I haven't really watched Gundam, except for Mercury Witch, but when it was announced that Studio Khara would be working on the next Gundam series, and the voice actors for Kumiko from Sound! Euphonium and Violet from Violet Evergarden will be voicing the main characters... well, I just had to go see it. The series itself will eventually be aired on TV in Japan, but some of the episodes were re-edited to create a movie version (81 minutes) for an advanced screening.
They were also handing out some mementos.
When the movie started with Char, I thought I must have gotten the story of this series wrong... I thought it was something about piloting mobile suits for clan battles, but I was greeted with a story that seemed to be from the main Gundam universe with Char leading forces that were from a faction trying to gain independence. It kind of felt a bit lore-heavy to me and I felt a bit lost, since I have no idea what the actual main story of Gundam is about. (Note to self: time to watch Gundam, like I have been telling myself to...)
Halfway through the movie, there was a time jump and we finally got into the part about clan battles. Here, the pace of setting the background was more beginner-friendly, and I could get an idea of what was going on. At the same time, this part felt like a very big jump in story, music, and overall feel from the first half. The music reminded me of the Evangelion rebuilds. It manages to introduce the three main characters, Amate (Machu), Nyaan, and Shunji, and ends at a nice point in their story for me to want to watch the series when it starts airing on TV, probably in July (my guess; The Apothecary Diaries is currently airing in the prime anime slot of Nippon TV, and it looks to be a 2-cour season, which means January to June if they are airing back to back, so the next available season for a major series like Gundam would have to be July at the earliest).
Overall, I enjoyed the experience of watching this movie at a cinema. The action, framing/direction, sound, and music made it worth paying for the experience. It is not some "let's just take the anime series and cut and paste something into a movie" type of compilation; rather, looking at the credits, which showed the involvement of several other animation studios, I think they actually did some work on top of what they did for the upcoming TV series to create this movie.
Now to wait for the official announcement of its TV air date.
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