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Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: Encounters
Title: Encounters
Series:
Mobile Suit Gundam: The ORIGIN #12
Author
& Artist:
Yoshikazu Yasuhiko
Rating:
4.5 of 5 Stars
Genre:
Manga
Pages:
400
Format:
Hardcover
|
Synopsis: |
Amura and Char continue and finish their fight. Char ends up taking a rocket launcher and blowing up the spaceship which Kycillia is on, thus completely destroying House Zabi and the leadership of Zeon. Everyone gets out safely and a bunch of the kids exhibit newtype mental powers, ie, they have a connection with Amuro while he's escaping. The main story ends at page 160.
What
follows for the next 100+ pages are 3 smaller stories. One taking
place in the past, with the birth of Char. One after the peace
agreement between the Federation and Zeon in which Sayla is almost
abducted to be used by Zeon loyalists as a new rallying point. The
final story is of one of Amuro's friends being engaged to Fraw and
begging Amuro to not take her away from him. Amuro realizes all his
ties to the past are now cut and decides to go back to space and
begin the work of helping humans, spacenoids, earthers, newtypes and
oldtypes to all get along as one united family. Thus ends the ORIGIN
manga.
Then
there are 10-20 pages of interviews with various people involved in
the manga. I skipped those, as I didn't care one bit.
|
My Thoughts:
|
First, it's been
over 18months since I read the previous volume. Way back in March of
2016. I think I stopped because the library didn't have this final
volume yet and I was slowly buying them. So they sat on my shelf. But
now I've read the whole series and I have to say, Good Stuff to the
series as a whole.
This ending volume
got bumped down a 1/2star because of the pie in the sky utopian
idealism exhibited in the storyline. I know that is the foundation
for the Gundam franchise, starting with the original series back in
1979 but to see it so plainly stated here kind of made me cringe. The
underpinning of it all is that Newtypes won't have war because they
can understand each other through their shared mental connections. It
is based on the idea that Man is basically good. Sadly, as a
Christian, I know that isn't the case.
When the story
ended at the 160 page mark, I was kind of shocked. I was barely over
half way through the book and bam, the main story is done.
Thankfully, the 3 other stories fill in a good bit. The prequel story
about Char's birth I was really “meh” about, as I didn't care
about the past. But the other 2 stories that took place after the
ending, they were good wrap ups. Pretty much an Epilogue and I was
satisfied with the story closing on them.
I think I would
have enjoyed this final volume a little more if so much time hadn't
elapsed since my last read. The tension, the impact, the “what will
happen” feeling, that were all building up in the previous 11
volumes had gone. Kind of like a bicycle tire that has sat in the
garage for 18months. Whenever I re-read this in the future, I'll
definitely make sure to read the whole series at a regular pace and I
hope that would make a difference.
Once again, I would
have bought these even if I hated the story just for the quality of
the books themselves. The hardcovers are sturdy and the pictures on
them are fantastic. The paper itself is a joy to turn. It is heavy
and glossy and it was made to be felt as you turned the pages. The
color artwork mixed in with the regular black and white was balanced
perfectly. I never felt thrown when it switched from one to the
other. I also liked that this was oversized and so could see the
detail of the artwork better. This was not your typical manga sized
released. This was a very high quality release and I'm glad I've got
them.
I recommend this
for the story, as the Gundam franchise is so quintessentially
“manga/anime” and I recommend the books from an artistic
viewpoint as well. It is always good to have a high quality
production to judge everything else by. They are expensive though.
MRSP is $30 and some volumes are as low as $20 but still, you're
looking at a couple hundred of dollars. That is an investment. Borrow
them and if you are as smitten as I was, then starting buying a book
at a time.
★★★★ ½
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