Senses of Knowledge in Green Legend Ran and Gundam 0080

I recently caught up with an early 90s OAV that I had been meaning to watch for some time, Green Legend Ran.  Director Satoshi Saga (of Armitage III “fame”) would likely not enjoy hearing that I had seen GLR in a bargain bin three or four months ago and passed on it for Garzey’s Wing.  Ah, the lure of the terribad.  Though I think GLR suffers from problems that plague many 90s OAVs, I also think that it is a worthwhile watch for most anyone, which is not something I can say for Garzey’s.

GLR is especially interesting when it serves as a companion piece to Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket, an OAV three years its senior.  Both shows delve into the nature of violence for the ordinary person and also the effects on such persons of the knowledge of violence, though GLR shifts its thematic focus from these ideas a bit after its first episode.  The messages of the two are just different enough in their scope of application (not to mention GLR‘s thematic shift) to make them complimentary of one another rather than retreads.

In this post, I examine the character arcs of Alfred Izuruha and Ran to illustrate that there is more than one mode of knowledge.

Suggested Soundtrack for Reading – The Clash “Spanish Bombs”