Amuro Ray - Tumblr Posts
Top 10 Anti-Heroes in Anime: INPO
10. Greed - Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood
9. Ai Emma - Hell Girl
8. Lelouch - Code Geass
7. Ciel Phantomhive - Black Butler
6. Amuro Ray - Mobile Suit Gundam
5. Kikyo - Inuyasha
4. Nico Robin - One Piece
3. Miyu - Vampire Princess Miyu
2. Ryuko Matoi - Kill La Kill
1. Yami Yugi - Yu-Gi-Oh!
Top 10 Roles of Toru Furuya: INPO
10. Amuro Ray - Mobile Suit Gundam
9. Yamcha - Dragon Ball Franchise
8. Tuxedo Mask - Sailor Moon
7. Sabo - One Piece
6. Kyosuke Kasuga - Kimagure Orange Road
5. Pegasus Seiya - Saint Seiya
4. Ribbons Almark - Gundam 00
3. Sacred Jewel - Inuyasha
2. Mr. Zone - Captain Harlock
1. Casshern - Casshern Sins
My Master Grade Gramps has been taunting me at 90% completion for weeks while I fuck around with Magic card and MechWarrior so I finally finished him last night
I didn't really grasp the height difference between this monster and a normal 1:144 HG or RG kit, the sheer mass of the panels had put me off for a while after I built him
It's a good kit, but the dedication to having removable core section for the fighter means the midsection is a little iffy, I'd have preferred a solid skeleton
Anyways back to disappearing for another month or whenever I finish a project next
Came across this neat looking CCA poster that I'd never seen before
In yet another self-sabotaging attempt to not watch Gundam Narrative/Gundam Ibo Urdr Hunt (honestly why do I do this to myself), I have started watching the original Gundam 0079.
(I literally went right over Narrative on the shelf, too).
Until now, I’ve basically done everything except watch the original - I got some very good cliff notes, I read the Origin Manga, I watched the Compilation Movies. But I never actually watched the show.
I’ve only watched the first three-ish episodes so far, so this’ll be a first impressions kinda deal. For reference, I’m watching the Dubbed Blu-Ray Collection (which is where that art above is from). I did try the subtitles, but I find they take up a lot of the screen, and the Japanese Audio quality isn’t fantastic.
Right, enough preamble, how is it?
In brief, dated as all hell.
Obviously, it’s dated as all hell. It was laid down and made in late-70s Japan, a far different environment than contemporary Japan. The Animation’s old and it’s incredibly clear that they were working on a budget with all the still frames. But even from the perspective of someone who came in through the wider Gundam series it’s very odd.
Like, the opening score is some stirring, heroic music about how the Gundam will fight back all its enemies, and how you must fight. Likely meant to juxtapose how war is presented in media versus what the shows actually about - the horrors implicit within war. But it’s still something of a tonal whiplash. And then the closing song is all about Amuro becoming a man, so it still reads a little off.
It’s interesting to note the great variety in characters though - a detail that I’d never seen in any of the adaptations is that Char essentially has a panic attack when he first fights the Gundam, simply because it swats his wingmate down so easily, and he truly realises how powerful it is. A lot of Bright’s early characterisation sells that he really doesn’t know what he’s doing, and Dozle (who they gave a really posh voice, by the way) mentions that Zeon’s also running low on supplies, selling that neither side’s doing so hot in the war.
Another nice detail is that when Amuro steps inside the Gundam, it doesn’t actually help the situation that much - yeah he takes out two Zaku’s, but this directly leads to him damaging Side 7, and injuring his father and the other engineers - the Gundam is a destructive saviour at best. It feels very different from the classic super robot vibes (though that may be speaking to my own unfamiliarity with the genre).
I don’t really have a concluding statement here, it’s just odd coming in from all the other shows and seeing how….. not unrefined…. How broad the series is. I can tell without checking that there’s a host of influences from *somewhere*, but I’m not knowledgeable enough about the genre to pinpoint anything.
(Also I love how catty the Zeon Commanders are. Gadem trading barbs with Char is just delightful, and I’m looking forward to seeing Conscon, since I find his design just sublime).
I still think it's really cool how Amuro starts as the shittiest pilot alive (because he's a 15-year old) that only gets carried because he's in the biggest, fattest stat stick in-universe at the time (a few retroactive additions made in the future notwithstanding), enough that even its crappy vulcan guns are tearing Zaku IIs apart, and when he starts getting a bit too cocky, Char and Ramba Ral show up in objectively inferior pieces of junk and absolutely deliver his pizza, they just drag his face across every available surface in Planet Earth like he's a Yakuza mook, all because they are simply that much better at piloting, and the thing is, Amuro takes that very seriously.
He goes from shitass kid in an unfortunate situation that doesn't want to get in the robot to the most unwell child soldier in the war, which is really saying something, but most importantly, becomes so good at piloting the Gundam that the Gundam physically cannot handle Amuro's piloting. They need to apply "Magnetic Coating" to its joints so they don't fucking snap away from the main frame because Amuro, one, moves too damn well but also in too extreme a way for the frame to handle it, two, despite being equipped with two sabers, a shield, a beam rifle and vulcan guns, Amuro is a stern believer in introducing most everyone in thagomizer range to his Rated Z for Zeon hands, the single most official pair of hands in the business, tax free. He KEEP going Ip Man on these dudes, he does NOT need to do a Jamestown on these mother fuckers but he INSISTS. Somehow even the Gundam Hammer, which is a giant Hannah Barbera cartoon flail-- Ok, look at this thing, words do not do it justice
Even this god damn Tom and Jerry prop is less savage that whatever Amuro decides to do the moment he's done throwing his shield to get a free kill on someone and it officially becomes bed time forever for the unfortunate sap at the business end of his ten-finger weapons of mass destruction.
The RX-78-2, "Gundam" for its friends and family, even has a top of the line cutting edge Learning Computer that 'learns' alongside the pilot and their habits. This data extracted from it was so absolutely fucked up that it completely revolutionized Mobile Suit combat afterwards, which is a wholesome thing to think about when The Best Combat Data Ever came from a really angry, really stressed 15 year old that doesn't even like piloting. He was 15! He made Haro with his own hands! Amuro literally just wanted to make funny cute spherical robofriends! Amuro was out there trying to make Kirby real, but fate had other plans for him. His cloned brain put in a pilot seat is one of the setting's strongest 'pilots'.
They made fucking Shadow the Hedgehog with his brain, god damn.
By the end, Zeon is rolling out Gelgoogs out of its mass production lines. These things are in the Gundam's ballpark in terms of overall specs (or "power level"). Amuro is bodying them as if they were episode 1 Zaku IIs.
AND THEN HE GETS FUCKING PSYCHIC SPACE POWERS. Not that he needed them, he bodied a couple Space Psychics without any of those powers before awakening to them. But heaven's most violent child was not done evolving, whether he liked it or not.
Char bodied him in a souped up Zaku II at the start, a machine objectively inferior to the Gundam. Amuro more or less one-sidedly beats the shit out of Char when he's in a custom Commander-type Gelgoog that you could consider to be equal spec-wise to the Gundam. Amuro is the embodiment of Finding Out. He is Consequences. You tell him he better make it hurt, better make it count, better kill you in one shot, buddy, he needs half a fucking shot. The complete transformation. One could consider the central 75% of the show as long drawn out training montage turning a kid into the Geese Howard of giant robots.
The Gundam MS Era artbook has such a haunting feeling to it. These static images captured in the times of the OYW.
How to get into Gundam
Because fuck it, I was gonna do one of these sooner or later anyway.
So you want to know what this Gundam thing’s about, maybe you like the mecha design, maybe you caught part of an episode one time and want to catch up, or maybe you saw a nice piece of Chamuro fanart and want to go to the source.
But there’s so many shows and timelines that it can be quite daunting on first look, so this guide is intended to give a rough overview.
I would however like to stress two four things beforehand however:
This guide is not intended as “The One True Way” or anything. There’s no harm it coming into it a different way, and these are only my own opinions.
There’s nothing stopping you from just watching one show and leaving it there. You don’t have to watch every single show going, even I’ve only seen most of these, not all. Gundam typically has variations on similar themes - it’s very nice watching multiple shows because they complement one another, but it’s not necessarily required.
I am very much an insider looking out here, so let me know if there’s any details I’ve missed.
I’m not gonna recommend these on a “if you like X, then watch Y basis”, mostly because I don’t personally find genre recommendations helpful, so I’d recommend picking based on promotional material (vibes, if you will).
I’ll be using this chart, supplied by the excellent@l-crimson-l, to illustrate everything.
Gundam as a whole can principally be divided into three sections: Universal Century (or UC), the Alternate Universes (AU’s) and the Build Series.
The AU’s are below the light blue line, near the bottom of the Chart, the Build Series is within the bright green line at the top-right corner of the chart and UC is the big line in the middle. We’ll talk about each of them individually.
The AU’s
The Alternate Universes were conceived as a way to get away from the continuity-heavy nature of Universal Century and provide an easy jumping-on point for new fans. The AU’s are standalone and require no prior knowledge, and are thus an excellent place to start. Honestly, I’d recommend quickly searching some promotional materials (like posters) and just going with the one you find most appealing based on that. They are (in production order):
Mobile Fighter G Gundam (1994)
New Mobile Report Gundam Wing (1995)
After War Gundam X (1996)
Turn A Gundam (1999)
Mobile Suit Gundam SEED (2002)
Mobile Suit Gundam 00 (2007)
Mobile Suit Gundam AGE (2011)
Gundam: Reconguista in G (2014)
Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron Blooded Orphans (2015)
Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury (2022)
There’s side series and movies and other things besides, but these are the mainline shows, if you will. I have specific notes on a few of them:
Witch From Mercury - It’s of a shorter length than is usual for mainline shows, so consequently it’s a much smaller time investment than the others.
Mobile Fighter G Gundam - While undeniably rad as hell, I would recommend watching another AU first. G Gundam differs from its stablemates in a few key areas, and I find it helps to have a contrast to fully appreciate those differences.
Gundam AGE - is probably the only one I wouldn’t recommend. I didn’t like the art style and the technical explanations just got on my nerves, so I stopped watching.
Turn A and G-Reconguista are technically part of UC as well, but it’s not really crucial information so don’t feel like you have to watch UC first (I’m only including this detail for completionism).
I’ve found all the AU’s I’ve seen to be pretty good, so I’d say that which one you start with really just comes down to personal taste.
The Build Series
Is just kind of doing its own thing. The Build series is basically Buy Our Toys: the series. It’s got a far lighter tone, and I’ve had cause to compare it to pokemon prior. It’s also chock full of references and in-jokes to the other series.
Build Fighters and Build Fighters Try are the ones I’d recommend - they’ve got actual stakes and the fight scenes are really good.
Build Divers and Build Divers Re:rise I can’t recommend - I just find Build Divers aggressively boring. Build Divers Re:Rise is just okay - neither standout good or particularly bad. Its main flaw is that it’s a sequel to Build Divers.
The OVA’s are pretty much bad across the board - I’d particularly recommend avoiding Gundam Build Metaverse.
Universal Century
Universal Century is the big main timeline of Gundam, and is the timeline the original Mobile Suit Gundam from 1979 takes place in. There’s a tendency among certain fans to place UC as the one-above-all of Gundam, but I wouldn’t really go that far. It’s all pretty good, but I wouldnt really say one timeline is better than another (save personal preference, anyway).
Because UC is so big, it can be subdivided a couple times. The primary division is “Mainline” UC versus everything else. Basically there’s four-five shows in Universal Century from which everything else flows. As long as you know roughly what happens in these shows, then you can watch basically anything else in UC and have a good idea of what’s going on. These are (in order):
Mobile Suit Gundam (1979) - sometimes called Mobile Suit Gundam 0079.
Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam (1985)
Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ (1986)
Mobile Suit Gundam: Char’s Counterattack (1988)
With Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn (2010) as a nominal fifth (honestly I feel like you could argue either way).
The rest of the shows are:
Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket (1989 Three-Episode OVA)
Mobile Suit Gundam F91 (1991 Movie)
Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory (1991 Thirteen-episode OVA)
Mobile Suit Victory Gundam (1993)
Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team (1999 Twelve-episode OVA)
G-Saviour (2000 Live Action Movie) - nobody ever talks about or acknowledges this one, it’s just here for completionism.
Mobile Suit Gundam MS Igloo (2004-2009 Three OVA’s with three Episodes each)
Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin (2015 Six-Episode OVA, adapted from the Manga of the same name)
Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt (2015 Eight-Episode Series, adapted from the Manga of the same name)
Mobile Suit Gundam: Twilight Axis (2017 episode, adapted from a light novel of the same name. Later rereleased as Gundam Twilight Axis Red Trace, with additional footage)
Mobile Suit Gundam Narrative (2018 sequel movie to Gundam Unicorn)
Mobile Suit Gundam Hathaway (2021 ongoing movie series, very much adapted from the novel Hathaway’s Flash)
Most of the other series relate to events in the aforementioned “mainline” shows in some way, but a lot of the sidestories set during the One Year War require very little introduction (Thunderbolt, 0080 and 08th MS Team). Similarly, works set in “Late UC” (F91 and Victory Gundam) carry on from the other series thematically but don’t have any plot connections, so they can all be watched without any background knowledge of the rest of the Universal Century.
Compilation Movies
Just a quick note here - many of the Gundam series have compilation movies, where either a whole series or part of one are compressed down into a movie. While each movie compares differently, they usually boil down to this: Compilation Movies usually have worse pacing, but really nice animation.
One of the great things about Gundam is that different shows offer variations on themes, so seeing how different characters react to similar situations, or how different settings change their approaches can make it incredibly rewarding.
I haven’t seen enough of SD Gundam to make any sort of recommendations there, and Manga is something I might touch on another day.
EDIT: Oh hey also: You can watch a good chunk of these on YouTube, for free, officially. The Official Gundam.Info YouTube channel rotates the series shown on its channel periodically. I think it’s got F91 and SEED on there currently? But it’s had Wing, 00 and Witch From Mercury before. Also all of the Build Fighters series are there.
So yeah, that’s a thing.
Mobile Suit Gundam Pulitzer - Amuro Ray Beyond the Aurora
A story about Kikka Kobayashi gathering testimonies about Amuro to write a biography about him that makes him out to be more than just a tragic war hero. I've only read a single volume so far, but I'm really enjoying this.
It's easy to tell the mangaka treasures these characters, giving even the most minor characters from 79 depth. I Strongly recommend this to fans of UC Gundam
art by Kazuhisa Kondo
Gundam UC + The Onion Headlines
Char this, Charposting that. Post amuro
