No mention of giant robots, let alone robots of the more “realistic” persuasion, can hardly be made without mentioning Mobile Suit Gundam. It is arguably the most prolific franchise with animation productions, comics, novels, toys, models and untold other numbers of merchandise that fans will invariably spend their money on for almost three decades now. In fact, trying to cover the entire franchise in one article is awfully ambitions and, I’m afraid, cannot be done to do it justice. So, we’ll consider this the first of three parts.

Mobile Suit Gundam solidified the “real robot” genre which didn’t involve aliens from space, spirits or gods embodied in robots or wacky bell-bottoms. The real robot genre features robots as the tools of war, human conflict in said war and, particularly in Gundam’s case, the stench of death that permeates through war. It keeps some tropes of the genre - the idea of teenager pilots - and puts spins on them that aren’t entirely unrealistic (in most cases).

Mobile Suit Gundam started as a project that was headed by Tomino Yoshiyuki which began airing in 1979. Tomino had worked on other projects as a director earlier in the decade; however, he was still new to the mecha genre. He was a director for Brave Raideen (1975) and producer for Super Electric Machine Voltes V (1977) but he gained critical acclaim when he directed a project he wrote in 1977, Invincible Superman Zambot 3. Zambot can be considered a proto-real robot series in that it had many of the trappings that were found in many other 1970s mecha series but an ending which was heavy, serious and gained Tomino a nickname that could be applied to many of his self-written projects: Minnagoroshi no Tomino - “Kill’em All Tomino”. After Zambot in 1978, Tomino directed another self-written work, Invincible Steel Man Daitarn 3. Despite the similarity in name, it’s not really related to Zambot, though it does feature many of the same staff. The success of all of these products gave Nippon Sunrise (the company for whom Tomino worked) the confidence to green-light another Tomino-written and directed piece.

However, Mobile Suit Gundam wasn’t an ordinary project. Unlike Zambot and Daitarn which had slowly worked concepts of what-would-become real robot genre-tropes, they still followed traditional pacing elements of other mecha shows. They wove plot around the monster of the week segments. Gundam wasn’t written or planned in that fashion. As production began, problems with sponsors became a noted feature and something that would plague it through its run. From the colors of the main mobile suit (it was originally all white, sponsors wanted more colors to make toys more appealing) to more monster-of-the-week types of stories (with ridiculous mobile suits added in nearly ad-hoc to again meet sponsor’s toy requirements), its entire run seemed to be broken down to a tit-for-tat between artistic creativity and the needs for commercial success.

The first Mobile Suit Gundam story opens with a series of “the show so far”, giving a brief overview of humanity’s move to space, the creating of the Universal Century calendar and finally dropping the viewer right into the eighth month of a war between a group of space colonies and the omnipresent Earth Federation. The rebelling colonies, the group of Side 3 (colonies based on Lagrange Point 3 opposite the moon), have declared independence from the Earth Federation and after a short-lived republic become the monarchist Principality of Zeon. Zeon had been developing the concept of “mobile suits”, piloted robots used for combat in multiple terrains, notably land, air and space (water-capable units were developed later). Because of this advantage, Zeon has dominance in space and successfully conquered much of the land on Earth. The Federation, has finally developed three new suits, part of the secret V Project, and they have been shipped to Side 7 (a Federation allied colony) where they are to be deployed. Zeonic intelligence has ascertained that the new Federation mobile suits are there and sent a team to gather more information. The reconnaissance team blows their cover by trying to destroy the suits and ground war breaks out in the colony, leading to the deaths of numerous civilians and much of the crew of the White Base, the Federation ship responsible for transporting the mobile suits. As the White Base tries to hold off the Zeonic advance, some civilians of Side 7 come to its aid, notably a young Amuro Ray, son of the Gundam’s designer, Tem Ray. Amuro, with the manual to the Gundam in his lap, manages to overcome the three Zeon mobile suits and as he helps load the White Base, realizes that the crew has been so decimated, that he and other teens from Side 7 and been encouraged to join the conscripted to the Earth Federation Space Forces.

What starts as a temporary enlistment to get the White Base off of Side 7 and to Federation-friendly ports for re-staffing with actual soldiers (rather than drafted, punk-ass kids), the corrupt and inept Federation simply continues to re-assign the White Base to mission after mission, the kids soon realize that they’re in this for the long haul, much to the frustration of the young bridge-officer-turned-captain-because-the-chain-of-command-all-died, Bright Noah. As the war continues, noted Zeonic ace Char “The Red Comet” Aznable develops a rivalry with the Gundam and its then unknown pilot as being the one mobile suit he just can’t seem to kill. Char, in addition to his rivalry with the Gundam, also has a vendetta against the royal family of Zeon, the Zabi Dynasty, for a past transgression. Char’s rivalry with the Gundam comes to a head late in the war when Char encounters Amuro on Side 6, a neutral colony, and a battle shortly thereafter where a mutual love interest pays the ultimate price in war. The Earth Federation, able to repulse the Zeonic war machine thanks to the crew of the White Base, its ace Amuro and the development and production of General Model (GM) mobile suits, encounter the Zeonic Forces in an epic and climactic battle at Ao Bao A Qu, an asteroid base, in December of that year, closing what would become known as the One Year War.

Compared to many of the other mecha shows which aried around the same time, Mobile Suit Gundam was drastically different with its ambiguity between the Earth Federation and Principality of Zeon. The Federation is run by corrupt and inept (it bears repeating) politicians while Zeon’s next-in-line is a mass murdering megalomaniac while the common soldiers and aces are dealt with much more evenly. In addition, Gundam pulls a lot more from the hard science fiction that was developed by the likes of Issac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke and Robert Heinlein in the late 1950s and early 1960s with its logical reasoning for humanity leaving Earth, colonies stationed at Lagrange Points and the lack of mystical bullshit incorporated to the mechanical designs. That’s not to say, though, that Gundam is free from psychobabble bullshit - Tomino did introduce the concept of the Newtype.

Newtypes are the next evolution of humanity after living in space for generations, humanity begins to develop super-emotive intuitions which feature improved reflexes and weak ESP/telepathic abilities. In epic proportions, the course humanity should take revolving around Newtype evolution becomes a sub-plot throughout the Gundam franchise, coming to a head in 1988’s Mobile Suit Gundam: Char’s Counterattack.

The series, with its revolutionary look at the cartoon robot genre, developed a devoted but small fan base. Sponsors, frustrated with the lack of returns coming in from merchandise, wanted to cut funding drastically and have the series end after 39 episodes; the production crew negotiated to cut the series from 52 to 43, drastically altering the ending Tomino had originally planned, but it later played to his favor. The experiment of a harder-science-fiction environment within the Japanese mecha genre seemed all but dead when Gundam ended in 1980. Tomino’s subsequent work, Space Runaway Ideon, returned to Zambot 3’s roots as a dark, super-robot epic. Like Zambot, it was a success and Tomino convinced Nippon Sunrise that Gundam was the future of not just mecha animation but all of Japanese animation; he managed to get the funding for three theatrical movies to be released between 1981 and 1982. Tomino stayed true to the original Gundam story, incrementally adding more, re-doing, and cleaning up the animation from the TV series through the Gundam movies. Nippon Sunrise, to assist with production costs, partnered with toy manufacturer Bandai, who began producing plastic model kits. The model kits, along with Tomino’s faith in his work and PR repoir with fans lead the films to be a nationwide success and Gundam to become more than just some cult classic amongst the earliest otaku. In retrospect, looking at many of Nippon Sunrise’s (later, just Sunrise), work in the 1980s, the real robot genre dominated their catalogue throughout the 1980s.

While other real robot productions were coming from other studios (most notably Studio Nue/Big West/Tatsunoko’s 1982 hit Superdimension Fortress Macross and 1983’s Superdimension Century Orguss), Sunrise focused on other works to grow their real robot catalogue but fans demanded more Gundam. The changing of the ending of Mobile Suit Gundam permitted Tomino to do a sequel and so in 1985 he convinced Sunrise to spend a ton of money for the release of Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam. By 1985, sponsors could adjust some of their marketing for the story-driven, robot-featuring animations that the real robot genre became. Zeta had the highest production values at the time and is still twenty-plus years later considered a cornerstone of the franchise. Zeta Gundam introduced a new cast of characters as well as the return of some older characters. Zeta takes place six years after the end of the One Year War and the conflict once again revolves around humanity breaking the bonds of Earth and trying to be more free in space though the tables are turned as the series protagonists Camille Bidan, Fa Yuri, One Year War veterans Quattro Bajeena and Bright Noah are members of the “terrorist” organization Anti-Earth Union Government (AEUG) and the Earth Federation clamps down on future, Zeonic-inspired rebellions, through its crack special operations team the Titans (who, are apparently inspired from Nazi Germany’s Waffen SS). As the Zeta story continues, a third power is introduced - a hold-out force and government-in-exile of the Principality of Zeon calling itself Axis Zeon. Axis at first supports AEUG in their battles against the Titans but it becomes a political twist as Axis’s regent Haman Khan decides to side with the Titans and the Federation, partly because Axis’s main goal of re-establishing the Principality of Zeon can better be realized by the Earth Federation and a personaal vendetta with AEUG pilot, Char Aznable.

Compared to the earlier Gundam, Zeta uses a much larger cast which is constantly changing due to its very dark nature and stretches of annihilating characters on a whim. The no-holds-barred brutality of Zeta was (and, arguably, still is) a hit with fans of the series, cementing Gundam’s status in mecha anime and paved the way for it to become the force in Japanese animation that it is today. Nippon Sunrise, wanting more money, asked for a direct sequel to Zeta; however, due to Tomino’s depression that influenced Zeta’s much darker tone, he wanted a more light-hearted series. So, the week following Zeta Gundam’s end in Japan, the first episode of Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ (Double Zeta Gundam) aired, recapping a bit of Zeta and introducing some of the new Double Zeta characters. Double Zeta’s more light-hearted, episodic and generally goofy nature has lead some (including myself) to nickname the beginning of the series “Mobile Suit Scooby Doo.” Unlike Zeta being a sequel with a time-skip involved, Double Zeta picks up right where Zeta left off, so half of the cast are all what’s left of Zeta. As the Argama, one of AEUG’s leading battleships and mobile suit carriers, is trying to escape the final battle of the Gryps War, she retreats to Shangri La on Side 1 where the crew meets up with a series of junk collectors, lead by Judau Ashita, who tries to steal the Zeta Gundam suit. Shennaigans ensue. This continues on through the first third of the series, as the Argama crew tries to evade Axis Zeon and children trying to steal their robots. It’s as every bit as ridiculous as it sounds. Tomino slowly begins to come back to his bloody senses and Double Zeta progressively becomes darker and darker and more and more like its predecessor. While Double Zeta was supposed to feature the return of Char and Amuro, this plotline was later written out when Tomino was green-lit for a full-length feature film. Instead, Double Zeta ends fairly conclusively with the First Neo-Zeon War, yet open enough for the return of Gundam’s original rivalry.

Mobile Suit Gundam: Char’s Counterattack features another time-skip into the future. The Earth Federation Space Forces again develop a special operations force to hunt down Zeon reminants though this time, the force named Londo Bell, is nothing like the previous Titans. Perhaps it’s because of better Federation leadership or the fact that its lead components are Captain Bright Noah of the Ra Calium battleship/mobile suit carrier and mobile suit task force leader Amuro Ray. A second Neo-Zeon movement has been forming, and it has installed the up-’til-recently missing Char Aznable as its leader. Char insists that humanity must be moved to space to achieve Newtype evolution and ends up starting the Second Neo-Zeon War. Amuro, while sympathetic to Char, feels that humanity must be free enough to choose to become Newtypes and the future of humanity becomes the massive backdrop of the rivalry throughout much of the film. From the beginning of the project, Tomino said this film would be the culmination of the Amuro-Char rivalry and it appeared that Gundam would effectively end in 1988.

However, Sunrise saw more room for opportunity, even if Tomino had ended the main story-arc of the franchise. In 1988, shortly after Char’s Counterattack, Sunrise financed a direct to video (OAV) series featuring character designs, story and mechanical designs from Gundam fans and accomplished animation creators Mikimoto Haruhiko and Kawamori Shouji (both of Macross). The OAV, Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket, featured none of the original cast of characters and acted as a side-story at the end of the One Year War. 0080 lead the way for more side-story Gundam OAVs, notably Mobile Suit Gundam: 08th MS Team (1996) and the ret-conning Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory (1991).

With the success of the 0080 OAV, Tomino sought out to continue the Gundam animation story in 1991 with Mobile Suit Gundam F-91. F-91 features a thirty-year time-skip introducing a brand-new set of characters, national bodies and scenarios. However, due to production limits (Sunrise was also releasing the 0083 OAV), Tomino’s plan for 52 episode TV series was cut back to one theatrical film. While the film features very high animation quality and a cult status, the cuts required to make a twenty-five hour story fit into just under two leave an incredibly choppy film. It uses many Gundam tropes of the story of young people thrust into war and concepts of free individuals versus a rigid societal structure; however, many fans appreciate the speculation of what it could have become if it were given that full television series.

Tomino returned in 1993 with his last, undoubtedly canonical, Universal Century story: Mobile Suit Victory Gundam. This series is notable for several reasons: first, being that it is a return to the darkness that was present in Zeta, which garners many high ratings from fans. Second is that this is another series where sponsors’ controls over productions were demonstrated: the third written episode was aired first because the first two original episodes didn’t have the lead mobile suit featured in it, which is required to sell model kits. Third and finally, its notable for Tomino’s hatred of the series. Utilizing another time-skip of thirty years, Tomino depicts a story where most of humanity resides in space, save for a very select few who tend to the Earth as a wide nature preserve (to heal it from all of the damage starting back in the One Year War). Taking note from earlier Gundam series, the spaceborn colonies of Side 2 proclaim themselves the Zanscare Empire, a more brutal and militaristic regime than the Principality of Zeon or the Titans. Zanscare invades the Earth to eliminate the remaining Earth Federation government but is routed by the paramilitary organization League Militaire. While much of the premise is the same as earlier Gundam series, events of the series characters are uniquely played out so as to not leave the series as being completely un-imaginitive.

1994 saw a change in the Gundam franchise; toy- and model-producer Bandai bought animation studio Sunrise and to increase model kit production, a decision to split the franchise with another timeline was reached. This ushered in the era of the Alternate Universes, which I’ll cover in the next of three articles. However, popularity of the Universal Century has never seemed to wane. Many American fans still clutch to the Universal Century stories, even many that were introduced to Gundam via Alternate Universe titles. Japan, too, is still infatuated with the UC. Several full novels have been written, taking place all over the Universal Century calendar. Comics, too, share their place amongst Japanese Gundam fans and Sunrise has announced that they are working through UC material to develop new UC animations. As a Gundam fan who really loves the old-school, Universal Century style of story-telling and characterization, I’m always eagerly awaiting that announcement that the next Gundam TV series is going to be Mobile Suit S Gundam based off of the Gundam Sentinel novels or Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn, again, based off of novels of the same name. While Sunrise has announced numerous Gundam projects since the calendar split, a few of which have been Universal Century related, the largest scale of which seems to have been the Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team OAV, which was comprised of 12 episodes released between 1996 and 1999 and a theatrical film Miller’s Report in 1998. Other UC projects (and, not counting the confusion of the Turn A Theory, which will be covered in Part II) have been of a minimal scale. Gundam Evolve has been a series of short video clips utilizing side-stories of the mecha themselves, rarely focusing on the stories in which they are invovled. And since Evolve follows model kits, it is hardly strictly reserved for the Universal Century. MS IGLOO is been a collection of OAVs that are all CGI and frequently depict events reserved for narrative or minimal screen-time but despite this, Sunrise has put more time and effort into their modern Alternate Universe series like Mobile Suit Gundam SEED DESTINY and Mobile Suit Gundam 00.

Thus concludes the first part of a series of Mobile Suit Gundam articles. As stated before, the next article in the series will feature a look at the Alternate Universe stories from 1994 to 2008. Our third and final part of this series (I have a fourth and unrelated Gundam article planned) will be concerning the one piece I try to incorporate into every article: the status in North America. As the Gundam franchise is a myriad beast of series and has its own sorted history worth telling, it’s actually a discussion topics best left for its own article.

Drew Sutton is a long-time Japanese animation fan, operator of Akihabara Renditions: Anime of the Bubble Economy and host of its component podcast.