I've been watching every single Gundam from the beginning. Most of them are very hit and miss, with about 10 amazing episodes, 25 decent ones, and 15 toy commercials.
But Turn A Gundam is a fucking masterpiece. It's set in America with 1920's level technology, being invaded by humans migrating from the moon. The 1920's level civilization at first tries to fight them off with biplanes, but quickly finds ancient technology buried underground--including a Gundam. It's pretty close to Macross in tone and story, which is very happy-go-lucky by Gundam standards.
It's hard to rank the UC entries because most of them are sequels to each other in some respect, but the UC mainline probably peaks somewhere towards the end of Zeta. That said, the only actually bad parts of the UC timeline are the first half of Double Zeta and Char's Counterattack.
Gundam 0079 has some great moments and a great twist, but also has like 25 episodes in the middle where nothing happens but new gunpla. Also nobody has the same rank insignia for more than two consecutive scenes and it's really frustrating that nobody else on the internet complains about it.
Zeta Gundam's highs aren't really higher than Gundam 0079's highs, but there's hardly any filler. The rank insignia continuity errors are somehow even worse, to the point where I'm almost convinced that it's the artists trolling the fans.
Double Zeta puts the 25 terrible episodes from Gundam 0079 right at the beginning, but is as good as Zeta towards the end. They fix the rank insignia problem by just not drawing any this time.
Char's Counterattack is dumb. The character motivations are dumb. The deus ex machina at the end is dumb.
Gundam 0080 is great; a "fun" little child soldier story.
Gundam 0083 was good but forgettable.
Gundam F91 seems like it could have been a good series, dumb-looking villain notwithstanding. That series didn't get made, and we got a bad movie instead.
Victory Gundam had some gloriously stupid mecha designs, 200 m tall motorcycles, and a whole female-only pilot squad whose only narrative purpose was to die horribly one by one. It wasn't great, really, but there were some good character moments and lots of cute dog animations.
08th Mobile Suit Team was absolutely excellent for the first half. The second half after the director swap got progressively worse and worse until I hated the last episode.
Gundam Unicorn does a decent job of retconning Char's Counterattack to be slightly less dumb and horrible, and the characters are fun, but I didn't find it all that engaging. The giant political revelation that shakes the foundation of the federation government or whatever just seemed so extremely meaningless lib shit.
Gundam NT was forgettable. I just watched it and I literally can't tell you what happened.
Gundam THE ORIGIN was actually some of my favorite Gundam content. I loved it.
I just started G-Reco, and it's already way way too rushed, but I like the idea of a far-future Turn A sequel.
I haven't watched any of the non-UC Gundam or read the Crossbones manga. Not sure I'll bother.
I've been watching every single Gundam from the beginning. Most of them are very hit and miss, with about 10 amazing episodes, 25 decent ones, and 15 toy commercials.
But Turn A Gundam is a fucking masterpiece. It's set in America with 1920's level technology, being invaded by humans migrating from the moon. The 1920's level civilization at first tries to fight them off with biplanes, but quickly finds ancient technology buried underground--including a Gundam. It's pretty close to Macross in tone and story, which is very happy-go-lucky by Gundam standards.
spoiler
But then someone digs up a nuke.
deleted by creator
It's hard to rank the UC entries because most of them are sequels to each other in some respect, but the UC mainline probably peaks somewhere towards the end of Zeta. That said, the only actually bad parts of the UC timeline are the first half of Double Zeta and Char's Counterattack.
Gundam 0079 has some great moments and a great twist, but also has like 25 episodes in the middle where nothing happens but new gunpla. Also nobody has the same rank insignia for more than two consecutive scenes and it's really frustrating that nobody else on the internet complains about it.
Zeta Gundam's highs aren't really higher than Gundam 0079's highs, but there's hardly any filler. The rank insignia continuity errors are somehow even worse, to the point where I'm almost convinced that it's the artists trolling the fans.
Double Zeta puts the 25 terrible episodes from Gundam 0079 right at the beginning, but is as good as Zeta towards the end. They fix the rank insignia problem by just not drawing any this time.
Char's Counterattack is dumb. The character motivations are dumb. The deus ex machina at the end is dumb.
Gundam 0080 is great; a "fun" little child soldier story.
Gundam 0083 was good but forgettable.
Gundam F91 seems like it could have been a good series, dumb-looking villain notwithstanding. That series didn't get made, and we got a bad movie instead.
Victory Gundam had some gloriously stupid mecha designs, 200 m tall motorcycles, and a whole female-only pilot squad whose only narrative purpose was to die horribly one by one. It wasn't great, really, but there were some good character moments and lots of cute dog animations.
08th Mobile Suit Team was absolutely excellent for the first half. The second half after the director swap got progressively worse and worse until I hated the last episode.
Gundam Unicorn does a decent job of retconning Char's Counterattack to be slightly less dumb and horrible, and the characters are fun, but I didn't find it all that engaging. The giant political revelation that shakes the foundation of the federation government or whatever just seemed so extremely meaningless lib shit.
Gundam NT was forgettable. I just watched it and I literally can't tell you what happened.
Gundam THE ORIGIN was actually some of my favorite Gundam content. I loved it.
I just started G-Reco, and it's already way way too rushed, but I like the idea of a far-future Turn A sequel.
I haven't watched any of the non-UC Gundam or read the Crossbones manga. Not sure I'll bother.
?
When I run out of UC Gundam (EDIT: UC-ish? I'm not sure what G-Reco is yet) very soon I'm taking a break. I'm sure I'll get the itch, though.
ah, fair enough, Wing was what got me into anime in the first place, way off in the before times