The (admittedly incredibly good) flashback arc has concluded, and now we return to the White Base - first as they come into port at Belfast, before moving to Gibraltar and the Mediterranean as part of the final push to drive Zeon forces from Earth, with Operation Odessa.

As with the earlier volumes, Yasuhiko's art is incredibly good, and while he's still working from Yoshiyuki Tomino's original framework, with the TV series, he builds on it in ways which do in incredible job of expanding of some of the characters. In particular, M'quve gets some considerable character growth. Miharu also gets some additional screen time, as opposed to basically being a one-episode wonder in the show.

However, after Miharu's arc, the focus of this volume is particularly on action, and the action sequences here are played out brilliantly. We have a tense cat-and-mouse duel in Gibraltar leading up to the fourth battle between Char and Amuro - along with the various parts of Operation Odessa. Yasuhiko does an excellent job basically doing a montage in sequential art. Where the original series budgetary limitations restrained the scope of this larger war, Yasuhiko is able to use the implied gaps in time between panels to let our mind fill in the pieces.

Unfortunately, with the conclusion of combat on Earth, and the next volume likely taking us back to space, this does mean that we won't get my favorite episode of Mobile Suit Gundam - the episode where a Zeon Patrol blunders across The White Base, in the forests of Northern Europe, and hopes that the Feddies will be just as caught off guard as they are, and they attempt a sneak attack. The plan doesn't work - but in the episode the Zeon troops survive, and no one on White Base is killed, so the incident serves as a nice psychological rest break, focusing on the idea that sometimes in war, a lot hinges on luck, not everything goes according to plan, and occasionally you legitimately get moments where you can end up saying "Someday, when all this is over, we'll look back on this moment and laugh." ( )

This review is written with a GPL 3.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at Bookstooge.booklikes.blogspot.wordpress.leafmarks.com & Bookstooge's Reviews on the Road Facebook Group by Bookstooge's Exalted Permission. Title: Operation Odessa Series: Mobile Suit Gundam The Origin Author & Artist: Yoshikazu Yasuhiko Rating: 4 of 5 Stars Genre: Manga Pages: 470 Synopsis: After several books of back story, we are catapulted back into the present. The Federation is making a big push to put Zeon off the earth and back into Space. The White Base personnel are growing up, coming into their own as a military force. Amuro continues to grow as a pilot but not much as a man. He's still a pretty whiny teen. And Char's obsession with him grows even greater. My Thoughts: I wasn't real keen on returning to the "present". I found the characters much more likable, interesting and generally all around more engaging in the "past". However, the story must proceed. Amuro and Char have a really good battle where Amuro starts to come into his own as a warrior. Char's obsession with New Types seems to be affecting his decision making abilities and I can see it bringing about his destruction. On a side note, I've been wondering how many volumes this is going to be. I still don't know. I see that Vol.'s 11 and 12 are going to be coming out this fall. I think 12 is the last one and I hope so. Who can afford 12 books at $30 a pop? I am slowly collecting these but I have to wait for sales where they go down to 20 or less for a day, then save up my amazon points and snatch one up here and there. Well, with that being said, these are worth every penny and I'm really glad I saw these at our local library. If I had to wait to read these until I bought them, ha. " ( )

Although I was vaguely familiar with Gundam before reading Yoshikazu Yasuhiko's Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin, the manga series was my first real introduction to the ever-expanding franchise. I was actually more interested in The Origin because it was created by Yasuhiko than for its Gundam connection, but I've been enjoying the series so much that I've started to look for other manga, novels, and anime set in the universe. Operation Odessa is the eighth volume in Vertical's English-language release of The Origin. Published in 2015, the volume is based on the Japanese collectors' edition released in 2011 and includes an essay by Makoto Yukimura in addition to a gallery of some of Yasuhiko's color artwork for the series. The Origin is a reimagining of the original Mobile Suit Gundam anime from 1979. The last several volumes of The Origin have been an extended flashback not found in the original anime series, but with Operation Odessa the manga returns to the story's current timeline.

After successfully defending itself from Zeon forces at Jaburo—though not without significant casualties—the Earth Federation has set out to reclaim more of the planet and its aligned space colonies. The key to its plans is the newly developed and highly advanced Gundam mobile suit which the ragtag crew of the White Base was somehow able to deliver to the Federation's headquarters mostly intact. The Gundam prototype will serve as the basis for a mass-produced mobile suit that will hopefully be able to rival those developed by Zeon. Up until this point in the devastating conflict between the two factions, Zeon's impressive technological achievements have given it a distinct advantage over the Federation. But now the tide of war seems to be changing. However, neither side will remain unscathed. The battles are still incredibly destructive and the loss of life continues to be immense. Even so, the end of the war may still not be coming anytime soon.

The Origin began in space and has since moved Earthward, the space battles giving way to air and land battles. And now with Operation Odessa, sea battles have an important role to play in the conflict as well. With new arenas of warfare come new weapons, mobile suits, technology, equipment, and vehicles. It can actually be a little overwhelming at times, this sudden introduction of very specialized tools that don't have much more explanation given beyond a name and a visual design. Inundated, readers are mostly left to glean the details of the differences in the capabilities and purposes of the individual units from their context within the manga. Much of Operation Odessa seems to be devoted to showing off these new toys of war in a way that is probably more meaningful to someone who is already well-versed in Gundam lore. Especially in the last half of the volume, the narrative tends to be jarring as it jumps from battle to battle, or from different points in the same battle, without much connecting material to smooth the transitions.

While Operation Odessa could arguably be considered overly focused on equipment and technology, it is important to note that the manga still has a prominent human element to it, which is what makes The Origin such a compelling series. In particular, Kai, one of the young pilots connected to White Base, is heavily featured in Operation Odessa and develops significantly as a character. For the most part he has largely been a secondary character who provides a fair amount of comedic relief in the series. Except now he's quite seriously fed up with all of the fighting and even tries to leave, only to find himself drawn back into battle and the tragedy of war. As Yasuhiko has shown repeatedly throughout The Origin, those who are directly involved in the conflict aren't the only ones who are impacted by it. Civilians and non-combatants must also take action out of necessity, doing whatever they can to survive and protect those they love. It's a lesson that Kai must learn the hard way in Operation Odessa if he is to understand his own role as a soldier.

Experiments in Manga ( )