Gundam Thunderbolt: December Sky Collector's Edition [Blu-ray]

I picked this up with no prior knowledge of the Gundam universe.You can definitely start from here.This is a great film with a first-class production from Sunrise studios.I highly recommend it.

This was my first forray into Mobile Suit Gundam. I'd watched loads of youtube vids/ read articles on the best place to start this mammoth long running franchise and most pointed to the 1979 original series/ compilation films. However if you like me were a bit dubious of this as an entry point and was a little put off by the quality of late 70s animation this release is just the ticket.MSG Thunderbolt: december sky is more or less stand alone- beautifully animated and follows a conflict in space between 2 long warring factions fighting over what amounts to an area of rubble in space (a destroyed space colony).In short you have the cock sure arogant decorated soilder vs a double amputee hot shot sniper with plenty of war time politics thrown in for good measure (a MSG staple) and the results are thrilling. The dub is brilliant- johnny yong bosch stars and is one of my all time fav voice actors- famous for Trigun, Code Geass, Wolfs Rain amongst many many other brilliant animes.Now i say more or less standalone as it does contain many winks back to the original series BUT I still haven't got round to watching it yet and it didn't spoil my enjoyment of the series or hinder my ability to follow the narrative.The film is soundtracked by free jazz- which one of the pilots of the giant mechanized robots plays and moves to in battle using it to inspire terror into his enemies. Geniunely this was an unusual creative decision but one that really works and sets this anime apart.All the anime (who have the licensing for all MSG releases in the uk now) as per usual have hit it out of the park in terms of packaging and presentation for this release and at a reasonable price- the MSG series can go for as much as £50 some places.All in all if you're looking to get into MSG but don't know where to start- start here or my 2nd recommendation would be Iron-blooded orphans- which is a bit longer at 50 episodes but is equally brilliant and again stand alone and then like me start to delve into that mammoth universal century time line starting with the original gundam!

Arrived on time and in great condition, the art cards are fantastic, a must have for mobile suit fans, as for the film: after a brief introduction to the battlefield and our characters your quickly swept into the action with a jazz soundtrack riffing through the scene, the action is fast but detailed and exciting, the story however does rely on prior knowledge of aspects of the universal century and mobile suit gundam, to fully understand what's happening, there's a lot to cover and no time to do so, resulting in characters development feeling rushed or just outright cut off (you'll see who I'm on about) for seemingly the sake of runtime. Nevertheless what is here is a great action sci-fi which can be enjoyed by anyone interested in the genre and who knows maybe lead you to try out more films/shows in the gundam universe.