Rejoice GUNDAM fans! GUNDAM WING's reign of terror is over! With MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM: THE 08TH MS TEAM we finally return to the original GUNDAM timeline. In fact we return to the war that started it all: The One Year War. Much like GUNDAM 0080, THE 08TH TEAM is an OVA series that takes place when the original GUNDAM TV series and movies took place.

En route to take command of a Gundam ground unit fighting in the jungles of southeast Asia, Amada Shiro's space transport comes across a fight between a badly damaged Federation GM and a Zeon Zaku. Wanting to help out a fellow soldier, Shiro heads out in a repair pod called a Ball to help the damaged GM, but in the process he gets both his Ball and the enemy Zaku tangled up, causing both pilots to abandon their vehicles and flee to a nearby space wreck. Inside the ship Shiro discovers that the Zeon pilot is actually a woman. After a brief gunfight, he is able to subdue her and, being the nice guy that he is, he bandages the wound she received during the battle. Putting aside their differences, Shiro and the Zeon pilot, named Aina Sakhalin, are able to launch a signal flare that allows them to be picked up by their respective sides.

Once on Earth, Shiro takes over command of the 08th MS Team, which is part of the Kojima Battalion, stationed in the aforementioned southeast Asia. Besides Shiro, the other pilots on the team are Karen Joshua, who is your standard-issue tough chick, and Terry Sanders Jr., who is the GM pilot Shiro saved. Also part of the team is Michel, who spends most of his time writing letters to his girlfriend B.B., and he is also an old friend of Shiro's. Michel assists the smart mouthed hippie dude Eledore operate the team's hovertruck, which provides support for the Gundam during battle.

Also part of the cast is the guerilla girl Kiki (that's guerilla, as in civilian freedom fighter guerilla, not ape gorilla), whom Shiro comes across after he gets lost from his team during their first mission. He first finds her as she is swimming nude in a spring and, like any good Federation soldier, he decides to sit down on the bank and ogle her (which leads me to wonder how the Federation ever won the war in the first place.) He meets up with her a second time when he is captured by the guerillas while his team is trying to free a hillside town that is occupied by Zeon forces.

One of the things that struck me about THE 08TH TEAM is just how different it is from the other GUNDAM shows that have been released in the U.S. Sure, it has giant robots beating the crud out of each other, but it's missing two key ingredients that the other GUNDAM shows had: angst and melodrama. THE 08TH TEAM presents itself as more of straight forward action story with some light hearted comedy added in, and it doesn't touch as much on issues like the horror's of war or using children as soldiers like the other GUNDAM shows did. You could probably call THE 08TH TEAM "GUNDAM Lite."

So despite 08th TEAM's relative change in venue it wasn't that bad. Actually, I kind of liked it. It my not start out as serious or thought-provoking as the other GUNDAM shows, but it did have good amount of mecha action and some really funny moments. The lighter feel of 08th TEAM is actually a welcome change as some of the other GUNDAM shows can occasionally get bloody depressing.

Along with the lighter feel, 08th TEAM also has character designs that are for the most part in tune with the show. Designed by Toshihiro Kawamoto, who also fashioned the characters for COWBOY BEBOP, these characters have realistic forms like those in GUNDAM 0080 and GUNDAM 0083 while also keeping a more "cartoonish" look to them.

The dub was just okay. I guess in contemporary dub quality levels, this dub was only slightly above average. There was nothing outstanding from the script or from the acting. I do have to say that when I initially saw 08th TEAM I was a little put off by the dub because I wasn't expecting two of the main characters to be so young and thus have youthful sounding voices. Both Shiro and Michel look and sound like they are still in high school. This isn't a knock against the dub or anything, it's just my own little pet peeve that I got over.

For those who care, the DVD didn't offer that much in the way of extras. It has the textless opening that is pretty much standard these days, and there is also a special bonus clip that is pretty much just a Japanese promo/trailer clip for the 08th TEAM series and since it is in Japanese, you will need to switch on the subtitle option. Not all that insightful. But the most interesting thing about the DVD packaging is that the top cover for the DVD disk is colored in jungle camouflage, which gives the DVD a snazzy military look to it.

In the end 08th TEAM is a good show. It's very different from the other GUNDAM shows that have been released, but it's good nonetheless. And even though you don't have to have an extensive knowledge of the original series to enjoy 08th TEAM, there are some little things that those who have seen the original GUNDAM movies will find interesting. In the first episode they show a clip of Gihren Zabi's speech at the funeral for his younger brother Garma Zabi who died fighting the famous White Base. Also in the first episode, a couple Federation soldiers make reference to a large military operation, which can only mean Operation Odessa. And finally, I like what Bandai has written on the back on the DVD case, "Welcome to the Jungle!" Whenever I read that an image of Axl Rose pops into my head.