Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt vol. 16

Your enjoyment of this volume will likely depend on how you feel towards Darryl Lorenz.

Do you feel that the ex-Zeon pilot who, along with his comrades, has allied with the Nanyang Alliance is a tragic figure?  That he sacrificed so much of himself for so little only to find a true family with a group of outcasts and a purpose in breaking the cycle of endless war in the Solar System?  Or do you believe that he’s been fighting on the wrong side of history all this time?  First with the fascist Zeon Republic and now with the terrorists-in-all-but-name Nanyang Alliance?  It’s to mangaka Yasuo Ohtagaki’s credit that the answer isn’t immediately obvious.  However, my experience with Gundam is such that I tend to associate “Zeon” with “Bad Guys,” and while the Nanyang Alliance may proclaim that peace is their ultimate goal, they’ve shown themselves to be willing to kill a whole lot of people to achieve that.

Which means that this volume was not among my favorites in this series.  Not helping matters either was that the way the story was presented made it clear from the start that the Federation soldiers in the Luna II asteroid base were going to be in for a bad time.  Even though Darryl and his crew are presented as the underdogs here, they experience remarkably little struggle as they go about their goal of trying to secure a specific mobile suit (that will likely be familiar to old school UC Gundam fans).  Though the Federation soldiers here are either presented as cannon fodder or arrogant chumps asking for comeuppance, it was still pretty depressing to see Darryl cut through them like it was nothing.  The volume ends on a note indicating that the focus will be shifting back to Io, Bianca, and their new mobile suit, and not a moment too soon as far as I’m concerned.