Any commander who names their ship Lili Marleen is already a winner in my book.
Given the rather insipid amounts of anime not meant for a crazy militantly religious zealot this season I have been taking a merry crusade down the old back log and browsing through the archives while painting madly in order to have less models in boxes. During one such revisiting crusade I came upon Gundam 0083 though a series overview at this point is pretty much moot since 0083 is considered one of the weaker links in the UC saga (G-Savior did not exist any reference to it having existed is a lie). Nevertheless even the least of the UC series is better than some of the other Gundam series made…mostly because while Kou was a whiny punk, Gato was an ass, and Nina was a bitch, there was an ensemble of supporting characters that made it much more tolerable, like South Burning, Monsha, Captain Synapse, Mora and her crew, and most notably Cima Garahau. Besides when was the last time you saw grunt suits continuously taking names and kicking serious ass? Minor characters in anime are a vital ingredient in any series, it never hurts to have a good amount of back up and if the mains don’t hold up they might at least make the series tolerable.
It seems that time was not kind to Cima.
Sad to say that what Cima really looked like and how she was portrayed in 0083 showed much disparity.
Lady Cima does not tolerate jokes about her age…
I think that minor characters should be to the mains what artillery units are to frontline forces. Powerful enough to help hammer awe into the audience, but they should not be relied upon to carry a series. The latter usually indicates that the writers have failed at some level. Other than that I am not sure about what specifics should go into a minor character since they should still be unique in their own right, and add a unique point of view to the events of the story without being a nuisance. I do however know an example of what a minor character should be, Cima Garahau.
Cima could bullshit very well.
To show her utter disdain of Gato and Delaz Cima had a fan and sat on tiger skin of an animal she personally strangled.
Cima also fucked up her share of enemy pilots as well, and in suits that weren’t Gundams or Mobile Armors.
Cima Garahau made Gundam 0083 much more enjoyable because she added some insight into the attitudes of the Zeon forces in the wake of the One Year War. While Char had already turned his back on the Principality before, Cima was a former grunt who had her life ruined by those who commanded her. Whereas Delaz and Gato were deluded with the ideals of Zeon cloaked in a veneer of false pride and nobility Cima and her crew were reduced to outcasts due to some of the decisions of the Zeon big wigs who Gato and Delaz served and idealized. Cima and her crew unwittingly committed a war crime after their superiors lied to them about the nature of their mission, and from then on they were criminals after gassing a colony. To add insult to injury the big bad Zeon death ray was built using their home colony as the basis for the space laser. The laser was a huge non-factor in the war and did little to avert defeat at the hands of Federation. Labeled as criminals and made homeless by their social superiors like Gato and Delaz, Cima and her crew were forced into piracy because it was the only way they could survive. Hunted by the Federation and shunned by the remnants of Zeon the bitter years hardened Cima to the point that she felt no loyalty to the old cause which robbed her of everything and deceived her into doing things that continued to haunt her dreams.
Cima was the mayfly of space, Zeon took from her everything, her home, her honor, and her youth.
As you can see the scowl wasn’t permanent.
Oh boy some one is going to get some harisen…
The chivalric nature of both Gato and Delaz basically hid their ugly nature behind a fair façade. They were not above using nukes and colony drops to attain their goals attacking both military and civilian targets. They sought to revive a war that they had already lost and were insisting upon more death and more destruction so that the old Principality could be resurrected along the lines the Gihren (arguably the worst of the Zeon heirs) had envisioned. Their blind devotion to their cause made both of them believe that it was impossible for other former Zeon soldiers to betray them and be unwilling to fight for the old cause once more. Both Delaz and Gato experienced the war from a more distant and clean perspective, one was an ace from the palace guard and the other an old man who remained safely on a bridge while grunts like Cima did all the hard work. They suffered probably the least in the One Year War because they still had their pride and a place to flee to, sure the lost friends and family, but Cima and her men lost that and more. Cima and her men had nothing once the war was over and only had a life of being fugitives to look forward to. It was this social disparity that added a new dynamic to the formerly monolithic entity that was Zeon, while Char was probably doing his own thing, defeat allowed the differences between the big wigs and the grunts still nominally Zeon to differentiate themselves.
Meeting with Delaz and listen to the old bint talks was extremely taxing.
Gato and Delaz actually accomplishing their goals?
LOL!
Cima wore her ugliness in the open, while her character design left much to be desired underneath it all was an old soldier who had come to hate the old cause and the lies that surrounded it. Delaz and Gato were not fighting for freedom they were fighting for the old order and restarting a war that they had lost. Grunts like Cima fought as hard as they could, the Zeon defeat was not due to poor soldiery, but by daft decisions by the higher ups who doomed efforts on the ground. Nevertheless Cima was devious and smart enough to use Operation Stardust as a means to rid the universe of the same liars and cheats that made her a criminal and made things worse for the colonies. On the surface Delaz and Gato were being some what noble their cause was already lost and its true horror only hidden by the fact that their victims would be faceless masses. Cima not only set her sights on killing Delaz personally but also warned the Federation about the colony drop and thus, perhaps unintentionally, tried to save the lives of civilians who Gato and Delaz were targeting. She wanted her revenge to be the death blow to all those part of the Zeon Old Guard who had brought nothing of benefit to the colonies they were supposedly fighting for. Cima tried to do the right thing and her failure due largely in part to the Albion’s continued hostility towards her fleet. She died tragically despite being one of first to realize just how stupid Delaz and Gato were and how no sane person would want anything to do with the old Principality.
Delaz’s success only led to the creation of the Titans and did little to revive the old spirit of Zeon. Not even Haman and her Axis Zeon movement enjoyed the support of the spacenoids who became disillusioned with the lies of the old Zeon hegemony. Only Char was able to rally the old base for one final push against the Federation. So in the end Cima’s actions were vindicated. She saw through the old lies of the Principality and fought against those who tried to revive the lost cause. While she was motivated more by a personal grudge than any sense of duty to protect those who could not protect themselves, she did add to the richness of the Universal Century continuity by putting a face on the poor Zeon rank and file that were abused by the aristocratic leaders of Zeon and Neo-Zeon movements. Gato and Delaz represented the lies and horror of Zeon while Cima represented the poor abused grunt who wanted nothing to do with the old cause. Nevertheless the chivalric nature of both Delaz and Gato gave them a better reputation than Cima because it was Cima who was willing to do the right thing even if the right thing involved betraying the same people who had betrayed her scant years before. For Cima there was no more glory and honor to be found in war only death and vengeance, which is a message about real war rather than the ideal of war.
That is why I think Cima is a good example of a minor character she was unlike anyone else in her series and added a view point that was unique and later expanded upon with subsequent UC Gundam series.
16 Comments
So, Crusader, what do you think of 08th MS Team?
0083 was an odd mix of the good (how can you resist an opening which has someone belting out ‘the ones who have been chosen are MEN OF DESTINY’?)and the not-so-good. Cima probably falls onto the list of good things (you make a persuasive case). It’s interesting that she doesn’t go in for chivalry and sort of represents the disenfranchised, angry and ignored underbelly of Zeon. You’re right that her presence in the story adds some detail to our picture of Zeon, however much some fans may dislike her (let’s face it, she does get a good death scene).
Seriously, I never understood the popularity of this character. She’s there, gloats, acts all cocky and dominatrix like as all your standard deep voiced older female characters pretty much do, she betrays the Delaz Fleet, and then gets impaled on a large beam rifle after having sat cross legged on a chair for most of the series. She’s like the most cliched character in all of Gundam 0083.
Now in the Mayfly of Space Radio Drama or in its’ equivalent on the second DVD she was handled much much better and actually given a little depth that could have helped her in the show itself and frankly that’s the only reason to even give her character a second look. If you haven’t heard it then she just comes across as an annoying cackling super villain of a character. And even if you have she still comes across as character archetype of the “mature woman” with little depth.
@Erias
8th MS Team? Why it is the best Gundam post 0079. Any one who argues otherwise either has to like G-Gundam (in which case its a matter of taste) or is an idiotic twat monkey who thinks CE Gundams are the pinnacle of Gundam (in which case they suffer from some mental illness).
@IKnight
Men of Destiny is probably the best OP in a Gundam series. Cima has gotten a bad rep because Gato and Delaz were able to hide their intentions behind chivalric attitudes, but as a peasant I didn’t sympathize with what they were doing. Once Cima started actively sabotaging Operation Stardust I realized that Cima was more than your typical crazed Zeon soldier. She for all the seemingly evil things she does she was one of the few defectors from decadence that jumped the sinking ship that was Zeon. Her death was tragic and she died at the hands of one of the least liked protagonists in Gundam, but her life itself was tragic and in the end she was trying to do the right thing, but in the end found no acceptance even among the good guys. Cima did add immensely to the picture of what kind of people served Zeon and how the OYW affected them all differently.
@Kaioshin
Gee I see that you are a die hard Zeke…If any one is cliched its Gato who towed the company line and fit rather too neatly into the role of Char. Though I surmise that pew pew laser action is what defines character depth for you. Just because you cannot see beyond the chivalry and pomp of Gato and Delaz doesn’t mean that Cima was cliched for being one of the first to realize that Zeon was a lost cause that brought more misery to the colonies than any tangible benefits. Char sat it out until his failed counterattack (the last significant attempt to revive Zeon in anime), guys like Delza, Gato, and Haman tried to revive the Zabi hegemony, but Cima was the face of the typical spacenoid she felt no enthusiasm for the lost cause because it was already lost.
Romantic as the lost cause of Zeon was it would have demanded more death and more desolation. Cima had already been betrayed by her superiors and turned into a pariah, it was their delusion that blinded your heroes Gato and Delaz to her burning desire for revenge. There aren’t many early defectors from Zeon like Cima, and I fail to recall any other character who was so kicked around by both sides. Gundam 0083 suffered from “its all there in the manual” but taken together Cima added a lot to the overall picture of Zeon. Cima was not a mecha knight she was an old soldier who was embittered by the war that her superiors lost and wanted to wage again. Cima may have been mature, but her burning desire for revenge allowed her to come very close to ruining Operation Stardust. Cima was a minor character she was never slated for much depth to begin with, however that does not mean that she was cliched, she was wise enough to realize that Zeon was truly dead and that those who continued to fight began the war in error and that these new neo-Zeon movements were perpetuated in pride. She realized this long before Char made his last hurrah for Zeon. As IKnight said Cima was the embodiment of the ignored under belly of Zeon, guys like Gato and Delaz get a better rep because they were chivalric in attitude, Cima was just a poor grunt who saw in war only horror. Cima gets no benefit from romanticism so she comes off as a villain.
We all like the guys who seem to play by the rules, guys like Gato and Delaz, but Cima understood that in war there were no rules that there was nothing good about war not even its end comes without problems. Cima did not have to be deep to be an interesting minor for she represented a hither to unseen side to Zeon, that is why she was a great supporting character.
I think your thesis is definitely right. Great minor characters have their own thoughts and motivations that drive the story. A tinge of tragedy never hurts, either. Kurenai was very good in that regard, among more recent completed anime series. Likewise, the Chris Nolan Batmans for movies.
@passerby
Thanks. The latest Batman movie was bloody good, but I have yet to finish Kurenai.
@Crusader: Except as I said, without the Mayfly of Space OVA you’d never really know her motivations. It just looks like she betrayed them out of some sort of chance opportunity and she just comes across as a psycho. And it’s not liking joining the Federations cause was any much of an improvement either. I mean the whole let’s go from one corrupt self-destructive governing body to another thing doesn’t add to her wisdom or anything. The federation being the organization that would later create the brutal Titans who would do far worse then Zeon ever did to anybody.
And yes I do like the romantic causes of Delaz and Gato, even if they are stooped in hopeless loyalty to a dead demagogue. There’s something about that level of loyalty and at least the belief that something good can come of what’s left of a dead principality, for the genuine betterment of all spacenoids that wins me over to their ideals. Not there actions though.
And I say that Cima is cliched because of the character archetype she predominantly displays throughout 0083 right up until her death. That self-confident hand in front of mouth while cackling attitude more often seen in cliched Magical Girl villains as opposed to Gundam villains. Again without the Mayfly of Space short (which came out like a decade after the original series) she comes across as perhaps having even less depth then Kelly Layzner or Bernard Monsha and without any shades of gray.
@Kaioshin
There wouldn’t have been any Titans if Delaz had failed. Remember it was because he colony dropped North America and nuked Konpei Island that the Titans were able to argue their case. Delaz created an atmosphere of fear that allowed for their creation. Gato and Delaz gave birth to the Titans by giving the right conditions for the scheme come to term. I don’t think there would have been a need for the Titans had there been no colony drop or loss of Federation fleet to justify an organization that operated outside the rules. It was because conventional forces alone were not enough to stop the disaster the the “by any means necessary” Titans were created.
I don’t think Gato and Delaz were fighting for anything more than pride, they did not inspire any general uprising, only Char was able to do that with the civilian population and in order to do so Char rejected the Zabi hegemony. The only ones who still felt like fighting were the ones who supported the Zabi family. Nothing good came of it, only more death and more destruction. The Neo-Zeon movement of Delaz created more problems than it solved. It’s not like Gato and Delaz were trying to avoid civilian casualties by dropping a colony. Pleasant as serving one’s lord to the death sounds Gato and Delaz dragged a bunch of women and children with them for the sake of pride. The spacenoids didn’t care enough to join them. To me they are more like arrogant asses who care more for pride than anything else, the deluded bastards who keep killing in search of some sort of justification and the idiot insistence that they had not lost. They were fanatics fighting for a family that deserved no such loyalty who brought more problems to space than they solved. Again if they had failed in the colony drop there would have been no impetus for creating the Titans, it may well have just been Londo Bell inspection teams to supervise the colonies and not the almighty Titans. Lost causes are just that lost. You can surround it with words like loyalty, but in the end they were killing people they did not have to. They were trying to fan the flames of war when the population was tired and sick of it.
Cima was unlike anyone else in the Gundam universe to that point they made Mayfly of space as canon so we have to accept that it is. As I said before Gundam 0083 was a weak link because it required the audience to know much more than what was presented. Cackling women in Gundam are rare, dudes with masks aren’t. So in a way Cima is still rather unique. She has not flair of aristocratic behavior nor does she use words like loyalty to justify her actions. Cima is the peasant foot soldier to Gato’s knight. The former is not blinded by false pride and honor, the latter could not live without his pride and killed people in order to vindicate himself.
Monsha was pretty much a lecher through and through…he was after all a minor character just like Cima. They don’t have to be incredibly deep to help a series out. They provided another view point that enriched the canon. Cima was not a noble knight fighting for a lost cause like Gato, Char, Delaz, or the numerous dudes with masks. She was the outcast grunt betrayed by the cause and embittered by it for having to shoulder the burden of knowing that she killed people who didn’t have to die. For guys like Gato and Delaz killing a few unarmed people was nothing, for Cima the screams of those people she gassed would haunt her the rest of her days. In many ways Cima was more human than either Gato or Delaz. For all her confidence underneath it all was an old soldier trying to deal with the crimes she was forced to commit. Cima was not your typical defector from decadence.
After numerous conflicts Zeon died. In the end would it not have been preferable for them to reconcile than to fight more wars that resulted in more death and destruction? Again war is liked by those who don’t have to deal with its consequences. Cima knew the price and horror of war Gato and Delaz just treated it as a sport where honor could be redeemed. Cima wasn’t out to kill people who were unarmed, she sought to destroy those who wanted more war the people who used her, destroyed her home, make her a crook, and threw her away. These same people had the gall to come back and demand her help as if they deserved it. Cima was technically a part of the good guys, her victims were largely military, Delaz and Gato killed plenty of unarmed folk and helped create the Titans. Had Cima won out there would have been no colony drop, no Titans.
Hah I was just reading her Wikipedia entry after having seen Gundam 0083 a few weeks back!
This sounds like Cima’s a more sympathetic character than the protagonist. Granted, it relies on supplementary materials to fill in the blanks. And it also makes it sound like (willingly or no) she’s the real “hero” of 0083, in retrospect, while the Albion crew comes off as kind of screwing the pooch. As in, “inadvertently caused the deaths of millions and enabled the rise of a global totalitarian regime” sort of pooch-screwing.
Granted I’ve never actually seen 0083, having been told–by people who’ve watched it–not to waste my money.
This is old but I feel the need to comment.
As much as the Gihren’s Ambition/Greed games are not Canon they offer one of the only happy endings for Cima Garahau even the SRW series have not offered. On General Revil’s Earth Federation side during the 0083 events by simply SENDING Kou the GP-03 and agreeing to Cima’s deal Burning, Kou and Cima all survive and come back.
This implies that i wasn’t necissarily Kou’s fault she was dead but the EF itself as THEY were the ones who refused to let the Albion know “Hey that ship you encountered is one of ours undercover, try not to fight it and if you do make it a mock battle so nobody gets suspicious.” There SEE it would have taken 2 Phone Calls maximum to Synapse and Cima to say “Hey don’t kill each other” Burning Survives, Kou survives, Colony Drop is averted, Cima gets to live in peace the rest of her life (GG games have her join the EF after the events)
But this leads me to mention possibly the ONLY intelligent millitary leader not just in U.C. but in Gundam PERIOD. General Revil was the only guy who saw the whole picture, He saw the flaws in the EF and he saw the flaws in Zeon. The end of his campaign allways has him lead humanity to an era of peace following Zeon’s ideals (The man Zeon not the duchery)
Of course the game also implies that Scirocco wasn’t really evil so much as he wanted to find the perfect leader, with 100% Scirocco will join Revil and swear loyalty to him.
Just a Non-Canon what if thats intresting.
@Onmi Khaos: I would argue that of Scirocco, and one only need look at the context of Victory Gundam to know why I would.
Few people really knew of his full plans for the Earth sphere, and given what he did say about it… it was a totalitarian ideal, controlling the world via proxy with a woman as a figurehead that answered only to his will.
The funny thing is that Zanscare does just this (via another man associated with the Jupiter Space Fleet), and it doesn’t turn out well… aside from the fact that the yellow jackets being so fanatical that they could give Zeon-fanatics characters like Gato and Delaz a run for their money in terms of devotion to the state, the Zanscare colonies more or less live on the edge with dissidences silenced very quickly, and a massive lack of liberties to the population.
If anything, Scirocco methods would have to change since he would be forced to deal with a powerful leader like General Revil. And overthrowing a man like Revil would take some strategy… but the over-arching goal would not, mind that depends on his portrayal in GG.
@Crusader, I don’t think 08th is the best post-0079 Gundam series. It’s decent, but goes downhill in the second half due to the director switch IMHO *coughAINASUCKScough*. I’d give that prize to 0080 myself, though different strokes I suppose. I do like G Gundam though (it’s great, over-the-top, and ridiculous fun), though I agree with you 100% on CE. Anytime a shows’ character designs are nothing but cut+paste copies from the same damn template, chances are the show will suck massive ass.
On-topic, fuck yes Cima. I would happily follow that woman to Hell, and anything in between. She’s one of the few characters in 0083 who actually has reasons for her actions other than “LOL I’M AN ACE, SIEG ZEON!!1!1111!!!!1″. Plus she’s hot. Aged or not, I’d take her over dinnerplate-eyed, pedo-bait, moeblob lolis any day. I like my women to have breasts and not sound like Chipmunks rejects, kthxbai.
Shame Kishiria Zabi gets so much hate, she’s just as awesome as far as I’m concerned. It’s sad that the Char fanboys insist on having a fictional character think for them and throw double standards around like nobodies business :/
You’ve got a good hypothesis, but I think you’re giving Cima too much credit. I don’t think she abandoned Zeon and left the Delaz fleet for political reasons, she did it to find some small measure of peace, which, sadly, she never achieved.
For three years, she and her crew have been alone. No home, no family, not even friends aside from her shipmates. No port to call home and unwelcome at all. What makes it worse is she was exiled for a crime she didn’t even willingly or knowingly commit. She’s paying for someone else’s sins along with her own. That has got to weigh heavily on her.
And then an opportunity presents itself. She can betray Delaz in exchange for a place with the Federation. They’ll overlook her past actions and take her and her fleet on. Meaning she can finally GO HOME. She can rest, set foot outside the Lili Marleen without worrying about being recognized as a war criminal. No more running, no more hiding, just a small measure of peace. Unfortunately, she died before achieving that peace. Hopefully her surviving crew, if any, managed to find a new home.
One last thing, the picture with the young Cima next to her as she appears in 0083, where’s that from?
@Onmi Khaos
The what ifs are quite interesting, but after seeing IGLOO 2 ep 3 even trying to suggest the don’t attack that thing, might not always work. Just because HQ says not to do something doesn’t mean you can’t do it, they can only punish you after the fact. Since it was all cloak and dagger they couldn’t just tell everyone, and let’s not forget that for a time there was a traitor on the Albion IIRC.
@A.r.
Let’s agree that U.C. gave us far more fond memories than any other continuity save for G Gundam.
Indeed Cima was certainly different than the rest even if she met a terrible fate. There has yet to be a successor though Char has had many clones within Gundam which is rather sad a spiritual heir to the Immortal 4th Team and Cima would be most welcome.
Cima actually stuck it out with her men under harsher conditions than Delaz and Gato at least they had a home to go back to, they just lacked the sense to stay there and live in peace.
@BrotherFluffy
I have no idea where it came from (the shop was from 4chan) nor do I remember what series, it’s been too long to be honest. (if my plans for retro blogging materialize i hope to tell you)
Cima did what she had to get a new home certainly being a pariah would have made her accept a by any means neccessary attitude. Still even if she did it for a new home for her and her crew it was more easy to sympathize with her than it was for me to think Gato and Delaz were doing any good in the grand scheme of things…
Bravo!
I haver been an anime fan for nearly 30 years now starting at the ripe age of 8 and have been a huge UC gundam fan. although i was never keen on the “newtype” angle. the grity war story was always my appeal.
Of course having an expansive over-view of the universe i found 0083 not only to be a fine filler tieing the original series to zeta, it is hands down the best of the animated UC gundam series in my book for story, art, character and mecha design. with 0080, 08th MS and chars counterattack coming in succession.
Like many other series of the time(lodoss war etc..) i found myself really hating the main character but in love with the villans. In this case Cima was always my favorite not only for 0083 but for UC gundam as a whole. I have always favored the more agressive, less girly female characters . Cima was skilled, intelligent, mature, and her men loved her. quite willing to follow her into hell. I understand she was a tragic character that had to be removed somehow as she is not part of the continuing series(zeta etc..), although i would have prefered she didn’t die, it fit into the setting that is UC gundam. She still holds a spot on my top 10 female characters list even after all these years.
You did a great write up for people who do not know her expanded back story.
Thanks!