Karen Joshua
Appearances
OVA	Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team
Voice Actor
Japanese	Mami Koyama
English	Debra Jean Rogers
Profile
Hair Color	Red
Age	26
Birth Date	0053 U.C.
Gender	Female
Family	Husband (Deceased)
Affiliation	Earth Federation
Occupation	Mobile Suit Pilot
Rank	Master Chief Petty Officer
Mobile Weapons RX-79(G) Gundam Ground Type

Master Chief Karen Joshua is a character who appears in the 1996 One Year War side story Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team. She is an experienced mobile suit pilot.

During the One Year War she was assigned to the Kojima Battalion in Southeast Asia as a pilot in the battalion's 08th Mobile Suit Team. To other members of the battalion she was known as one of the most difficult people to get along with, and supposedly she caused the previous 08th MS Team's commander to suffer a nervous breakdown that he had to be hospitalized for. When the replacement commander Shiro Amada arrived she initially treated him with mock respect, going along with Shiro's orders but ready for the moment he messed up. Its possible that her initial hostility toward Shiro was because of his inexperience, which showed during his first mission on Earth. Eventually Karen does warm up to Shiro and the rest of the team, even displaying similar levels of trust in the commander as the others, though she tends to get annoyed at Shiro's seeming naivety.

At one point, during a time when Shiro Amada is under suspicion of being a Zeon spy the 08th MS Team is assigned a recon mission with a low survivability rating. The mission was also a test of Shiro's loyalties and Karen was given secret orders that should Shiro desert during battle she was to execute him, unaware that fellow team member Terry Sanders Jr. had been given similar orders. When Shiro proclaims that he is leaving the service so that he can deal with the Apsalus III his own way Karen acquired a weapons lock on his mobile suit and fires with her vulcan gun but intentionally misses hitting Shiro's Ez8.

Karen pilots an RX-79(G) Gundam Ground Type for most of the series, displaying proficiency with a multitude of weapon configurations, though usually outfitted with an NF·GMG-Type.37/100mm machine gun and later a P.B.R-0079/A12 S-000011 beam rifle. Because of damage done to her Gundam in Episode 9: Front Line (a Zeon MSM-04 Acguy severs its head), in the last couple of episodes her Gundam's head is replaced with the head from an RGM-79(G) GM Ground Type. This earns her the nickname "GM Head" with pilots outside of the 08th MS team for a brief time.

Through dialogue it is revealed Master Chief Joshua was married and had a husband previously. Her husband was a medical officer, but he was killed in action.

Karen is a hardened, no-nonsense type of character, though she does seem to be softer in reality, rather than the tough image she projects.

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