Fly, Gundam!

If you're like me, you're eagerly awaiting the announcement of panels for New York Anime Festival.

And if you are like me, then it's for a singular reason.

That reason is Yoshiyuki Tomino, the creator of Mobile Suit Gundam, who was announced in the spring as a guest of honor.




Gundam is the progenitor of what became known as the "real robot" genre, turning away from the portrayal of giant robots as almost-sentient characters (like Gigantor, Getter Robo and Mazinger), in favor of a more realistic (so to speak) portrayal of giant robots as weapons. Some of Gundam's followers would become classics in their own right, such as Super Dimensional Fortress Macross and Armored Trooper Votoms. However, Tomino's creation is the most enduring, spanning thirteen television series (so far), plus countless movies, OVAs, manga, video games, a theme park ride, and most notably of all its merchandise, model sets. (Gundam model building is a hobby unto itself.)




This year marks the thirtieth anniversary of the Gundam franchise, which began on April 7, 1979 with the premiere of the original Mobile Suit Gundam anime. Much like another popular sci-fi franchise, Star Trek, the show wasn't an immediate success, and was canceled before the end of its 52-episode order. Animation studio Sunrise was able to wrangle an extra month to tie up loose ends, and Mobile Suit Gundam ended at 43 episodes. However, it found its footing when Bandai acquired the merchandising license, and released the original line of Gundam models. The models were a smash hit, and coupled with the runaway popularity of a trilogy of compilation films, Mobile Suit Gundam became a phenomenon. (Namco Bandai later acquired Sunrise.)



I feel rather nostalgic about it myself, as this year marks ten years since I first became a Gundam fan. As part of Bandai's 20th anniversary "Big Bang Project," the company finally released Gundam in North America, beginning with the Mobile Suit Gundam movie trilogy. I snapped up the subtitled VHS boxed set as soon as I saw it, having long been curious about the franchise. For all I knew about Gundam at the time, which was admittedly very little, I wasn't prepared for what I would experience. By the end, I was hooked.


Mobile Suit Gundam takes place in the far future, where much of humanity has migrated to space colonies (based on theories and designs by physicist Gerard K. O'Neill). Generations have grown on the colonies, never knowing the Earth. Many of these "spacenoids" bristle at the Earth Federation's rule and formed the Republic of Zeon. By year 0079 of the Universal Century calendar, the Republic has become the Principality of Zeon, and declared war on the Federation. The first week of the war killed three billion people, and culminated in the destruction of Sydney (and much of Australia) after the Zeon dropped a deserted colony onto the planet. Thanks to the fictional Minovsky particle which interferes with radar long-range wireless communications, the Zeon are prompted to create mobile suits, giant robotic armors used for close-range combat, which give them the edge against the Federation.

The series took place in the later months of the "One Year War," revolving around the Federation battleship "White Base" and its mostly inexperienced young crew of refugees from the colony Side 7. One of those refugees is Amuro Ray, a prodigious young inventor and the son of a weapons designer. His father's creation is the Gundam, the Federation's own prototype mobile suit. During the Zeon attack on Side 7, Amuro finds himself thrust into combat in the Gundam's cockpit, and is surprisingly successful. During the course of the series, Amuro would grow even more as a pilot, discovering latent intuitive abilities bordering on psychic, and question the nature of war, along with many other characters. In fact, for a military sci-fi anime, Gundam seemed overwhelmingly pacifist, as characters irreversibly changed; some lost their sanity, and others died in the tide of battle. Many of them openly questioned the nature of their conflict and the concept of war in general.

The success of the Mobile Suit Gundam movies ultimately led Sunrise to commission a sequel series, with Tomino again at the helm. Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam performed as well as expected, but was even darker than the original series. Many fans consider it to be the high water mark of the Gundam franchise, and it was recently compiled into a trilogy of films called Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam: A New Translation.



From its inception through the early '90s, the Gundam series inhabited what the "Universal Century" timeline, and much of the story revolved around the One Year War and its aftermath until the feature film Char's Counterattack brought the plotline to a close. After a couple of efforts jumping further and further into the future, Sunrise began to create "alternate universe" Gundam series, with different takes on Gundam, most notably Mobile Fighter G Gundam, a homage to the "super robot" anime genre and the most tonally different Gundam series thus far, and Mobile Suit Gundam Wing, about a team of Gundam pilots, which established Gundam as a major franchise in the West. Most of the alternate universe series were developed by younger creators, though Tomino himself directed 1999's Turn A Gundam, his first since 1994's Mobile Suit Victory Gundam, a 20th anniversary project intended to tie every timeline up to that point together. (Another 20th anniversary release, the live-action film G-Saviour, takes place even further into the Universal Century future, while the upcoming Gundam Unicorn--debuting this winter--transpires a few years after Char's Counterattack.)


The Gundam franchise is filled with varied works, but many themes seem to carry over across each incarnation, including:

The indignities of war
Mobile Suit Gundam comments on this from the beginning, with civilians and military dying very ignominiously in the first episodes. Much of the official White Base crew is offed by Zeon commandos, and a bunch of teenage refugees are drafted into service. By the end, they're jaded, hard-bitten and battle-scarred--and those are the survivors.



We're not so different
On several occasions, some of the villains of Gundam aren't completely bad. Mobile Suit Gundam's Char Aznable is a classic example of this. The Zeon ace had his own motivations for fighting for the Principality, but he also had a sense of honor that endeared him to viewers. (He was so popular a character that Tomino cast him as one of the main heroes of Zeta Gundam) At times, other Zeon officers would meet Federation pilots off the field of battle, on occasions that led each person to wonder what things would have been like in a more perfect world.



Newtypes
Throughout Tomino's run on the Gundam franchise, certain characters were established as having heightened intuitive abilities and awareness, most likely thanks to adaptation to space life. These people were called Newtypes, and were regarded by some as the next stage in evolution. It was believed that White Base's untrained crew was heavily composed of Newtypes, giving them the necessary edge to survive. The idea was pretty much abandoned after Sunrise left the Universal Century continuity behind, but it was revisited in 1996's alternate universe series, After War Gundam X. The term became popular enough that it was adopted as the name of a popular anime news magazine.

Earth vs. space
Because of the evolutionary leaps of Newtypes, spaceborn humans felt themselves superior to Earthlings, and thought it their duty to force Earthlings to evolve as well. This rationalization lay at the core of the motivations for most of the Universal Century Gundam antagonists, especially Char Aznable.

Youth used as pawns, or smart-mouthed kids getting belted a few
It's not hard to accept, within the context of the Gundam series, that its civilian pilots would crack under the pressure of constant fighting and bloodshed. Quiet, soulful Amuro Ray deserted White Base a couple of times and disobeyed orders here and there, only to be rewarded with a hard smack by his commanding officer, Bright Noah. Zeta Gundam's Kamille Bidan was a fiery hothead who mouthed off all the time, only to get decked by, well, pretty much everyone. Even Victory Gundam's Usso Ebbing, despite being a much more cheerful, agreeable sort (as well as the youngest Gundam pilot at 13), caught the back of his commander's hand after rushing ahead and getting into a battle. But what would you expect? They're all kids forced to grow up way too fast, and characters on both sides frequently comment on the injustice of it.



Heated rivalries
Amuro Ray and Char Aznable were professional rivals from the start as ace Newtype pilots on differing sides of the One Year War. But it got personal when a mutual love interest, Char's Newtype protege Lalah Sune, was caught in the middle of their feud. In Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory, Federation pilot Kou Uraki quickly develops a beef with Zeon ace Anavel Gato, after the latter steals a nuclear-armed Gundam, setting off a solar system-wide chase. Kamille Bidan ran afoul of Titan pilot Jerid Messa early on--in fact, it was Jerid who inspired Kamille to oppose the oppressive Titans, out of defiance. The two dealt each other catastrophic losses, killing friends and family. But while Jerid became angrier and more vengeful with each defeat at Kamille's hands, the Anti-Earth Union Group pilot ultimately put aside his hatred, regarding Jerid as just another enemy pilot.

Star-crossed romances
Despite being close to childhood friend Frau Bow and developing a rapport with crewmate Sayla Mass, Amuro's most defining bond was with Char Aznable's protege, Lalah Sune. Unfortunately, her involvement in a violent battle between the two ended tragically, and neither fully got over it. History repeated itself in a fashion, when Kamille Bidan fell for Cyber-Newtype Four Murasame. Unfortunately, her fragile mental state worsened whenever she was in her Psyco-Gundam, and she was forced to battle Kamille. Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket's Bernie Wiseman and Christina McKenzie were quickly infatuated with each other after meeting, but neither knew that the other was an opposing pilot, even when they found themselves in pitched battle.



Masked enemy aces
Char Aznable wore a mask and helmet, adding to the mystique of the Red Comet. Later aces, such as Victory Gundam's Chronicle Asher, and even Gundam Wing's Zechs Merquise followed suit. If only that were the only trait they shared.

...let God sort 'em out
Yoshiyuki Tomino earned two fan nicknames during his career, "The Bald Wizard" and "Kill 'Em All Tomino." Fandom bestowed the latter name upon him after the endings to Zeta Gundam and another anime he had done previously, Space Runaway Ideon. For a long time, most of his series had high casualty rates, owing in large part to his battle with depression. He ultimately won, however, and his later works bear the mark: Turn A Gundam is said to be nowhere near as cynical as his Universal Century work, and his Zeta Gundam movies retconned one of the more tragic plot points of the television series.



These themes and more have helped the Gundam franchise thrive for thirty years, and it has carved a place in my heart and the hearts of other anime fans. It's not hard to see why the lure of thanking the man responsible is so great. Gundam has occupied the vault for a decade now, and I expect it to continue for many more.