Mobile Suit Gundam

"By directing combat and war pieces, I could experience catharsis and successfully avoid committing a murder in real life. In this sense, I'm really grateful for that because I was conscious that I had such homicidal traits, to be honest."

– Yoshiyuki Tomino, creator of Gundam

It is the year 1978 AD. Three years have passed since Space Battleship Yamato redefined what could be done in science fiction anime. Enter Yoshiyuki Tomino, director for Sunrise and absolute madman, charged by studio execs with creating a more serious follow-up to their previous super robot anime. Blending still-fresh cultural memories of World War II with ideas from Starship Troopers, the Jules Verne novel "Two Years' Vacation" and the now-classic O'Neill cylinder design, Tomino and the planning team at Sunrise created a world where "giant robots" weren't skyscraper-sized superheroes but treated more like humanoid tanks. They would be weapons, coming off a factory line like any other, wielded by ordinary people who would be scarred by the battles they fought rather than storybook heroes. Thus the world was introduced to Mobile Suit Gundam in April of 1979.

It didn't sell toys and was shitcanned at 43 episodes, but for older viewers it became a cultural lightning rod and eventually made piles of money for Sunrise and Bandai through the scale-model market. From here it followed essentially the same cultural path as Star Trek (complete with an increasingly deranged creator, studio drama, an obsessive fanbase, and a bloated canon) and paved the way for the dozens of "real robot" mecha series to follow, though the franchise itself would drift deeper and deeper into super-robot territory over time. Everything from Mekton to Battletech to the Tau has stolen from Gundam in some way, and that's not counting the actual licensed material that's /tg/ relevant.

The Anime

Because Gundam is fucking old and also prints money in Japan, the themes of the original series have been respun many times and (largely thanks to Tomino's refusal to treat his life's work as yet another toy commercial) branched off into multiple continuities. Since this can be a pain in the ass to keep track of, your friends at 2d4chan have prepared a helpful guide. Note that for the sake of sanity this doesn't include manga such as Crossbone or spinoffs such as War in the Pocket.

Universal Century

"It is the year 0079 of the Universal Century. The furthest space city from the Earth, Side 3, proclaimed itself the Principality of Zeon. It launched a war for independence with the Earth Federation. In roughly one month of fighting, the Principality of Zeon and the Federation Forces caused the deaths of half of their respective populations. People began to live in fear of their own actions."

– Mobile Suit Gundam, opening sequence

The Gundam franchise is renowned for its artistic integrity

The OG timeline. Half of Japan's mecha fanbase still creams their jeans over this, which is why every time someone has an idea for a new Gundam series Bandai will crowbar it into the UC continuity instead of letting it stands on its own. The two strongest themes introduced here are "war is hell" and "both sides in a war will have sympathetic soldiers as well as complete dickbags": the Earth Federation was using space as a dumping ground for poor people so they could continue shitting up the planet and disrespected the lives of its soldiers, and Zeon would have some good points if they could stop playing Atrocity Bingo for five minutes. The UC also made itself stand out at the time by actually explaining why giant robots (called Mobile Suits here) are a viable fighting vehicle; they can perform EVA maneuvers to conserve fuel when fighting in space and the magic "Minovsky particles" used to make things like fusion power and beam guns practical totally bollocks the kind of guided missile spam that would obviously dominate future combat even in the 1970s.

• Mobile Suit Gundam: Referred to as "Gundam 0079" or "First Gundam" for disambiguation. As the quote above implies, it's the year 0079 UC and everything is grimdark: the distant space colony Side 3 has gotten sick of being pushed around by a corrupt planetary government, reformed itself as Space Nazi Germany and declared its independence by, among other things, dropping a different space colony on Australia. With their new Mobile Suit technology, the Principality of Zeon has pushed the Federation back at every turn, as space battleships are insufficiently awesome to defend against them. In response the Federation launches a secret program to build their own, superior Mobile Suits, but Zeon discovers the R&D facility and the prototypes end up in the hands of a bunch of cadets, children and civilians. This crew of misfits proceeds to dumpster some of Zeon's best soldiers, marking them as potential "Newtypes" and the next phase of human evolution, though they still suffer terribly in the process.
• Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam: It is now the year 0087; the Federation won the war in 0080, but continues to oppress the space colonies through the Titans special forces and generally act like dicks. Opposing them is the Anti-Earth Union Group, notably featuring Zeon ace Char Aznable under the most transparent alias imaginable, while the remnants of Zeon look on from distant Axis and wait to pick off the survivors. Notable for incredible animation for its time (thanks to Bandai's piles of Gunpla money) and an ending so depressing even Tomino felt the need to change it in the compilation movies. Also dramatically expanded what Newtypes could do, including what's arguably the series' first super robot, the gigantic Psyco Gundam.
• Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ (Gundam Double Zeta): Direct sequel to Zeta; having been completely decimated in the final battle, the AEUG's flagship Argama is reduced to recruiting punk kids as mobile suit pilots to stay alive against the forces of Axis Zeon. Fortunately arms dealer Anaheim Electronics comes to the rescue with the ZZ Gundam to level the playing field. Starts out incredibly goofy (protagonist Judau is one of the few newtypes to not be an instant ace pilot) but becomes more serious in the second half. Also notable for being the first Gundam series where the protagonists' suits are all Gundam variants.
• Char's Counterattack: The big finale of the Federation vs. Zeon story. In this feature film, Char counterattacks, namely by trying to dropping enough asteroids onto the Earth to make it uninhabitable and force everyone to become Newtypes in outer space. The Federation is not a fan of this idea, largely because all their money's on Earth, and sends a task force of veterans from 0079 to stop him and his Neo Zeon rebellion. After some flirtations with it in Zeta and ZZ, this is what pushes the franchise firmly into super robot territory: everyone who matters is a Newtype of some kind, the suits are bigger and more overpowered than ever and everything ends in a cloud of magical sparkles.
• Mobile Suit Gundam F91: Timeskips to UC 0123, where the Federation is once again under attack by the new space empire of Cosmo Babylonia. The film follows students Seabook Arno and Cecily Fairchild as they get dragged into the fighting by the asshole leadership of both factions. Intended to be another TV series, ended up crammed into another movie by studio meddling.
• Mobile Suit Victory Gundam': The big fuckup. When this series was being produced, Bandai had just bought Sunrise wholesale and was leaning harder and harder on Tomino and his team to boost model sales, mandating the youngest protagonist yet and incredibly stupid suit designs like the infamous wheelie bike. This just motivated Tomino to troll them by making the series super grimdark, with one of the highest kill counts in the franchise. To this day, Tomino still tells people that they shouldn't watch it in interviews. Ended up "killing" the franchise for a bit, as Sunrise would take it out of Tomino's hands for almost a decade and move to producing alternate continuities using the brand name.

Everything else

• Mobile Fighter G Gundam: Kung Fu Gundam. In the Future Century, the Earth Sphere is ruled by space colonies based on Earth nations and settle their disputes through a stereotypical shonen tournament arc called the Gundam Fight. The fighters use Gundams (all of them, and naturally they're all bullshit super robots) and pilot them using skintight latex suits that allows the robot to copy the pilot's martial arts movements. The year is FC 60, and this Gundam Fight is different: Neo-Japan's fighter, Domon Kasshu, has been blackmailed into hunting down his brother Kyoji for the Neo-Japanese government. Kyoji has stolen/built the Devil Gundam, a nanomachine-powered monstrosity that corrupts everything in its path. Unapologetically gonzo, G Gundam is a fan favorite for its hot-blooded protagonists, truly ludicrous Gundam designs and the awesomeness that is Master Asia.
• Mobile Report Gundam Wing: In the year After Colony 195, the United Earth Sphere Alliance rules both Earth and the colonies with an iron first. Five colonies pool their resources to send one child soldier each to Earth in a custom-design Gundam, waging a guerilla campaign against the UESA military. This was most people's first exposure to Gundam in the west thanks to Toonami, but time has been less than kind to it as it becomes an interminable soap opera about halfway through that cares more about parading around its pretty-boy characters than giant robot fights.
• After War Gundam X: Basically an alternate Universal Century where Zeon didn't give up on the whole colony drop thing, and it wouldn't be hard to include in the UC as an alternate outcome of Char's Counterattack if a GM was so inclined. It's the year After War 0015, Earth is a wasteland and 99% of humanity has been wiped out after an apocalyptic war between the Earth Federation and its space colonies. The series follows a group of scavengers as they stumble across the superpowered Gundam X and become caught up in a conspiracy to restart the fighting. Despite this it's actually one of the most upbeat and idealistic Gundams, assuming you can get past the main character's screechy voice.
• ∀ Gundam (Turn A Gundam): In which Tomino gets invited back to take a nice, long piss on all of the above series. It's the "Correct Century", and humanity has regressed to the early 20th century after a cataclysm they have forgotten. A colony on the moon survived the cataclysm, and this "Moonrace" wants to reclaim the Earth from its current tenants. Since the Moonrace kept their Mobile Suits and other cool stuff, the Earthnoids are kind of fucked until Loran Cehack, secretly an advance scout for the Moonrace who went native, discovers a mysterious mobile suit buried in the earth: the ∀ Gundam. Never got a dub, so these days it's mostly remembered for three things: a delicious brown trap protagonist, having a Gundam with a mustache (thanks to famous American designer Syd Mead) and the Black History. The Black History is what happened before that mysterious cataclysm; namely, every other Gundam series, whose timelines all converge into Turn A in the distant future as humanity destroys itself. This is because Tomino gets really butthurt when it looks like other Gundam series might be more popular than his. Also notable for starting the trend of Gundam protagonists who refuse to kill anybody during a major war.
• Mobile Suit Gundam SEED: Sunrise remakes the Universal Century for a new generation, but because this was the early 2000s it just looks like a generic hentai OVA. Colonies are now called PLANTs, Newtypes are artificial and called Coordinators, Zeon is called ZAFT and the Earth Federation is now the Earth Alliance. Our story begins at Side 7 Heliopolis, a PLANT sponsored by Japan the peace-loving neutral nation of the Orb Union which is developing Operation V new superweapons to protect its neutrality. When ZAFT attacks, the survivors are forced to flee aboard White Base the Archangel and Amuro Ray Kira Yamato is conscripted to pilot the Gundam Gundam on the long journey back to Earth. It's absolute trash but it has its fans, especially in Japan where it was an entire generation's first exposure to Gundam. Had a sequel, SEED Destiny, which was heavily censored on both sides of the Pacific and is a strong contender for worst Gundam of all time.
• Mobile Suit Gundam 00: It's the year 2307 AD; yes, that means Anno Domini. War has become a game as the three major superpowers fight endlessly for control of the space elevators and solar collection stations they built to solve Earth's energy crisis. Enter Celestial Being, a batshit crazy terrorist group with a cunning plan: attack all sides indiscriminately with Gundams to unite the Earth's militaries against them, then crush them all in a single stroke to quash humanity's appetite for war. The first season is actually pretty interesting for being a direct commentary on the War on Terror, but this was far too intelligent for Sunrise at that point and the second season was forced into being a copy of Zeta Gundam.
• Mobile Suit Gundam AGE: Dynastic Gundam. Follows three generations of the Asuno family during a century-long war with the mysterious Unknown Enemy, which later turns out to not be so unknown after all. Had some interesting ideas (exploring the nature of generational prejudice, the main Gundam being passed down like a family heirloom) but the anime's pacing is messed up because the plot was written for a video game first and then adapted.
• Gundam: Reconguista in G: Tomino takes his turn at the super robot Gundam wheel, but makes it a sequel to both the UC and Turn A because it's okay when he does it. It's Regild Century 1014, and space elevator guard Bellri Zenam gets dragged into yet another war with space pirates, the emerging Capital Army and an invasion from the Moon when he discovers he can pilot the G-Self, a hyper-advanced mobile suit compatible with only a select few. Good luck figuring out what the hell is going on, by the way. Has some of the most insane, over-the-top designs since G Gundam, drawing heavily from Eureka Seven and Tomino's own Metal Overman King Gainer.
• Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans: It's the year 323 Post Disaster, more than three centuries after the Calamity War that devastated the solar system and produced the original Gundams. This time the colonies are on Mars, getting ready to revolt after decades of economic exploitation under Gjallarhorn, a Titans-like organization that has a state monopoly on arms production. A Martian PMC has been hired to escort the leader of the independence movement to Earth to broker a deal before war breaks out. Naturally, it's a trap, and the mission is pawned off to the CGS' Third Group, a regiment of destitute children and orphans who won't be missed when Gjallarhorn ganks them. Not taking this shit lying down, ace pilot Mikazuki Augus pulls the ancient Gundam Barbatos out of mothballs and begins carving a path to safety for the Third Group, while their leader Orga begins making power plays to secure their own independence from the adults who take them for granted. Strong contender for worst Gundam, with multiple plot holes and a second season where the director and head writer were openly fighting with each other, culminating in a truly baffling "villains win" ending.

Due to a quirk in the (Permet) bonding process used in G-Witch, the device retains an imprint of each of its former pilots' personalities clones

• Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury (G-Witch): A cyberpunk Gundam setting is wasted on high school slice of life, the head writer's most notable prior credit is Revolutionary Girl Utena and the protagonist gets gay married to another woman in the first episode. That's all you need to know, really. A lot of potential utterly wasted with generic slice-of-life and yuri hijinks, shit pacing and what little plot exists being stapled together with josei drama and Shakespeare references. The third contender for worst Gundam.
• Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX: For the record, it's pronounced "G-Kwucks". Gundam's first foray into alternate history, taking place in a UC where Char successfully captured the Gundam and severed the thread of prophecy that led Amuro to win the war for the Federation. Among other things this means Challia Bull gets some spotlight time instead of becoming XP for Amuro after a handful of episodes. The story starts with two high school aged girls stumbling on a new super prototype Gundam and fighting mecha-of-the-week (yawn) but rapidly escalates from there into something more appropriate to the Universal Century. Made by Hideki Anno with the studio that did the Rebuild of Evangelion movies, and by god does it show. Early fan consensus is that it's the series "G-Bitch" should have been from the beginning, but not everyone is a fan of the limited scope (required by being crammed into 12 episodes) and Anno still can't write a coherent ending to save his life.
• Gundam Build Fighters: Bandai skips the foreplay and just makes a 25-minute Gunpla commercial. It's a generic tournament-based battle shonen for kids, but the characters fight with Gunpla models and it doesn't completely suck somehow. Unlike other companies Bandai actually understands the appeal of Your Dudes and so many of the cast's Gunpla are kitbashes and custom work. Often nicknamed "Gundam Valhalla" after the fanon theory that everyone who got dicked over or died nastily in other Gundam series (so, everyone) gets reincarnated here, based on "Mr. Ral" (a hobby shop owner who is just Ramba Ral) among many, many other cameos.

Notable Characters

• Amuro Ray: Pilot of the original Gundam and sperglord maximus. Son of Federation engineer Tem Ray, he gets in the Gundam on an impulse instead of evacuating and becomes its pilot full-time when everyone else who knows how to work the damn thing gets killed. Being forced to fight for his life constantly drives him to the brink of madness, but eventually he finds his backbone and his emerging Newtype powers make him the most terrifying thing in the One Year War. After the war ends the Federation keeps him in a gilded cage for fear of him going Rambo: First Blood on their asses, that's how scary he is. Even so various good-guy factions wheel him out as their ace in the hole, and he always obliges because part of him never really left that Gundam. So grimdark. His custom-made robot pet Haro also deserves a mention for being almost as iconic as the Gundam itself.
• Char Aznable: The Red Comet. Amuro's main rival, Zeon ace and Japan's answer to Darth Vader. After he discovers the Federation's secret Mobile Suit program only to let them slip through his fingers, he spends the rest of the series trying to reclaim his status by defeating the Gundam. Secretly Casval Rem Deikun, the true heir to Zeon's ideals forced to live in hiding from the Zabi family. He's also a complete douchenozzle: when Char teams up with Garma (the only Zabi who wasn't some combination of corrupt, bloodthirsty and genocidal) it's just to SSSINNNDRIII him into the White Base's teeth as the first step of his revenge. He tries to get over himself and live by his father's ideals for a while after the war, but humanity's continued dickbaggery gets to him in the end.
  • Char's impact on Japanese culture beggars belief; his outfit, half his lines, his penchant for red ace customs and ability to make things "three times faster" just by painting them red are memes even the densest salaryman will recognize. To give you an idea of how far this goes: you can apply for a Char custom credit card in Japan, and it will earn reward points three times faster than a normal card.
  • One consequence of Char's massive popularity is the "Char clone"/"X is a CHAR" phenomenon: every Gundam series will have at least one character who wears a mask or sunglasses, pilots red mobile suits, acts as a rival to the main character, and/or has a secret identity. Some series play this straighter than others, and Unicorn even got meta with it by having Full Frontal be a literal clone of the original article. 40k has its own Char clone in the form of Commander Farsight.
• Ramba Ral: The "guerilla" expert, though in this case that really means commando raids and ambush tactics. Cool old guy, Zeon's answer to Rommel and the first pilot to really threaten Amuro despite the OPness of the Gundam. He would have geeked the lot of them too, but M'Quve was a dick and refused to issue the mobile suits he needed for a direct assault. Being far too badass to let a little thing like being outgunned by a factor of about a million stop him he leads a deep strike into the White Base and almost captures it, but Ramba forgot to fight in the middle of a fight and chooses to an hero rather than be captured. A fan favorite, his infamous "This is no Zaku" line is one of the most quoted in the franchise and the Gihren's Greed vidya gives him a lot of love. Appears in Gundam Build Fighters as "Mr. Ral", and it's heavily implied that he's the actual Ramba Ral reincarnated.
• Dozle Zabi: One third of the Zabi triumvirate in charge of Zeon's military and an absolute chad. A father to his men and dedicated family man, he was Char's superior for the mission that found Operation V. Probably the least dickish Zabi after Garma. When the Federation rolls up to destroy his base of operations on the asteroid Solomon, Dozle goes out on a suicide run to buy time for the evacuation; after his Big Zam is destroyed by Amuro, his righteous fury is so powerful it actually manifests before Amuro's eyes as he tries to take the Gundam down with a space AK-47. Needless to say, "The Big Zam should have been mass-produced" is a common sentiment among the fanbase. Even after his death, his daughter Mineva leaves a lasting impact on the Earth Sphere in the decades to come.
• Haman Karn: She's beauty, she's grace, she's miss step on my face. Leader of Axis Zeon in Zeta and ZZ, claiming authority as the regent for a 9-year-old Mineva. Talks a big game about human reformation, but as the series progresses she admits that she mostly cares about power for its own sake. Had a crush on Char once but loves world domination too much to let it go.
• Elpeo Ple: Named after lolicon fetish magazine Lemon People, no matter what Tomino says. Naturally she's practically a fetish object when we first meet her in ZZ, then turns out to be yet another Newtype child soldier who dies horribly, in what can only be an epic troll on Tomino's part. According to production notes she's actually a test-tube baby based on Space Hitler Gihren Zabi's DNA, explaining why she looks like an older version of Mineva. Treacherous Neo Zeon commander Glemy Toto would clone her en masse for his personal army, marking him as a man with excellent taste; "Ple Twelve" makes a suprise appearance in Unicorn as Marida Cruz.
• Master Asia: Hong Meiling's master The Undefeated of the East and the only man badass enough to blow up mobile suits with just a scarf. Trained G Gundam hero Domon Kasshu in his special brand of Weeaboo Fightan Magic and fights both alongside him and against him before suffering one of the most tragic and manly deaths in the franchise. G Gundam's version of Ramba Ral and almost as well-loved by the fanbase, having a mix of arrogant, wacky and badass rarely seen outside of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. Say it with me now: "Look! The East is burning red!"

/tg/ relevance

Gundam, being as old as it is and with a lot of lore to boot, has had a good bit of influence on /tg/ over the years. Mostly this is in the form of homages, inspiration and outright ripoffs, but there are several licensed games either released or in the works.

First and foremost among these is Mekton, which rips off Gundam at least as much as it does Robotech and other anime popular with 90s Weeaboo types like Mike Pondsmith. There's even an optional rule in Mekton Zeta called "The G-Factor" to represent the franchise's tendency for limbs and such to get exploded by one good hit. Readers wondering what the G stands for are directed to "ask us at a con and we'll be happy to enlighten you." Perhaps because of this a Japanese publisher back in 2000 chose Mekton as the basis for their officially licensed RPG Gundam Senki. It uses 2d6 for rolls and changes several other rules to tailor the game to the setting and mitigate Mekton's notorious swinginess. This includes special rules for Newtype bullshit, awarding bonus rerolls for high pilot skills and making "The G-Factor" mandatory; using 2d6 in itself also helps a lot by reducing the impact of exploding dice. An English translation by R. Talsorian has allegedly been in development hell since 2004, with only fragmentary documentation of the new rules by fans. Recently /tg/ has been getting shit done and drafting a from-scratch translation of the core rulebook.

Its influences can be felt in many other games, such as Battle Century G (though it does admittedly pull more from "Super Robot" rather than "Real Robot" anime), Jovian Chronicles, and the mecha you can play with in BESM. There are also numerous fan hacks for other systems such as Genesys RPG, FATE and /tg/'s very own Mobile Suit Mechanicus, as well as generic wargame rulesets like MechaStellar. We would also be remiss to point out the Tau, considering rumors persist to this day that they were created when GW saw how much money Gunpla makes and wanted a piece of the action.

Lastly, Bandai has recently seen the explosion in the popularity of /tg/ products in the 2020s and finally committed to some official tabletop games, namely a trading card game similar to the Digimon TCG and Gundam Assemble. Gundam Assemble is the thing fans on both sides of the Pacific have been begging Bandai to make for literal decades, an official Gundam wargame with proportionally-accurate miniatures and real rules. The minis are notably single-color (where Gunpla kits usually use multiple colored sprues so they can look good without painting) multipart kits with a similar level of detail to Entry Grade Gunpla, continuing the industry trend of Games Workshop's sculpt quality being crapped on by every single other manufacturer. The scale seems to be "32mm" in that everything is rescaled to be about the size of a 32mm scale human, even when it's a giant like a Zeong or even an entire warship, while the rules are card-based and seemingly similar to Marvel Crisis Protocol. Anything more will apparently have to wait until the game launches in 2026.

Gunpla

What made Gundam a success was in large part through the sales of model kits of the various Gundam and Mobile Suits. Gundam Plamo, shortened to Gunpla, are model kits of the many Mecha that have appeared in Gundam shows down the years. Over time the quality of these kits has risen to the point where Mythbuster's Adam Savage has praised the engineering that has gone into certain Gunpla Kits. Gunpla are modular and use an internal skeleton that allows kits to be combined and kitbashed together to create multiple combinations and allows for a lot of creativity on the part of skilled modellers. Gunpla is often a gateway drug to both military modelling and wargaming in general, as the skills required to build Gunpla are the same skills used to make a Games Workshop kit.