So, You Wanna Watch Anime: Mobile Suit Gundam

Mobile Suit Gundam is hitting its 40th year as a multimedia science-fiction franchise, but it’s often one that is overlooked when people make lists of great sci-fi. The most likely culprit is that it comes from Japan, which has the cultural and language boundaries on top of being a niche product. However, if the idea of giant robots beating the everloving stuffing out of one another catches your fancy, we at YDRC have a decent introductory guide for you!

Before we begin, a warning: Gundam tends to skew to an older anime audience. The show covers the horrors of war in many ways. And many angles without shying away from death.

Mobile Suit Gundam first premiered back in 1979 on Japanese TV. It was directed by Yoshiyuki Tomino, a man who had already done several acclaimed animated television shows at the time, and he has since entered a living legend status in the industry. Others joining Tomino were industry greats like Yoshikazu Yasuhiko as character designer and robot designer Kunio Okawara. What resulted from this production was a unique tale (for the time) that featured the titular robot as but one piece of a larger military force. With combat psychics and a general theme of how horrible war is… all while selling toys for the current sponsor, who kept demanding more robots that could be bath toys.

The audience response was sadly low, and the show was cut short by the channel. This ironically did give it a better ending than originally planned, but Gundam found a new life in syndication and re-runs, much like Star Trek had before it. Compilation movies re-telling the show were released in 1981 and 1982, with a sequel show coming in 1985. Since then, it has become an almost unstoppable juggernaut of marketing, toys, literally tons of plastic model kits that could be the subject of their own documentary series, video games, and more.

What is important is knowing what might be a place for a new viewer to start. Gundam currently spans 21 TV shows, 20 movies, and 15 OVAs (short for original video animations). OVAs are direct-to-video shows, released episodically with higher budgets, but lower episode counts. This is literally thousands of hours of material, and not even including the hundreds of manga volumes, dozens of novels, and countless video games. The age of the animation is also something to take into account, as a shoestring budget show from 1979 obviously hasn’t aged nearly as well as a high-budget motion picture from 2011. Luckily, I have a few recommendations that will please just about any person new to the franchise.

Coincidentally, two of these shows are found on the official Gundam Youtube channel, GundamInfo. 

Coming from 1995, Mobile Suit Gundam Wing (or New Mobile Report Gundam Wing if you prefer the Japanese title) was the first major hit Gundam had when it came to being released internationally. It aired during the old Toonami block on Cartoon Network at the turn of the century, and fan-demand even made it one of the few anime to be aired “uncut” late-night back before CN’s Adult Swim was a thing. The focus of Gundam Wing centralizes on five main teenagers, each of whom has their own weapon of death, and fighting against an oppressive Earth-based government run by rich white men in Napoleonic-era outfits playing war like it’s a children’s game. The entire show makes sure to paint both sides with shades of grey, as the Gundam pilots aren’t shining examples of heroism, while the villains can still be remarkably noble in their deeds.

Gundam Wing was also remarkably prescient in other matters, bringing up the concept and subsequent morality of using unmanned weapons in war as almost every side of the conflict develops their own giant robot drones. Is it right to send near-unlimited robots against the enemy, wearing them down without concern for collateral damage or innocent lives lost? Is it more honorable to send waves of man-operated machines instead? The show gives no answers, but almost everyone has an opinion. It also looks at the concept of pacifism, both the unilateral disarmament of one’s country and how it can affect you in the long run, as well as the idea of putting war aside as a whole. This is, admittedly, greater expanded in the sequel movie Endless Waltz, but still has a nice cap on the thought in this 50-episode show.

However, Wing is also far from perfect. If you hunt down the dub, be prepared for the horrors of the late-90s/early-2000s dubbing for the first several episodes. Translations are almost robotic, with lines like “no warning shot” becoming the indecipherable “no machine gun for him” when describing how the enemy is receiving no advanced warning before being fired upon. With a machine gun. Several minor characters are replaced mid-series with a completely different actor or actress, and one of the characters in the earliest episodes possesses the worst dub voice known to man. Behold, General Septum:

General Septum literally ruins any expositional scene with this voice. It is fantastic and horrifying, and I love the show for it. Luckily, the character is removed from the show early. By being dumped from a plane in flight and then shot. In that order.

I love this show.

As you might have heard from those clips, Wing has some truly excellent music. There is a full orchestral track by the King Harmonic Orchestra, and it winds up being one of the stronger ‘characters’ in the series. Each character has their own instrumental theme, while strings and woodwinds resonate strongly with the emotions and action on the screen. Gundam Wing also had the 1990s trend of dozens of character songs if you want to later hunt them down, as well as a set of catchy J-pop opening themes by band Two Mix. They would return for the sequel, and later go on to do an opening theme song for the Japanese release of The X-Files. It’s hard to describe them as anything but popular.

With some genuinely fantastic orchestral music in the background of some actually good voice acting (once you get past the early episodes if you’re in the dub), Gundam Wing is one of those shows that is truly interesting to see. Action sequences can take up entire episodes, or can only take mere moments for the show to feature another philosophical or expositional dump for the viewer. Indeed, Wing’s larger weaknesses are that it does rely a lot on “tell, don’t show” in the early episodes to set up the world, with a narrator making sure to explain the setting at the start of each episode to the viewer. Talking head sequences are found all the way up to near the end of the series, resulting in long spans of dialogue. The pacing is skewed all over the place, with a pair of clip episodes in the middle of the series that do little to improve the issues.

And then there is the stock footage. This is not a bad thing, but it is highly noticeable. For those not familiar with the term, stock footage is an often higher-quality segment of animation or footage intended to be re-used to save on budget, air time, or both. Almost every Gundam show has it, but over half of the battles in this series use stock footage in their entirety, making it feel like an episode of Power Rangers or the game Dynasty Warriors with hundreds of mooks falling before our heroes. 

It’s not for everyone, but Wing has aged remarkably well in the 24 years since its release. As the show comes right in the middle of the franchise, it actually has become a great place to start. Wing helped influence a lot of what came after, while also drawing a lot on what came before. Considering it’s free on YouTube right now, it’s hard not to recommend you check it out. Wing’s sequel, the as mentioned above movie, isn’t but is some of the most beautiful hand-drawn animation the franchise has ever had and is worth tracking down.

The most recent Gundam show, Gundam Build Divers, started in 2018. Rather than focusing on the heights of war drama or how people die when they are killed, Build Divers looks at the marketing of Gundam and puts it into a video game. You see, the show focuses around the building of model kits called “Gunpla” (short for Gundam Plastic Model) and the subsequent battling thereof in a massive MMO environment called GBN. Mech damage is repaired when the battle is over, and the stakes tend to be remarkably low. In this world, Gunpla has taken over as the primary hobby of almost everyone, with entire stores and television networks dedicated to the plastic phenomenon.

Newbie Rikku and his friends join GBN after watching an awesome battle between two ace players (one of whom has a sea otter for an avatar, I am not kidding), and engage in general MMO antics. Fans who remember the .hack series might get a kick out of this because the show goes out of its way to parody and tribute MMOs with the same love that they do for Gundam. Unfortunately, the fun and games go out the window once a series of player hacks begin to corrupt the MMO world around them.

You thought I was joking? His name is Rommel and he is adorable and awesome.

Build Divers takes the time to build a wonderful world and some genuinely colorful characters. Reality takes a backseat, but the series makes excellent use of some slice of life segments. It winds up making the viewer care for the characters, even when the stakes of the show never really get quite as serious as “the extinction of mankind” like other Gundam shows reach. Instead, it never becomes “how will they survive” or “will my favorite character die,” but “what crazy stuff will our characters pull off to win.” What few villains exist aren’t even the standard black-and-white you might expect, instead of with their own understandable reasons for doing what they do.

The same lower stakes do wind up working against the show, however, as the tension from a deadly battle just doesn’t exist in this show. A somewhat strange sense of timing for the humor can also ruin the tension in an episode, but Build Divers does at least know when to put away the jokes. In those cases, the charm of the writing and acting work to make up for the shortcomings. It’s hard to knock such a well-crafted series (in spite of the marketing).

There are two other shows in the Build franchise, Build Fighters from 2013 and Build Fighters Try from 2015. They don’t have the MMO angle but instead acting like YuGiOh, with figures fighting on a playfield controlled by pilots. Both are great examples of Gundam, but their dubbed incarnation is… decidedly lackluster. Rather than issue a dub of the series using American actors, Bandai was content to issue a dub from Southeast Asia. Lackluster execution, poor scripting, and some genuinely poor casting choices made both a slog to listen to. Build Divers’ dub, by comparison, is fantastic if that’s your language choice.

The Build sub-franchise isn’t over yet, with Build Fighters re:Rise airing now online. It doesn’t seem to be directly tied to this incarnation of the show, but it is something to watch if you enjoyed this incarnation.

With the other Gundam shows on YouTube being less-than-newbie friendly, problematic on a core level, or even just incomplete, we now move our attention to Crunchyroll for those who have a subscription.

Mobile Fighter G-Gundam is an excellent example of being given creative freedom within a franchise. To celebrate the 15th anniversary of the franchise, 1994 saw Gundam ditch the more traditional Earth vs. space wars and replaced it with a martial arts tournament of all things. Countries from all over the world send representatives to fight in this tournament, with each having their own giant robot and martial artist inside. The winner of all would have their country rule the world for another 4 years. During the 13th tournament, a secret experiment giving a Gundam regenerating nanomachinery goes wrong, pulling martial artist Domon Kashuu into the Gundam Fight so he can hunt down his brother and the Devil Gundam while also trying to bring victory for Neo Japan.

As Domon journeys the Earth looking for his brother, he reluctantly befriends Gundam Fighters from other nations. The show emphasizes how combat, in general, can be horrible, but can also be the only way some people can communicate. Case in point: Domon, whose entire character arc is learning to trust and believe in others in spite of what his brother did. G-Gundam has a remarkable green message as well, with the Earth having fallen into disrepair ever since the rich of Mankind moved into space and left their garbage behind. Rather than argue that the world is better off without Man, though, it delivers a message that Mankind is part of nature itself, and it’s our job to help take care of the nature that made us. Of course, it’s done in a massive punch-em-up with Dragon Ball Z energy battles and screaming, so the show isn’t subtle when it brings up these themes.

As an anniversary series, G-Gundam is crammed full of Gundam references but isn’t hard to understand without the knowledge asked for. G-Gundam takes heavy inspiration from Wushu movies, Super Sentai, and other popular works at the time like Dragon Ball Z; using over the top action while also utilizing some surprising character development to work beyond broad national stereotypes. Music is addictive and snappy, often calling to the stereotypes of the various nations while also having some great theme music. The only real downside is the half-censored dub.

The English dub was paid for by Cartoon Network back in the day, and Standards and Practices asked that some robot names be changed. The Devil Gundam became the Dark Gundam, while God Gundam became Burning Gundam. There were a few other minor instances, but the changes are felt throughout the dub are literally two of the major mechs. There is also a complete lack of swearing or cursing in the dub, resulting in creative insults and unique phrasing. This actually makes G ultimately more family-friendly, though it doesn’t censor things like death or alcohol use. Luckily for fans, any scenes edited for Cartoon Network were redubbed for the DVDs at the time. For the purists out there, the subtitles for Japanese are about as accurate to the original script as you can get.

The other show found on Crunchyroll that is fantastic for new viewers is Mobile Suit Gundam 00. From 2007, Gundam 00 takes place in the distant future where Mankind has erected a massive ring of solar energy receivers around the Earth. The three major governments have all put their funds into the project, with the Union (American continents + Japan), the AEU (Europe), and the HRL (Asia) all sharing funds and the resulting power amongst one another. However, all three major world powers are also intent on showing who is the strongest power, resulting in a lukewarm world war, with no side truly winning and lives being senselessly wasted. One day, in the year 2370, a paramilitary organization with fantastic technology arises. Known as Celestial Being and apparently led by a man who died 200 years ago, they declare to end all war by forcing themselves into any conflict and ending it however necessary.

Gundam 00 then examines what happens when peace is forced on man, rather than earned through hard lessons. Do people embrace it, and do the world powers test their newfound limits? What kind of people would declare themselves the peacemakers of the world, and how does the world change? It’s a wonderful thought experiment with an ensemble cast from nearly every walk of life. The main show does focus around Celestial Being’s four Gundam Meisters, each with their own dark and mysterious past. Instead of teasing about those pasts endlessly, all four do get a chance to spend their time in the limelight.

Gundam 00 was an odd experiment when it came out. The series was cut off at 25 episodes and then given a year break so Sunrise could air another series in between. 00 was then given a second season in 2008 to finish its run. The pacing can be bizarre, straddling the line between rushed and lackadaisical. However, the action is anything but. A complete lack of stock footage means that each fight is interesting and thrilling, although some are overall brief. Combat does eventually involve massive energy weapons blasting across the sky, but the incredible music underscoring the action keeps it from being dull.

Of course, there is literally nothing wrong with avoiding these shows entirely and watching whatever caught your interest off Wikipedia or YouTube. As I said above, there’s a ton of Gundam works out there, and there’s almost literally something for everyone. However, a word of warning must come before we end:

Gundam can be odd with content levels. Earlier Gundam content does not shy away from nudity or overt violence. More recent shows can also go this way as well, with Gundam shows Seed, and it’s sequel Seed Destiny, becoming notorious in the fanbase for extreme violence, sexualization of characters, and even underage sex. Gundam 00 is the most violent on the list of recommendations by far, but it is tame by comparison to Gundam Seed/Destiny in terms of violence. For Gundam 00 and other Gundam shows, I would recommend caution before pulling the family in for a watch.

Regardless of which show you want to watch, however, there’s going to be some awesome mecha action and real oddball characters in your future.