So what do y'all think of Yoshiyuki Tomino's Mobile Suit Gundam franchise?
It's famously split into several alternate universe, with the "Universal Century" being the mainline and most popular setting, consisting of: 1979's Mobile Suit Gundam 1985's Zeta Gundam 1986's infamous ZZ Gundam the 1988 movie Char's Counterrattack and the mostly forgotten about F91 (1991) and Victory Gundam (1993), as well as several OVAs like the excellent 08th MS Team (1996).
Among the series set in alternate universes are Wing Gundam (1995), SEED Gundam (2004) and 00 Gundam (2007).
The series has always had critique of war and militarism as its core element, starting from the very early days of the series, (in the UC) focusing on a story of an ideological conflict between earth humans and spacenoids, the effects of continued human inhabitation of an ecologically very fragile Earth, as well as the rise of fascism. Basically, the story that Gundam tells is leftist from the start, though most people do miss that.
As for Tomino himself, I had heard he associated with communists and other comrades back in the day, but the ideological conviction of his isn't as clear as it is for example with Mamoru Oshii, nor has he been vocal about it as far as I know. I recently also discovered, much to my disappointment, that he disappointingly made some extremely antisemitic comments [Link contains Zeta Gundam spoilers] in an early draft of Zeta Gundam from 1984. Thankfully, none of that made it to the actual anime and Gundam has mostly been abandoned by Tomino himself, who basically attempted to kill off the franchise back in the 90s.
Regardless, I really enjoy Gundam from the content that I have seen myself (Mobile Suit Gundam 0079, the movie trilogy version; Zeta Gundam; F91; Hathaway's Flash and 08th MS Team), but idk what to think of Tomino and how much of his erratic quality of directing and storytelling and politics that I can't figure out can be attributed to his sadly pretty bad state of mental health that he had at times during his life.
Also, contrary to popular belief, Gundam is indeed an anime
he disappointingly made some extremely antisemitic comments [Link contains Zeta Gundam spoilers] in an early draft of Zeta Gundam from 1984.
That's disappointing.
I love Gundam though, the Universal Century is my favorite, I know that's pretty bland, everyone loves the UC, but I feel like it's got the strongest writing. From what I can gather of his writing Tomino seems to lean left somewhat. The antisemitism thing I really don't know what to think of, certainly looks pretty bad but he's never brought any of that stuff up since thankfully.
One cool plot point I like about Zeta Gundam is
spoiler
the Earth Federation becoming genocidal fascists to stomp out the remnant of Zeon. It reminds me of the USA and our anti-communist efforts abroad.
The antisemitism thing I really don’t know what to think of, certainly looks pretty bad but he’s never brought any of that stuff up since thankfully.
Apparently there was a major rise in antisemitism in Japan in the 80s due to some garbage books about the topic full of tired tropes from the west being published and them becoming bestsellers (aided by the media in their pursuit of profit, of course), leading to a fad of antisemitic material being published in the late 80s. An alternative explanation I saw was that Tomino's exposure to leftist politics meant that some of the, um, more enthusiastic anti-zionist groups influenced him.
Whatever the explanation, at least that garbage never influenced his work as far as I'm aware.
UC-era is about the only thing I can watch. Not because the writing is good per se, but because everything AFTER UC is so fucking bananas mech-design wise.
It's like everyone forgot that the point of the giant robots is that they could operate within a stone's throw of reality instead of whatever wacky shit this is. But no no, I get it, Gundamn franchise. You want mecha power rangers in space.
Honestly i usually prefer the designs of the bad guy's real robot styled mecha over the hero's super robots
I love UC but it's almost impossible to figure out what to watch in it. Anyone have suggestions?
0079 (The 1979 anime or the 1981-1983 movie trilogy), Zeta (The 1985 anime, the 2005-6 movies are for people who have already seen it), and the 08th MS Team (set during 0079) are fantastic. F91 is a 50 episode series cut down to a movie, so it's very rushed. I also heard very good things of 0080: War in the Pocket (1989), and Char's Counterattack. Hathaway's flash is a pretty good plot, but the movie has only adapted one part of it thus far.
ZZ has a pretty bad first half, from what I heard, but it gets way better later on. Unicorn is lore-wise kind of a mess, but is apparently okay. Igloo is apparently pretty bad and so is Victory. ∀ Gundam is... well... set 2000 years after the rest of the series.
probably the best entry point for UC is in fact the original Mobile Suit Gundam in one form or another, followed by the Zeta TV series, since those two are really the touchstones of UC gundam and gundam in general. Though MSG in particular can be a bit uneven, it and Zeta are really what set the tropes and story beats that so many other gundam series have riffed on. One reason that a lot of modern gundam series have been uneven is their desire to redo story beats from either MSG or Zeta gundam, or just to redo those series whole cloth.
I like the original anime, and I like G-Gundam, obviously for very different reasons.
Gonna stump for IBO, love me some former slaves and cannon fodder turning the tables on their mercenary company to form their own company and challenge the Government. Also melee gundam is so much more fun and visceral, it's why everyone loves the laser swords and shit so a whole series that's just big robots with swords and axes is fuckin dope
I've only seen 1979 Gundam and I really liked it! Gotta watch more!!
I'm a big fan of Wing (mainly because it was the first Gundam I watched) and early in the series [spoilers] it provides a great illustration of how adventurism is a self-defeating strategy.
