53 on the first floor, entering via gate four.
That must be a massive theater.
Yeah. The tickets reminded me much more of, like, theater tickets, opera tickets than movie tickets. But Keith says they're movie tickets, and I believe him. The tickets are for November 5, which is presumably the day that it is when these events happen, which also happens to be Tomino's birthday, and I assume, a reference. The show starts at 07:00 P.m., and the doors open at 630. But that introduces an interesting wrinkle into this whole. Co is too cowardly to ask Nina out storyline that I'm not entirely certain was intended because the Albion has to leave Port at 09:00 that night. The movie is at seven. Probably Ko couldn't have taken Nina to that movie anyway, because he would have needed to be on the ship leaving.
Unless they just messed up the times and dates on the tickets. I think it has to have been for the day before they were supposed to leave.
But they're leaving that day.
They wind up leaving that day. But were they always going to leave that day? They leave early.
It's true, they do leave early, but by the time Cole has gone to Nina's office, they know what time they're leaving.
But he also tells himself that he has plenty of time.
See, I think that's a really important line. He says that because at that point he thinks Nina's leaving on the Albion with him.
Oh, so you think it's not? I have plenty of time to invite her to this movie. I have plenty of time to ask her out eventually.
That's what's going on there. That's why he's so then distraught when he gets back to the Albion and Nina's friend is there to pick up her luggage, and she's like, Sorry, kid, you fumbled the bag. And she is leaving the ship. But we'll come back to Co's absolutely blunderous performance with the ladies later. But we started on this because I wanted to talk about the title of the movie. The movie is called Shining Blue Fire, which is also in the title of the episode. And having it referenced in two different ways in the course of this episode makes the title feel very significant to this episode. And I'm trying to figure out why. Is the Shining Blue Fire a reference to Kelly? Is it a reference to Co what's going on with this title? And to add another layer of complexity to it, Shining Blue Fire is a line from the winner. It's a line from the opening when they say, Alku Kagayaku honoe.
I wonder if it's a reference to something even older, like an older song, or a poem, or a famous piece of literature, like I don't even know. But yeah, I could imagine all three things being references to some older work.
I don't have an answer. I have to admit, I was hoping that with your powers of perception, you might have picked up on something I missed.
I might just have to do various little miscellaneous pieces of research this week, because that's a very interesting question and worth looking into. There were also a few moments in the episode where people had lines where I wasn't entirely sure what they were referring to or what they were talking about. One that stood out to me as maybe being an idiom was at the very beginning of the episode when Nina is talking up all the Gundam's new capabilities ever since its upgrades. And Cole in the translation, says something like, oh, if I pushed it that hard, I wouldn't even be able to shower afterwards. And I was like, that's a weird way of saying whatever it is you're trying to say there.
Yeah. I'm glad that we're talking about the script because this episode has a new writer. The first four episodes were all written by Gobu Fu Yunori. The next two episodes were both written by Endo Akinori. Now, Imanishi Takashi, one of the two chief directors of the show, is writing the script himself. So if you've noticed a sort of change in the style of the dialogue, that's probably Imanishi's influence.
It's certainly more direct than a lot of the stuff written by Tomino. Tomino tends to be a bit more metaphorical mysterious. A lot of this episode is written to just lay the cards on the table. People say what they mean, but then occasionally there are lines where I'm like, what exactly are you talking about here?
Another line that struck me kind of funny was when Nina's boss, the chief engineer in her department, or whatever his title is, says, sorry about this, but I have my own family to think about. I don't know how that's relevant to him telling Nina that the company doesn't want her to go back on the Albion.
Oh, so I assumed because she asks him for time to think about it, she's also asked whether it's an order. Order? And he's like, not exactly, but it was a bit of a leap. But my assumption was that if he helps her defy this order from the higher ups, he could get fired.
I suppose that could be it. I mean, at the very least, it conveys that both of them are vaguely aware that Anaheim as a corporate entity is up to some shady stuff and that both of them have been forced to sort of make their compromises with that because they have families to look after. They have Gundams to build. The things that they want to do require them to make an alliance, make a common cause with this corporation that they don't see as entirely trustworthy.
I didn't get that sense so much as that being with the Gundam on the Albion is not really her job. She's not really performing her job duties while she's out there and they're basically saying, okay, get your butt back in the office and do the work that we hired you to do. And she doesn't want to.
But then you have that line from the supervisor. Characters typically say, I'm sorry, but I have my own family to look after, when they're aware that they're party to some shady stuff. He does seem reluctant to make eye contact with her during the meeting. Plus, though she doesn't know it, we, the audience, can connect this scene to the prior one where shema was complaining that Anaheim had been helping the Albion too much. We can guess that these orders are the direct result of that meddling.
But to me, the scene feels like basic, totally normal office politics, shady that they're aware of, not anything beyond that.
I don't know. To me, the line implies, I know that this is wrong, but I have to do it anyway because of my family. Which is a thing that you say when you're mixed up in something bad.
Or when you work for a corporation.
An evil corporation, or just like a normal one.
We can argue about the inherent evilness of corporations some other time, but clearly we had slightly different reads on how nefarious this all was. But either way, they both know the situation is unpleasant, but they don't really have a way around it. This actually brings up one of the other lines that threw me a little bit and ties into this very interesting glimpse we get of Nina's background, which is among the many very interesting reveals in this episode.
Yeah, it's an episode loaded down with.
Implications, but in the scene where we see her apartment in von Braun, which is rather sparce, really, not a whole lot to it, and it's all in shadow. Maybe it would look like it had more personality if the lights were on. I feel as though it is a stereotype of career driven people that they don't really bother to personalize their space or decorate much because they're never home.
She's probably in the office until all hours, only goes home to sleep.
And then she has a video call with her family where her father makes the unimaginably prescient statement. If we all think back to the early days of the Pandemic, where he's like, I hate video calls because they make you feel like you're with people and you know what's going on, but.
You don't really oh, it's so true.
Oh, no. Right. But she has parents with connections to Anaheim. The chief at her job mentioned that he owes it to her parents to keep an eye on her, which initially makes you think maybe her parents are dead, but now it's like, oh, no, they're just friends. They have some kind of connection, and.
Her family lives pretty far away.
I don't know where New Antwerp is, so that means nothing to me.
I mean, it's mostly just name dropped here. I don't know that it ever comes up again. But I've seen at least one map that puts it near Granada, which is, like, on the opposite side of the moon from von Braun.
Okay. And then after rather unceremoniously hanging up on her father, she says to herself, I've messed up again. Time to quit. And I don't really get how she thinks she messed up here, like, by falling for Cole. And has she come to the conclusion he's not really into her because he couldn't bring himself to ask her on a date or because of the work situation? Like, what exactly is she talking about that she messed up?
If I had to guess, and I'm reading into this a little bit. Yeah, perhaps Nina has put her career in jeopardy by saying she wants to stay on the Albion because she's fallen for Co. But now after this fight, she's feeling like she put the thing that was most important to her at risk for the hope of this other thing. And now it seems like that's not going to happen either. So just quit. And I don't know if she means quit love, quit work, quit both, but the next time we see her, she's like, got all of her stuff packed up, she's in civilian clothes and she's planning on flying home.
I assume she means quit her job as well, because if Anaheim wanted her to do R and D, they would just keep her in Von Braun at their offices. If she's told her parents she's moving home, then she must be quitting that particular Anaheim job.
And this is part of why I read that prior scene as being so sinister that her feelings about Anaheim management are so negative that Nina would actually, like, quit her job over it.
One of the reasons that I I don't quite catch up to you there is the more I went over my notes from this episode, the more I realized that she and Kelly are parallel figures in this episode. And Kelly's behavior is not about logic, it's about feelings as sort of a quick and dirty laying out. What I mean about the two of them being so closely correlated. There was that call with her family. Nina's parents were very worried when they heard she was on this Federation ship. She seems entirely heedless of danger to her person when she took off in the Jeep the first time the Unit One went out. Just being on the Albion while they were pursuing the Unit Two, she's done a lot of things that demonstrate she's not particularly worried about her safety. This is Lotora's. Fight with Kelly. In a nutshell, lotora wants Kelly to live. He doesn't really care if he lives that's of secondary or tertiary importance to him even more. They're back to back scenes where Nina is alone in the office. It's dark. She's at her computer looking at a profile of Cole head in hand, wishing that Cole could somehow help her with this situation. That feels impossible. Is she going to quit her job? How does she stay with him in the Albion? Can she even stay with him in the Albion? What should she do about her career that she's worked so hard for all this time? And then Kelly sitting alone in the dark at a desk watching a video message from Gato, someone we find out he has a very close personal connection to. He has just found out that the mobile armor he's worked so hard to fix is going to be taken away from him. Both of them have had their reason for living the thing they really care about and are passionate about and have devoted a ton of time to taken away.
They're also both blondes with fluffy hair.
Sure. Yeah, I guess.
And actually, that scene is cut in such a way as to imply that it's Nina watching the video message of Gato until the camera changes and you can see Kelly.
Is it?
Well, because it's Nina staring at the screen. And I think we see Nina's screen, then we see Nina staring at a screen, then we see the screen with Gato on it.
I thought there might have been another establishing shot in between to show us that we've moved to a different place. And Kelly is thinking and saying out loud to himself after watching this message, like, Where is Gato? Gato told him to join this fight. Now he's having that opportunity taken away from him. Where is his friend who was supposed to help him do this? Who invited him to do it?
He says, where are you, Gato? The same way that Nina says, Help.
Me, co and then the real surprise of the episode, among many. But they know each other.
Yeah. On what seemed like fairly intimate terms.
And Nina at least, knows of Gato. And it's implied she knows more about Operation Stardust than just what she's gleaned by being on the Albion. Were her family involved in Xeon, was she? She would have been very young. But it's possible.
Xeon occupied the moon during the one year war. And the Xeon Lunar Headquarters was at Granada. So if new Antwerp actually is a suburb of Granada, like it seemed to be on that one map, which again, I can't vouch for that map. I don't actually know where it comes from or how accurate it is. But given how the story has progressed so far, it seems plausible to me that new Antwerp is near Granada was under Xeon dominion. Nina might have met them during the occupation. She would have been 1819. Gato would have been only a couple of years older.
I can also imagine Anaheim snapping up a bunch of former Xeon scientists.
I believe that canonically, they did do.
That well, who didn't?
Operation Paperclip, et cetera.
And so if she does have some kind of family connection to Anaheim, there may be a more personal connection to Xeon beyond just having occupied the same space during the One Year War.
I think Anaheim also absorbed a bunch of former Xeon arms manufacturers like Zimad and Xionic. Her dad could have been a former executive at one of those places.
And it's not merely that they sort of say each other's names in a way that acknowledges they know each other, but the way in which she talks to him hints at some level of familiarity. Don't act like those people from Earth.
And then I think the biggest line is when she says, isn't it enough for Gato to do this? So it's not just that she knows Kelly, and it's not just that she knows Gato, but that the three of them know each other.
The line that stood out to me the most was her talking about if we just have patience, that she knows theoretically some subset of the things that these people are fighting for. She knows some of the background issues that are potentially influencing them to fight. And she believes that some kind of non war progress is being made on that front politically or socially or she's someone who really believes in incremental change.
Yeah. I mean, like many young people with good jobs and comfortable situations, she believes that things will gradually get better until all the problems are resolved.
And so from her perspective, for Kelly to effectively throw his life away makes no sense. There are already other people fighting this fight. And also, I don't actually think this fight is necessary or a good idea. Please don't do this.
It makes me wonder if Nina received one of those video messages from Gato. How many of those did he send?
Is she also a spy?
Could be, though I think that's unlikely.
I do too. But the hints at this extra knowledge that she has that she absolutely is not sharing.
True, but I have a hard time imagining Gato suborning anyone. I have a real hard time imagining Gato convincing someone to become a spy for him.
Well, but somebody suborned what's his face, the other Anaheim employee orville yeah.
Oh, Delaz would do it. Shima would do it. But not Gato, because Gato is stupid.
I mean, honorable, poor, pathetic Gato.
Oh, he's such a little meow meow. No, he's such a naive fool.
He's not a meow meow. He's a tragic figure.
But his name is Gato.
I know, but I think he and Kelly are tragic figures kind of in the mold of Greek tragedy. It doesn't mean that they are great people. It doesn't mean that they don't do anything wrong. It means they are sort of brought low by themselves that they achieve greatness and then lose everything because of their own flaws. I'm glad you brought up Shima is. One of the things that was really compelling to me in this episode is Shima. Well, always, but the people shema understands and the people shema does not understand go on. Shima has this meeting with the, I'm going to assume head of Anaheim. The President, CEO, Chairman, whatever.
Anaheim is all extremely compartmentalized in order to make this kind of double dealing much more much easier to get away.
With implausible deniability for the rest of the department.
So I'm sure he's the director of some subsidiary of Anaheim.
And they understand each other very well because they're both extremely mercenary. Their goals are very clear to each other. She can tell. Ah, Anaheim would actually like to maintain the balance of power because as long as there are two sides there are two sides. To sell to, and you make more money, hooray money.
And it turns out that if there's only one side, then there's actually no sides to sell to, right?
It's in their interest to promote conflict. And she says that to him. She says, you think we're the ones causing trouble after he's warned her? Oh, just keep the fighting away from the moon. She says, you think we're the ones causing trouble, but really it's you playing both sides, giving us both the equipment to kill each other. You're the one sewing chaos. And she has completely not understood Kelly. She doesn't know the first thing about him. It doesn't even occur to her that he has stolen his own mobile armor to come join her, or to prove himself or something like she thinks. Oh, well, having found out that we weren't going to take him along, he must have decided to go to the other side instead, because that's what she would do if her own side really betrayed her. She would just switch sides. What does it matter to her?
I think that line does admit of an alternate reading, which is that Shima might not actually believe what she's saying, because in that moment, she's punishing her subordinate for his impertinence and incompetence. And so she's got a plausible explanation for why she needs to deploy him in Azaku and tell him to go fight the mobile armor to his inevitable demise. But crucially for Shima, I think it's not just that she wants the mobile armor and doesn't think that Kelly is the best pilot. I think she very much wants to ensure that Kelly does not return to the Delaz fleet, because Kelly is a natural ally of Gato and Shima hates.
Gato, and if she is sort of vying for that first Lieutenant E spot, she would want to prevent Gato from amassing supporters.
So for her, the best scenario is she gets away with the mobile armor under her control. The second best scenario is no mobile armor for anybody.
Because, again, for her, it's not about Neo Xeon winning, it's about her winning.
It does seem to have been a miscalculation on her part to send this guy to deliver the gold unsupervised, because, wow, he is really bad at his job. Like, to the point where it strains credulity, taunting Kelly and cackling at him for no good reason in the middle of this hangar with no one else.
Around, especially because he does not then take the mobile armor immediately, right? If you were going to drop off the gold and then jet away in the mobile armor, okay, kelly would have to think very fast and react very quickly to deal with that. And he probably could. We've seen him fling people across a room. But he's also pretty stunned, right? So, you know, maybe he wouldn't quite react in time, but to do all of that and then just leave the mobile armor there either very incompetent or has entirely misjudged this person.
And people are are vicious and cruel and stupid all the time. This is just so vicious and cruel and stupid. I can believe it happened. Stupider things happen every day.
Speaking of vicious and cruel, sending him out there against the mobile armor by himself in a single zaku, he was.
Simply taking responsibility for his actions, even.
If it kills him. But the gold handoff scene also stood out to me because and there are two different interpretations of this line or half line, but when Kelly receives the gold, he's surprised by how much it is, and he thinks, well, ah, it will be good that Latura has this. And he kind of trails off it's, sort of, oh, well, at least Latura dot dot, dot. And if he thinks the gold will make her feel any better, I don't think he knows her that well. Or it's wishful thinking. If he's merely thinking without a breadwinner, without a husband, boyfriend, man in her life, this gold will sort of secure her comfort. That's true. That is simply true.
Assuming she doesn't get arrested for dealing in Xeon gold.
I thought the whole reason to use gold bars is because they're not very traceable.
I'm pretty sure those gold bars were stamped, though, and you still have to convert them into money somehow.
You melt them down.
And also, I love that in Gundam, based on just like one line from one episode of First Gundam, giving somebody a briefcase full of gold has just become like a classic Xeon thing to do.
Oh, yeah, somewhere they have a massive storehouse full of gold looted from Earth, I guess, or from Asteroids or I don't even know.
But what that means is that if I were a jeweler or pawn shop, who do you even sell a bar of gold to anyway? If I were that person in the universal century and somebody showed up with a briefcase full of gold, I would be like, yes, Xeon.
I'm not going to argue with you about how I would go about converting a suitcase full of ill gotten gold without trying to draw attention to myself.
No, wait, I'm curious. How much time have you spent thinking about this?
Never you mind.
Okay, but we're going to revisit this later. Speaking of revisiting, you were identifying the parallels between Nina and Kelly. When Nina gets her things together and gets ready to fly home, kelly is putting on his old flight suit and preparing for this final mission. It's a beautiful scene, him in the dark in the hangar, latura pounding on the door, begging him not to go. It's framed gorgeously. He's right in the center, this very strong, upright figure.
That's a beautiful shot. There were quite a few, I thought, really beautifully designed and animated moments in this episode.
I agree completely.
I don't know if it was purposeful, but there are a bunch of visual design choices that also reinforce that everyone is still kind of tied to Earth, held to Earth's gravity, connected to Earth. At the end of the last episode, when Cole first takes off for the Gundam test, it appears as if he's flying at Earth. At one point in the fight with Kelly, we can't see the mobile armor. It just looks as though Cole in the Gundam is firing toward Earth. And then the mobile armor appears to be flying from the direction of Earth straight towards us. Like it's all of this back and forth between the moon and Earth, visually anyway.
And in the dialogue, when Nina calls attention to the contrast between them, space noids, Lunarians and those people on Earth, again, an ambiguous line. When she says acting like those people on Earth, does she mean Earth noids. Does she mean the Federation, or does she mean those Xeon? Holdouts on, earth still continuing the fight.
I'm glad you mentioned Lunarians and Space Noids separately, because there is a strong feeling throughout this episode that Lunarians do not consider themselves the same as other space noids. They are a separate group with separate interests of their own that are not aligned with the rest of the Earth sphere. They're not aligned with Earth, but they're also not aligned with the colonies.
If you view the universal century as a metaphor for our world, especially our world, over the past 200, 300 years, the old World, Europe essentially is Earth, the center of power of this imperial system. And then the colonies are the colonies spread out throughout the whole world. But, Luna, the moon is North America. It's the United States. It's one of the first colonies that then grew to be so big and populous and wealthy that it has a gravity and a power of its own that rivals the old World and which sets it apart from the other colonies and in some ways allows it to dominate them.
It in fact lets them become part of that like imperial and colonial system in their own right. But at the same time, they don't consider themselves the same as those old imperial colonial powers. Not an empire, not a colony, a secret third thing, still an empire. And this crops up throughout the episode in various mentions where they really want the Albion to leave because they don't want to be part of whatever this conflict is. They don't consider that it has anything to do with them. And this gets reinforced over and over. I think Nina might also say, oh, this has nothing to do with that, or, no, she overhears people saying she overhears some workers just talking about the fight, and they're like, oh, this doesn't have anything to do with Lunarians. And in the position of Anaheim being willing to sell to both sides because as long as they don't fight on the moon, anaheim doesn't really care.
Yep, the moon just wants to remain neutral and business friendly. And make a huge profit selling to both sides. And that certainly describes the United States in some periods of its history.
You talked about the framing of that shot of Kelly. There was also a really beautiful still of Von Braun City all lit up, viewed through an archway of stone that I thought was quite lovely.
I really like that, too. I think that's borrowed from Shar's counterattack.
Though I don't mind. Once Nina is injured in that final fight and the tone of the fight changes once it becomes, like, actually life and death to Cole, the whole fight becomes much more dynamic. At the beginning of the fight, Cole is caught in these kind of repetitive cycles that change a little bit every time. It's like each time it's almost like a spiral, and each time the circle gets a little bigger. He grows a little more. At the beginning of his fight with Kelly, it's very like his confrontation with the recovery ship in the second episode, where he's just standing with a ship coming straight at him saying, Please stop. I really don't want to shoot you. Please stop. A lot of good that did in either case. And then later in the fight, things become much more dynamic. There's a lot more motion. He's doing a lot more maneuvering. It's less of a standing still and shooting. There is also complete silence. When Nina first gets thrown from that vehicle she's on, they show her sort of thrown from it, floating away from it and into the regolith, into the ground, and it's silent, which is extremely powerful under the circumstances. And this is both a visual and sort of mecha design and story element. But when the unit one separates at the waist and just, like, flies off.
Without its legs, the legs are just for show.
That was amazing.
It was really, really cool.
Surprise.
Although you'll notice that when he's flying around without the legs, he has to use his veneers a lot more. Yes, because of the lack of ambac.
In another nod to First Gundam, the weapon that he gets caught in initially is exactly like I forget what it was called. We did a whole adzam leader, but it's like an electromagnetic net, effectively, that interferes with the functioning of the mobile.
Suit and basically locks it in place so that he can't do anything until Keith the best wingman.
Oh, my gosh, best wingman.
And the best wingman comes out and shoots the little emitters. The Valuallo feels like a mashup of a bunch of different First Gundam mobile armors. Like, it's got to be here in the show because you can't revive the one year war without having at least one giant, scary mobile armor that then gets immediately wrecked. The first time it tries to fight a Gundam. It resembles the grab row and the big row, and it's got this ability that's, like the adzam leaders, it's a pastiche of different mobile armors the most.
Unique part about it is that it kind of pincers the Gundam with its little side flappy bits. Like, I don't even know what that is or how that's supposed to work, but it manages to trap the Gundam.
With it got crab hands.
It's more like crab sides. I don't know. I don't know what that is.
Now, see, the problem here is that you're going based on what you can actually see in the episode, you're trying to watch Gundam by watching Gundam instead of studying the line art online. Do you see it's got these long crab pincer hands on articulated arms, but then it tucks them against its body when it's flying, like a person putting their arms at their sides. So the pincers end up pointing backwards and looking like they're just part of the side armor of the thing.
So what you're saying is the Valwallo is Naruto running everywhere.
Oh, my God.
Possible little Easter egg type thing in the pan of the park, which there's no particular reason for them to show it to us, except perhaps to emphasize just how low Nina must be feeling that she's, like, sitting by herself in the office in the dark instead of out enjoying the city and a beautiful day. But in the foreground of that pan of the park, there's a woman in the Anaheim uniform who looks an awful lot like Chris Mackenzie.
Yes, indeed. She's got long red hair. She parts it in the same way. And Chris had these, like, marks under her eyes that implied the presence of Freckles. And this woman sitting in the Anaheim park also has those same marks under the eyes.
And we know Chris worked in mobile suit development and it seems like a.
Very plausible career trajectory. And the character designer for 83, who was also the animation director for this episode was Kawamoto Toshihiro, who was an animation director on 80. He's almost the only animator to cross over between the two productions, so I have to assume that this was his doing. Did you notice that at the end of the fight, after he's defeated Kelly, and when he's found Nina again, and she wakes up and he's like, nina, I want you to come with me on the Albion. I want you to be with me always. His Gundam is kneeling like he's making a marriage proposal.
I was going to say, I want to be with you always is awfully. Zero to 100. He's never even asked her on a date, much less that he cares for her. And now it's like, Will you marry me?
But clearly that's what she's looking for.
I have some sympathy for her reaction here because she does everything abut say that she's in love with him. She says, I'm working so hard on the Gundam for your sake and giggles.
And she couldn't be more obvious without just outright saying it.
She is extremely encouraging in every way she could be, and he still can't.
Do it, even with his best friend being like, bro, she is down bad. Take these movie tickets. Ask her to a film.
Gosh. I love that you saw us. Everyone saw. Nobody could miss the two of you flirting.
And there's a very good chance that Mora has conveyed some of this to Nina. Like, oh, Keith is going to have a word with Co. Yeah.
Call me modern, but I feel like if she likes Cole that much, maybe she should ask him out.
You're very modern.
Maybe she should just accept that this is how Cole is.
I mean, I agree with you, but I also understand that she wants something from him. She wants him to behave in a particular way. And while that may be an unreasonable expectation for this particular guy, it's not necessarily an unreasonable expectation in general for a partner. And maybe if she needs this and he can't give it to her, then they're not meant to be. That's okay. That happens all the time. They seemed compatible because they were the only two Gundam fanatics on the Albion. But that's not usually enough of a foundation for a whole fulfilling relationship. And she does seem to accept that. She leaves the Albion. She sends a friend to collect her things. That's what you do when you break up with somebody. Now he's just some Gundam pilot that.
She used to coach, and that's absolutely fair. There's nothing wrong with having particular needs or a particular communication style. Realizing that it is incompatible with somebody you like and deciding to cut your losses and everyone has sort of made this as easy for him as possible, and he still can't do it.
Also, if you, like me, are prepared to connect the dots a little bit more. It is very possible that she has put in her resignation in between the discussion with her supervisor and Co coming into the office.
Yeah.
She's thinking, I have sacrificed so much just to be able to stay with you, and all I want from you right now is that you say or do one unambiguous thing to show that you actually do like me, too. And then he comes in and fumbles it like this.
And not even just fumbles it. Apparently one of the throughlines of his character is that he is an entirely oblivious person. Just cannot get it, whatever it is. When her friend comes to the Albion to retrieve her things and blames him for her leaving, he's like, Why? What reason? He cannot understand why he would have anything to do with her decision to leave.
And I sympathize. When I was 13, I would have broken into cold sweats over the idea of asking a girl to the movies. I guess what I'm getting at here is that Keith is right when he says that a high schooler could have done better.
Yeah. Cole learning life lessons all over the place, and learning some of them the hard way because Keith specifically tells him, we don't know when we will have shore leave again. Effectively, you don't know when the next time you will have to take her on a date is. You have no clue. You have to seize the opportunity when it's there. And he says, oh, we have lots of time. And then immediately there's this alarm and they have to go fight. And Kelly tells him the same thing from the other direction when he says, nobody ever gets to choose the circumstances of a fight.
Okay, okay. But this is another thing that aligns Cole with Gato. This episode has a post credits scene, which is very rude of them. It's the only one so far that has had one. It comes in between the credits and the next episode preview. And it shows Delaza's fleet and Gato receiving a message, presumably from Shima or from another ship that had arrived. And Gato says, Kelly, you were too late, but I'll always wait for you because I understand you better than anyone else. Clearly doesn't know that Kelly is dead. Thinks he just missed the boat, wasn't ready in time. Gato also thinks it's fine, this is a setback, but we've always got more time. And he is exactly as wrong about that as Co was.
One thing that's probably still different about the two of them. I talked about how the fight changes once Nina is injured. Cole doesn't really treat battle as life and death until someone he knows personally is in danger.
I don't know that that makes them so very different after all. Because remember the way Gato fought with Co in the first two episodes? Very much like, I could kill you, but you're not worth it. You're not ready to fight me yet. Come back when you're stronger. That is not the attitude of a man who approaches battle as a life and death struggle.
It's very like Kelly's attitude in calling out the Gundam for this single combat duel to the death.
Yes, we finally get a resolution for the consequences of Co helping Kelly to rebuild this mobile armor. And they're certainly not as bad as they could have been. He did threaten to destroy Fond Braun and might have actually attacked the city. He fired very near it.
I thought that was a bluff. Probably.
Probably. But had this mobile armor ended up in the hands of that other Xeon pilot, we can be pretty certain that he would have had fewer qualms. If he had spared von Braun, it would have only been because Shima told him to, because it was more valuable to them intact.
It certainly would have destroyed plenty of Federation ships and mobile suits and possibly colonies.
Do you think Shima's forces would directly attack one of the colonies?
Oh, absolutely. I assume that at some point, Neo Xeon will at least threaten to attack a colony, if not actually do so to get whatever it is that they.
Want, but instead, it ends up only destroying Kelly himself.
Who either? Did not have time or knew from the beginning that he wanted to go down with the ship, so to speak, and did not install an escape system.
Well, he came out of the One Year War regretting having survived defeat. So he went into this planning for victory or death. He built a machine to die in.
And has no regrets.
I wonder if Cole regrets helping him.
Cole might, because I do think he respected Kelly and he is surprised that Kelly is doing this. I don't know what he thought Kelly wanted the mobile armor for. Kelly is only very briefly surprised to be confronting Cole. And then reality hits and he thinks to himself, ah, this was bound to happen eventually.
Well, they could only be friends when both of them were ex pilots, when both of them were broken, having been restored to their original trajectories, they are bound for this collision.
I was very interested by Latoro's comments to Kelly earlier in the episode. She mentions to him, why are you doing this? You even befriended that Federation pilot. Like you have reached across the divide and befriended someone who once upon a time you would have considered an enemy. And she also voices feelings that I think many people had in the aftermath of World War II in Germany and Japan. A sense that the people, that they had been used by their governments, that they had been manipulated and taken advantage of, only to lose and to lose so much. And so she doesn't trust them. It's all over. And she may still hate the Federation, but she's never going to trust Xeon again, or anyone calling themselves Xeon.
But I think her mistake here is that Kelly has not displayed any particular antipathy towards the Federation as an organization or the people who are in it. He was fine with helping Co, and anyway, the show has kind of implied that the moon is really its own thing. The Federation only has nominal authority over the moon and von Braun and Anaheim. To the extent he is because of his disability or because of his past discriminated against or oppressed, it is by Lunarian Systems. Litura is, of course, very right that they are lying to him and taking advantage of him. And I think the episode suggests that Gato is being manipulated and exploited in the same ways that Kelly is.
They are very similar.
They are. And I don't think there's any reason to believe that Gato's message to Kelly was insincere, or that he himself had any notion of this plot to take the vowalo away from Kelly. For Gato, this fight, this rebellion, operation Stardust is about the feelings of the soldiers.
It's about regaining that sense of honor.
And it doesn't matter what the outcome of it is. What matters is getting the band back together, doing it properly having one good final fight and vindicating their honor. Delaws has not shown his hand about what he actually plans to do or to get out of this, and the show self consciously keeps calling attention to that. We keep having characters saying, what is Delaz up to? Everything they've been doing has just been a blind what is the real plot? But I don't think there's any reason to believe that Delaz cares one bit for the feelings and the honor of all of these ex soldiers, except as a lever with which he can move them. Delaz and Shima have a lot more in common with each other than Delaz and Gato.
While we are talking about types of people, there was another line from Cole that highlights his obliviousness to what people mean when they say things, but also brings up an important issue when Synapse is telling them all to get ready to leave, that the Lunarians don't want them there and that they shouldn't blame them. They live very different lives. My interpretation was that Synapse was saying, like, well, they're civilians, we are in the military. We signed up to be in danger. They don't want their home in danger, so we need to go. Cole entirely missing that is like, no, Nina is not like that. Nina and I are the same. It's like, yes, you're both obsessed with the Gundam. Gundams are your love language. But in a way, it's as if he doesn't entirely see himself as a soldier and he doesn't entirely see her as a civilian. That tracks, which fits with so many other things about him.
Well, his frequent confusion about having enemies, and of course, he did meet her on a military base. They have hung out on this warship. It would be quite natural for him to see her as part of the crew. Now, before we finish today, we have to talk about Keith.
Got to talk about Keith. I love Keith so much.
Keith is the best.
The reveal that he and Mora are dating, tom can tell you when I first saw it, I was squealing with surprise and happiness gleeful. I was so, so happy.
It does come as a surprise, but not out of nowhere. We have seen them getting progressively closer on the edges of the more dramatic Co and Nina relationship.
I can just imagine how after their very awkward first encounter, where he is chatting up Nina to distract her, so Cole can look at the Gundam and Mora taps him on the shoulder and says, oh, I'll go out with you. That sounds great. I can actually imagine Keith later being like, you know what?
Yeah, let's go have that beer.
And obviously, I think Mora is great. And so anybody who would want to date her must have excellent taste and is not at all put off by the fact that she is taller than him. Even when she's wearing flats. She's like a head taller than him in flats.
It's a lot, but she's so much shorter than him when he's in his gym.
That's fair. And they are awfully cozy with one another. In addition to trying to look after Cole in Co's personal life, he also looks after Cole on the battlefield. He is desperate to go out there and help once they see that Cole is caught. And he doesn't seem scared at all. Not in the way he was so frightened in his first couple battles. Right. The first couple of times they go out, he's like laughing hysterically. He looks like he wants to throw up. He has an awful time. But now his best friend is in danger and he's got to go help him. And I'll be real. After having watched Top Gun, I was really afraid Keith was going to die in this episode. It's like, oh, no, is this it?
Is this his goose moment?
Yeah. And he didn't. But I'm going to be waiting for it the whole rest of the season. So there's that.
Especially now that he has a girlfriend.
Yeah. Death flags all over the place.
Now. Nina's research on a couple of topics, including the title of the episode and that weird thing Co says about whether or not he'll be able to shower.
When it comes to the title of this episode, which is also a line from the opening song, I have a couple of theories, but nothing truly solid. The title is AUKU Kagayaku Honolulde. Translated as with Shining Blue Fire. In the song, this is followed by Konokanashimiyol, or this sadness. In a literal sense, the title could refer to the trails behind the mobile suit and mobile armor engines and veneers which look like fire and are almost always a very pale blue toned white and sometimes appear more blue. The glow effect around them is the same color, so Shining Blue Fire and the crackling electricity from the adzam leaderlike weapon that the Valwallo deploys is a similar shade, so it could also be in reference to that more figuratively. In the intro sequence, there is a splitscreen moment with Gato and Coal where the background for Gato is red and the background for Coal is blue. If blue is associated with Coal, maybe he is the Shining Blue Fire. But the title could also have a double meaning. Japanese has a few different kanji for owl or blue, and the one used here is not the most common one. It's used in different words, often formal or literary terms, and can have a slightly different meaning. The main difference being that the kanji used here is for pale blue, gray and inexperienced. In the same way that in English we might describe someone as green Kagayaku or to shine, sparkle, twinkle, glitter or glisten can also mean to light up with happiness, hope, et cetera, to beam. Like when we say someone is beaming and we mean they are radiating happiness and finally. The word used for fire here is Honolul, which can also mean flame or blaze, but it is frequently used figuratively to describe passion or flames of intense emotion, such as love, jealousy or anger. So the line could also mean something like shining, inexperienced love, which sounds awfully appropriate for this episode. I also searched for other songs, books, movies, any media that might share the title in whole or in part that the title might be a reference to. I found several songs and a novel with the title Awoki honol or variations thereof, like Au no or Aui honol, but all of them released long after 83. With the more commonly used Kanji for blue. There is a Sanen manga manga aimed at young adult men, Auki honol by Yanagisawa Kimo, which ran from 1988 to 1991 and had a single episode, OVA, released in 1989. I couldn't find a full plot synopsis, but the short one from Anime News Network's Encyclopedia is Riyuichi is a high school student tired of living in a small town with small people. He's determined to claw his way to the top of Tokyo, and he'll use any woman he can to do it, and Mangapedia describes it as a pickeresque story about the bubble economy and the social conditions of the time. Doesn't sound as though it's related to 83. The possibly more relevant manga that I found is also called Owl Kihono, but uses the same character for Owl as the title of the episode. It's by Ishikawa Sabudo and ran from 1989 until 1994. It's a Saint N manga set in the Meiji period, about two men born into very different circumstances but leading parallel lives. One is born into wealth and one is born poor, but both are the eldest son in their family, born on the same day and at the same time. They both decide to become artists. At the same time, both travel to Tokyo to pursue their studies, although the wealthy one goes to Tokyo School of Fine Arts, while the poor one apprentices to a painter doing housework in exchange for meals, lodging and tuition. Both find that their art doesn't fit in with prevailing tastes in the Tokyo art world, and so both travel overseas, wandering from place to place and job to job, while continuing to practice and refine their art. This feels like a possible reference in that there are plenty of pairs of characters in the episode who could be said to have parallel lives. In particular, I wonder about Gato and Kelly, but since I didn't find any other connection between this Al Kihono manga and Gundam or the stardust memory production, I think that the dual meaning I laid out is the most likely. Moving on to my next mini research after Cole returns from the latest round of tests for the Gundam unit, one Nina tells him, quote just 160, this machine can now go all the way to 230. I tried to figure out what possible units she could be talking about speed or power or what, but I'm really not sure. Although while searching, I did learn that the flutter Cole mentions during the tests is probably a reference to the fact that the wings of some planes, for example, the F 16 flutter at certain air speeds. Cole responds to Nina saying something about how his body couldn't handle 230 whatevers, and he wouldn't even be able to shower after, which sounded odd to Tom and I, so I set out to make sense of it. First, I checked that there wasn't some other way to interpret the original Japanese, but I think it's quite clear. First he says sona kotostara KOCHINo mi noga motanayo. If I did that, this body couldn't handle it. Check. Then shawamo abirinakunachao she. For one thing, I would regrettably become unable even to shower. Double check. Second step was to look for any relevant idioms, which turned up nothing. But during steps one and two, I spent a lot of time thinking. And one point that popped to mind is that he does specify shower shawa rather than bathe like ofutonihaidu in a lot of Japanese bathrooms, even though one cleans oneself before getting into the bath, there's usually a low stool. To sit on while you do so. And there's a spigot for water and a small bucket or other container to pour the water over yourself and or one of those shower heads that's on a handle with a hose typically mounted fairly low on the wall. But they wouldn't describe that as shower. Shower is what many of us think of as a shower standing under a running showerhead. Which led me to the likeliest answer, which I'm sure those of you who are pilots thought was obvious from the get go. He literally means that if he had pushed the Gundam that hard, he would be too injured or exhausted to stand for the five to ten minutes required to take a shower. Because it turns out that flying a fighter jet is extremely physically taxing. I read a few accounts from different pilots describing the effects on the body and what they do to counteract them. For a point of contrast, one of them mentioned that the most gforce non pilots are likely to experience is three to four g's on a roller coaster doing a loop, which is enough to push your head back and pin your arms down. Many modern jets reach up to nine g's, enough to make the pilot's body feel as though it weighs over 2000 pounds. Blood is forced from the head and upper body down into the extremities, dangerous because this can lead to g lock or g loss of consciousness, and at those speeds, the plane would crash before the pilot woke up, so they perform something called AGSM or antig straining maneuver. This involves squeezing the leg and AB muscles to force blood back up the body and making short, sharp breaths to maintain pressure in the lungs. This also affects their vision. As anyone who has fainted knows, when there's not enough blood in your head, you get tunnel vision. The periphery gets hazy and dark, and the area that you can see clearly gets smaller and smaller. Vision is pretty critical in a dog fight, and the antig straining maneuver prevents some, but not all peripheral vision loss. Keeping that up during maneuvers or during a dog fight is extremely physically taxing, so strength and conditioning become that much more important. One of the articles I read was titled an F 35 Pilot Reveals Why Good Fighter Pilots Never Skip Leg Day. Sidebar. That what boggles my mind is that doing this AGSM must become instinctive, because otherwise, how on earth can a person remember to do all that while they are in the middle of a dog fight? These pilots also wear g suits, which include special pants with air bladders in them that inflate squeezing the legs to prevent blood rushing down to their feet. One of the accounts I read mentioned that on top of the physical strain, flying at high g's usually causes bruising in the extremities, especially the legs, and that lots of pilots wind up with prematurely aged spines from the cumulative strain over time. Another talked about ferrying passengers to and fro on flights of just one to 2 hours, and that passengers unused to it routinely need to be helped out of the cockpit at their destination. They cannot get out under their own steam. So whatever unit Nina is referring to, increasing it would have put considerable extra strain on the pilot, which is to say coal. Even if he's exaggerating the likely effects for modesty, it's still a more than 40% increase, something that would take a lot of getting used to. The son of wealthy, well connected American and British parents, john Gillespie McGee Jr. Received an expensive education and had been offered a scholarship to Yale University. He was popular and gregarious. He wanted to be a poet. His parents were missionaries, and when his father thought he was partying a little too hard, McGee said, my generation does not expect to live long, and we want to enjoy ourselves while we may. The provost of his secondary school described him as almost a pacifist before he decided to become a pilot. To help protect his friends in Britain, he went on to join the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1940 at the age of 18. A talented pilot, he finished his training uncommonly quickly, was given the rank of Pilot Officer, and then assigned to the Number 412 Fighter Squadron in the U. K. Part of the digby wing under the command of legendary Canadian fighter ace Cowboy Blatchford. There he flew convoy patrols, faced Luftwaffe of fighters in a sorty over leel, and died in his 10th week of active service in a training accident when his Spitfire collided with another plane and he was unable to Eject in time. He was 19. McGee wrote many poems, including one I Wish I could read here. But that remains under copyright per ardua. A meditation on how the souls of all those dead young soldiers must be held in a kind of limbo. A dark night, a silent valhalla until the far dawn of victory comes. But his most famous poem is in the public domain. Many of you already know it. It is the official poem of the Royal Canadian Air Force and the Royal Air Force. Fourth class cadets in the United States Air Force Academy are required to recite it from memory. It is inscribed on the back of the memorial for the space shuttle Challenger and appears in part or in full on numerous headstones at Arlington National Cemetery, a national military cemetery in the United States. We've talked enough about the cloud of anger and desperation over Kelly and his actions, the anguish and the resignation. But I imagine something deeper, something older, something in the core of him that spoke to something in the core of Cole. A kindred feeling reaching across all of their differences, uniting them in perfect understanding. It is the source of Cole's empathy. It is the reason they work on the mobile armor together. It is the reason neither can truly give up being a pilot. And it was there to the end. Who better to put words to that feeling than another pilot? What better poem for Kelly's memorial than one that speaks to the hearts and souls of pilots and astronauts across borders and across time? So, without further preamble, and with apologies for one small change I've made to the original text, this is the Sonnet High Flight by John Gillespie. McGee Jr. Have slipped the surly bonds of earth and danced the skies on laughter silvered wings sunward I've climbed and joined the tumbling mirth of sun split clouds and done a hundred things you have not dreamed of wheeled and soared and swung high in the starlet silence. Hovering there, I've chased the shouting wind along and slung my eager craft through footless halls. There, up, up the long, delirious burning blue. I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace where never lark, nor ever eagle flew. And while with silent, lifting mind I've trod the high, untrespassed sanctity of space put out my hand and touched the face of God. Next time on Episode 8.8 this message is a warning about danger. We research and discuss Gundam 83 Stardust Memory episode Eight and know the winners in this fight. Last week's research proves timely. Shima. More like schema. Am I right? One last job before retirement. Corruption in the military, our bodies, ourselves. Intensive carrot training. Mail time. Mail time. Mail time. Here's the mail. It never fails. It makes me want to wag my tail when it comes. I want to whale me. Shima, tell them that they set you up. A bunch of men who think they know what Women want. Cupid Gundam up the Silliness Factor 110%, but maintain current levels of tragedy and end of lecture. The danger is still present in your time, as it was in ours.
Mobile Suit Breakdown is written, recorded and produced by us, Tom and Nina in scenic New York City within the ancestral and unseated land of the Lenape people and made possible by listeners like you. The opening track is Wasp by Misha Dioxen. The closing music is Long Way Home by Spinning Ratio. The recap music for this season is 80s synth rock guitar improvisation by Zombie Fish. You can find links to the sources for our research, the music used in the episode, additional information about the Lenape people and more in the show notes and on our website, Gundampodcast.com. You can get in touch with us on Twitter or Instagram at Gundampodcast or by email to hosts@gundampodcast.com and thank you for listening. The Wrong Gundam opinion this week was submitted by Calder and it's that Co needs to stop listening to Magic by Jacob Wheeler. Everything in his life and on the Albion would be going a lot more smoothly if you were looking for a love affair.
We may have talked about this briefly before this even started, but Stardust Memories is a Woody Allen movie.
Yes, it is. The reason I haven't really brought it up is that I don't know that there's any juice in that lemon.
Yeah, and there may not be. And I don't have any particular interest in talking about Woody Allen.
I've never seen the film. I haven't seen many Woody Allen films, period, but I haven't seen that one. And as far as I could tell from reading summaries of the plot, I can't identify any.
Nothing stood out then. Probably not worth talking about.
And I want to say it references like a jazz tune that goes back even further. That's the one to look at.
Yeah. I'm going to make a note. I shall make a note. Was that from one of our DND campaigns?
Yes, that was a thing I used to say in DND a lot.
One of your characters, rather.
No, that was me. The DM that was always like, oh well, I'll make a note of that.
Of that weird thing you did that.
You thought wouldn't have any consequences. I shall make a note.
Okay. I thought you had wanted to talk about the name of the movie.
I do. We just got distracted.
Okay, well, before I start talking about a whole bunch of other stuff, then maybe you should talk about the name of the movie.
What did I say? Probably can't put that in funny. And in this episode, that's really the and in the and then.
All of the comments that I want to make in response, I feel like shouldn't go into the podcast. Somebody here to give me an awesome secret friends handshake. When I finish Bang, some of you are going to get that and be horrified. Some of you are going to get that and be delighted. And some of you are just going to be confused.