Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team is an original video animation (OVA) anime series in the Gundam franchise. Released from January 25, 1996, to July 25, 1999, the 12-episode series details the exploits of an Earth Federation ground unit during the One Year War—specifically a month after the beginning of the original 1979 Gundam series and into the final weeks of the war.

Gundam is a Japanese military science fiction media franchise. Created by Yoshiyuki Tomino and Sunrise, the franchise features giant robots, or mecha, with the name "Gundam". The franchise began on April 7, 1979, with Mobile Suit Gundam, a TV series that defined the "real robot" mecha anime genre by featuring giant robots called mobile suits in a militaristic setting. The popularity of the series and its merchandise spawned a franchise that includes 50 TV series, films and OVAs as well as manga, novels and video games, along with a whole industry of plastic model kits known as Gunpla which makes up 90 percent of the Japanese character plastic-model market.