S6E17 - TOMINO-THON! Mobile Suit Gundam: CHAR’S COUNTERATTACK (1988) – Dropping the Asteroid

If you’ve ever listened to us before, you know Char’s Counterattack is a film we cannot shut up about. It very much lives in our minds rent free, not just as one of Tomino Yoshiyuki’s and Gundam’s finest hours, but an incredibly kinetic and powerful action masterpiece that asks big questions and forces the viewer to sit with and accept a lack of easy answers. So in coming back to the film today, we dive deep into the film’s production history, its various literary sources (since Tomino wrote two completely separate and contradictory novelizations in the lead-up to the film), and review it in the context of everything we’ve seen in our Tomino-Thon so far. And unsurprisingly, there’s still an awful lot to say – this is one of our favorite films of all time.

Enjoy, and come back next week to hear all about the troubled production – and stellar artistry – of Mobile Suit Gundam F91!

Time Chart:

Theme Song: 0:00:00 – 0:01:38

Char’s Counterattack Part 1: 0:01:38 – 1:38:31

Eyecatch Break: 1:38:31 – 1:39:17

Char’s Counterattack Part 2: 1:39:17 – 2:55:56

End Theme: 2:55:56 – 2:58:02

Listen to our original Char’s Counterattack review on episode 9 of Weekly Suit Gundam from September 2019 – https://youtu.be/xg0hyAkE1hc?si=CChXGdhlpUUo4AxI

Read Jonathan’s written review of Char’s Counterattack from October 2024 - https://www.jonathanlack.com/p/review-mobile-suit-gundam-chars-counterattack

Subscribe to our YouTube channels!

Japanimation Station: https://www.youtube.com/c/japanimationstation

Purely Academic: https://www.youtube.com/@purelyacademicpodcast

Read Jonathan Lack’s movie reviews and stay up to date with all our podcast projects at https://www.jonathanlack.com

Subscribe to PURELY ACADEMIC, our monthly variety podcast about movies, video games, TV, and more: https://purelyacademic.simplecast.com

Follow Japanimation Station on Instagram and Threads @JapanimationStationPodhttps://www.instagram.com/japanimationstationpod/

Read Jonathan’s book 200 Reviews in Paperback or on Kindle – https://a.co/d/bLx53vK

“Tominoson-G Mk. V” – Music by Thomas Lack, Lyrics by Sean Chapman, featuring Hatsune Miku & KAITO. “The World You See” – Music & Lyrics by Thomas Lack, featuring Hatsune Miku. https://www.thomaslack.com