Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team (機動戦士ガンダム 第08MS小隊, Kidō Senshi Gandamu Dai Zerohachi Emu Esu Shōtai?) is an original video animation (OVA) anime series in the Gundam franchise.
Released from January 25, 1996, to April 25, 1999, the 11-episode series
details the adventures of an Earth Federation Space Force ground unit during
the One Year War - specifically before the original 1979 Gundam series
and into the final weeks of the war. The 08th MS Team is the first Gundam
series to show the war from the viewpoint of the average soldier. A twelth
epilogue episode, called "Last Resort", was released a few months
after the series ended, and featured a more surreal plotline than the rest
of the series.
The series took a long time to be released largely due to the sudden death
of director Takeyuki Kanda in July 1996. GONZO's Umanosuke Iida took over
production of the series until it ended. The first 11 episodes of The 08th
MS Team were broadcast on Cartoon Network in 2001. "Last Resort"
was never televised in North America. However, all twelve episodes are
on the DVD release.
【Plot】
The series is set in Universal Century year 0079 in the jungles of Southeast
Asia. The Earth Federation and the Principality of Zeon are fighting a
brutal guerrilla war for control of the area and its resources. Zeon’s
best hope for victory in the region rests with an experimental mobile armor
and its pilot, Aina Sahalin. Meanwhile the Earth Federal Army, which has
been fighting the Zeon in the region, receive reinforcements in the form
of Ensign Shiro Amada, newly named commander of the 08th MS Team. Aina
and Shiro know each other from a mutual rescue in space, but when Shiro
discovers that Aina is in fact the pilot of the Zeon mobile armor he is
arrested for treason. The Federation offers Shiro one chance at redemption:
He must take the 08th MS Team deep into Zeon held territory to find Zeon’s
hidden base. With the Zeon backed into a corner, and the Federation dependent
on Shiro and his team for victory, the star crossed lovers must decide
where their true allegiances lie: with each other, or with their respective
sides.
【Quotation from Wikipedia 2011.11.22】
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