Reviews

Mobile Suit Gundam review by Char

In UC 0079, the Earth Federation is at war with the Principality of Zeon, located at the space colonies of Side 3. The Zeon have made devastating blows by dropping a colony on Australia and using nuclear weapons against colonies. Eight months of stalemate follow. The colonies were sent up in 0050’s-0060’s I believe. Man wanted to expand their horizons. Like we do now. Three Zakus piloted by Denim, Gene, and Slender enter one of the space colonies at Side 7 to spy on Project V. Zaku’s are the first Mobile Suits ever made. They have a basic machine gun, and a side weapon called the heathawk or an axe. They were created by the Zeon. In my words,Rebels,trying to gain Freedom from the federation. The federation is Earth’s own army.

Project V was the creation of the first “super” mobile suits called “Gundams”. Side 7 at that time was a neutral colony and I’m guessing the Federation wanted to do it there so it would be a cover-up project and the Zeon wouldn’t figure it out. The Space colonies of Side 3 were the farthest from Earth. Gundams were the first to have beam weaponry. Only space ships at that time had beam weaponry because they couldn’t figure out how to create them. When the Zeon saw that Gundam had beam weaponry, they were very shocked.

Gundam at that time had a beam rifle, beam sabre, Bazooka, and a beam Javlin (a large stick that has a beam like ball with 3 points on it at the end). The main pushers of the Zeon are the Zabi family. They were the ones who begin leading a march towards freedom. They are mainly rich and very highly known throughout the colonies.

The ace of the Zeon is a 20 year old man named Commander Char Aznable. He is rumored to be a newtype. A newtype is a person thought to have an extra sense than Regular humans. Char was given a special Zaku, a red one. It is suppose to be three times as fast as a regular green Zaku.

Char has the same weapons as the regular Zaku but is faster. Now we move along to the Federation’s Gundam. Gundam’s pilot is a computer Geek named Amuro Ray. His father was on the Project V, that created Gundam. Amuro Found the Gundam laying there during when the 3 Zaku attack was going through. Gundam has a cockpit to enhance the pilot’s mind. Also Gundam learns from each and every battle.

Amuro had trouble at first trying to learning how to pilot it so he had to use the instruction manual. Amuro is a quick learner and understands stuff real easy but his mental mind is somewhat very unstable. He is not fit to pilot a Gundam in my opinion.

The other 2 mobile suits made from Project V were Guntank, a rather big Mobile suit with tank tracks and missile pods as hands and long beam cannons for pounding on the enemy from long range, and Guncannon, a mobile armed with 1 beam cannon on each side of the shoulders and 1 beam rifle.

Also created from Project V was a new space ship called White Base. White base was a new creation in it’s generation. It was faster than regular space ships, had better armor and move movebility than the older ones. More defense weapons and Mobile Suit bays so they can have more ammo.

Amuro and his comrades are constantly being chased by Zeon forces, led by their ace, Char Aznable.

In 1979, a revolutionary new anime series named Mobile Suit Gundam from creator Yoshiyuki Tomino began airing on Japanese television. It was revolutionary for many reasons. It was completely unlike the super robot shows that were so popular in the 70's. Instead of being a special super robot, the title mecha of the series was a piece of military hardware. Also, instead of being a robot of the week show, Gundam was an advanced war drama. There were many other minor advances, such as no longer announcing ridiculous special moves. The superhero aspect seen in series such as Mazinger Z was totally gone.

Despite all of innovations made by the series, it was canceled due to poor ratings. Though it was supposed to run to 52 episodes, that number was reduced to 39. The producers managed to get a one month extension to wrap up the series, bringing that number up to 43. Following cancellation, the series enjoyed incredible ratings in reruns, and it was decided to jump start the franchise with several films edited down from the TV series.

Until 1998, the series was never available commercially in the U.S. In that year, Bandai released the movie trilogy subtitled and dubbed. The series is currently being released on DVD and is no longer airing on Cartoon Network. It never completed a full run when it was canceled due to the events of September 11, 2001. After being off the air for many months, the show is now airing again on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim anime block.

Rating: 4/5 Stars Comments: Lacks Graphics, needs better songs, but it's old skool What can ya say?

Episodes: 43 episodes, 24 minutes each