Talk about a do-over.
The new anime film “Mobile Suit Gundam: Cucuruz Doan’s Island” is a redo of an episode of the original “Mobile Suit Gundam” series that aired way back in 1979. That episode, also titled “Cucuruz Doan’s Island,” is infamous in “Gundam” lore for its shoddy animation. “Gundam” creator Yoshiyuki Tomino was so embarrassed by this episode that when the series was released abroad on DVD, he requested that it not be included.
Many decades and many “Gundam” spinoffs later, the humiliation of that episode apparently still rankled Yoshikazu Yasuhiko, the original series’ character designer, who, in the years since, has gone on to become a successful manga artist and director in his own right. Yasuhiko, now 74, decided to climb into the director’s cockpit one last time (or so he claims) to right the wrongs of ’79 and bring us this new interpretation of “Cucuruz Doan’s Island.”