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Shiro Amada (シロー・アマダ Shirō Amada?) is the main protagonist in Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team. He primarily pilots the RX-79[G] Gundam Ground Type. After the unit was severely damaged in combat, his Gundam was repaired and re-classified as RX-79[G]Ez-8 Gundam Ez8.

Personality & Character[]

Shiro Amada. You're the worst soldier I've ever met.

Karen Joshua, The Shuddering Mountain, Part 2

Shiro is a very optimistic and enthusiastic person. Although a soldier of war, he always viewed his service as an educational experience foremost. At first, Shiro had the mentality of all idealistic soldiers: eager to eliminate Zeon. His sense of thinking was driven from witnessing Zeon's dropping of the Side 2 space colony on Earth, an unforgivable act to propelled him to a military career. However, after his fateful encounter with Aina Sahalin, a Zeon soldier he fell in love with, his thoughts began to change.

As he witnessed war during his command of the 08th MS Team, his idealism began to fade and eventually developed a mutual belief with Aina to understand the enemy and to reconcile for peace; however, it was only met with criticism by his own superiors (men driven by the need to win at all cost); his disgust with the war and the Federation's unsavory tactics would cause friction with the brass. In the battle against Apsaras III, Shiro was officially MIA/KIA. Using his death to his advantage, he no longer had loyalties to the Federation and took the chance to vanish in an isolated pocket of the world to be with Aina and raise their yet-to-be-named child as a family.

Skills & Abilities[]

As a Federation soldier, Shiro has been trained in various disciplines, including: war tactics, unarmed combat, use of firearms, MS piloting, limited MS repair skills, and spaceship piloting. He is skilled in improvising unconventional tactics (such as using a Ball to take down an MS), allowing him to win in unfavorable scenarios. He has good leadership qualities as those under his command all have a deep level of respect for him. After the war, due to his injuries, he lost his left leg. Unwilling to return to the Federation military, he never had medics supplement his leg with a prosthetic leg to help him walk.

History[]

Beginnings & Joining the Federation[]

A Side 2 native,[1] Shiro was present when the Principality of Zeon attacked the Side in the opening stage of the One Year War. He witnessed a MS-05B Zaku I launching GG gas into a colony, killing all of its residents horribly. Shiro himself only survived because he was lucky enough to be wearing a sealed space suit. Witnessing this wanton civilian death filled Shiro with a deep hatred for the Zeon, and everything they stood for.[2]

Shiro, who was already serving in the Earth Federation Forces at the time, entered into officer training school, and after graduating he was handed a transfer to Earth to take command of the Kojima Battalion's 08th Mobile Suit Team in South-East Asia.

En route to Earth the transport that Shiro is on intercepts a distress signal from a damaged GM. The transport isn't carrying any mobile suits, but Shiro decides to go out in a RB-79K Ball Type K in an attempt to rescue it. He is able to save the GM pilot, Terry Sanders Jr., and destroy the Zaku, although in the process his Ball was critically damaged. Shiro escaped from the damaged Ball just before it exploded and found that the Zeon pilot had escaped as well.

Shiro followed the enemy pilot to the ruined hulk of a sunk Magellan-class battleship where the two engaged in a shootout with their sidearms, and after tackling the Zeon pilot Shiro discovered that she was a woman. Noticing that she was wounded, Shiro aided her and the two devised a plan to alert their respective allies and make it out of the battleship alive. After the two escape the young Zeon woman tells Shiro her name is Aina Sahalin, and from then on the two young pilots' fates would be intertwined.

08th MS Team[]

When he arrives on Earth, Shiro, Michel Ninorich and Terry Sanders Jr. join up with the rest of the 08th Team, composed of veteran Karen Joshua, and sonar navigator Eledore Massis. Shiro would be given the Ground-type Gundam unit 081 as his personal mobile suit. Full of boundless enthusiasm and naïve idealism, Shiro is initially regarded by his teammates as a hopeless lightweight, and taunted with names such as "Commander Newbie". Shiro tells his team there would be one rule on the 08th Team: that everyone would come back alive.

After a few missions, Shiro gradually hones his skills as a pilot and earns the trust of his fellow 08th Team pilots, and even the trust and co-operation of the local guerrillas that operated in the area, particularly Kiki Rosita. However Shiro's relationship with Zeon pilot Aina leads to trouble, and an eventual court martial, when it is discovered she was the pilot of the dangerous Apsaras mobile armor.

Although he was acquitted of all charges, suspicions of Shiro being a traitor were still heavy among the soldiers of the Kojima Battalion. However, at the crucial battle to destroy the Apsaras III and capture Zeon's mountain fortress, Shiro deserts the Earth Federation Forces to save Aina, and Captain Isan Ryer ordered him to be executed upon capture. But Shiro and Aina's combined efforts destroyed the Apsaras. Both of them disappeared as Shiro's Gundam Ez8 fell into the volcano with the exploding Apsaras, and were presumed dead.

Shiro's remains were not found in the wreckage of the Ez8, and he was presumed dead. However, unbeknownst to the Earth Federation Forces, Shiro survived the battle— losing his lower left leg in the process— but escaped in the aftermath.

After the war, Shiro and Aina decided to start a new life together. Opting for a quiet, hermetic life, the couple settled in a log cabin hidden deep in the mountains of southern Asia. There, Shiro and Aina— now pregnant with Shiro's child— are eventually located by Michel and Kiki, who had never given up hope that they survived.

Gallery[]

Anime[]

Manga[]

Notes & Trivia[]

  • Why Shiro Amada was present at Side 2 during the Zeon attack differs depending on the sources. According to the manga Ixtab, Goddess of the Fallen Soldiers, he was a resident of Island Effish, and was spending his Christmas holiday with his family. When Zeon attacked, he put on a normal suit to answer the Federation Forces' emergency summon. According to the 08th MS Team novelization, however, he was dispatched to Side 2 by the Federation Forces on a rescue mission.
  • Shiro Amada's Japanese voice actor, Nobuyuki Hiyama, has voiced several other characters in the Gundam franchise, including Muruta Azrael in Mobile Suit Gundam SEED, Papa Sydney Lewis in Mobile Suit Gundam MS IGLOO 2: The Gravity Front, and Hayato Kobayashi in Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam: A New Translation. Hiyama is also the narrator of the MS Movie Files.
  • Aside from making one cameo in a circle of screens, Shiro Amada is one of the few characters that doesn't make a voiced appearance in the Message from GUNDAM "BEYOND" PSA.

References[]

External links[]

The 08th MS Team characters
Earth Federation 08th MS Team Shiro Amada | Karen Joshua | Eledore Massis | Terry Sanders Jr. | Michel Ninorich
Jidan Nickard | Kojima | Isan Ryer | Sally | Rob | Pietro | Mike | Agent Jacob | Alice Miller
Principality of Zeon Aina Sahalin | Ginias Sahalin | Norris Packard | Yuri Kellerne | Cynthia | Bone Abust | Topp | Arth | Dell | Barry | Masado | Niever | Runen | Walter Janowitz | Military Woman (Kergerenko) | Zhukov
Others Guerillas Kiki Rosita | Baresto Rosita | Chibi | Hige | Noppo
Civilians Maria | B.B.



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