Kidou Senshi Gundam

One of the things that I've made a point of doing in recent years is continuing my classic anime education. Mobile Suit Gundam is a classic anime series that I'd been aware of since 1989 when I lived in Japan, but my distaste for mecha titles (shocking, considering how many I've watched and liked) kept me from taking the time to watch it. However, when manga titles I enjoyed (and their anime counterparts) like Genshiken, Hayate the Combat Butler, or Keroro Gunsou make constant Gundam references and jokes, I finally decided that I couldn't go on without watching this classic anime title that fathered the modern day "real robot" mecha genre.

At its core, Gundam is a tale of war, the horrors of war, and what a group of civilians learn to do in order to stay alive when they are thrown into war through no fault of their own. This core makes for some good storytelling and there is plenty of that as the series progresses. However, in order to achieve this, there are some incredible leaps Tomino-sensei expects the audience to take. This is in how a group of untrained civilians take over key roles on a top secret battleship known as White Base. Since most of the trained crew has been killed, I can understand the need for civilians to fill the roles, but realistically, even though they had injured trainers with them and lead by a dying captain, the idea that White Base could so easily survive military clashes with the Zeon enemy is a little hard to believe.

This "ease of victory" issue is further accentuated by Amuro, the teenaged civilian who's father was head of the top secret Gundam mobile suit project. I was able to accept that Amuro is a genius and a quick learner. I was able to accept that Gundam's computer systems learn from battle experience and become better to compensate for a less than adequate pilot. I was able to accept that Gundam was such an advanced prototype weapon's system, that it easily outclassed every mobile suit weapon that Zeon had in the fight. What I had great difficulties with is that even though the Federation were attempting to evacuate the new mobile suit units, Amuro and others had easy access to the Federation mobile suits. Further to that, there's an oh so handy Gundam Operator Manual sitting around for Amuro to read so he can start kicking butt immediately. _ Yeah, whatever.

As the crew gets more experienced and then are left hanging as a decoy to keep the Zeon's preoccupied, I begin to accept the different characters sliding into their new roles. Tomino-sensei attempts to show how the riggers of war are very stressful and the like and keeps a sense of reality mixed with the highly fantastic idea of a mobile suit like Gundam. Amuro gets the most character development, which is understandable considering he's the lead. Other characters like Kai and Sayla get decent character development, but some characters don't get much, unfortunately. I will admit that I liked seeing Amuro grow from an immature, irritating teen to someone with a great sense of responsibility and duty.

The series doesn't handle romances particularly well. It is clear from the start that Frau Bow and Amuro are childhood friends and that Frau Bow has romantic feelings for Amuro. While this is a case of unrequited love, it is sadly the best developed romance of the series. Amuro has a few unrequited love moments for a couple (or three) different girls. Kai gets a brief romance that helps him grow. There's a strongly hinted romantic feeling between Mirai and Bright, but then Mirai suddenly is madly in love with a character she's never even given a hint of having feelings for and that just did not work for me at all. I know this is a shounen series, but I still would have liked for things to have been handled better.

On the Zeon side, the series runs through a whole host of commanders for White Base and company to encounter and defeat. Of these, only the character Char is established as the main villain, often going into the realm of the cliched opponent that is super strong, has a fearsome reputation, but is always thwarted by the inferior hero, forced to retreat, but is always back to fight another day. Toward the end of the series, Char pretty much shifts out of the real of cliched and becomes somewhat more interesting, especially when Amuro can legitimately meet him head on in battle.

Animation wise, Gundam holds up pretty well despite the years. There are obviously moments of cheapness in the animation and there are some laughable mistakes in the art when one looks for it, but otherwise, it really holds up well. The music is pretty much what one would expect for the time and I've no complaints there.

Bottom line: Mobile Suit Gundam is a fairly well-written shounen action, mecha series which not only started a franchise, but launched an entire genre. The characters and situations are pretty good as a fair amount of the realities of war are injected into a fantastic sci-fi series about a giant mecha. While some elements at the start are pretty tough to swallow, once the series gets past these early hurdles, I found the episodes to be very interesting, both in terms of action and in story and character development. Well worth watching.

Last updated Saturday, July 23 2011. Created Sunday, September 19 2010.