There's no way that I wasn't going to talk about this, the latest Gundam manga to hit our shores (especially since it had been delayed for so long, between Covid-related printing issues and clearing all the various necessary rights).
MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM: CHAR'S COUNTERATTACK - BELTORCHIKA'S CHILDREN (Kido Senshi Gundamu: Gyakushu no Char - Berutochika Chirudoren), based on the original story by Yoshiyuki Tomino and Hajime Yatate and mobile suit designs by Yutaka Izubuchi, with art by Uroaki Sabisi and Takayuki Yanase. First published in 2014 and first published in North America in 2023.
PLOT:
In the year UC 0093, Char Aznable has reappeared as the leader of Neo Zeon. He has an army of mobile suits at his command, and his target is not just the Earth Federation but the Earth itself. The only force that can stand up to him is that on the Londo Bell, commanded by former White Base captain Bright Noa. No one on the ship is more determined to stop Char than Amuro Ray, the Gundam pilot who has both fought against and aside Char in the past. As the battle grows, it will encompass not just Char, Amuro, and those who fight alongside them, but younger children such as runaway rich girl Quess Paraya and Bright's son Hathaway.
STORY:
Alright, get comfy because as per usual with Universal Century Gundam stories, there's a bunch of backstory I need to cover here for those not in (or not deep) if any of this is to make sense.
As covered in this episode of Mobile Suit Breakdown (which I highly recommend, as both a recap of this story's convoluted history and as a good Gundam podcast in general), Yoshiyuki Tomino wrote and serialized two different versions of the story that would become the 1988 film Char's Counterattack. Those were Beltorchika's Children and High Streamer. While the broad strokes of all three works are roughly the same, the details can vary widely as Tomino added, dropped, or refined certain ideas during production on the film. If you've seen Char's Counterattack previously, most of this story is going to be familiar to you but it won't be the exact same experience.
First we have to address the biggest difference, the one that's right there in the title: Beltorchika Irma, professional pilot, former AEUG operative and Amuro's first proper girlfriend. In canon she disappears between the end of Zeta Gundam and a brief appearance in Gundam Unicorn, but here she's present as both Amuro's partner and personal engineer. We don't see a lot of her in this volume, but it's clear that she's a happier and more emotionally stable young woman than the clingy, mercurial girl we saw in the later half of Zeta Gundam and that her presence has had something of a stabilizing effect on Amuro as well. She's not the only character change present, as there are one or two new characters along with some renamed old ones. For example, Neo Zeon pilot Gyunei Guss is now Grave Guss, while Char's second-in-command Nanai Miguel is now Mesta Mesua.
There's an even more significant change to this story, though, and it has to do with the pacing. Char's Counterattack throws the viewer in media res into the first notable battle because Tomino presumed anyone watching it had already read at least one version of this story beforehand. Meanwhile, this adaptation dares to give its readers context for the conflict between the Federation and Neo Zeon. We get more scenes with the supporting cast, giving us a better understanding of them and their relationships to Char or Amuro. They even manage (mostly) to get around Tomino's tendencies to write weirdly wordy and awkwardly expositional dialogue. It makes the story as a whole feel more fleshed-out, which in turn gives all these battles and technobabble some actual meaning.
ART:
This isn't part of the same continuity as Gundam: The Origin, but the influence that series had on this manga's art (and no doubt many other series running in Gundam Ace) is obvious. While Sabisi's art isn't quite as elegant as Yoshikazu Yasuhiko's, he does do a good job at updating and polishing Hiroyuki Kitazune's dated and somewhat flat character designs. His most original contribution is giving Bright Noa a full, Commander Riker-style beard and I'm still not sure how I feel about that. He manages the more character-centric scenes quite well, but he stumbles somewhat when it comes to the mecha battles. The paneling tends to be cramped and chaotic, making it hard to follow the flow of battle. He definitely nails the destruction of Lhasa, as the asteroid impact blasts away everything until almost the entire page is stark white.
This may be the only manga I've reviewed where there's one artist to draw the characters and another to draw the mecha. In fairness, they got a good man for the job, as Takayuki Yanase is a notable mechanical designer with plenty of Gundam experience, whose credits include Gundam 00, Gundam Build Divers, and The Witch From Mercury. Beltorchika's Children is notable within the fandom for its own unique variants of the mobile suits from Char's Counterattack. I'm pretty indifferent to Izubuchi's original designs, and the ones featured here are a mixed bag. For every legitmate upgrade (such as swapping Gyunei/Grave's Jagd Doga for the Psycho Doga), there is a downgrade (like trading out Char's overrated Sazabi, for the hideous, gaudy, and boxy Nightingale). Outside of the cover and a single scene, we don't even see Amuro's Hi-Nu Gundam, another fan favorite. I will say that Yanase does his job well - all the suits are crisply rendered and on-model, as are the various ships.
PRESENTATION:
Aside from the slick, French-flapped cover, there's a lot of effort made her to get readers who might not be familiar with this story on board as quickly as possible. There are single-page breakdowns of both sides of the conflict between some of the chapters, with brief blurbs about some of the characters involved. There are model sheets of the various suits featured. There's a map of the locations of the various colonies and their position relative to the Earth and Moon - a very handy thing, as the various Sides are often mentioned but seldom explained in-universe. There's even an essay from an anime writer/light novels to explain the importance of the original novel, even if I feel that his notions about it are a little more pretentious than the work entirely deserves.
RATING:
...I still don't know if I'll ever get used to that beard.
This manga is published by Denpa Books. This series is complete in Japan with 7 volumes available. 1 volume has been released and is currently in print.
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