You ever had the urge to slap Bright Noa’s son in the face?

Gundam is going to the Philippines, as a plot setting that is, in the newest addition to the UC anime family, Mobile Suit Gundam: Hathaway’s Flash. Set in the post-Char’s Counterattack timeline, the movie will be based on the light novel of the same name and will follow Hathaway Noa as he leads yet another cause in a post-war torn world.

WARNING: PROBABLE STORY/PLOT POINT SPOILERS

But who is Hathaway Noa?

Hathaway Noa is the son of Bright Noa, the iconic captain of the White Base, and was born during the later periods of the Zeon-Earth Federation conflict. Having been involved in the war at a young age Hathaway Noa was already a pilot during the events of Char’s Counterattack, and even had a spot in the movie, albeit more focused on his complicated love interest with Quess Paraya. A leader, just like his father, and as well as a Newtype, Hathaway is described to be a talented mobile suit pilot and is leading his own coalition in a quest for their own brand of justice and order.

Iconic…would be an understatement.

Heading to Davao 

Earlier this month, news broke out that Hathaway’s Flash will feature a Philippine setting, specifically Davao, as one of its main stages. This is true, and it is expected that a good chunk of the movie will take place in the locale. In a quick synopsis, Hathaway’s shuttle will get hijacked by a group of terrorists which then resulted in the said shuttle making a landing in Davao instead of its original destination which is Hong Kong. Being the main setting of the first film of the three-part adaptation, producer Naohiro Ogata saw to it that they got a proper look at the actual city of Davao by conducting location scouting and even talked to the some of the local people as to get a proper understanding of the city’s geography.

Imagine this but anime

Mobile Suits!

It’s a Gundam show so of course new mobile suits and suit designs are bound to be the true center of attraction and…well there isn’t gonna be much of it. Apart from your usual grunts, the novel only indicates 2 relatively new mass production Mobile Suits with one of them, the FD-03 Gustav Karl (or at least one of its variations), already seen by fans as it appeared in Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn and Mobile Suit Gundam Narrative. In terms of actual Gundams, Hathaway’s Flash will feature 2. the RX-105 Ξ Gundam and the RX-104FF Penelope with both bound to rival each other and their pilots in the story. As far as model kits would go not a lot has been shown yet by Bandai, and the main reference of how the designs might look like in Plamo form comes from previous collectible non-plamo releases.

It’s actually not that bad.

A true Char clone?

In contrast to previous main UC Gundam shows, Hathaway “breaks” the trend by following on the ideals of Char Aznable instead of Amuro Ray’s by way of forcing humanity to evolve while at the same time prevent them from doing further damage to Earth. This interesting switch in character could partly be due to him knowing about the Earth Sphere Federation’s corruption and the effects of war for having been a soldier at a young age. Despite this, his methods are less radical, only targeting specific people and avoiding mass deaths compared to, say, attempting to drop a satellite into the Earth just to force people to move to space.

Mobile Suit Gundam: Hathaway’s Flash is set to release the first part of its 3-movie adaptation on July 23, 2020.