Mobile Suit Gundam Narrative

Mobile Suit Gundam Narrative (機動戦士ガンダムNT) is a theatrical movie set in the Universal Century and tells the story in the final Gundam Unicorn novel by Fukui Hirutoshi.  The film premiered in 2018.

    Three young children shared a vision of the impending colony drop in Australia at the height of the One Year War.  Eighteen years later two of them, Michele and Jona, are going to unbelievable ends to find their lost third friend Rita.  After news of their miraculous vision and recent orphan status, they found themselves caught up in the secretive earl stages of  cyber-Newtype experiments.  The lab was unable to confirm which of them had Newtype powers an which didn't.  Michele overheard the quandary and betrayed her friends to escape, telling them she was the Newtype.  This bought her freedom from the lab and into the arms of the powerful Luio & Company where she was made an heir apparent given her value in predicting the future.  Jona and Rita were subjected to all manner of horrific experiments, with Jona finding freedom when the lab was finally shut down.  Rita's whereabouts remained hidden for years.  Eventually Jona joins Luio & Company, reunited with Michele.

    A year after the events of Gundam Unicorn, the search is on for the third Gundam produced in the project, the Phenex.  Michele and Jona suspect that its disappearance has something to do with Rita and flex Liuo & Companies power by forcing the Federation join them in the hunt for the mobile suit.  They aren't the only ones looking for it however.  A splinter group within Neo Zeon is on the hunt for it as well as Minevah Zabi and past members of the Sleeves.  The search leads to a confrontation between the Federation and Neo Zeon and a failed Char clone named Zoltan.  The confrontation was planned to draw out the Phenex which has been able to elude capture.  As Jona looses himself to his own Gundam, his friend Rita, through the Phenex calls to him, urging him to resist losing himself.  Instead they face off against an increasingly vengeful Zoltan, working to prevent another catastrophe on Earth.

    The final chapter in the Unicorn arc of the Universal Century was both better and worse the Unicorn Gundam.  The characters were more approachable, and the story was more fluid even with its vastly shorter time frame.  The Char clone in this one seemed way more purposeful and important to the story than Full Frontal.  While the piece meal flash backs were tiring the pacing wasn't bad.  It was nice to have a legit mature main character in Jona, compared to the line of pubescent wunderkind we've mostly encountered thus far in the UC.  His motivations and baggage made sense and felt natural.

    As a integral part of the Universal Century story line this plays out more like a side story than a conclusion to the Unicorn story line.  It doesn't really get us any closer to advancing the 'narrative' than Unicorn did.  We know have this larger gap in the timeline between Unicorn and Hathaway where not a lot of meaningful events take place leading up to that recent entry into the UC.  I am sure that when I get around to watching F91, which is even further removed in the timeline things will become even more disjointed.  But, I have this desire to watch everything in the UC to form a greater understanding of this integral part of Japanese sci-fi.

The movie is available on Crunchyroll.

Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn

 Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn (機動戦士ガンダムUC) is a 7 episode direct to video adaptation of the novel series of the same name by Fukui Harutoshi.  The OAV's were released between 2010 and 2014.

    Banagher Links learns his absent father is a member of one of humanities most powerful families at the moment of his fathers death.  His father,  Cardeas Vist, is part of the fourth generation of the Vist Foundation, a secretive group that has attained vast wealth and power due to controlling an item called Laplaces Box.  What the box is, is unknown outside of Vist but the Earth Federation understands that if its secrets were revealed it could spell the end of their control of the Earth sphere.  Banagher became involved in a rapidly moving conspiracy to unseal the Box the moment he saved a girl from certain death in the colony he attended school.  The girl, going by the name Aubry Burne, asks him to take her to the Vist Foundation.  In reality she is the final member of the Zabi familly, Mineva, who has secretly come to the Industrial 7 colony in order to prevent another war from breaking out between Earth and Spacenoids.  A group of Neo Zeon known as the Sleeves have come to the colony to attain the Box from Cardeas.  Minevah fears this will lead to another conflict instead of ensuring her peoples true sovereignty.

    As the Sleeves representatives meet with Cardeas, Earth Federations Zeon remnant hunting military faction, Lando Bell, attempts to intercept them before the Box can be given to them.  The intervention leads to battle breaking out inside the colony.  The attack leads to Cardeas being grievously wounded with Banagher arriving to save Minevah/Aubry only for Cardeas to reveal that he is his father as he assigns the foundations secretive new Gundam to his son.  He tells him that the Gundam Unicorn is the key to understanding Laplaces Box and unlocking its secret.  Consumed by rage, fear and grief, Banagher pilots the Gundam, lead by instinct and a growing latent power of a Newtype.  He fends off the Sleeves units only to be overcome by the strain of combat, passing out in the cockpit, with Londo Bell securing the suit, concerned over the appearance of a new Gundam unit.

     Under the control of Londo Bell, Banagher is urged to follow the clues linked to the Box with the Unicorn Gundam.  The Sleeves are in hot pursuit, lead by the mysterious replacement of Char Aznable, Full Frontal.  As Banagher unlocks the first secret in the ruins of the Laplace Colony, the site of a terrorist attack at the dawn of the Universal Century, both sides end up being pulled into Earths gravity well in the fight.  Banagher and his Gundam end up being stranded with one of the Sleeves ships, the Garancieres and made more a compatriot than a prisoner as they struggle to get back into space.  Neo Zeon reaches out to its disparate forces who have been stranded on Earth since the One Year War to run distraction for the downed ship.  These remnant forces mobilize and begin to attack a major Federation city, trying to draw all to attention tot them.  Fearing the consequences of the Box falling into Neo Zeon's hands, Banaghers aunt, Martha, begins to use her families leverage to force the Earth Federation into drastic action.  Instead of fleeing from the war zone, Banagher and the crew of the Garancieres find themselves in the middle of the conflict.  He is confronted by a clone of the cyber-newtype Elpeo Ple named Marida Cruz.  She was captured from the Sleeves and reprogrammed to be subservient to the Vist family.

    Being defeated by Marida, Banagher is once again in the custody of Londo Bell as they head to the final clue for Laplaces Box.   Still the head of the faction, Bright Noa realizes that command, being manipulated by Vist, doesn't exactly have the best interests in mind.  Through a background channel he ends up coordinating a temporary partnership between Londo Bell and the Sleeves, leading to both parties occupying the same ship for the journey back to the beginning, at Industrial 7.  Tensions flare and the Sleeves are forcibly removed from the ship as the chase begins to capture the Box.  Minevah and Banagher find themselves int he company of his great grandfather who unveils the fiercely guarded secret, one his aunt is willing to destroy the entire colony to protect.  Will the truth, revealed to humanity, truly bring down the Federation or will it only stir more continued stagnation and conflict?

 

    This story started out strong, if a few of the details seemed odd...like the existence of a powerful ans secretive world power that holds the fate of everything in their hands...and we never heard anything about them in the 20+ years following the One Year War.  It was great to see the continuation of both Minevah and Brights role within the Universal Century.  But it fell very short of delivering anything meaningful with the inclusion of Full Frontal.  He served very little purpose to the actual plot or tension of the story.  His final appearance was a waste of time with Banaghers real foe being his family and the heir an Earth political family, Riddhe.  AS with every damn Gundam, a broken love triangle appears between Minevah, Banagher and Riddhe, that drives Riddhe to insanity and rashness.  He's the final boss that Banagher has to over come before he can claim victory.

 

    By this point I have watched a lot of Gundam and have been getting tired of a lot of the repetitive themes in the franchise, Unicorn is not immune to any of these complaints.  The back end of it leans hard into the typical Newtype woo-woo garbage that's become a driving force of the narrative of every story.  Building off of the Newtype woo-woo ending of Char's Counterattack, where Amuro and Char turn into energy goo, Unicorn pushes that further in which Banagher almost becomes what is termed a perfect Newtype...merging with the Gundam.  Instead we leaves that concept in place to realize in the follow up, Gundam Narrative.  For all the things I hated in the way it concluded, I still enjoyed this story.  It had many likable characters and fantastic animation.  It leaned too much into posing the mobile suits for my taste, but I understand the real point now is to sell the model kits. 

The series is available in both sub and dub on Hulu.

Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack

 Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack (機動戦士ガンダム 逆襲のシャア) is a theatrical movie set in the main story line of the Gundam franchise.  Directed by series creator Tomino Yoshiyuki, the movie was originally released in 1988.

    In the year 0093,  the Neo Zeon forces have rallied around Char Asnable following the death of Haman Kahn during the events of Double Zeta.  The Earth Federation has created a special Zeon hunting division called Londo Bell, which includes the expertise of both Amuro Ray and Bright Noa.  After they fail to stop Char's plan to drop an asteroid on Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, the Federation sets up a secret meeting with officials from Neo Zeon to forge a peace treaty.  Federation Vice Minister Adenauer Paraya ends up being transported to the meeting on Londo Bell's flag ship, the Ra Cailum.  By pure chance Brights son, Hathaway ended up on their shuttle flight and follows them onto the Londo Bell ship.  On the ship Amuro is preparing a brand new mobile suit, the Nu Gundam, developed using psychoframe technology.

    At the secret meeting, Neo Zeon pledges to relinquish their weaponry in exchange for the ability to purchase the derelict remains of the Axis asteroid.  Their true intent is to fake the disarmamement and use the Federations forces distraction as a way to drop Axis onto Earth, triggering explosions for hidden nuclear warheads, hoping to make the planet uninhabitable for humans.  Quess, in a spat of rebeliousnes, runs away and willingly joing Neo Zeon, under the watch of Char.  He senses in her a strong Newtype potential, perhaps rivaling Lalah Sune's abilities.  As the final conflict begins, with the betrayal at the disarmament, Bright and the forces of Longo Bell jump into action.  What starts as an attempt to secure victory for Zeon and spacenoids turns into a continuation of the deeply personal conflict between Char and Amuro.  Amuro, representing benevolence, shows great empathy for those around him, wishing to protect them.  Char on the other hand, representing malevolence, uses those around him as tools, with little regard for their safety and continued existence.  How much of an impact will their final battle have on the future of humanity on Earth and in space?

    The first original theatrical release for the franchise as it approached its 10 year anniversary pulls out all of the stops to cap off the core story as it looks to move into the future of the Universal Century.   The story doesn't waste any time in its just shy of two hour run time getting to the meat of the story.  Unfortunately it does a really bad job of filling in the gaps of what happened in the five year gap following the conclusion of Double Zeta.  How did Char go from the benevolent hero of AUEG to taking on the leadership role of Neo Zeon and shift from being tolerant of Amuro to plotting the extinction of humanity on Earth for revenge on him killing Lallah?  They barely explain the formation and purpose of Londo Bell...like barely.  It would take a few years and the release of Stardust Memories to explain the gap in time between OG and Zeta and also fill in a few bits of information needed in Chars Counterattack.  As we approach the 30 year mark since this movie first came out it feels like we will never get the same story spun up to fill in the gap between this and Double Zeta.  There was a novel written by Tomino called Beltorchika's Children that apparently fills in some of those gaps...but we need an anime project!!

    This is pure gas, sprinkling in barely enough context in-between and during the combat to make it make sense.  Its pace is frantic and sometimes confusing.  Some of the characters decisions conflict with the way they acted earlier...and some of the characters are questionable in general.  Quess is incredibly easy to hate and her ridiculously juvenile decisions are almost laughable.  Whats even more perplexing is how all the adults around her, on the Zeon side, are like...lets go!!!!!!  Someone really should have contacted child protection services.  Hathaway was more reasonable as a young teenager but Quess....terrible, just terrible and unbelievable.  To this pint still, the only reasonable and likeable character really is Bright.  Amuro is too deep into his hatred of Char and its confounding how all the women throw themselves at him consistently.  Char's Counterattack greatly fails the Bechdel test.  But it does a good job of closing this chapter of the Universal Century even if it once again leans heavily into the mystical aspects of being a newtype.  Gundam really needs to shrug off the space wizard crap.

Char's Counterattack is currently available on Crunchyroll. 

Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ

 Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ (機動戦士ガンダムΖΖ) Is a 47 episode continuation of the Universal Century timeline of the franchise and a direct sequel to Zeta Gundam.  The series originally aired In the Spring of 1986 and the Winter of 1987.

    Directly following the events of Zeta Gundam, Bright and the crew of the Argama head to Side One to try and get Kamille medical attention due to his mental breakdown.  The ship is also in desperate need of repairs as well following the final conflict with the Titans and Axis Zeon.  Axis, rebranding its self as Neo Zeon, sends agents to the colony to attack them and in a moment of desperation Noah enlists a scrappy group of kids who initially tried to steal the Zeta Gundam to sell for parts.  Instead one member of the group, Judau, shows strong newtype potential and begins to pilot the the Gundam, helping them escape.  After establishing contact with the La Vie en Rose, they receive upgrades that allow them to modify the Zeta into the ZZ Gundam, including multiple core fighters docking together.  The Argama is directed to attack Axis with a new prototype ship cannon which devastates the base.  In the confrontation Judau encounters a strange girl named Ple who appears to be another subject of Murasume labs artificial newtype project.

    Unknown to the crew of the Argama, Neo Zeon is plotting a take over of the Federation through coercion and false cooperation.  This is being done under the guise of the last surviving Zavi, Minevah, through her regent Haman Kahn.  The crew of the Argama foils her plans and Haman retaliates by dropping a colony on Dublin.  To end it once and for all AUEG heads back into space, planning to take down Neo Zeon from inside their stronghold.  Dissatisfaction with its subjects comes to a boil and in the chaos the final show down commences with personal grievances clouding everyone's judgment.  If Haman is killed will that really put an end to the ambitions of those trying to revive the shadow of the Zabi?

    This series was a stark contrast, in the beginning to the darkness of Zeta.  It took on a very cartoonish tone that appeared to revert back to a childish target audience of the first series.  At the half way point some brutality and intense mental anguish begins to seep in but too many of the story threads and characters were terribly designed.  Up to this point Gundam as a whole has had a problem with regurgitating plot lines.  Double Zeta does what it name suggests doubles up on repeating many of the plot based character interactions we saw in Zeta...which its self had a hard time not copying aspects of the original Gundam.

    I really disliked this series and felt it was a huge waste of my time.  Many of the characterizations treated the viewer as an idiot.  Chara Soon in particular destroys a lot of Gundam's efforts to not tie its self to current times by taking on a completely 80's sense of fashion.  She also has the most boggling personality traits...  Then the introduction of Ple...which feels like little more than an attempt to explore Four Murasume in greater depth, but only becomes a weird parasite attaching its self to Judau.  Then they do it again with a clone...and then theres some concept that Ple is also responsible for Chara's change in personality at the end of the series?  I was a huge mess and did a disservice to the franchise that had shifted into an interesting angle with the previous series.  I really hated this story and its characters... 

Gundam ZZ is available currently on Crunchyroll.

Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam

 Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam (機動戦士Ζガンダム) is a 50 episode continuation of the original Mobile Suit Gundam series.  It originally aired on TV in 1985 and 1986.

     Set in UC 0087, after the events of Operation Stardust, the Earth Federation has become a bit more authoritarian in it's governance.  Zeon is but a distant memory of the scattered veterans of the One Year War but a new threat arises from. the ashes.  A group called AEUG has been stirring trouble across the colonies, inviting acts of terrorism against the Federation.  A new paramilitary arm of the Federation known as the Titans is aimed at crushing the terrorist anywhere they can.  When AEUG attacks a Titan stronghold to capture their new Gundam units a rebellious teenage boy named Kamille becomes enmeshed in their plans.  A ploy designed to trick the boy and AEUG into returning the stolen Gundams while wiping them out at the same time fails as their treachery unravels and Kamilles parents die as a result.  Finding himself an orphan with a burning vendetta against the Titans he chooses to remain with the terrorists as they enact their next plan back on Earth.

    A strange set of circumstances brings some of the members of the legendary White Base to work hand in hand with their greatest rival during the One Year War.  Char Aznabel fled into the depths of space after his defeat, along with the remnants of the Zeon army.   With all of the Zavi adults dead, the last hope of their lineage rule is thrust upon the infant Mineva.  Loyalists to the Zavi family and the ideology of Zeon bide their time in the shadows.  For unknown reasons Char has assumed an alias and has been working as a member of AEUG, intent on righting the wrongs of the tyrannical Titans and carve out a place of people who live in space to have their freedoms.  The Titan's seize overwhelming power in the Federation an begina brutal campaign of repression, all while trying to destroy AEUG, with Kamille and his unnatural piloting skills a main target.  He, Char and the rest of the crew aboard the Argama find themselves at the center of the conflict and shifting alliances.  When things seem to be going there way the remnants of Zeon make their presence known and through the chaotic battlefront into a dangerous direction.

      The direct sequel to the original Mobile Sit Gundam, Zeta Gundam is a drastically better product in every way.  Sure it has 6 years of financing and residuals to lean into from the original and its theatrical remakes and the growing Gunpla market.  But its also devoid of a lot of the meddling of the originals toy sponsor Clover...which went out of business in 1983.  Unfortunately Zeta, like so many Gundam stories are trapped in regurgitating the outline of the original series.  Kamille is a wholly unlikable protagonist.  Though he does mature over the course of his struggle and is a more rational Newtype than Amuro was.  The story over all is much darker than the original, or even many other later Gundams.  This is a story aimed at the massive adult/teenage fan base that sprung up around the originals repeats and movies.  Zeta is bleak at almost every turn.  Almost all of the characters are deeply broken individuals who grimly go along with the business of murder for ideals.

    Its taken me 30+ years of anime fandom to really crack into the original Gundam story and for a while now my favorite Gundam has been Thunderbolt, but Zeta really made an impression on me.  I will get back to finishing/re-watching Thunderbolt as I make my way through the timeline.  I have focused on the main story lines for the most part and while swing back to the side stories once I watch Hathaway.  But Zeta really struck a chord with me, especially the back half of the story.  Bright Noah may be anime's most patient character...  I write this as I crack into Gundam ZZ...and boy howdy, Bright is a saint.  After this bonanza of Gundam consumption I will have to put together an over all through and tier list of the shows.  But something tells me Zeta is going to be high on the list.  If thats the case, the franchise might have blown most of its load with this story early on.  The plot is dense and intense and just keeps going, I got annoyed with how long it was, but I can't think of a way to shorten the story up and be as impactful.,  At some point I'll have to watch the 3 compilation movies to see if they did it justice.

The series is currently available on Crunchyroll. 

Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memories

 Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memories (機動戦士ガンダム0083 STARDUST MEMORY) is a 13 episode OAV series based in the Universal Century era of the Gundam franchise.  The series was released between 1991 and 1992.

    As the title suggests, Stardust Memories is set in UC 0083 and the Earth Federation is working to maintain the peace across the stretch of humanity.  The One Year War is three years in the past now and the Principality of Zeon should be extinct, at least to a degree that it can't attempt to repeat the One Year War in the foreseeable future.  A group of people looking to reclaim the glory of Zeon attack a military facility in Australia, capturing one of two new Gundam prototypes and a nuclear warhead along with it.  Ensign Uraki Kou finds himself the chosen test pilot for Gundam Unit 1, the one that wasn't stolen, as  ship its assigned to, the Albion, is tasked with retrieving the stolen Unit 2.

    The chase results in the Albion confirming suspicions of a large scale uprising from remnants of Zeon band together under a man named Admiral Delaz.   The Delaz Fleet looks to avenge Zeon after their defeat in the One Year War with an eye on reviving the effort to eliminate the Federation with an eye on Earths population its self.  As the pursuit of Unit 2 continues, Kou struggles with conflicting personalities of his superiors and crew mates, at one point inadvertently ending up AWOL.  He finds himself in the care of a disgruntles Zeon veteran works with the Delaz Fleet in hopes of restoring his lost glory.  Kou, not holding any hatred towards the man, returns to the fleet only for both fleets to finally face off with each other.  Unit 2 appears again, utilizing its nuclear warhead to destabilize the Federations position, allowing a sinister plan to unfold that could once again bring devastation to Earth.

    In the course of working through the Universal Century series in relative chronological order, I was glad to return to and finish the series that introduced me to Gundam.  I had access to a few episodes of Stardust Memories at the end of the 90's but never completed it or paid much attention to Gundam in general until 00 aired a decade later.  Since then I have casually watched Gundam, largely non-UC titles.  But with GQX and its massive tease of plot lines not understood, I have decided to dive head first into the franchise.  It was really nice to return to this and compared to the minimal quality of the original, this was a massive breath of fresh air.  Fantastic and realistic mechanical designs, more aesthetically pleasing character designs and a significantly high budget...not to mention it was made 12 years after the OG...and a lot changes in anime in that time.

    Aside form the massive improvements (yes I watched this before War in the Pocket) the story was a bit more palatable.  Largely because of the absence of plot lines aimed at a younger audience.  This is a more mature story that is at the core the same thing as was told in Mobile Suit Gundam.  We still have to deal with a young wunderkind pilot in Kou, but hes above the age of 18 and a legit member of the military, he just pig heads his way into being the Gundams pilot.  But he also doesn't differ much from Amuro.    It was great to get back to this series and finish it.  The story was well worth its time and they did well to tell it in 13 episodes.  If not my favorite, perhaps one of the two 3 series in the franchise for me.

Sadly...its not currently available for streaming as far as I understand. 

Mobile Suit Gundam

 Mobile Suit Gundam (機動戦士ガンダム) is a 43* episode original military space epic by a collection of creatives from Nihon Sunrise.  The primary creative behind the series is Tomino Yoshiyuki.  The series originally aired in the Spring and Fall of 1979.

   *Episode 15, Cucuruz Don's Island was never made available for North America.

     Set in the future of Earth, humanity has been living among the stars long enough to have people born in space in one of the fully operating space stations known as Sides.  By the new Universal Century calendar, in the year 0079 a war of independence breaks out as Side 3 decides to throw of the reigns of Earth and form its own power base known as the Principality of Zeon.  Humanity is collected under the Earth Federation and the conflict between it and Zeon becomes devastating quickly, resulting in half of the human population being wiped out before the end of the war.  A secret new weapon is being developed on the Side 7 colony by the Federation when the team that is tasked with retrieving it is attacked by a Zeon sneak attack.  The attack is devastating, resulting in most of the Federation contingent being lost of killed, leaving a young officer named Bright in charge of the new command ship, the White Base.  In addition to the White Base are three new powerful mobile suits, the Gundam, Guncannon and Guntank.  In the process of evacuating the station the White Base becomes a refugee transport and Bright is forced to enlist civilians into the battle to get back to Earth.

    A teenage boy names Amuro Ray ends up becoming the pilot of the Gundam, forced into the situation by his overwhelming desire to help those around them.  Bright is hesitant to entrust the military's most secret weapon in the hands of an inexperienced civilian boy, but desperation requires necessity.  The White Base heads to Earth, followed doggedly by Zeon forces.  Those forces are being led by charismatic masked officer named Char, who is hell bent on absolute victory.  At every the White Base escapes destruction and Char becomes obsessed with the Gundam and its pilot, seeing it as a challenge to his own brilliance and ability.  When the White Base reaches Earth their problems do not go away, they have to fight their way through Zeon help territory and when they finally arrive in friendly air space they are immediately sent out on vital missions as the Federation pushes to turn the tide in their favor.  Left with little choice, Bright remains in command of the ship and the civilians who have taken on combat roles in their journey are pressed into military service.  Amuro, the Gundam and everyone else who have struggled to survive are now faced with their mortality in what becomes the pivotal battle in the One Year War.

     Gundam is one of the fundamentals of the maturing anime industry.  A collaboration that wanted to push a more realistic hero mech narrative it is considered the beginning of the real mech genre, that moves away from the giant robot super hero aesthetic.  Gundam, while keeping with the template of a hero robot emphasized vulnerability and limitations.  The design of the mechs in the series were inspired by the power suits from the novel Star Ship Troopers with a focus on being more mechanically realistic.  Through sponsor partnerships with the toy company Clover.  The series was aimed as a young audience with an eye on moving related toy's.  Even though it was designed for children around early adolescent age, the series was largely grim and dramatic, with may characters dying on screen.  Due to failing toy sales the show was cut short of its 52 episode run, with it wrapping up in 43 episodes.  The series didn't gain a lot of traction in its original broadcast.  In the early 80's the story was condensed, cleaned up and refocused into a more consumable three movie format.  The movies along with syndication lead to a surge in the shows audience, but with adults and late teenagers, shifting the series to aim for an older audience that was eager for narrative and realism.

    TV animation in the late 70s was obviously very limited mostly due to budget constraints and the artwork for Gundam is lacking in a lot of areas.   While there was a goal to bring a more realistic story there is a lot of hand waving in regards to science and physics.  A lot of the mobile suits movements ignore their metallic mechanical structure.  Instead they move and react like magical humans like they anything found in a super sentai series.  Gundam is very much tied to super sentai but does a lot of work, largely through its story telling, to distance its self from that genre.  The core of Gundam, outside of the war and the mechs, is the concept of the Newtype, a sudden evolutionary change in humans brought on by the move into space.  The naming of the Newtype idea doesn't appear until the last arc of the story where it suddenly becomes the driving force of the conclusion.  Artwork and realism aside, I really disliked the series for the first half.  But as it closed into the final arc the intrigue and machinations became more interesting...it also doesn't hurt that the devastation ramped up.  I struggle to understand how Gundam made such an impact but that's coming from a world where it has always existed, I was born near the end of its original broadcast.  I have lived in a world where real mecha and its influence has already existed.  Its also the problem of having never watched it in all the decades of anime fandom until now and the medium has gone through such drastic changes in that time that the age and awkwardness of the original Gundam is impossible to look past.  While it may be flawed its impact on anime is undeniable and its legacy will be more important than an individual chapter.

The original series is currently available on Crunchyroll, but your better off just watching the three theatrical movie version of the story instead. 

Gundam GQuuuuuuux

Gundam GQuuuuuuX is a 12 episode original mecha series in the Gundam franchise.  It originally aired during the Spring 2025 season. 

Click HERE for a discussion about this series on The Otaku Network Podcast. 

    Set in an alternative version of the Universal Century, through the help of Char capturing the Gundam RX-78-2, the Principality of Zeon wins the One Year War.  Unfortunately for them, they lose Char in an incident where his Red Gundam disappears in an event called a zeknova.  A few years later his partner Chalia Bull finds himself at the Side 6 colony in his search of Char's Red Gundam.  As luck would have it, the Gundam appears and his team sends out the experimental GQuuuuuuX Gundam to capture it.  The battle doesn't go as planned and both are lost in the colony as security steps in to tamp down on the incursion.

    After becoming entangled with a refugee girl working as a black market courier, Nyaan, a disaffected upper middle class high school student, rebels hard.  After stumbling upon the GQuuuuux and syncing with it easily, she decides to participate in illegal mecha fighting called Clan Battle.  She find a partner in a weird boy names Shuji who happens to pilot a Red Gundam and share a love for the emotional release of piloting  Together they begin to achieve victory after victory in the Clan Battles but not without notice.  Chalia wants to reclaim both the GQuuuuuuX and the Red Gundam, hoping it will lead him closer to Char.  But unknown to all of them a dangerous plot is unfolding that will absorb all of them as the head of Zeon attempt to punish Earth once and for all. 

     I have not watched as much Gundam as I should have over the years but I have a general understanding of the world building.  This series however is a deep dive into the core story and nods at every chance it can to under served characters from the original.  While it is not set in the Universal Century it relies heavily on the viewer having watched and original series at the very least, demanding it for all of the context.  Since I have yet neglected to watch the original and its direct follow up stories, I spent a lot of time on the Gundam Fan Wiki...recognizing that there was a lot of context I was unaware of.  That missing intimacy lead to less than ideal viewing experience.  The story shifts about 2/3s of the way through to a a complex plot that becomes engaging.  The first 8 episodes had little resonance with me partially due to me not being familiar with the legacy characters that appeared.  But is that my fault or the stories?  A problem I have had with some Gundam stories is the heavy reliance on a deep understanding of the franchise its self, pushing out more casual viewers or people new to the fandom.  Reconguista in G is a prime example of this problem.  GQX suffers from that to less of a degree but after talking with die hard Gundam fans about the show, a viewer with intimate deep lore will get more out of GQX than casuals.

     That said, the last third of the story when everything culminated and the disparate threads started to connect grabbed my attention but its sadly was a bit late for me to fully appreciate what was going on.  The creative team behind this series really did it as a love letter to Gundam its self, as a whole, pulling references from a long line of UC stories, spinning them into a newer narrative.  GQX is in many ways, fan fiction and a love letter to Gundam in general.  They did a good job with it, especially once I understood the references and nuances of what they were showing.  But that under-serves the casual viewer and its only strong point from there is its short length and tight story telling.  It does do a good job of character development and narration to get its core point across, sans all of the references and homages.  That said...I really disliked the character designs for the unique cast.  Most of the characters who appear that exist in legacy Gundam titles retain a design philosophy closer to their original versions, but the brand new characters have a strange and out of place design.  This does serve as a gateway into Gundam fandom though as its easy to access, short and teases you with a far deeper lore than you could imagine...luring you further into the woods if you so choose.  You can enjoy it as a stand alone story without any of the context, but it plays differently and more emotionally when you do know the context. 

The series is available on Amazon Prime.  

Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt

Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt (機動戦士ガンダム サンダーボルト) is a 4 part ONA series set in the UC timeline of Gundam.  The series was released between December 2015 and May 2016 and is based on the manga of the same name by Otagaki Yasuo.

    Taking place during the One year War, Thunderbolt follows a force of Zeon soldiers battling a force of Federation soldiers in the ruins of space colonies.  The sides are locked in a bloody stalemate as they engage in small skirmishes, slowly dwindling their forces.  A feud between Federation pilot, Io Flemming and Zeon sniper Darly Lorenz is the focus of the short anime.  Each pilot is highly skilled and use every technical advantage they can to over come the other, all while their respective sides are being wiped out around them.

    This is a dark and mature entry in the Gundam universe.  Death and destruction are everywhere.  Those that survive the longest have embraced the darkness of battle.  The only thing they see to their actions is the victories of the battlefield and have no dreams of an end to the conflict.  Willing to sacrifice life and limb to quench their thirst for the fight it's self.

    With a running time of around an hour the series does a really good job at setting up the struggle between a handful of characters, showing enough of their background and personality to make everything fall into place.  This is a great example of brevity in story telling.  It is effective and well done.  The artwork is really nice too, with character designs that reminded me of Aeon Flux.  The line work is stark and bold.  The combat is pretty good, typical Gundam fare.  Whats best about this story is the lack of teenage wunderkind main characters.  These are hardened soldiers doing their job with brutal efficiency, there is no time of second guessing or moral quandaries.  Truly a mature story, something the franchise could do a little more often.

    The series is as of yet not available in North America, but there is word that the theatrical version of it may see a stateside release in the near future.  Sadly the manga is not available in North America either currently.

Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron Blooded Orphans

Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron Blooded Orphans (機動戦士ガンダム 鉄血のオルフェンズ) is a 26 episode mecha war drama set in the Gundam franchise.  The series aired between 2015 and 2016.

    Set more than 300 years after the Calamity War, in which Earths power concentration is drastically changed.  The story deals with a group of unwanted child soldiers employed with a security firm on Mars known as CGS.  Mars is under control of factions on Earth and has limited wealth and resources.  The daughter of an aristocratic Martian family, Kudelia Aina Bernstein, decides to head to Earth and plead for Mars to become more independent. When the strongest faction on Earth, Gjallarhorn, decides to stop Bernstein from leaving Mars they attack CGS headquarters.  Many of the deaths in the successful defense come from the child soldiers 'employed' by CGS. 

    One of the older kids, Orga decides to start a coup in retaliation for the attitude towards the worth of his fellow soldiers.  Through determination and cunning they succeeded in taking control of the mercenary group and change its identity to solidify their emergence as a new operation.  Orga, now the leader of Tekkadan, takes over the task of escorting Bernstein to Earth, believing in her goal and the possibility of it being successful.  The members of Tekkadan are children who live on the margins of Martian society, despised as little more than sewer rats.  They see a chance at earning respect and taking control of their own destinies under Orga's leadership and enthusiastically throw their support to continue to job.

    From the start everything is stacked against the upstarts.  Gjallarhorn sends reinforcements to succeed where the provincial forces failed.  Tekkadan leaves Mars, fleeing their vastly superior enemies.  Once they understand the level of threat aimed at them they join with a powerful crime syndicate for patronage, support and protection.  The lone Tekkadon ship partners with a sister group in the syndicate to continue the treacherous journey.  Along the way they are constantly attacked by forces trying to prevent Bernstein from publicly addressing imperial oppression.  Tekkadan facing lose and a greater understanding of the difficulty of others, not just on Mars, further empowers them to push on towards their inevitable death on Earth.

    This was a much needed return to quality story telling in the Gundam universe, following a few less than stellar TV series.  The core ideals of the series deal with child soldiers and imperialism.  The series deals with these powerful things with bi-shonen Caucasian looking characters.  Somewhat lessening the impact of real world issues.  There is a lot of freedom when it comes to Tekkadan's abilities as well, most glaringly when it comes to space flight and operating space-faring ships.  How exactly do discarded, lowest tier child soldiers who are abused and used as little more than cannon fodder understand how to not only launch but successfully operate an orbital vehicle?  This is one of the glaring and obvious lapses of reality that go to lesson the impact of the real world messages the series is trying to deliver.

    The character designs are some of the oddest that that the Gundam franchise has seen since the 80's.  The mechanical designs as well are rather sub-par compared with other recent series'.  The bread and butter for the die hard Gundam fans is also mostly absent in the series.  As the story progresses we don't see the constant equipment upgrading that has become integral in the franchise.  There are long pauses in the story in which a mobile suit is almost non-existent.  Instead we get a decent attempt at a Gundam story that focuses more on the characters and their plight instead of spending undue time on the mechanical aspects of the show.

    With all of that said, I actually enjoyed the series and eagerly await its return, as eluded at the end of the final episode.  There were some serious levels of plot armor through out, but its no fuss straight forward story telling was welcomed.  As it neared the end it did begin to pick up some less than useful obligatory characters which didn't do much for the over all progress and appeal of the story.  They seemed more as throw ins for helping develop a plot arc that wasn't fully developed.  Yet with all of it's flaw's it was still enjoyable.

    The series is available streaming in North America currently, with a dub being produced.  This is also a signal that video releases are pending.  The second season of the show is slated to begin airing in the Fall of 2016.