If I hadn’t been in such a fragile state that I was terrified at the sight of alcohol I would have played the “Mecha Anime drinking game.” Try playing it next time you watch one of these, I’ll make the full list of rules some time.

Anyway, this series first episode begins on a space station in space that is hosting a massive ceremony over everyone collectively forgetting what year this is and just deciding to start again from zero rather than try to look it up or something. The space station suddenly explodes in a massive ball of fire, hurling the thousands of guests on board into the vacuum of space… Horrifying violence in a cartoon about giant robots, take a drink.

This scene cuts to the rest of the film which takes place ninety six years later and is never mentioned again. Having seen the original series Mobile Suit Gundam I understood the scene… but a series about giant robots should not require you first do research on a thirty year old cartoon in order to understand what the hell is going on.

Screaming while ramming the controls forward, take a drink.

This episode is the first of six and it lasts a full hour… of which we get to know our protagonist Banagher Links for all of ten minutes during which he meets a mysterious girl called Audrey Burne when he sees her plummeting to her death, he catches her using a little flying robot bubble machine thing. Demonstrating the protagonist can drive a robot in a civilian setting, take a drink.

It turns out there is more to Audrey than the ability to manage to nearly die of falling in a zero gravity environment. She tells Banagher to take her to some old bloke for them to talk politics about a macguffin called the Laplace Box and how they have to prevent a war. As soon as Banagher opens his mouth both Audrey and the old bloke tell him to piss off and stop trying to play soldiers… and Banagher says something that I personally hope was a case of really bad translation… This is taken verbatim from the subtitles.

“…For the first time I saw where I needed to be. I don’t care who you are! Just tell me you need me!”

Whoa… Slow down there boy! You’ve known this girl for all of five minutes! The protagonist creepily latching on to the first girl he sees. Take a drink.

Audrey and her stalker.

Thankfully this plays out as it should and they tell him to fuck right off. But a minute or two later the politics of this made up world goes pear shaped and war breaks out between two or three factions that we haven’t seen before and haven’t had adequately explained to us. Innocent civilians being mercilessly slaughtered by giant robots to poignant music, take a drink.

During the chaos and backstabbing between characters we don’t know against other characters we don’t know either, Banagher somehow manages to find he’s accidentally wandered in to a hanger containing a prototype giant robot. ‘Prototype’ robot that is magically better than all the others, take a drink. You’d think that if you were building and testing a superweapon you’d put a lock on the door or something. Banagher finds the old man from before, who explains that he is ‘DUN DUN DUUUUUN’, his father. Estranged father who built a giant robot, take two drinks. The old man puts Banagher’s hand against a fingerprint scanner in the cockpit and tells him that it will only obey his orders now. Giant robot can only be driven by one person for a contrived reason, take a drink. And Banagher finds himself thrown into the cockpit. Main character “accidentally” falls into the cockpit of a machine he’s never driven before and is able to drive it because he’s special, finish the bottle. And then there’s some unimpressive fighting and the episode ends a minute later.

They're not even trying any more.

The animation is good and the music is beautiful at times, but for a series that has space travel and giant robots it manages to be massively clichéd, the action scenes lack any emotion because we have no idea who any of the characters are and the characters we do know are only in it for a short period of time that is spent on fantasy politics.

This new series adds absolutely nothing to the Gundam franchise that hasn’t already been done. Hell, rather than pay scriptwriters to make up anything new, the villain of the next episode is just a cut and paste of the villain from the first series!

The only reason you could possibly enjoy Gundam Unicorn is if you enjoy something purely on the basis that it’s Gundam. In which case, shame on you! Grow some bloody standards! They’ll never learn if you let them get away with this kind of shite!

Drinks taken in this episode: Seven, and the rest of your bottle. Good luck.

.

Of course, being anime, there are a shit-ton of different series, all of which seem to have names designed to deliberately confuse you. So here are some quick pointers to seeing what all the fuss is about.

Mobile Suit Gundam:

This is where it all started back in the seventies. As a series, this one is incredibly simple compared to the others because the franchise became an arms race to top each previous one with more and more ornate and powerful robots. If you were generous you would say that the artwork hasn’t aged gracefully… But I’m not generous, and the graphics are terrible. And the less said about the writing and voice acting the better. Characters seem to be awkwardly narrating the action as it unfolds, explaining the plot every step of the way… it’s hideous… but I’m still watching it fifteen episodes in! Why? I don’t know. Is it because the plot manages to be simple but interesting, is it because it actually shows the horrors of war even when giant robots are flying around? Is it because the story unfolds as an intelligent battle of wits between the protagonist and the heroic antagonist, resorting to increasingly dirty military tactics rather than being the one that screams loudest in their cockpit.

Whatever it is, there are better ways to try the series on for size, both in quality and in the amount of time required. But if you like Gundam, you may well enjoy this.

Gundam Zeta:

This is the first direct sequel to the series. Avoid this one if you haven’t watched the first because you’ll just be confused. And the first episode is nowhere near as interesting as the original series.

Gundam 00:

The first episode starts so promisingly with child soldiers running for their lives from giant robots in a war-torn city during a holy war. But suddenly everything is made magically better by four stupidly overpowered robots. As soon as the leader of the four robots declared that they were a mercenary group devoted to stopping war, I literally shouted at my monitor and closed the video. This is pointless saccharine fantasy and it is not worth your time when there are better shows available.

Gundam Seed:

An interesting start to the series, with extremely good visuals and a few nice touches here and there. But it took way too long to get started, the protagonist doesn’t set foot in a giant robot until the end of the first episode, and I can’t even remember his name. It may pick up later, but for some reason I’m actually choosing the first series over this.

War In the Pocket and The 8^th MS Team:

I was told that these would be available as well. But I haven’t been able to find them yet, which is a damn shame because they’re the two best things to ever emerge from the franchise. The 8^th MS Team follows a group of soldiers fighting in a jungle environment similar to Vietnam, where the hero, Shiro Amada meets the love of his life… Problem is she’s on the other side. What follows is a very nicely told Romeo and Juliet story with interesting characters on both sides and excellently animated action sequences in only twelve episodes.

But that’s nothing compared to War in the Pocket. Which follows the 11 year old Alfred Izuhara. He lives on a neutrally aligned colony in the middle of war and is desperate to see some of the soldiers he’s heard of and idolises, he gets his wish when he catches a team of spies who were sent to steal information on the secret weapons being built there. The youngest of the spies is ordered to humour Alf in order to avoid having to kill him, because when a child disappears, people come looking. While they bond and learn from one another, things get progressively worse. The series is only six episodes long and it’s one of the most heart rending, poignant pieces of cinema I have ever had the privilege of seeing. If there is anything with Gundam in the title you should watch, it’s this!

In my previous article, I introduced you to the Gundam universe, and how unspeakably awesome it is. I took you on a magical mystery tour of how the franchise got started, and what’s behind it, and also gave you a brief overview of it’s core continuity and background – the so-called ‘Universal Century’.

As Gundam grew, so too did the aspirations of it’s directors. Tastes were changing around it, and newer ideas were coming to pass, and in the late 1990’s, the franchise took a bold step.

Generations of Gundam

Gundam had grown bigger and bigger, and had a core base of loyal fans. But, as always, there was the need for more. The franchise hadn’t stagnated – but instead, it needed something new, and something different.

At this time, the Super Robot genre, as discussed earlier, was going through a renaissance. The reasons behind that are many fold (and will be discussed in a later article from me, woohoo!), and the popularity of such shows was on the increase. And so, Sunrise and Bandai took a bold step. In 1994, the show expanded out of the Universal Century, and in a radical departure from the Real Robot genre it had established, and the core continuity of the Universal Century, with it’s now over 100 years of continuity, along came a new universe, and a new series – ‘Mobile Fighter G-Gundam’.

A real departure from the ideas and concepts Gundam had established so far, G-Gundam went back to the Super Robot roots, and took a departure from the serious, though-provoking world of the UC, and into a crazy, brightly coloured world, where wars were decided on a barren, blasted Earth by the use of staged ‘Gundam Fights’, between all countries.

The plot was relatively simplistic, and the characters far larger than life – like the machines they piloted, they represented their countries…

Yes. It turns into a fish. No, I'm not joking.

…Yeah.

Or as the ‘Mermaid Gundam’ shows – a crude and mildly offensive stereotype of them, at least. The series was full of martial-arts posturing and homages, and while not popular on it’s first run, received praise and a dedicated fanbase in later incarnations for it’s over-the-top action sequences and outlandish appeal.

Following this first successful experiment with an alternate setting, further series were released in different timelines. This time though, the idea taken was much more serious. The next series would become a runaway success, and is still well known to this day – Mobile Suit Gundam Wing.

Pretty boys, pretty robots.

Gundam Wing told the story of another alternate world, but this one was a strange future, where an enigmatic ‘Organization of the Zodiac’ – Oz – rules the Earth, and the Space Colonies in an uneasy peace, enforcing the rules with it’s powerful mobile weapons.

Into the midst of this, four teenage pilots (who are all very handsome boys), are sent in their outrageously powerful Gundam Mobile Suits to wreak havoc and eventually destroy Oz, to allow the people to govern themselves again.

Gundam Wing was the first Gundam series to be dubbed fully and professionally into English, and was designed as a more action-oriented show with less political manoeuvring and focus than earlier shows – but not ignoring it completely, of course.

Partly, this was a savvy move on Bandai – the well-known parent company of Sunrise Studios – to ease Gundam into a more western market.

Focusing on four teenage pilots, with extremely powerful mobile suits, each following a different motif and with a distinctive design and flair, the four pilots each came from a different background. Unlike the military characters of other shows, they were ‘freedom fighters’ against Oz. The designs of the characters, especially the Gundam Pilots themselves, and many other elements of the show, were also notably designed to attract a female audience as well as a male one – something that apparently succeeded, if the number of fan websites for the individual pilots are anything to go by.

Despite being an alternate universe show, Wing still filled in all the key ideas for a Gundam series – the masked villain, troubled heroes, and exciting mecha battles, as well as a morally complex story.

The hugely powerful mobile suits, with their distinctive themes and designs were also very popular with fans, and the model of multiple ‘heroic’ Gundams would be repeated in later series, to the point of becoming a staple element.

Wing received a warm response in the US, debuting on Cartoon Network, and was the first show for the channel to be aired in an ‘edited’ daytime version, and a late-night ‘unedited’ version, that left the dialogue (such as using the word ‘kill’ instead of the clumsy and unintentionally hilarious-sounding word ‘destroy’) intact.

The reception to this idea was so great, that it later influenced the creation of the now-famous ‘Adult Swim’ block, which bought more anime to Cartoon Network.

Wing was followed by more alternate universe shows, such as Gundam X, which was less successful – so much so, that it was cancelled halfway through it’s run.

Many reasons have been cited for the death of the series, but it is believed that too many Gundam suits, a nonsensical plot about newtypes, and a generally fonsuing and repetitive story, coupled with a poor choice of slot by the channels that showed it, lead to the series’ downfall.

It wasn't that bad!

Gundam took a years break from TV schedules after this, finally deciding the time was right for a rest – but then it exploded back into life in spectacular style.

The Alternate Universes and the Universal Century had a meeting of sorts with the return of the original creator of Gundam, Yoshiyuki Tomino, to his creation. For the 20^th Anniversary of Gundam, Tomino wanted to do something special and spectacular, so he had decided to direct the new TV show.

Tomino had also recovered from the deep depression that had plagued him during the creation of Victory Gundam¸ the last Gundam Series he had directed, that had lead to it’s ultimately dark and hopeless tone – and as such, the new series, dubbed Turn-A Gundam, is ultimately a much more hopefully and optimistic show.

Turn-A’s story takes place in what is at first glance a parallel universe – but later is discovered to be a potential future of the Universal Century, where all previous incarnations of the series take place at various points in history.

Distinctively animated, and full of romantic imagery, Turn-A stands tall

The show tells a complex and moving story, replete with beautifully designed characters and gorgeous backgrounds, rich music by Japanese music supreme Yoko Kanno, and futuristic, radical mecha designs by famous futurist Syd Mead.

The series markedly divided fans, most notably over the design of the Turn-A Gundam itself. But overall, it was marked up as a success, and certainly a worthy tribute to the series as a 20^th Anniversary. The Turn-A itself has also established a following and notoriety – both as one of, if not the most, powerful mecha in the Gundam meta-continuity, and as a recognisable feature, as it has turned up in many subsequent video games, and was chosen as the 100^th Master Grade Gundam model (more about those later).

Turn-A’s success revitalised the franchise, though there was a gap in the schedule for a year or so – a gap that lead to the later alternate universe show, Gundam SEED.

SEED was a runaway success in both it’s homeland and the US. Retelling and re-imagining the original Gundam, it gave a new cast of characters, a new

Gundam Seed introduced Gundam to a new generation

universe, and a plethora of new mobile suits. Becoming a big success, it was dubbed into English, and again shown on Cartoon Network, giving the franchise the boost it needed in the USA to become a big name.

So successful was Gundam SEED, that it became the first Gundam Alternate Universe saga to get it’s own sequels, as well as spinoffs – Gundam SEED Destiny, Stargazer and Astray. Rumours persist of a movie forthcoming as well, expanding the continuity of the ‘C.E.’ universe even further.

The Alternate universes continued too, with the release of Gundam 00, which was set in the wildest and most unusually named alternate setting of all – the AD calendar!

Yep – 00 apparently takes place in the 22^nd century of our world, and frequently references past events, named countries, and more. Edgier than some series before it, the characters are like dark shadows of the ‘G-boys’

More pretty pilots, and more pretty mecha

from Gundam Wing, and their mobile suits similarly are like alternate versions of those units. The story is similar also – but different enough that it doesn’t feel like a re-telling. 00 has now finished it’s run – but again, the fanbase is strong, and audiences in the West are being given the chance to enjoy this series now too.

The UC continued strong alongside these alternate universes, however. OAVs, manga, animated ‘shorts’ and other material supplemented the ‘Alternate’ sagas, and supported it’s older fanbase, some of whom still remained loyal to the ‘original’ setting, and shunned the ‘new’ generations – much like there are Star Trek fans who shun the Next Generation and it’s ilk for the Original Series, and so on and so forth.

With the release of Gundam Wing, and other dubbed follow-ups, Gundams’ popularity grew in the West as well as Japan, as (through the medium of the internet), fans got hold of the series they wanted, and this eventually lead to official releases in later years too, for many of the other series, including UC continuity titles. However – things were confused for a long time, as Bandai didn’t release the original Gundam 0079 in it’s movie format until years after several of it’s sequels had been available! For fans in the UK, things were worse – we didn’t get Gundam series – universal century, especially – until only a few short years ago!

But things were changing. With the popularity of first Wing, and then SEED, fans clamoured to throw their money at Bandai, who gave in, and Gundams’ other supporting pillar planted itself in the fertile earth of the West – Merchandising.

Gundam takes over the world

Mecha shows are driven by the inclusion of the robots. And while it can be effectively argued that they are science fiction shows, the uncomfortable truth is that they also exist because it’s very easy to make lots of plastic models and toys of robots, which then sell to children and collectors alike.

As I mentioned earlier, Gundams original debut was heavily influenced by the toymakers during its initial airing. Action figures were produced to begin with, but it was something unexpected that really kicked off the merchandise craze.

In the early 1980s, following the release of the Gundam Movies in cinemas, Bandai produced the first early series of model kits.

Crude, and lacking in detail, they were also inexpensive by today’s standard. However, they were revolutionary at the time, and begun a craze for the kits.

Many of this first wave sold out in record time. Bandai knew they were onto a winner, and so the phenomenon was born. More and more kits were created and produced, covering all sorts of mobile suits and their variations, and growing in complexity and detail. In the 1990’s the model line really took off, with the inclusion of parts that allowed the kits to be moved and made posable. The Gundam Plastic – or ‘GunPla’ model craze boomed, and became a phenomenon in it’s own right.

What you can do with the models is impressive

Bandai did something else different too – they introduced different ‘grades’ for their kits, based on complexity and size of the models, giving modellers a range of different options to suit both their budget and their skills, and each line also included different mecha and vehicles from the other, allowing builders to hunt down their favourite suit and build it.

Newer and newer parts were introduced, along with clever modelling and building techniques that allowed for hyper-detailed kits – eventually culiminating in the release of the massive 1:60 scale ‘Perfect Grade’ kits.

Standing a good two feet tall, and with thousands of pieces each, and details such as opening inspection hatches, and fully detailed internal workings, light up eyes, and all manner of other widgets, the Perfect Grade series are for the serious modeller – yet they are still clip together kits!

Bandai have made only a few Gundam kits...

‘Gunpla’ is such a phenomenon in it’s own right, that it has been recognised outside Gundam shows – both the anime series ‘Sergeant Frog (aka Sgt. Kerororo)’ and ‘Genshiken’ feature Gunpla, or gunplay builders quite heavily.

It is no wonder then, that Gundam action figures and models dominate over ninety Percent of all character based models in Japan, and there are Gunpla modelling contests held in Japan, and even internationally!

As well as models though, there are products for everything, from video games, to snack foods, key chains, posters, calendars, CDs of music from the shows, and even more unusual things – theme park rides, commemorative stamps, and more.

The influence of Gundam is so much so, that in Japan a 1:1 scale statue of the original Gundam Mobile suit was erected this year to commemorate the 35^th anniversary of the series’ debut, and Gundam has been recognised as a ‘culturally important artefact’ by the Japanese government.

Japan prepares for Godzilla attacks

So, all in all Gundam is much, much more than any other giant robot animated series. It is a cultural trend-setter, originating a whole genre of imitators, parodies, and respectful homages to it’s themes and ideas. It has spawned thirteen TV series, six original movies, ten OAV series, one amusement park ride, a less than successful live-action movie, and more than fifty different manga spinoffs, which could warrant an article themselves.

Again to compare it to Star Trek, it’s a franchise that shows no sign of stopping, despite being mature in age. There are still new stories, new fans, and new ideas to come. The animated products are finally making their way across the globe and expanding out of Japan and off of the back-market dealings of internet sharing-sites and Bit Torrent into legitimate releases – Gundam isn’t going to go away, and the big granddaddy of mecha is still ready to inspire and father many more armour-plated children, and many more legions of fans.

Dynasty Warriors is a series of games set in the three kingdoms era of China where you controlled a warrior running around a battlefield hacking through soldiers and taking over areas of the map one after the other at the head of a massive army. Someone in power asked if they could do the same thing with giant robots, so Bandai and Capcom teamed up to put the entire mythology into videogame form!

I’ve never played the Dynasty Warriors games before, but I assume a lot of neat features have been added to the games for this new instalment, unless a large number of battles in ancient China were fought in space.

In this game you run around as one of the many robots from the series cutting down enemy robots until your side has captured one of the territories on the map, once that is done you awkwardly fly over towards the next enemy territory and capture that as well. Lather, rinse and repeat until the level is won. The unfortunate thing about this game is that unless the enemies have names floating above their life bars, they will sit there like cattle that seem to have accepted their fate of you hacking them to pieces. I understand that for the game to have so many enemies on screen at once they would have to cut down a little on the AI, but when you notice that a peon from your side and a peon from the enemy side are standing right next to each other blankly staring at you instead of doing anything about the other’s presence, it gives the feeling that you are the only one here on the battlefield surrounded by several thousand cardboard cut-outs with glowy bits on them.

Number of Robots on screen: 39. Number of them that matter: You.

The game becomes a lot more interesting when you have a friend to play co-op with. Do you split up and take separate sides of the battlefield in a pincer motion? or do you stick together and use the fact your special attacks are amplified by each others presence when used together? This gives you an immense feeling of camaraderie with your friend as you steamroll through the enemy lines and many times have I had to make the mad dash from one side of the battlefield to the other because named enemies have ganged up on my friend, beating him to a pulp from several sides. You can play through all the main campaign modes like this, levelling up two characters for the price of one and making the game easier and more enjoyable for everyone involved.

Anyone care to crack a joke about the spindly little crotch arms? No? Well how about the fact it's called "The O?"

The campaign modes come in two forms, Official mode and Original mode. Official mode follows the stories and battles of individual characters in their original series, cutting them down to awkward dialogue on a blank screen and terrible voice acting in the middle of play. If you haven’t seen any of the original series then you won’t get anything like the same effect or even any real idea what is actually going on because almost all the original dialogue and character development has been removed in favour of More Fighting. This is not such a bad idea in itself since it’s just cutting to the chase as quickly as possible, but don’t expect the game to act as a crash course to the franchise for the unitiated, just kill stuff until you’re bored and then watch whichever series you were playing through afterwards.

Original mode is a new storyline combining characters from all the separate series into one sequence of epic battles through the use of time travel and stuff since many of the series are set decades apart from each other. The story is pretty much an excuse to have unusual combinations of people fighting others, like mortal enemies Amuro and Char battling together against… a Gundam robot wearing samurai armour! It sounds so stupid as I write it down, but seeing it on screen made my jaw drop and a grin to play across my face… It plays so perfectly with the whole concept of the campaign, who cares about logic any more? You were skipping most of the cutscenes anyway, so here’s an excuse to start watching them again. Go beyond the impossible and kick reason to the curb, it’s not the Gundam way but here it suffices.

When you need a villain to hold its own against the main characters of eight seperate series, who you gonna call?

In single player the controls are awkward and ungainly, not in the hulking death machine kind of way, but in the badly designed game kind of way. The game also doesn’t really give the feeling of actually driving a giant robot since all the levels are inexplicably big enough to hold battles with hundreds of these machines with nary a normal tank, helicopter or jet fighter in sight. It feels more like Dynasty Warriors than Gundam, I have yet to play the sequel and I hope it fares better, but I won’t hold my breath.

That said, for all its flaws like the badly presented storylines, the cheap feeling controls and the terrible AI. It absolutely triumphs in the form of an excellent Co-Op mode that compensates for all of that. Play it with a friend or you won’t really be playing it at all.

Not pictured: comic relief children and mascot robot.

Why Gundam? A lot of anime fans dismiss Gundam easily – I’ve heard plenty of people say it’s ‘boring’ or that ‘it’s all the same’ or, as an actual legitimate excuse, that it’s very confusing and they don’t know where to start. With 20+ years of series, manga and video games, and much longer of established continuity, it’s a pretty fair argument to say it’s confusing.

But there’s one hell of a rich and varied wealth of series to be exploited and enjoyed in the multitude of Gundam productions, and it’s certainly something that shouldn’t be ignored. So, in order to ease your confusion, and pay tribute to an Anime phenomenon, allow me to take you on a tour of the anime franchise that’s been termed the ‘Japanese Star Trek’, and give you a bit of an education about the first family of Giant Robot anime.

The Origins of Gundam – Super Robots and Real Robots

Thats... that's a lot of robots.

In the 1970’s, anime featuring giant robots was far from unknown. Many shows had been produced, but they had all followed a template – a protagonist, usually a young boy or teenager, receives a giant robot from an older patron or relative, and then uses it to fight the monster of the week – the stereotypical, run of the mill, predictable and samey ‘Super Robot’ show.

Such copy-pasted, cloned series rarely featured any meaningful character development, or any real continuity between episodes. They rarely showed any consequences of the fighting, mass destruction, and property damage they caused in their battles on a weekly basis, (let alone the bills to the construction companies) and the working gubbins of the heroes or villains robots featured were not mentioned or thought about.

Their weapons as well as the robots themselves were fanciful, flashy, and virtually magical in nature (sometimes out-rightly so), rather than being realistic machines, and often the names of their attacks or weapons were called out prior to use – all familiar and common elements of the Super Robot genre. And it didn’t hurt that all of this of course made it all much, much easier to sell lots of shiny toys.

The original Gundam TV series took a bold and different direction in order to stand out from the crowd of its predecessors and do something completely different to the legion of carbon-copies before it.

Military mecha, doing military things = awesome

The creator of Mobile Suit Gundam, took a leaf out of Starship Troopers’ playbook (the novel, as the shitty movie hadn’t even been made at this time), and a look at real life, and considered a revolutionary idea – what if the giant robots featured were weapons like any other?

Mass produced and part of the military, like any other, rather than flashy superhero–like devices.

And, what if they were in the hands of real pilots, rather than kids? (Had I been there, I would have applauded). And, what if the war was humans, against humans, for political reasons, rather than monsters of the week? (again, applause).

Yoshiyuki Tomino’s ideas were pretty far out there at the time, to his colleagues at Sunrise animation studios, not to mention their financial backers.

To you and I, it probably sounds pretty straightforward, but with the revolutionary ideas, they were worried that it wouldn’t take off, that it wouldn’t sell and would be too ‘different’ from what had come before.

Oh, and the one or two of you out there who think it’s boring? Get your coats.

I’ll wait.

Gone? Good.

Anyway, such a revolutionary idea wasn’t allowed to sail through unchecked. Some changes had to be made to let the show go into production. At the demands of the toymakers, the titular robot, the ‘Gundam’ was changed to utilitarian and practical grey in colour to brightly coloured and eye-catching (and very toy like…) white, red and blue, and numerous additional ‘support vehicles’ were added, to make more toys available and draw in younger viewers. Extra weapons were also added for the same reason – and to draw in existing super-robot viewers. With that, the show went into production.

Themes and Concepts – War is Hell

The Gundam robot – or mobile suit – in the show was very different to its heroic predecessors. While it was very powerful and effective, it was not infallible, and was frequently damaged, or broke down, or suffered other mechanical problems – like a real machine would. And it required a lot of skill and practice to operate effectively, unlike just dropping into the cockpit and off you go. In fact, in the first instance, Amuro Ray, the hero of the show, piloted the Gundam with the manual open on his lap. And he almost lost too – very unlike a Super Robot show.

He also didn’t call out the names of every attack – instead, he piloted like a fighter pilot, or other military vehicle. Very unlike its predecessors to say the least…

the Zaki 'enemy' suit - mass produced icon

The enemy robots were also just as different – mass produced, and mostly effective machines (with one or two strays into very odd machines, which once again showed the influence of the interfering toymakers and studio bigwigs), they were not giant robot-beasts, and were instead troops-of-the-line for the most part.

The cast of the show were also another diversion from the norm. While they were teenagers, they showed human sides and failings, and acted like teenagers would.

They lost their tempers, were moody and unlovable sometimes, were spiteful, argumentative, didn’t get along, and often, through the terrors and horrors of way they faced, suffered psychological and emotional shocks. A bit more in-depth than your average robot show, to say the least.

One of the most shocking developments, and one which Tomino would later become famous for (leading to his cheery nickname of ‘Kill ‘em all Tomino’), was the death of main characters throughout the course of the show – driving home the fact that yes, this was a WAR, and not everyone survives a war. And wars are horrible, taxing, and deadly, and not clean and sanitised events.

The multitude of sequel series to Gundam followed the same template for the most part anyway – There were never any aliens, or monsters – at least, not bug eyed, non-human ones, humans always fought humans on or around the Earth, usually over possession and desire for the right to live on the Earth or to become separatist nations

Only Char can make this look cool.

in orbiting habitats called space colonies. These political and philosophical ideas form the background for the various series’ wars and conflicts, and are often the driving forces for the individual characters too, or leading to a rivalry between the lead character and an enemy ace, and showing their parallel or wildly divergent points of view.

One recurring aspect of these enemy aces is that they often wear a mask, hiding their identity both from their allies, as well as their enemies, in a complex plot to gain revenge or regain their original standing, or for other personal reasons.

Char, the original template for these characters, was actually better liked than his counterpart by fans. However, this wasn’t surprising, since Amuro Ray was kind of a dick in the first Gundam show – but his changing personality and nature are something that are shown in great detail through the multitudes of Gundam sequels and productions. Likewise to Char’s equally changing personality, due to his holding onto his ideas.

But following in Char’s footsteps, the Enemy Ace is a noble and likable character, often coming to the heroes’ aid, and respecting more than hating them, and proving a face to the enemies’ ideals and goals.

There was also some, at least vague, basis in real science and concepts for the Gundam series as well. Things like Space Colonies were based on real ideas and concepts, rather than ‘just because’ and there was no ‘warp drive’ to power the space-craft. Only a few fictional ‘sci-fi’ elements were introduced to make things work, and even then, they were religiously stuck to in order to maintain some level of reality within the show – at least within the original timeline of the ‘Universal Century’, which was the ‘home’ universe of the Gundam shows.

Gundam also explored, in most of its incarnations, the powerful theme that one cannot live through a war, much less fight in it, without coming out a changed person on the other side. Almost every character experiences loss and death, either first hand or through a close friend or relative, or their own relatives end up changed. Even the most optimistic of series or characters are often dealt a huge blow for the worse, and not left unaffected (aside from in Gundam Wing, anyway).

Making a Name

So Gundam had become a breakthrough for the genre, a template for the Real Robots that followed it, and a trend-setter. But it wasn’t always the genre-master, trend-setting original it’s become now.

It flopped on its first showing.

Of course – so did the original Star Trek TV series, but look how that’s done. And it eventually became popular in the same way – through re-runs, where it drew a huge audience. This underground popularity soon exploded into the mainstream, and Gundam became a household name, as well as establishing what has become known as the ‘Real Robot’ genre, and spawned a legacy of imitators.

The popularity of the re-runs lead to Sunrise commissioning three movies to be made by re-cutting the original Gundam series. Much of the toy-inspired sillier

Sometimes the animation was... lacking.

content was removed, and instead new animated sequences were added, also clearing up some of the worse-animated sections. The movies were a run away success, and from then on Gundam was king of the robot genre.

With its name established, sequels were only a matter of time in coming, and there was no lack of them, to say the least. The original conflict of 0079, the ‘one year war’ where the original show took place, was revisited from many angles in later years by spin-off and sequel OAV series, even as late as 2009 with the CGI series ‘MS IGLOO’ (No, I have no idea why it’s called that).

The developing plotline of the Universal Century eventually spanned into hundreds of years of conflicts, all following on from events and precedents set down in previous series as it follows a developing society through the years.

The plethora original TV series are followed by movies, OAV series, manga, and more, all of which serve to expand and embellish and develop the fictional world – realising it as fully as an non-animated series has ever done – again, something that has never really been replicated or followed by any other anime franchise since in such detail, and again, very much comparable to Star Trek, with it’s different cast from series to series, and different mobile suits every time as well. And without all the bumpy-headed aliens, but unfortunately with just as many embarrassing fans.

Yes Star Trek fans. You have someone to look down on.

Of course, there’s not just the Universal Century – as the time rolled on, new ideas were wanted and floated, and new directors came and went – with the desire to do new things. And one timeline wasn’t enough to contain all of them, so new and different things had to happen.

New ideas were needed and wanted, and the Universal Century could not contain them all – so join me in part two, where I’ll delve into the myriad of parallel worlds and series, and also look at the other powerhouse of Gundam – merchandising, and especially Modelling!

Until then. I leave you with this.