Casval's fall from idealist to instrument of revenge plays out with the weight of actual consequence, not just plot necessity. Every frame looks like it cost something to animate, and that precision mirrors how carefully the show dismantles who these people were before they became Char and Sayla. This is prequel storytelling that doesn't explain the original series, it makes you mourn it.

In Universal Century 0068, Casval Rem Deikun and his sister Artesia lose their father, Zeon Zum Deikun, a leader of the Spacenoids who campaigned for the rights of people living away from Earth, to assassination. Soldiers still loyal to him help the siblings flee their home, and the two are eventually separated. Set before the One-Year War, this prequel OVA shows how the boy who will one day call himself Char Aznable, the Red Comet, enters Zeon's military academy alongside Garma Zabi, while his own vengeful nature grows as a militarized form of his father's ideology rises. Around them, the Zabi family seizes control of Side 3, mobile suits are developed, and tensions with the Earth Federation build toward war.