Mobile Suit Gundam

Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam • Mobile Suit Gundam: Char’s Counterattack • Mobile Suit Gundam F91 • Mobile Suit Gundam Wing • Mobile Suit Gundam Seed

mobile suit gundam 1979–80. TV Series. (43 X 30 min.) Science fiction/space adventure. 1981–82. Movies. (3 X varying lengths:148 min., 133 min., 143 min.) dir Yoshiyuki Tomino. mus Taeko Watanabe. des Yoshikazu Yasuhiko, Kunio Okawara.

mobile suit zeta gundam 1985–86. TV series. (50 X 30 min.) dir Yoshiyuki Tomino. des Yoshikazu Yasuhiko, Kazumi Fujita, Kunio Okawara, others.

mobile suit gundam: char’s counterattack 1988. Movie. 124 min. dir Yoshiyuki Tomino. des Hiroyuki Kitazume, Yutaka Izubuchi, Hideaki Anno, Koichi Ohata, others.

mobile suit gundam f91 1991. Movie. 115 min. dir Yoshiyuki Tomino. des Yoshikazu Yasuhiko, Kunio Okawara.

mobile suit gundam wing 1995–96. TV series. (49 X 30 min.) dir Masashi Ikeda. scr Katsuyuki Sumisawa. des Shuko Murase, Kunio Okawara, Hajime Katoki, Junya Ishigaki.

mobile suit gundam seed 2002–3. TV series. (50 X 30 min.) dir Mitsuo Fukuda. des Hisashi Hirai, Kimitoshi Yamane, Kunio Okawara. -bc

Mobile Suit Gundam revolutionized the giant robot genre, adding layers of human drama with a bit of romantic turbulence, a realistic civil-war-in-space backdrop, and plausible mecha creations that required adjustments and repairs. This basic setup fueled all sorts of Gundam variations for the next twenty-seven years (and counting).

In the year Universal Century 0079, a civil war breaks out in space when the Principality of Zeon rebels against the Earth Federation and attacks orbiting colonies containing communities of migrants from Earth. Battles are carried out largely by combatants piloting single-man “mobile suits,” giant flexible humanoid-shaped combat vehicles capable of using all sorts of weapons (including light-beam swords) and conducting fast and sophisticated maneuvers. After a skirmish on Earth colony Side 7, the advanced new Federation warship, the White Base, finds itself piloted entirely by a young, inexperienced crew and thrust into combat almost immediately. One of the teenage pilots is Amuro Ray, who had taken control of the untested Gundam, an advanced new mobile suit, and used it to fend off the Zeon attackers. Amuro is assigned to continue piloting the Gundam and keeps improving his skills in combat.

The constant press of warfare and attacks by Gundam-obsessed Zeon officers, including Char Aznable, the so-called “Red Comet,” take their toll on Amuro, prompting his longtime friend and fellow Side 7 resident-turned–White Base crew member, Fraw Bow, to show great concern for his psychological state. Another White Base officer, Sayla Mass, learns that Char Aznable is none other than her long-lost brother, Casval; they are both members of Zeon’s original royal family, which had been overthrown in a coup.

After numerous adventures on Earth, including an interlude where Amuro goes AWOL, the White Base is sent back into space as part of the Federation’s final offensive against Zeon. In the course of it, Amuro learns of his “Newtype” propensities, abilities to act intuitively and make psychic contact with others. He even connects with Lalah Sune, Char’s Newtype protégé. The final battle proves not only a test, but a demonstration of the young crew’s “Newtype” abilities.

Zeta Gundam is a sequel series which takes place years later and offered a mix of the original characters and younger new ones. Kamille Bidan is the young pilot coming of age here and he joins the rebel group, AEUG (Anti-Earth United Government), which protests the takeover of the Earth Federation by the Titans, a militaristic cult with authoritarian designs and a distinct prejudice against “spacenoids,” people who were born and raised in outer space. Many of the old White Base crew are now working alongside the resistance, including Amuro and Captain Bright Noa, who, as a lieutenant in the first series, had been forced under fire to take command of the White Base. Ironically, Char is back also, but this time as an ally of Amuro and a role model for the younger pilots.

Char’s Counterattack was the final Gundam movie featuring the regular characters and pitted Char against Amuro once again. This time, Char is back with Zeon and his plan is to crash an asteroid into the Earth to wipe out human life there so the planet can return to its natural state. He has a young female sidekick in Quess, another Newtype. Amuro and a mix of new and old comrades race against time to stop Char.

The movie, Gundam F91, offers a whole new set of characters and starts off on Earth, where yet another rebel group, Crossbone Vanguard, formed by an old aristocratic family, challenges the Federation. Young Seabook Arno is recruited by the Federation to pilot the F91, a new state-of-the-art Gundam designed by his mother, who had abandoned him and his family to do secret work for the Federation. His close friend Cecily Fairchild is revealed to be the daughter of Iron Mask, the leader of Crossbone Vanguard, and she is taken by them and persuaded to be installed as their puppet ruler. When she learns of her father’s secret—deadly plans for war on Earth, the moon, and the Federation’s loyal colonies—she decides to rejoin Seabook.

Gundam Wing offers another new set of characters and takes place mostly on Earth as five young male Gundam pilots are sent on a mission, Operation Meteor, by a resistance group in the space colonies seeking to disrupt the activities of Oz, a military organization that works in conjunction with the all-powerful Romefeller Foundation to secretly direct the activities of the United Earth Sphere Alliance. Each of the young pilots comes with a powerful new Gundam and time is spent getting them to connect with each other and learn to work together. Relena Peacecraft, an heiress of the Romefeller family, gets to know Heero, one of the pilots, and lets him know she’s sympathetic to his goals. Eventually, some of the Gundam pilots’ chief opponents become disillusioned with Oz and switch sides.

Gundam Seed starts with yet another colony (Heliopolis) under attack by a rebel group (ZAFT), part of a conflict involving “coordinators” (genetically enhanced humans) and “naturals” (Earth-dwelling humans). Teenaged Kira Yamato happens to be a coordinator, but instead of aligning with the other coordinators in ZAFT, including his childhood friend, Athrun Zala, he opts to stay with the Earth Alliance Forces. Yet another ship carrying refugees (the Archangel) with an inexperienced crew has to make its way back to Earth. On board, Kira grows close to a girl, Flay Allster, but on Earth he meets another girl, Cagalli Yula Athha, who eventually joins him on the Archangel and with whom he shares a deep bond, which they are both initially unaware of.

Not including the original TV series, manga, video games, or other media spin-offs, the full list of Gundam productions is:

Mobile Suit Gundam (1981, movie)
Mobile Suit Gundam II: Soldiers of Sorrow (1981, movie)
Mobile Suit Gundam III: Encounters in Space (1982, movie)
Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam (1985, TV)
Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ (1986, TV)
Mobile Suit Gundam: Char’s Counterattack (1988, movie)
Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket (1989, OAV)
Mobile Suit Gundam F91 (1991, movie)
Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory (1991, OAV)
Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Last Blitz of Zeon (1992, movie)
Mobile Suit Victory Gundam (1993, TV)
Mobile Fighter G Gundam (1994, TV)
New Mobile Report Gundam Wing (1995, TV)
Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team (1996, OAV)
After War Gundam X (1996, TV)
New Mobile Report Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz (1997, OAV)
New Mobile Report Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz Special Edition (1998, movie)
Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team: Miller’s Report (1998, movie)
Turn A Gundam (1999, TV)
G-Saviour (2000, TV, live-action)
Turn A Gundam I: Earth Light (2001, movie)
Turn A Gundam II: Moonbeam Butterfly (2002, movie)
Mobile Suit Gundam Seed (2002, TV)
Mobile Suit Gundam: MS Igloo (2004, OAV)
Mobile Suit Gundam Seed Destiny (2004, TV)
Gundam Seed Movie I: The Empty Battlefield (2004, TV compilation)

Gundam Seed Movie II: The Far-Away Dawn (2004, TV compilation)

Gundam Seed Movie III: The Rumbling Universe (2004, TV compilation)

Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam I: Inheritor of the Stars (2005, movie)
Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam II: Lovers (2005, movie)
Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam III: Love Is the Pulse of the Stars (2006, movie)
Mobile Suit Gundam Seed C.E. 73 Stargazer (2006, OAV)

Viewers who have only seen the original series’ early episodes might be forgiven for dismissing the static animation and simple 1970s-era character design. The design improves in the series as the youthful characters get hardened by their battle experience and lines form in their faces. Even their movements change as the weight of the universe bears down on them. Granted, it’s still TV animation and the character movements might be more static than you’d find in a theatrical feature of the time, but they are still remarkable creations when compared to their counterparts in earlier sci-fi anime, including Yamato. With the exception of the cartoonish child characters who tag along for the entire ride (and are nonetheless quite endearing), these are all fairly realistic characters struggling to learn how to work together and undergoing significant personal tensions along the way.

The same characters turn up in Zeta Gundam, which takes place years later, and in the movie, Char’s Counterattack, made nine years after the original series. Thus, we get to see them age and develop different relationships. The children in the first series are adolescents in the next one and have been adopted by Fraw Bow after she marries a crewman who’s not Amuro. A pair of crew members who can just barely express their feelings for each other in the first series are married in the next and have teenage children in the movie. This gives an epic feel to the proceedings and a sense that we’re watching an ongoing saga.

The animation in the battle scenes of the original series is generally quite fluid and allows for a surprising variety of combat maneuvers, both on land and in space. Special attention is paid to Amuro’s white Gundam, with its streaks of red and blue, and the movements of each of its sections. It’s a big, expensive machine and we see its joints work and see exhaust from its vents when it lifts into the air. There’s a sense of weight and gravity to these machines that’s clearly more palpable than in most of the earlier giant robot shows.

The later movies, Char’s Counterattack and Gundam F91, have stronger design in all areas and more fluid animation, reflecting the bigger production budgets. F91’s Cecily Fairchild is an especially interesting character from a design standpoint because of the detail in her features, the wide range of clothing styles she adopts, and the extreme changes she undergoes in her lifestyle in the course of the film.

Gundam Wing adopts some very deliberate changes in the look and feel of the series. The young male pilots all have distinctive fashions and hairstyles and are clearly meant to convey a bishonen (“pretty boy”) look, a quality that may account for the series’ popularity with a female audience. The costumes, architecture, and decor on Earth all hark back to 19th-century Europe and the military culture that ruled countries such as Prussia. The more 1990s-fashionable young heroes represent quite an attractive contrast, and one can see why the prim and proper (but keenly observant) Relena is drawn to them. Gundam Wing was the last important Gundam series done in cel animation, via pen and ink.

Gundam Seed was the first significant Gundam series done in digital animation and it boasts the new method’s strongest features: clean linework, perfect coloring, intricate mecha detailing, and smooth, computerized ship movements. This marks an interesting contrast with the painstaking drawings in the original Mobile Suit Gundam, where every movement of the Gundam, every shift in weight, was rendered by an animator bent over a drawing board with a pen and ink bottle, turning out cel after cel after cel. The noticeably quirky signs of the artist’s hand have been replaced by the streamlined inaudible whirr of a computer. Seed borrows some character styling from Wing, particularly in the bishonen look of its male leads, Kira and Athrun. Everyone’s a little more kawaii (cute) in this one (and its follow-up, Gundam Seed Destiny), with the girls sporting huge gleaming eyes and lots of makeup and lipstick, a far cry from the days when Mirai Yashima and Fraw Bow were too busy with their shipboard duties to pretty themselves up (not that it stopped them from getting husbands by Zeta Gundam).

The two key creative forces behind Gundam, director Yoshiyuki Tomino and animation director/character designer Yoshikazu Yasuhiko, both worked as storyboard artists on Space Battleship Yamato, which was less of a model for this series than a departure point, a spur for Tomino to do something new and different with the space combat genre. Yamato was more nationalistic and militaristic, with a crew that was willing to die for its mission and its planet (read: Japan), and a rigorous chain of command that had to be followed. In Gundam, the crew is inexperienced and disorganized, not always sure what they’re fighting for, and given to frequent spats and squabbles with each other. But this changes over time as they figure out what works, and learn to hold their places and punish those who step too far out of line. They still aren’t sure why they’re fighting, other than the fact of a brutal enemy attack that killed friends and family members on Side 7. There are poignant moments when the combatants on either side, both Newtypes, connect psychically and wonder why, when they’re so similar, they must engage in deadly combat.

As in so many later anime series (think Evangelion), Gundam reflects dissatisfactions of the young in Japan, presenting adult authority figures as, at best, disinterested and untrustworthy, in the case of the Federation, and, at worst, venal and corrupt, in the case of Zeon’s rulers. It’s safe to say that there are no gatherings at shrines for revered fallen commanders (as there were for Captain Okita in Yamato). Parent-child issues are a steady undercurrent, particularly in the case of Amuro’s strained relations with his parents. His father is first seen as distant and unhelpful and later, in a chance meeting with Amuro on Side 6, as mentally unhinged. Amuro has a bittersweet reunion on Earth with his tearful mother, whom he hasn’t seen since he was taken into space as a boy by his father. She angers him by refusing to accept how much he’s changed since she last saw him. Through it all, Amuro is shown suffering from the effects of being thrust so quickly, at the age of fifteen and minus any proper military training, into a grueling pace of deadly combat. The fact that he’s good at it is no consolation to him. He wants to know why he has to do this. These themes are all carried over into the later series and movies, as youthful rebellion, distrust of corrupt institutions and authority, and parent-child tensions continue to play out. As in the original, there is often a deep resentment of abandonment by one’s parent(s), something clearly felt, for instance, by both Seabook and Cecily in F91.

The original series was not a big hit when it was first shown in Japan, and it came to a premature halt, with forty-three episodes instead of a planned fifty-two, necessitating a rushed feel in the final two episodes. But, as with Yamato, the series gained new traction from the successful release of theatrical films derived from it, which prompted reruns and a steady stream of spin-offs ever since. Three movies were compiled from the original series, with the third containing a majority of new footage, with shots added to beef up existing scenes that had been cut short in the final TV episodes, and some TV scenes completely redesigned and reanimated with new dialogue. The movies also placed greater emphasis on the Newtype phenomenon, which is mentioned rather late in the TV series and not given much attention until the final episodes.

Just as Yamato is best experienced by new viewers in its English-dubbed form, Star Blazers, because it contains the entire saga and not just snippets found in the subtitled movies, the original Gundam series is best seen by American fans in its original form (forty-two episodes in the U.S.), even though it’s dubbed, because the movie compilations cut out so much of the day-to-day detail and drama found in the series. There’s a whole section dealing with rebellion aboard the White Base by refugees who want to be taken back to Side 7 or leave the ship to take their chances on Earth. There’s an episode where Lt. Bright Noa, the young officer thrust into the captain’s seat, is disabled and the command turned over to navigator Mirai Yashima, who is indecisive and must rely on Sayla Mass, who clearly ought to be running the show and goes so far as to countermand one of Mirai’s orders in the midst of combat. Movie 2 includes part of a subplot in which Amuro becomes smitten with Lieutenant Matilda, a no-nonsense female supply officer—and striking redhead—but edits out much of the build-up in which Matilda gives him little bits of much-needed affection. Dozens of little interactions like this make the characters real for us and provide the series with a level of substance that made it more than just another giant robot show.

Certain common features pop up with regularity in the different Gundam series and movies. A group in space decides it doesn’t like how the ruling government on Earth is treating its space colonists and decides to cause trouble. A young male, barely out of adolescence, is thrust into the limelight as a Gundam pilot. (“It’s like Amuro all over again,” says Captain Bright in Zeta Gundam.) The young pilot develops an infatuation with an older woman. (“Can’t you see how sexy adult women are?” a character asks in Gundam 0083.) A young girl close to the hero turns out to be the heiress of the ruling family of the opposing side. A handsome, charismatic warrior with long blond hair and a face mask leads the opposition and develops a Newtype protégé in an attractive young girl who sometimes falls for the Gundam pilot instead. (In Char’s Counterattack, Char is accused by a fellow officer of starting the whole war because protégé Lalah Sune preferred Amuro.) A woman on the opposing side defects to the hero’s side and vice versa. These plot devices were common in the Gundam works directed by Tomino, who deftly juggled the familiar elements and kept them interesting with each new incarnation.

Of the Tomino-directed Gundam stories, Zeta Gundam suffers a bit from character designs by Yasu­hiko that look crude and rushed, in contrast to his fine work on the earlier series. In addition to bringing back many of the original characters, there is a host of new ones, often serving the same functions that the originals once served, so an entire familiar cast (Amuro, Char, Bright, Fraw Bow, Hayato, Kai, and others) battles for screen time with newer versions of themselves. The plot is more concerned with the politics of the conflict than with personal dramas, and it gets complicated trying to keep track of who’s on whose side, who’s defected from where, and which group is pro- or anti-government. Even so, it’s still a compelling series, not least because we get to see the old characters in new stages of their lives, including the startling spectacle of onetime enemies Amuro and Char as comrades-in-arms. And the new characters are interesting enough that they could have sustained an entire series on their own. Zeta Gundam was followed, twenty years after the fact, by a trilogy of compilation movies, released in theaters in Japan in 2005–6, all mixing original footage with new scenes and digitally remastered scenes. The difference between the old and new animation was quite jarring. Nevertheless, the movies performed surprisingly well at the Japanese box office.

Gundam Wing was not directed by Tomino, but stands out from the pack by virtue of its fresh story line and characters, and enough original variations on a theme to keep viewers hooked for forty-nine episodes. For one thing, the heroes of Wing did not come off as young, unformed, and eager for coming-of-age experiences. Despite their extreme youth, they are very determined soldiers in a battle they have clearly been trained and primed for. Little time is spent on angst here. The politics are a little clearer and a little more cutthroat, so the series cuts right to the chase and stays there.

Gundam Seed falls back on the original series’ basic plot outline, but adds some interesting twists of its own. These kids are not the hardened killers of Gundam Wing, but they’re not beset by constant anguish and indecision the way Amuro and his peers were. They’re on the petulant side, but they’re also a lot more emotionally expressive and surprisingly sophisticated in the way they deal with each other. For one thing, the hero, Kira, and one of the girls on board, Flay, spend the night together in one scene. (Amuro managed to kiss a girl in Zeta Gundam but it took seven years and dozens of episodes to get there.) In fact, there’s a lot more kissing in Gundam Seed and its follow-up, Gundam Seed Destiny, than in all other Gundam series, although Zeta Gundam runs a close third. Gundam Seed spawned three compilation TV movies which essentially cut together all the dramatic highlights, while leaving out many pertinent details, but adding some new footage, including a graphic love scene between Kira and Flay that was only implied in the series.

A sequel series, Gundam Seed Destiny, offered more of the same—political infighting on Earth, shipboard drama, and lots of combat—but with a faster pace and an entire cast of impossibly good-looking young people, male and female, with eye-catching hairstyles, pretty faces, sharp uniforms, and stylish outfits. The Gundam Seed series are much slicker than the earlier Gundam series, but are far less demanding. Still, they’re well-suited for a 21st-century audience less interested in soul-searching than in fashion choices.

Additional Gundam entries worth a mention include three OAV series: Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket (1989), about a boy on a colony hungry for fatherly attention who develops a relationship with an enemy Zeon pilot and helps him on a secret mission; Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory (1990), about continued war between Zeon and the Federation, but with a more hardcore military orientation; and The 08th MS Team (1996), a side story about Federation soldiers engaged in ground combat with Zeon forces in Southeast Asia during the One Year War.

Yoshiyuki Tomino had gotten his start working on Astro Boy (1963) and was a well-regarded director of “super robot” shows such as Brave Raideen in the 1970s before creating his own string of unique mecha shows in the 1980s: Mobile Suit Gundam, Space Runaway Ideon, Blue Gale Xabungle, and Heavy Metal L.Gaim. In addition to the first Gundam series, Tomino directed the TV sequels Zeta Gundam, Gundam ZZ, Victory Gundam, and Turn A Gundam; the movies Char’s Counterattack and Gundam F91; and supervised a total of eight compilation movies based on Mobile Suit Gundam, Zeta Gundam, and Turn A Gundam.

Character designer and animation director Yoshikazu Yasuhiko also created the character designs for Zeta Gundam and Gundam F91.

One of the rare and distinct pleasures of the first decade of the Gundam saga is seeing characters age, mature, and develop relationships over the course of time. In Mobile Suit Gundam, Lieutenant Bright Noa and Mirai Yashima start out as inexperienced crewmembers suddenly placed in command positions on board the White Base. In the next series, Zeta Gundam, the two are married with children. Two other characters from the first series, Fraw Bow (who was clearly in love with Amuro) and Hayato Kobayashi, are married as well and have adopted the three orphaned refugee children from the White Base, who are now adolescents. By the movie sequel, Char’s Counterattack, Hathaway Noa, the son of Bright and Mirai, is now angling to pilot a mobile suit himself.

In Char’s Counterattack, young Quess leaps out of a mobile suit cockpit in space, without any protective suit or helmet, and somersaults into Char’s cockpit, which he quickly slams shut after her. It’s an odd, memorable moment, and it begs the question of why such a foolhardy action didn’t kill her. A quick trip to a NASA Web site finds a column called “Ask an Astrophysicist,” which asserts that “exposure to space for half a minute or so is unlikely to produce permanent injury.”

Gundam F91 has a sweet reunion ending that is as romantic as possible with space suits on. It’s accompanied by a beautiful closing song, “Smile in the Shining Wind,” sung by Hiroko Moriguchi, with a refrain in English, “Pray don’t break our peace forever.” Wonderful songs in a wide range of musical styles (although mostly J-pop) are sprinkled throughout the Gundam franchise, most of which weren’t heard when any of the Gundam series played on American television. (Gundam Seed was a notable exception.) Gundam Wing had an especially rousing opening rock theme, “Just Wild Beat (Communication).” Of the four opening songs for the fifty-episode run of Gundam Seed, J-rock star T.M. Revolution provided the first, “Invoke” (which was a hit for him), while J-pop star Nami Tamaki provided the third and fourth, “Believe” and “Realize.” T.M. Revolution later did the opening song for Gundam Seed Destiny, “Ignited,” which became a #1 hit, while Tamaki did the closing song, “Reason,” which was included on her first CD.

The Gundam universe is full of characters with unwieldy names, with Seed by far the worst offender, lobbing out such names as Flay Alster, Lacus Clyne, Natarle Badgiruel, Rau Le Creuset, Athrun Zala, Mu La Flaga, and Cagalli Yula Athha, to name just a few of the main characters. In contrast, such names from the earlier Gundam seasons as Fraw Bow, Ramba Ral, Sleggar Law, Quess Paraya, Seabook Arno, Cecily Fairchild, Kamille Bidan, Quattro Bajeena, Rosamia Badam, and Relena Peacecraft seem relatively quaint. One can’t help but wonder if someone was deliberately trying to give the voice actors on these series a particularly grueling workout.

The first official Gundam releases in the U.S., courtesy of Bandai, were the three Mobile Suit Gundam movies, released on VHS in 1999. Gundam Wing premiered on the Cartoon Network on March 6, 2000, making it the very first Gundam series shown on television in the U.S. The original Mobile Suit Gundam premiered the following year, on July 23, 2001, although its initial run was aborted two days after the events of September 11, 2001. In both cases, the series were released on home video not long after their CN run began. Other Gundam series to run on the Cartoon Network, and the years they ran, are Gundam Wing Endless Waltz (2000), Gundam 0080 (2001), The 08th MS Team (2001), Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory (2002), Mobile Fighter G Gundam (2002), and Gundam Seed (2004).

Episode 15 of the original Mobile Suit Gundam television series, “The Island of Cucuruz Doan,” was omitted from the English-language video releases at the request of director Tomino, so the English version only contains forty-two episodes instead of the original forty-three.

Yoshiyuki Tomino wrote a trilogy of Mobile Suit Gundam novels, Awakening, Escalation, and Confrontation, which flesh out the political backdrop and scientific details and diverge in distinct ways from the first animated series. They were published in English paperback editions in 1990 by Del Rey/Ballantine Books, with translation by Frederik L. Schodt (Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics, Dreamland Japan: Writings on Modern Manga). This was years before any Gundam animated series were available in the U.S. By the time the Gundam series started showing up on Cartoon Network and in video stores, the books were out of print. They have since been republished in a single compilation volume by Stone Bridge Press.

One of the inspirations for the original Gundam was Robert Heinlein’s 1959 science fiction novel, Starship Troopers, in which the Earth soldiers wore considerably smaller mobile suits while engaged in combat with their giant insect opponents on another world. Curiously, Paul Verhoeven’s 1997 Hollywood film adaptation of the novel offered nothing in the least resembling a mobile suit.

SD Gundam was a side series of (mostly comedic) shorts depicting the Gundam characters in “superdeformed” mode, as short, squat, exaggerated cartoon characters. The first was done in 1988 and a TV series was eventually produced, SD Gundam Force, that ran on Cartoon Network in 2003.

violence Constant combat as mobile suits, fighter craft, and various high-powered weapons blast each other and kill various combatants. Important characters are killed. Children are killed. Parents are killed. Some killings are quite brutal, as when one character in Wing pushes a subordinate out of an airplane and then fires a blast into his head as he falls to his death. (The blast to the head was edited out digitally when the episode was shown on Cartoon Network during daytime showings, but left intact at night.) In Char’s Counterattack, a girl fires the blast that destroys the ship carrying her father. nudity Female characters are routinely seen in shower scenes. The young male pilots in Gundam Seed also take showers. One lovemaking scene is included in the first Gundam Seed movie (The Empty Battlefield) and is a bit more graphic than one would expect in a typical Gundam production.