Have you ever been sucker-punched by an anime before? Like in Neon Genesis Evangelion, when all the identifiably realistic and amusingly quirky characters that had kept us entertained for 13 episodes were psychologically DESTROYED during the tearjerking, heartwrenching 13 episodes that followed? Well, before Evangelion, there was Gundam 0080, the first of the Gundam OAV series. Written by Hiroyuki Yamaga, a Gainax stalwart who also wrote the incredible Wings of Honneamise, 0080 takes just six episodes to draw you in, hook you inextricably, and then tear out your guts and stomp them flat.

Set during the end of the One Year War (the same one featured in the original Gundam and 08th MS Team), 0080 tells the story of ten year old Al, a pretty average elementary school boy living on a space colony in Side 6. Side 6 is officially neutral in the great war between Side 3's Duchy of Zeon and the Earth Federation, but as always happens in these sorts of things, the truth is less clear-cut. The Federation has a secret test base on the colony, while the loyalties of most of its citizens, including Al, lie with Zeon.

By sheer accident, the war-obsessed Al first encounters, then befriends an elite Zeon special forces unit sent to infiltrate the Federation base on Side 6 and destroy the new Gundam prototype being built there. Al's main friend is the young Zeon pilot named Bernie, who the fatherless Al adopts as a sort of big brother. Reluctantly going along with Al's youthfully enthusiastic playing at war, the Zeon troops make use of Al's knowledge of the colony, his innocuous appearance, and his enthusiasm for their cause.

But war isn't a game, as Al shockingly learns in the last few episodes of this series. Al's other best friend, a young woman named Chris McKenzie, just so happens to be the test pilot for that new Gundam. Conflict between his new friends and his old friends is inevitable... that's what happens in war. And people DIE in war. Al learns that playing soldier isn't what he thought it was, and it's a shattering lesson for one so young and innocent.

This unflinching look at the effect of war upon the noncombatants caught in the middle is what makes 0080 so remarkable. Even anime series that treat war as a serious, horrible thing almost always do so from the perspective of the soldiers themselves. Amuro angsts over his friends' deaths in battle, and Aina and Shiro in 08th MS Team are faced with a conflict that threatens to tear them apart even as it brought them together. But they're still all soldiers, and the pain of loss and the terror of battle are part and parcel of that. Al, on the other hand, is just a boy, just an elementary school kid who enjoys playing war. When war tears away his innocence, it's all the more tragic.

The short length of 0080 and its focus on war's tragic effect on civilians as opposed to cool giant robot battles may be more than a bit offputting to fans used to the kinetic battles of Gundam Wing or 08th MS Team. But 0080 is too important to NOT watch, especially with Cartoon Network running it barely-cut and for free as part of their Midnight Run block. With a brutally serious storyline, fantastic animation, and character designs from Macross god Haruhiko Mikimoto, Gundam 0080 is another not-to-be missed event on Cartoon Network.

Anime, even giant robot anime, can be so much more than just big mecha smashing the crap out of each other, and Gundam 0080 provides all the proof anyone will ever need of that.