So it has been a goal of mine for literally decades to catch up on what many consider to be the "mainline" Gundam series. This is more properly called the "Universal Century Arc", and it starts with the original Mobile Suit Gundam(1979) and currently it ends (kinda?!?) with Gundam: Unicorn/Gundam Narrative (2018). As anyone can guess by my millennial trappings, my first introduction to Gundam was through Gundam Wing via Toonami oh so many years ago, back in in 2000. As I have told many others, I guess I always had a a love of giant robots used for military application, but Wing cemented a love I did not know existed.
So here we are, me, a lot older and with some spare time on my hands during the holidays and the income to watch the Blu-Rays of the shows that started this whole thing, which I did from 2021-early 2022. Let me elaborate:
Way back in 2011, I was a broke young adult in my first (technically third, but that's not important right now) year of game design and development school. By broke, I mean I was happy to stay at a job for more than a year as I navigated my way around making between $8 and $14 an hour, also depending on if the job I was working was commission based or not. I say all this to give clarity into the reason why I went to some sketchy Russian website that hosted Anime to watch Mobile Suit Gundam, the original 1979 run. By this time, I had already watched Robotech on Netflix at least twice, Gundam Wing back when I was 14 on the Toonami block, and Evangelion when I was 19. Does Patalbor 2 count here, cause if so throw it on the pile, I guess? I sort of felt I was familiar with giant Robot Anime, but want to finally watch the grand-daddy.
After a couple weeks of watching all 43 episodes I remember thinking "that was ok." Watching the above mentioned anime sort of set high expectations that I knew the original Gundam was not going to meet, but also Mobile Suit Gundam simply has the audacity of being looonnngggggg. I get it, the purpose of the anime is to sell toys, and that becomes obvious the moment the show introduces the RX-78-2 Gundam. It looks like a toy, not a militarized walking fighter jet/tank. Also the samurai style helmet is just goofy. It does nothing but make it look, well, "cool". Cool like if it was a toy or a model, which it's clearly meant to be.
I did recall not really jelling with the characters at the time, because I just did not feel invested enough in the story to care. Amuroi is a kid forced to be a combat pilot and that just sucks because he should not have to worry about the atrocities of war. Char is cool, suave, better than Amuro in almost every way because he is an adult that understands war is awful but sees it as a means to an end. Please note, I am not advocating for war, now or ever, but it is a means to an end when there is a clear aggressor. As far the the audience knows, Zeon is the worst organization ever, dropping a colony onto earth, killing millions in one action. Since the series opens this way, this makes Zeon indefensible in the eyes of the audience member (this gets retcon literally decades later to make Zeon sympathetic, but even then it is absurd).
I did go back in 2022 and watch the three Mobile Suit Gundam movies on Netflix. Obviously watching the materially legally and in upscaled HD enhanced the experience by orders of magnitude, but condensing 43 episodes down to 8-ish hours of movie and cutting out all of the tiresome filler made for a much better watch. The story had a lot more weight to it. The character deaths had a lot meaning to me as I got to know them, their plight, and how they impacted the story. The creator of the show has even said the movies are the way to experience the stories, perhaps making them more canon than the original run. I grew to love the story of how war is ultimately a tragedy, how Amuro is kinda of bratty because he is a kid and really never learns much better. Char is a tragic character that puts on airs of being "cool under pressure" because he is simply constantly under pressure. The Gundam Hammer was taken out!
The Gundam Hammer is dumb
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