However it was the character Bernie that is the most sympathetic. As the casualties and even destruction of everything familiar to him starts to mount, it signifies his childhood ending sooner than he thinks. However we do see slowly if not entirely surely the truth does sink in and he learns the hard way, war isn't a game. Which makes him oblivious or completely unaware of the fact the Zeon team is just using him as a tool for a means to an end and after their mission is complete they'll destroy the colony and him with it. To him working with the Zeon in their covert mission is just a game to him, Al is too caught up in the delusions of the romanticism of war. You sympathize a bit with Al though not completely due to how terribly naive he is. For me they were just fun toys to play with, however unfortunately for Al it because a bit more as he has misguided desires to be in the war right now and kick some butt. Joes" or even those cheap plastic army figures a lot. Al is a slightly relatable character because like him when I was his age, yeah I was into war toys I played with "G.I. It's the dynamic between both Al and Bernie that really powers this show, it' a very good back and forth almost a big brother and little brother dynamic and both are equally sympathetic. However it was really the animation on the human characters and the background art of the colony which is impressive, the colony looks like the kind of places that I grew up in which increases the emotion more.
From how the mecha are designed really showed how up to date they were becoming as the franchise went on. The animation I think is great I really like the use of color and detail. It's personally one of my favorite songs in anime in general.
Plus the music I think is excellent, mainly the end credit song which is sad but beautiful because it has an emotional sensibility on the reality of war. Kind like with Clint Eastwood's film "Letters from Irijima" where we were in the Japaneze perspective, this just goes to show that war is never a one way affair. This show is it's own story because in this show were in the perspective of the opposing side the Zeon. This show also in a way is a presequel since it takes place during the final days of the war in the first "Gundam" series, which makes this twice as brilliant because this to me is an example of a presequel done the right way, most pre sequels make that mistake of trying to hard to explain how this and that happened without any suspense or allowing itself to be it's own story. It's true this show doesn't have much action but that's because this show is more of a war drama, which I thought was brilliant and really broke the convention of the mecha sub genre where usually their actioneers.
This is one of my favorite anime TV shows and it's my second favorite Gundam show that I personally think it's underrated. War to me is a double edged sword, on one hand for whatever reason your protecting the people in your end of the spectrum but on the other hand the price of that protection means the loss of so many and worst of part or all of your soul.