Commentary thread as I read through Tomino's 1997 novel "Secret Rendevouz - Amuro and Lalah" via machine translation

Lalah is from a place called カバス (Kabas?) and grew up in an orphanage, she can't remember anything about a life before it. Starting at age 17 she began working as a sex worker to make ends meet - this makes me wonder about her age, since guides state she is 17 during the OYW.

Starting to become unsure if Kabas is a person or a group? When Char takes Lalah he says to 'tell that to Kabas'. Previously, however, it is mentioned Kabas has 'an eldest' so it is not a person either. The dangers of reading machine translated OCR are a big lack of clarity haha

Char was in the area to receive the Zanzibar and heard Lalah's voice call out to him then (Newtype style).

Okay yes, Kabas is a place located along the Ganges river.

When Char and Lalah met, she could instantly tell he was a Zeon even though he was disguised. He did not become her customer, she unnerved him. It's unclear to me if he originally INTENDED to be a customer or not.

He pretty transparently tells her he wants her to be a soldier when he recruits her and leaves her the option to reject his offer, though he's very... Char about it, so it's pretty clear he expects to be said yes to.

Lalah thinks it's her selfishness that she wants to go if

there is somebody who has a need for her.

I am not entirely certain what Char rescued her from? He does rescue her in a chase scene but I have no idea WHY she was being chased.

Her work in the brothel is not described in overtly negative tones, for all it's worth.

Ah! Kabas might be the name of the brothel???

The town she grew up in is Delhi!

Yuu-san has rescued me once again! Kabas is the name of the brothel and Lalah was being chased by its security because she ran away! Char then comes in with his mobile suit and grabs her instead.

Lalah was adopted by the Kabas owner when she was 9 years old. The orphanage would have thrown her out when she was 15 anyway - the Earth Federation has no interest in making life on Earth seem less harsh because it wants to promote space migration, so this is seen as okay.

The narration critiques the space program pretty harshly, calling it an idea of capitalism profiting of the growing resource awareness on Earth thanks to climate change and pollution.

The novel states that life on Earth basically did not change or improve much at all as a result of space migration.

And that was the first two chapters. It's a very fun book, I wish someone would translate it properly...

Third chapter is about Amuro! Apparently the Rays were exempt from forced space migration due to the Rays (either Tem or maybe even Amuro's grandpa?) working with the military.

There's a big difference between 'forced to go to space' and 'eligible to go to space' as Tem is.

Those who are force-migrated have to take out a loan for three generations (not sure what exactly that means) to pay for their travel expanses, essentially assuring poverty of the Spacenoids right away.

Side 7 was hosting a lot of war refugees by the time it got attacked.

When Zeon Deikun started advocating for independence, the Federation initially thought he was an occultist and guru of some new religion...

People in the colonies were being kept busy working in mines for colony materials and in colony maintenance while half their income went into paying back their loans.

The Federation banned homosexuality in the space colonies in order to encourage heterosexual procreation as many early Spacenoids died of new diseases unique to space living.

It's this strained and suffering population that Zeon Deikun spoke to of independence and an old style government system for them, which gained him wide support and basically made the people of Side 3 go into a frenzy.

It seems as though Deikun was already planning for a principality, but it was only Degwin who actually made it happen after assassinating Deikun.

Once again the narration is clear that the Federation government does not want all Sides to become independent because it would collapse the current capitalist system. And yes, that's the word used: 資本主義体制

It is confirmed that Amuro thinks the real reason his mother remained on Earth was because she had an affair with another man.

Amuro had hoped he'd like space life, but he didn't really. He stayed with his dad out of a sense of obligation because he felt he'd be truly ruined if he left him.

He doesn't really talk to anyone about it, not even Fraw because she's just say "That must have been tough :("

Amuro used to eat most of his meals with Fraw Bow's family, including her parents. They're afraid Zeon will bomb Side 7 if the Federation base doesn't disappear.

Thinking that he doesn't want to have to rely in Fraw's family forever, Amuro learns to cook and stays at his place

but Fraw comes over and takes care of him anyway...

And by comes over we apparently mean she basically breaks in, even if he changes the PIN at the door (because he tends to forget his PIN card at her house so she has an easy time memorizing it, lmao).

.... Amuro is into SM porn. Thanks, Tomino, I did NOT need to know. This is like... one line after talk about his mother complex so I.... okay.

Like three pages are devoted to Amuro thinking about how to keep Fraw out of his house so she doesn't notice his blossoming sexuality, it's.

It's sure a thing.

So that was... chapter 3....

Chapter 4 tells us about the attack on Side 7 and makes sure we know that Amuro's memories of his mother complex vanish when he sees the Zaku and is overcome by fear and awe at the technology.

This certainly is a Tomino novel.

Interestingly, the Amuro POV chapter also refers to the White Base as the 'Trojan Horse'.

The rest of the chapter also appears largely recap from the show.

And again, this is me using OCR and DeepL (double-checking some lines) to get the gist of this book. This is NOT a translation by any means.

(But seriously, the book is interesting, someone should.)

Chapter 5 is just recapping Amuro meeting his dad and Lalah on Side 6, I didn't notice anything of immediate relevance.

During the roadside assistance scene, Char's outfit is described as "like he was at a Halloween party"...

Aside from Char's outfit being called a clown outfit a second time, this chapter passes as a recap of that scene primarily.

The next chapter is an additional lakeside conversation between Amuro and Lalah. I do not understand most of it. Amuro also associates her with motherlyness and Lalah reveals her sex worker past to him. I CAN'T TELL YOU ANYTHING ELSE, it's very evocative and confusing.

I continue to be largely confused but one segment seems to say Amuro refused to attend sex ed class because he believes this kind of thing should be learned by experience...........

Back on this! The next chapter was a retelling of the battle at Side 6. Surely the emotional descriptions are interesting but as always, beyond my paygrade to understand.

It does specify that Amuro's father literally dies by falling down the stairs though.

The next chapter covers Texas. It specifies that what Lalah tests Flanaghan was performing on Lalah before we see them in the wagon - she was meant to locate small targets strewn across the colony with her mind, which she was good at.

(If this was clear in TV, I did not get it.)

There is a Space Colony Corporation that is in charge of building colonies and had more power than the government in the early days of the UC.

They are responsible for placing explosive mines on Texas in this version since the M'quve fight is scrapped like in the movie.

Since this is the Amuro and Lalah novel the chapter ends on "In one of the buggies was Sayla Mass. She met Char after this but it was an incident that had nothing to do with Amuro."

When Dozle dies "for the Glory of Zeon", Amuro thinks "Is there such a thing as glory in Zeon?" and the narration goes "It would be rather impressive if there was a man who could honestly believe such a thing."

(@ everyone saying Sieg Zeon in my mentions. take it to heart.)

The Zabi dislike that they had to name the principality in Zeon Zum Deikun's honor.

Gihren wants to rename it into the principality of Gihren after the war....... Kycilia thinks this is way too rash.

The Federation grants space travel permissions. Unless Spacenoids have paid off their initial enforced loans, they will not be allowed to travel back to Earth at all.

The chapter ends dunking on Gihren again, with the line "There is no such thing as the principality of Gihren...." in reference to how Zeonism is like... a philosophy, which Gihren obviously doesn't have to offer. The '.....' just kills me.

Kycilia is not the only one who knew Char's real identity, it appears Gihren was also aware.

By the time of the final battle against Lalah, Sayla is determined to take Char down (the word here is 'bury', I think?), which she thinks would also be what her father wants. She thinks letting Char go unchecked would just create a second Gihren.