A Post About Octave

I’ve been on a yuri manga kick lately. I’ve always liked yuri, not because two girls together is cute, though that certainly helps, but because I like seeing LGBT stories in my mediums of choice. I decided to revisit the genre recently, as I became more interested after once again paying attention to the sociopolitical world. This lead me to pick back up Octave, which I had put on hold months before. I think this was a very good decision, as Octave was very good in general, despite having some flaws.

Gundam Thunderbolt and a Belief in Humanity

Gundam Thunderbolt is good in many ways. It looks stunning, being perhaps the best looking anime I’ve ever seen. Its use of erratic jazz music, while unorthodox for the genre serves the show well thematically. The show succeeds at portraying the horrors of the One Year War, with the entire Thunderbolt Sector being a meaningless meat grinder which slaughters Zekes and Feddies alike. This success leads to its failure however. The show is simply too dark.

The best of this example is the Federation’s use of child soldiers. These high-school age teenagers are brought in to pilot the GMs and Balls with little to no training in order to merely hold back the Zeonic progress. This makes sense, with what we’ve seen in the franchise it’s certainly something that the Federation higher-ups would do, especially this late into the year when both sides are hurting and the Federation wants to end it quick without an invasion of Side 3.