Nostalgic Anime Retrospective No. 36] The standing dendrobium heats up the composition of the confrontation!　The iconography of "Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Afterglow of Zeon

Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt BANDIT FLOWER" will be screened in theaters on November 18, 2017. One of the most famous spin-offs about the remnants of the Principality of Zeon set after the One Year War is "Mobile Suit Gundam 0083 STARDUST MEMORY," which was released between 1991 and 1992. The theatrical anime "Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Afterglow of Zeon" is a re-edited version of "STARDUST MEMORY" and was released in August 1992.
Major Annabelle Gato, a member of Deller's Fleet, a remnant army of the Principality of Zeon, robs the Gundam Prototype 2, a state-of-the-art mobile suit. Ensign Kou Uraki, a pilot in the Earth Federation Forces, pursues Major Gato on Gundam Prototype No. 1. The first half climaxes with a confrontation between Unit 2 and Unit 1, and the battle continues in the second half with Major Gato in Mobile Armor Noie Zeal and Ensign Uraki in Gundam Unit 3 "Dendrobium".

The battle between Major Gato and Ensign Uraki is a "vertical vs. horizontal" battle.

Mobile suits are humanoid mecha. They shoot guns, wield swords, and perform other human-like actions. In the opening cut of the first "Mobile Suit Gundam" (1979), the beam rifle is held in the frame from the waist up. In the cut in which he wields the beam saber, he captures the entire body, from the knees up, and the saber blade and shield are extended horizontally to stabilize the composition. In the last cut, the Gundam is flying through space from the back of the screen toward the front, and its legs are extremely small because of the large perspective. In the battle against the Camel Fleet in the movie "Mobile Suit Gundam III: Meguriai Uchuhen," the Gundam rushing head-on from the back of the screen was depicted in a very impressive manner, and this may be the result of the artist's search for how to fit a mobile suit with a human silhouette into a horizontal frame in a pleasing manner.
A similar cut is also depicted in "Afterglow of Zeon. In this scene, the Gundam Unit 1 approaches from directly under the Gundam Unit 2 that attacked the Federation Forces' ship-viewing ceremony. In this combat style, the Gundam Unit 1 is lying on its back with only its head and weapons pointed toward the enemy, leaving few blind spots and minimizing the area of exposure to bullets. Conversely, mobile suits that remain upright are fragile. Unit 1, before it was converted to space equipment, was shot repeatedly by the enemy while standing still in the center of the screen, resulting in its total destruction. The humanoid mecha standing in the middle of the horizontal frame is unreliable and looks very weak.
In contrast, Unit 3 "Dendrobium," which Ensign Uraki replaces Unit 1, is a horizontally long mech with an overall length of 140 meters. In contrast, Major Gato's Noie Jeel is a long, 76.6-meter-long mecha. In fact, in the first cut of the Neue Geel's appearance, it is shown panning (waving the camera) vertically from its feet to its head.

What does it mean for a fuselage that is perfectly Vista-sized and horizontal to stand upright?

The first appearance cut of the dendrobium, which is of interest, rhymes with the cut where Unit 1 approaches Unit 2 from directly below. In other words, it approaches from the back of the screen to the full front of the camera. However, when the camera gets close enough to see the head of the Gundam, the shape of the dendrobium itself is obscured. It is only when the Dendrobium appears in front of the Deller's Fleet that we can see that it is a long fuselage. The camera takes a close PAN view of the flying dendrobium from the side. At this point, we finally understand that the Dendrobium is a Gundam "lying down" covered with a large number of containers and thrusters. The Dendrobium is attacked by several beams from the left side of the screen, but it deftly twists its long, thin fuselage by firing its side thrusters and avoids all beams. The Dendrobium is a machine that has taken advantage of the wide screen size ("Afterglow of Zeon" was released in Vista size, 16:9).
However, what is surprising is the cut in which the dendrobium, which cuts even deeper into the enemy mobile suit squadron, turns its fuselage upward as if to wriggle and begins to move vertically. From the center of the vertical dendrobium's fuselage, the Gundam that has settled inside shoots a beam rifle with its arm. We realize that the vertically-oriented Dendrobium, in other words, contains a humanoid mobile suit in a "standing" position. The fact that the hero's mobile suit "stands up" has its own meaning.

The dendrobium stands vertically in order to compete with its vertical rivals

The enemy mobile suits retreat in the face of the Dendrobium, which boasts unrivaled strength. The dendrobium "stands" in front of the enemy's rear view. In the cockpit, Ensign Uraki senses an unusual presence in the deserted space. From the wreckage of the Musai, the huge body of the Neue Gier with Major Gato aboard appears and fires a volley of beams. As mentioned earlier, the Neue Geel is a vertically long aircraft. Naturally, it attacks the dendrobium in an upright position. In other words, in order to duel with the "standing" Noie Jeel, the hero's mobile suit must also be in a "standing" position in order to appear to be evenly matched. In order to face off against a strong opponent, can we not say that the Dendrobium "stands" on its own?
This is because the dendrobium, which should have been lying on its side to avoid beams, grabs a bazooka with the arm of the Gundam in the center, turns its fuselage vertical again, and begins firing squarely and squarely at the Neue Gehl.

The refueled Dendrobium rushes to the front lines to block the advancing space colony drop mission. When cutting down enemy ships with its huge beam sabers or dodging attacks, the Dendrobium is in a horizontal position, but when its nemesis, the Neue Geil, enters the same frame, the Dendrobium deliberately assumes a vertical position and flies toward the heavens. Then, as if to mock the vertical dendrobium, a colony falls from diagonally above. The dendrobium, which simply rotates like a leaf in the center of the screen, is as unreliable as the Gundam Unit 1 before it was converted to space equipment.
The dendrobium has a horizontal silhouette, stabilized by its horizontal frame. However, against the backdrop of a crisis in which a colony that was supposed to float horizontally falls vertically, the protagonist machine, the dendrobium, also abandons its stable state and tries to occupy a vertical position, as if resisting its own fate. At the same time, the vertical Neue Geel runs to destroy the "surface" or "wall" of the solar system. To witness an iconographic drama that transcends dialogue and acting, it is necessary to constantly pay attention to the relationship between design and composition.


(Text by Keisuke Hirota)

(C) Sotsu, Sunrise