Awesome / Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin

• This adaptation made Char's legendary Boom, Headshot! of Kycilia even more epic. How? After all, the original one involved decapitating her with a human-sized bazooka, with the collateral of wrecking her ship and making her an easy prey for the Federation ships. Well, here Kycilia's ship was not destroyed by enemy fire while out of control, but was sent crashing into the Dolos (that here is big enough her hangar can house other warships), destroying both.
• Char at the Battle of Loum. Sure, here we see he did not destroy five battleships but one battleship, three cruisers and a carrier... Except for things:
  • He did it all on his own;
  • The faster MS-06S Zaku II Commander Type was still being tested, meaning he was using the standard model, only painted red and with an antenna on the head, and he was still three times faster than the standard Zaku II (that at the time was the MS-06C, known to be relatively slow). To make this more awesome, not only his rivals, the Black Tri-Stars, had added thrusters to their rides but were still slower, but when the MS-06S was put into production it kept Char's antenna as a standard feature... Meaning his rivals were forced to copy him for a while;
  • His first victim, the carrier, was shot in the hangar.
  • The final victim, a cruiser, was destroyed with a single rocket. Char himself wasn't sure he could pull it off;
  • A subordinate offered him his last spare bazooka magazine with four rockets, but Char refused and told him to kick ass and reap glory even for Ramba Ral, who wasn't taking part in the battle.
  • Then we have Dren, who took part to the battle as the CAG of Char's mothership, who not only told him off for not returning at the ship after the preliminary strike before the battle when everyone else (including the ship's captain) was too awed by his pre-Loum exploits to do so (and Char chose him as the commander of the Falmel precisely because he would speak his mind while doing his job), but continued after what Char pulled at Loum.
  • And we also have the three older Zabi siblings, who, knowing that Revil had some spy among Zeon's generals but not his identity, announced a battle plan that effectively made sense (attacking Tianem's fleet (a match for Zeon's whole navy) with their entire fleet while an elite force of mobile suits, led by Char and Gaia, would attack Revil's fleet (at least twice that number) to make it leak. The actual plan? Zeon's fleet, led by Dozle, effectively engaged Tianem, only to fill the area with Minovsky particles to cut the communications and disengage. In the meantime, Char's force had attacked Loum and wrecked every single launch bay to simulate an attempt at a Colony Drop, forcing Revil to divide his forces and send half of his ships, including the carriers, to Loum... Just in time to get rushed by Dozle and Ortega's MS squadron, getting on the wrong end of a Curb-Stomp Battle while Char did the same on the ships sent at Loum without warship support.
    • Char's one gets less awesome when we find out that the crossfire wrecked every single bunch of Loum, sparing only Texas Bunch that was away from the rest.
  • Speaking of Texas Bunch... A group of hooligans had boarded Texas because, being the real Char's birthplace, every single Texan was a Zeon sympathizer. They raze the poorly populated Center Village and torch the Aznable family's home, then they advance on the outlying ranches... And as soon as they come near the Mass' ranch, Sayla leads the staff and some people escaped from Center Village into kicking their asses. What's more, the hooligans had modern assault rifles and submachine guns, plus Molotov Cocktails and cars, Sayla and her men had Wild West-era and early 20th century guns (Sayla herself has a Winchester lever-action)... And the hooligans got repelled by the old guns (that included a machine gun).
    • Beaten but not subdued, the hooligans are regrouping and preparing for a new assault... Then they see a light from the outside and turn around just in time to see Char and his men wrecking the launch bays. And as they cry in desperation, Sayla and her men sortie and physically beat them up. And to hammer down how screwed the hooligans are, Char shows up with his Zaku to check on Sayla.
    • Fridge Logic implies another for Char: those hooligans won't ever sleep well again, because they torched The Dreaded Red Comet's home, as far as they know they may even have killed his parents (not really: they were on the last ship bound for Zeon leaving Loum's main bunch when Char destroyed the launch bay and the ship), and he knows their faces. And in fact the two punks on Side 7 who, during Char's attack, tried to beat up Frau Bow and Sayla to take their places on the White Base and ended up being left there, looks suspiciously like two of the hooligans that attacked Texas Bunch...
  • The battle was recreated in the first movie based on the manga series, and it gloriously showcases just how much of a beast Char is in combat. Even his rivals, the Three Black Stars, have to admit he's good (and that's after they took down a battleship with a heat hawk. That is, a mecha-sized axe), and it's them who first compared him to a Red Comet.
    • And in a later movie, we find out how Char gained his "three times faster" meme: upon approaching the Federation fleet, he turned off all safeties and engine governors in his Zaku and deliberately redlined the engine, causing his thrusters' output to turn from blue to red in addition to accelerating him hard enough for the g-forces to take a toll on him. All the while Char is having the time of his life while cockpit alarms blare around him.
    Char: (while buzzing the entire Federation fleet at high speed) This will change the course of history! Bow down before me, God!
  • One for the older Zabi siblings: this is the one time they were all on the same page, and by the time they were finished Gihren's strategy, Kycilia's intelligence skills and Dozle's tactical genius had reduced the Federation Space Force to a third of what it was before the battle. And not only the Federation Space Force had three times the numbers of Zeon's fleet in terms of cannon-armed warships, those ships weapons outranged and, aside for the Gwazine (then the only one of her class in service), outgunned those of Zeon's warships.
  • One for the Federation: completely blindsided by the attacks and surprised by the sheer effectiveness of bazooka-equipped mobile suits, Revil's fleet still decimated Zeon's navy. One can only wonder what would have happened had Ryu's been believed when he stumbled on Dozle's fleet approaching Revil...
• Gihren gets one in a lull during the Battle of A Baoa Qu, when Char comes to him to ask for the Zeong to face Amuro... Except that, before he can ask, Gihren makes clear he and Lalah were just pawns to him, holds him at sword point (they were in his personal weapon museum at A Baoa Qu, and he just happened to have a sabre in his hand when Char entered), asks him if he's there to kill him on Kycilia's orders or on his own, and explains he knows his true identity and Char can't do nothing to restore his father's vision of Zeon. Char himself is left speechless and impressed by that (especially as his explanation involved revealing the existence of a secret service that Kycilia didn't know of), and swears loyalty to him.
• Another one for Gihren, evident only through Fridge Logic: at some point after Ramba Ral's death, he had conquered the loyalty of Zeon Deikun's loyalists. To the point that, upon his death at Kycilia's hand, the one in his staff doesn't even consider informing her of Artesia's possible return, but runs to confirm it and then starts a mutiny with the twin objectives of placing Artesia in power and avenging Gihren.
  • Which becomes Fridge Brilliance when it's shown in the flashbacks how similar Gihren is in some ways to Zeon Deikun. To the point of Degwin calling him out as a "fiend possessed by Deikun's grudges." It's little wonder then how he managed to win over Deikun's loyalists.
• In the flashback in Volume 5, a younger Ramba Ral goes out to bring Sayla's pet cat Lucifer... even going out in his armored car (and braving the implied snipers). He did get scratched up, though (Sayla forgot to tell him that Lucifer doesn't trust strangers), but the scene could count as a Crowning Moment of Funny, Heartwarming, AND Awesome bundled-up into a single package for Ral!
• Here we finally find out how Char knew of a back entrance into Jaburo that even the Federation didn't know of: before the war, he had joined the workers that built Jaburo just for this. He didn't find out, but befriended a group of Yanomani that told him of it.
• When Ramba Ral returns to his home to check on his father, it's revealed that Jimba Ral took shelter in a panic room loaded with weapons, ready to start a one man war against the Zabis.
• Ramba Ral and Hamon's plan to smuggle a young Casval and Artesia to safety on Earth. The opening stages involve Hamon disguising herself as a Federation officer, stealing a Guntank, and plowing it directly into the compound where the children are being held. She then uses a Bavarian Fire Drill to convince the guards to hand the children over without a fight. Meanwhile, Ral organizes his men to block Federation reinforcements when they realize a Guntank has been stolen, buying Hamon time to smuggle the children to the docking bay. Casval himself gets a moment when he hijacks the Guntank's controls and destroys FOUR other Guntanks attempting to stop them.
• Ramba Ral refusing to have ANYTHING to do with the atrocities of Operation British. He tells Doze to shove it and storms off regardless of consequences. Now there's sticking to your principles!
• When Sasro is assassinated by a car bomb, it's initially thought that Dozle was killed along with him, since he was sitting right next to Sasro. Instead, Dozle kicks the door out, lacking any kind of serious injury whatsoever, and starts screaming bloody revenge against his brother's killer.
  • Dozle in general: whenever he's not been the comic relief, he's showing his awesome strength, sheer charisma (to the point that, during Casval and Artesia's escape to Earth, the Federation soldiers who had been ordered to take down the hijacked Guntank did not dare do so until they had his permission), and the fact he's just as smart as Gihren and Kycilia, if more naive. Shown extremely well in the flashback, when he casually mentions to Char he knows exactly he, and not Garma, was the real culprit behind the Dawn Uprising (hence why Char is being expelled from the Military Academy for it: most people think he's been made The Scapegoat for Garma, but Dozle punished the real culprit), is shown to be the one who conceived the mobile suit in first place, and, before Loum, notices that Zeon's other generals are intimidated by the Federation's fleet overwhelming superiority and motivates them with a simple reminder that a defeat would mean trial and execution as war criminals-before telling them the fake plan to leak and lure Revil in a trap and go to personally win the Battle of Loum.
• Sayla's return to the Mass estate is ruined when Federation loyalists start rioting, going through the village and setting fires to get any Zeon loyalists, before moving on to the Mass estate. Not only does Sayla gain Char's own Death Glare, she chooses to stay and fight, and she's given a fairly old Winchester rifle to hold off against the mobs waving small arms and firebombs causing random damage. The first thing Sayla does is cap someone in the head. Need more proof that it's In the Blood?