Full disclosure here: I had never seen any of the Mobile Suit Gundam anime series until now. The franchise has a long history, and I simply never knew where to start. What I’ve learned is that the 2010 OVA series Mobile Suit Gundam: Unicorn (or UC, if you prefer) is a great place to start before slogging through hundreds of episodes in the series of the past. This is no watered-down update for a casual viewer. This show’s depth of storytelling—adapted from an 11-volume serial novel across 6-hour long episodes and a 7th 90-minute finale—is a magnificent adventure into our possible future: space colonization, diplomacy, warfare, and, of course, extraordinary technology. (Because at its heart, Gundam = OMG ROBOTS.) Whether you have been a fan all 40 years of the franchise’s existence or are a newbie like me, Mobile Suit Gundam: UC is an excellent lead-in to modern iterations of the series.
War Is for Losers is a meditation on Mobile Suit Gundam.
UC is currently available on Netflix with the original Japanese audio or English-dubbed voice acting. (Hulu has it too, plus several other Gundam series.) If you’re interested in celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Gundam franchise, even a little bit, here are all the (spoiler-free) reasons you should start with a binge-watch of UC:
Insane character depth from the first episode
You would think that UC has a leg up on the other Gundam series since it started as a novel series, and its writing contributed to more showing than telling in this anime adaptation. Its protagonist Banagher Links, a high school student from the Industrial 7 colony, becomes the pilot of the RX-0 Unicorn Gundam. He and so many others are original to this story. Banagher rescues a girl, Audrey Burne, and they are tasked with finding Laplace’s Box, a key artifact whose custodian wields great power. This being said, UC is not for the faint of heart and the number of onscreen character deaths is comparable to a Tarantino film. And in warfare, there is no time to mourn those losses.
Veteran designers between the novel and anime
Character designs came from Yoshikazu Yasuhiko and Kumiko Takahashi. Mechanical designers on the project were Hajime Katoki, Junya Ishigaki, Nobuhiko Genba, Yoshinori Sayama. All of these artists not only served on previous chapters of the Gundam franchise for over 30 years, but they have served on design teams of other Sunrise Inc. studio anime projects, namely others with mecha, Gundam-like templates.
A Royal Rumble of factions
Between the Earth Federation, Neo Zeon (aka “The Sleeves”), Vist Foundation, Anaheim Electronics, and the Zeon Remnants, the organizations armed with weapons of mass destruction are a lot to keep track of, I know. But I promise you’ll know who’s who by the end of the first episode of UC. Each of them have their own signature arsenal of mobile suits and contribute different technologies and warfare styles. It’s pretty thrilling to watch the interplay of conflict, motivations, and subterfuge between them.
Wait, so what’s ‘Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn RE:0096’?
Same series, just formatted for television. Cartoon Network’s Toonami block got the broadcast version of MS Gundam UC a few summers ago. There’s a few minor differences but nothing too easter egg-worthy.
It charts a course for the future of the franchise
Amongst the different warring factions and their Gundam technologies, everything points back to Laplace’s Box. From the incident at the beginning of the series, the Box’s contents serves as the MacGuffin for UC. The Vist Foundation, Earth Federation, Neo Zeon, and even Anaheim Electronics all race after it. What’s inside redefines everything about these organizations, and it all comes to a pretty damn satisfying ending. Fighting mechas are cool, but the Laplace’s Box reveal changes what to expect from future Gundam incarnations in the Universal Century timeline, and it’s completely and utterly satisfying.
But you can probably tell I’m trying not to even give you an inkling of a spoiler. You have to watch UC for yourself.
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