Sayla Mass

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Sayla Mass, as seen in Mobile Suit Gundam.

Sayla Mass (セイラ・マス) is a fictional character from the anime series Mobile Suit Gundam, voiced by You Inoue (Japanese) and Alaina Brunett (English). At the beginning of the Mobile Suit Gundam TV series, Sayla is a civilian of Side 7, who comes abroad the mobile cruiser White Base along with Amuro Ray, Fraw Bow and Hayato Kobayashi. Sayla is a Newtype like Amuro, though not nearly as powerful.

Aboard White Base

Originally a medical student on Side 7, Sayla is almost immediatly recruited as an enlisted soldier, and set to the task of watching over the civilian refugees. With the near total lack of experienced personnel to defend White Base, Bright Noa assigns Sayla to the multiple positions of Communications Officer, Ship Navigator, and finally Mobile Suit Pilot.

Soon after joining the ship, she begins to repeatedly look for her brother "Casval", and takes every opportunity to learn information about him and make contact. When Bright receives a chest of gold intended for Sayla, she admits that her true identity is Artesia Som Deikun, sister to Casval Rem Deikun (better known as Char Aznable), and the only daughter of Zeon Zum Deikun, the founder of the Republic of Zeon.

Relationship With Amuro

Sayla, several years later

At the beginning of the series, Sayla and Amuro share little common screen time, as Amuro is nominally paired with Fraw, and later develops a crush on Lt. Matilda Ajan. But during a battle against Ramba Ral, Sayla steals the Gundam in order to make contact with Char, and is defeated in combat against Ramba's troops. Reaching the battle area, Amuro immediatly rescues her from the assault. Though Sayla is punished for the incident, Bright and Matilda both recognize Sayla's latent Newtype abilities and she is assigned as Amuro's co-pilot. This pairing affords the two time to interact alone and learn to trust one another. Despite other male characters' attempts to make advances upon Sayla, she seems to confide in Amuro, and the two grow very close emotionally.

During the battle of A Baoa Qu at the end of the series, Sayla finds Char fighting Amuro to the death, both using fencing swords. Worried over the safety of both of them, she breaks the two apart. A series of explosions then separates the three of them. Sayla returns to Char, who wishes to find and kill Amuro. But upon seeing the pain in her eyes over his attacking Amuro, Char asks Sayla to leave the battlefield and to go the young pilot. Sayla (through Amuro's telepathic guidance) escapes A Baoa Qu and is reunited with the White Base crew. But to her horror she finds Amuro missing. Trying to convince herself that he isn't dead, she cries tears of sadness and regret at his apparent loss. Luckily Amuro flies out of A Baoa Qu safe and unharmed. After he ejects from his core fighter, it is Sayla who welcomes him back with open arms.

Given the somewhat intimate scenes in the series between Sayla and Amuro, the fact that Fraw is soon to be married to Hayato, and that in the novel series (penned by Gundam creator Yoshiyuki Tomino) Sayla and Amuro are romantically and sexually involved, Sayla may have originially been intended to be Amuro's soulmate and future girlfriend/wife. However, this was not to be so. In the novelization, Amuro is killed while battling Char out in space. And in subsequent Gundam series, Amuro is paired with other leading women, effectivly reducing Sayla to secondary character status.

Followup Appearances

In Zeta Gundam, Sayla appeared only in non-speaking cameos (due to You Inoue being on safari in Africa when the series was produced), and Amuro was romantically involved with Irma Beltorchika.

In Gundam ZZ, Sayla showed up mid-way through the series with Judau Ashta's younger (and though dead) sister, Leina. Within the last 3 episodes, she appears again, bringing Leina with her to see Bright Noa, where she gives him a letter from his family, and asks what he's heard of Char.

Finally, in Char's Counter Attack, Sayla doesn't make a single appearance. However, one of Char's last actions before being killed in battle is looking at a picture of Sayla and commenting that at least she would live on.

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