Amuro Ray
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Amuro Ray (アムロ・レイ) is a fictional character from the anime series Mobile Suit Gundam and its sequels, Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam and Char's Counterattack, voiced by Tōru Furuya (Japanese), Brad Swaile (English dub of the original TV series and Char's Counterattack), Dylan Tully (English dub of Movies I-III) and Matthew Erickson (English dub of Zeta Gundam). He is widely considered to be the greatest pilot in Gundam history and the benchmark of all Gundam pilots that came after him.
About Amuro
Amuro Ray is the hero of the anime series Mobile Suit Gundam. He is the son of Tem Ray, the project leader for the Earth Federation's 'Project V', which produces the prototype Federation mobile suits Gundam, Guncannon, and Guntank to combat the Principality of Zeon's own mobile weapon, the Zaku. At the beginning of the Mobile Suit Gundam TV series, Amuro is 15 years old and a civilian, along with his friends Fraw Bow and Hayato Kobayashi, and living in Side 7, one of the few space colonies untouched by the fearsome One Year War.Amuro is a talented engineer who as a hobby designed the basketball-sized talking robot Haro, which has become the mascot of Gundam.
Amuro's early life is partially documented through side stories and hints made during the show and movies. As for Amuro's place of birth it is somewhere between Japan and the West Coast of the United States. In the series, the White Base seems to make a stop on the cost of Washington before heading out over the Pacific, suggesting he may be from Washington State; while the comic book Gundam The Origin shows his home town to be in California - although the canonicity of G:TO is suspect at best.
Most of Amuro's early years were spent on Earth until some time between 0075 and 0079 Amuro's Father Tem Ray was called up by the EFSF to do weapons research under the guise of colony construction. Though Amuro's father wanted his mother to come with them she declined. The reasons are never stated; the Gundam Novels suggest that Amuro's mother was having an affair and didn't want to be with his father. When Amuro is reunited with his mother there is some aminosity between them; she is a pacifist, and feels that Amuro has become rude and excessively violent during his time as a pilot.
Once Amuro and his father made it to space Amuro became a social misfit and kept to himself. Throughout the period of time Amuro lived in the colonies, his father was rarely home. Amuro began to pour himself obsessively into advanced electronic and mechanichal work, formerly only a hobby - neglecting himself in the process. His neighbor Fraw Bow took it upon herself to take care of him. This trend continued into the One Year War Period, with Fraw trying to force Amuro out of his ever-more-frequent periods of depression.
Mobile Suit Gundam
The One Year War
Amuro Ray ends up piloting the Gundam when, during a Zeonic operation to spy on Side 7 on the transfer of the RX-78-2 Gundam (designed by Amuro's father Tem Ray) to the White Base and evacuation of the colony, he comes across the 'V' Project manual and the Gundam lying on a trailer. In order to defend the colony, he boards the Gundam and, using his inituition and reading the manual, manages to start up the Gundam and defeat two Zaku mobile suits piloted by two Zeon ace pilots. Due to his lack of experience, he also caused Side 7 to become unstable and made it come close to destruction.
Shortly after that, he quickly gains the animosity of Commander Char Aznable, one of the top aces in the Zeon military. Char and Amuro face off many times during the course of the One Year War, but it is not until Lalah Sune is killed during one of their battles that this rivalry turns into a fierce hatred of one another. Each blaming the other for her death, their intense rivalry continues until it reaches its climax in Char's Counterattack, though other events put this rivalry on hold for many years.
Amuro is the first known Newtype pilot in the Earth Federation ranks and is arguably the most famous of them all, due the his piloting of the RX-78-2 Gundam and the televising of one of his battles in Side 6, where he shoots down 9 Rick Doms in a matter of minutes.
Zeta Gundam
Despite being one of the most famous heroes of the One Year War, Amuro is effectively placed under house arrest shortly after the war due to the government's mistrust of Newtypes. While he lives in a luxurious mansion (possibly paid for by licensing his Haro design as a mass-produced toy) and is officially free to come and go as he pleases, Amuro's house servants are actually government agents charged with keeping track of his movements. Also Amuro trains students in the Cheyene MS Academy uptill the time of the Gryps Conflict.
During the Gryps conflict, Fraw Bow convinces Amuro to rejoin the military. Amuro escapes from his government handlers and joins the AEUG ally Karaba, leading several attacks on Titan's bases on Earth. It is not until after the events of Zeta Gundam that he rejoins the Earth Federation's ranks (now merged with the AEUG) and rises to Lt. Commander by the beginning of Char's Counterattack.
Char's Counterattack
During the Second Neo Zeon War he is assigned to the battleship Ra Cailum, the flagship of the Federation's Londo Bell taskforce. Amuro initially pilots the RGZ-91 Re-GZ, but Anaheim Electronics soon delivers to him the RX-93 Nu Gundam, a highly advanced mobile suit largely designed by Amuro himself. It is widely believed that his relatively low status in the Federation is a sign of the government's continued mistrust in his loyalties.At the end of the Second Neo Zeon War, Amuro Ray attempted to singlehandedly use his Gundam to stop the asteroid Axis from colliding with the earth. Although he succeeded, both he and Char overloaded their psychoframes as he and his mobile suit burned up in the Earths atmosphere, thus ending his long-time legacy of combat since the One Year War.
Relationship with Sayla
Though not explicitly stated in the series, it is implied that Amuro developes a close relationship with fellow crew member Sayla Mass. Both are social outcasts who have been thrust into the One Year War and both come to learn that they are Newtypes. At the end of the series, Amuro and Sayla discover that they have the ability to communicate telepathically to each other. When Amuro and Char engage in vengeful combat at A Baoa Qu, Sayla openly shouts for them not to continue fighting, worried that either or both of them will be killed.The novelization of Mobile Suit Gundam is even more obvious about a romance between Amuro and Sayla. Some time after they are both assigned to White Base, Amuro asks Sayla out to dinner. The two of them eat and chat, and discuss what it's like to be a Newtypes. Later, Sayla visits Amuro in his quarters after hours and the two of them share a night of love-making, thus starting a very intense relationship between them. When Amuro is killed by Char's Mobile Suit forces at the end of the story, Amuro's mind takes one last moment to reach out to Sayla's and expresses his love for her, along with his regret at not being able to spend his life with her. Sayla returns the affection. Later Sayla tells Char that he killed the man she loved. At the end of the war, Sayla communicates to Amuro's consciousness and he tells her that he is with her.
Cultural significance
Although Amuro isn't as timeless and celebrated a character as his rival Char, he is just as well known and is synonimous with Gundam as a whole in many ways. Amuro's exploits between the One Year War and the Gryps conflict are largely a mystery, as are his general exploits during the Gryps conflict and first Neo-Zeon war while going on many missions for the Karaba behind the scenes of Zeta Gundam and Gundam Double Zeta.
His exploits during these times, similarly to Char's unknown exploits, are enthusiastically explored by fans and artists alike. The 2001 CGI short, Green Divers, shows that Amuro fought in his own Zeta Gundam, painted in pure white with patches of bluish purple (arguably his signature custom colors akin to Char's red and black) during the later stages of the Gryps conflict and presumably during the first Neo-Zeon war.
Amuro also supposedly piloted an MSZ-006A1, the prototype in the Z-Plus series of Mobile Suits, but this was supposedly a marketing scheme by Anaheim Electronics to push sales of the MS line. Amuro piloting his own Zeta Gundam helps prove this, although one never knows. This is an example of Amuro's very strong presence in the Gundam mythos, as equally present an entity as his rival Char.
Trivia
- During the One Year War, Amuro is given a commission to the rank of Ensign; when he joins the AEUG six years later he is a Lieutenant and keeps this rank when he rejoins the Federation and is assigned to the Londo Bell taskforce.
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