Gundam Wing hit the United States on Cartoon Network’s Toonami in 2000 like an anime stealth bomb. All of a sudden, the network that aired light, breezy comedy like Johnny Bravo, reruns of Looney Tunes, and decidedly unserious Japanese imports like Dragon Ball Z, shared airtime with a show about 15-year-old terrorists fighting a war for freedom, armed with weapons of mass destruction decades ahead of the competition. In the years that followed, Cartoon Network aired several of Gundam’s original series, more spinoffs and ancillary series.
The first and best of its maxi universe shows will always be Mobile Suit Gundam, which took place in an alternate timeline called the Universal Century and first told the story at the core of almost every Gundam show: Space colonies are rebelling against the rule of an Earth-based government, and children are caught in the crossfire to the point where they have to fight too. Somehow creator Yoshiyuki Tomino — fighting bouts of depression and mental illness for decades — managed to hammer that core concept into a franchise that stretches across 10 universes, hundreds of episodes of television, movies, and side stories, scores of characters with individual definitions of morality, and a lot of beautifully wrought mechanical designs and space battles. Taken as an expansive whole, the Gundam franchise is Japan’s single largest anime behemoth, the giant-robot equivalent of the DC Universe or the proposed Pixar shared continuity.
With that comes lots of trash. The vast majority of the Universal Century shows are expertly crafted and well respected, but the notoriously stereotyping G Gundam, the “Super-Deformed” childlike takes that several of the series have taken, the “it takes place in the ‘real world’ but come on that’s a Gundam” series Gundam 00, and even Gundam Wing, are rightfully criticized for thin characterization, wild and poorly executed departures from the core concept, and, most often, a lack of seriousness that betrays the themes the original series and its universe banked on for decades.
Luckily, the last few years have given us a few shows that propel the tradition forward in inventive and exciting ways, while still paying homage to the storytelling that worked in the past. If you want to watch stunning Gundam anime, these are the newer set to check out.
Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn (2010–14)
Set 16 years after the end of Mobile Suit Gundam’s climactic One Year War, Unicorn shifts the focus from the central conflict of that canonical show — the Earth Federation vs. the space colonies’ Principality of Zeon — and introducing a new faction known as Neo Zeon led by a lookalike of the Char Aznable, the main antagonist of Mobile Suit Gundam. The result is a set of seven episodes, each between 50 and 90 minutes long, that tell the story of a cosmic race for a MacGuffin while returning to the maxi-universe’s core timeline with its best story and characters since 1996’s 08th MS Team. Also, this Gundam glitters and it somehow still looks awesome. You can watch it on Crunchyroll.
Watch if: You want to see a beautifully animated update that expands the Universal Century
Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt (2015-)
A jazzy, brisk series of four 18-minute episodes and a compilation film, Thunderbolt casts an experimental unit of amputees in its traditionally villainous Zeon faction, and a self-centered adrenaline junkie as the pilot of its titular Gundam. The result is a subversive, tightly wound gut punch of kinetic energy that never lets up and keeps you guessing just who you’re supposed to be rooting for. Thunderbolt isn’t legally available to stream in the U.S. yet, but it’ll get here.
Watch if: You’ve always wanted a side of Cowboy Bebop with your Gundams.
Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin
By all accounts, The Origin is better than it has any right to be. A prequel to the original Mobile Suit Gundam starring that show’s complicated chief antagonist, Char Aznable (who would go on to become a hero in later series), The Origin’s final episode was just released this past November and is available to stream on Amazon, along with the rest of the show. If you’re just starting out though, you can find the show’s first three episodes in full on YouTube.
Watch if: You’d like a personal introduction to Gundam’s most famous flaxen-faced bad guy.
Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans (2015-)
The flagship ongoing Gundam series of the moment, Iron-Blooded Orphans thoroughly earns its status with a plot that tackles slavery, poverty, and child soldiers in perhaps the most direct way any Gundam show ever has — by giving its pilots mechanical implants that let them pilot their suits. (Thunderbolt does this too, with its amputees, but in Orphans, they’re mostly kids, not enlisted soldiers.) It began airing on Toonami earlier this year, but is also available to stream on Crunchyroll.
Watch if: You thought Gundam Wing was cool, but couldn’t stand how the Heero Yuy was a punk-ass bitch.
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