Alternative TitlesEnglish: Mobile Suit Gundam Synonyms: Kidou Senshi Gundam, First Gundam, Mobile Suit Gundam: 0079 Japanese: 機動戦士ガンダム
Information
Type: TV
Episodes: 43
Status: Finished Airing
Aired: Apr 7, 1979 to Jan 26, 1980
Duration:
25 min. per episode Rating:
PG-13 - Teens 13 or older
L represents licensing company
StatisticsScore: 7.931 (scored by 3465 users)
Ranked: #3812
Popularity: #632
Members: 6,738
Favorites: 169 1 indicates a weighted score
My Info
Popular Tags
action drama mecha sci-fi |
SynopsisIn the year Universial Century 0079, humanity lives in space colonies called Sides. Side 3, the Principality of Zeon, has declared war on the Earth Federation. After the intial fighting, an 8-month stalemate occured. However that stalemate breaks when Amuro Ray stumbles into the Gundam, the Earth Federation's secret weapon. Now Amuro and the crew of White Base must stand up to Zeon in order to end the war. (Source: ANN)
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Related AnimeAdaptation: Mobile Suit Gundam 0079, Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin, Mobile Suit Gundam, Mobile Suit Gundam
Side story: Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team, Mobile Suit Gundam MS IGLOO: The Hidden One Year War
Sequel: Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam
Spin-off: Mobile Suit Gundam Wing, After War Gundam X, Mobile Suit Gundam Seed, Turn A Gundam, Mobile Fighter G Gundam, Mobile Suit Gundam 00
Summary: Mobile Suit Gundam I, Mobile Suit Gundam II: Soldiers of Sorrow, Mobile Suit Gundam III: Encounters in Space
Other: 30th Gundam Perfect Mission
Characters & Voice Actors
Staff
Reviews
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Monkey_D_Luffy
19 of 24 people found this review helpful
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43 of 43 episodes seen
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| Overall |
9 |
| Story |
9 |
| Animation |
6 |
| Sound |
8 |
| Character |
9 |
| Enjoyment |
10 |
Mobile Suit Gundam, a title every anime fan has surely heard. Some of us love and praise the franchise spawned by this original series, and for some of us it just didn't quite do the job. Regardless, there is no denying it is a revolutionary title that has advanced anime as a whole. It's truly a classic series that has left its impact, or rather, is still making an impact on anime. As you can see by my high rating of 9, I'm one of the fans that adored this series. So now let's see why this is an outstanding series.
The central plot of Mobile Suit Gundam is fairly simple, laying out a brutal war between two sides: the Earth Federation and the Principality of Zeon. Amuro Ray, our main character, gets involved in the conflict by boarding the Federation's great weapon, Gundam (I'm not gonna explain details because then it defeats the purpose of watching for yourself.) Long story short, he becomes the Gundam's pilot and a valuable member of the Federation crew that works aboard White Base (a war spaceship.) Now what makes this great is the fact that everybody aboard White Base, from the Commander of it to Amuro, is a total novice with little to no experience. Over the course of the series we get to see their development together as well as individuals. The tale is filled with elements of stuff like death, killing, family, friendships, etc., all building up to a spectacular finale. Our story of course focuses primarily on the White Base gang and their adventure, but it does a good job at also centering in on the opposing side at the right times and giving insight to their side of the battle. Also, just to add, the pacing is exceptionally good.
The series is from 1979, so do not expect top-notch animation by today's standards. I'm sure it was five star art in its time, but I simply rated it a 6 by today's standards. Don't let that turn you off though. The sound is obviously old as well, so the sound effects have that old recording sound that really doesn't stand up to today's sound quality, so again the 8 is by today's standards. But again, give it a chance because it's actually pretty cool. As for the opening and ending themes, they're just kinda fun songs that, as you'll see, are for the purpose of Mobile Suit Gundam alone. The background music actually consists of some pretty interesting and catchy tunes that couldn't fit the show better. They're different than a lot of the stuff you hear in today's anime.
Now for Characters. As I've said, they're all amateurs. A lot of the characters aboard White Base go through tragedies that bring out great development. Some of them have hidden secrets and relations, some of them fall in battle, some of them leave White Base, and many other things. There's plenty for you to discover about our crew as you go through the series.
Enjoyment is definitely at its best. The father of mecha, Mobile Suit Gundam, sure doesn't lack in its action. We have a nice variety of different Mobile Suits on both warring sides to switch things up, and the Gundam itself is very entertaining to watch because it has a large array of weaponry. Also, a battle takes place in just about every place you could think of: space, land, sky, underwater, underground, and even inside White Base itself. The enjoyment factor does not disappoint, and always entertains your eyes with superb military brawls between mechas, and even hand-to-hand combat.
Obviously there's some contrasting opinions on this series and its status concerning its rating. However, I truly feel it is worth a shot from any anime fan, just because it is a classic title that has had such influence on anime and the mecha genre especially. read more
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ParaParaJMo
26 of 35 people found this review helpful
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43 of 43 episodes seen
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| Overall |
9 |
| Story |
10 |
| Animation |
8 |
| Sound |
9 |
| Character |
10 |
| Enjoyment |
9 |
This highly original and innovating anime offers so much in terms of being the original “realistic mech anime series.” It talks about the potential realities of war on both a battlefront and political scale. It’s a wonderful coming of age story for many of the characters that each develops for not only the good guys, but the bad guys as well. I’m not sure if relate to them is a right word, but you can sure bet sympathize and understand them is something you can certainly do. And it’s a story of trust and betrayal on both fronts as well. All I can say is, it’s the perfect story about everything you can possibly get on human nature in an anime. I feel that even if mankind can advance this far, sadly, there can never be any absolute peace, and the realities war can have on a person on all scales.
OK, granted this was animated nearly 30 years ago, so the colors, resolution, and movement are most certainly not as up to some people’s standards. But I feel for its time, I do have to give it some of the credit it does deserve. I feel in terms of design in both character and mechanical, it is excellent and innovative and can transcend into our current generation’s style of animation and makes it timeless, which has been proven in some of the animated cutscenes of the PS1 and PS2 games such as Federation vs Zeon or Journey to Jaburo and thus keeps it up to date. And the battles themselves are pretty intense and plays careful strategy into it. Afterall, in war, you always got to think two steps ahead of the game. Such as when Char and Amuro first fight, Amuro easily loses energy on the beam rifle because he relied on it too much. So such tactics in terms of both offense and defense in this anime are effectively applied.
For the voice acting, this is the anime that helped define the careers of Furuya Tohru, who plays Amuro, and would later play Tuxedo Mask in Sailor Moon, Seiya in Saint Seiya, and Yamucha in Dragon Ball. This also helped the career of the late Suzuoki Hirotaka, the voice of Captain Bright who is also famous as Kuno from Ranma, Kaifun in Macross, and Shiryu in Saint Seiya. And one more mention I want to make is Furukawa Yoshio as Kai which is quite a surprise because he plays bad ass characters like Shin from Fist of the North star and Piccolo from Dragon Ball Z. And the cast list goes on. In addition to a great Japanese cast, the English dub of the TV series (don’t remember the movie dub too much) is also incredible. As much as I can’t stand Richard Cox as Inuyasha and Ranma, I thought he was dead perfect as Kai. I thought his voice matched the character well and I think his performance equals to that of Furukawa’s. I also enjoyed Brad Swale as Amuro. He portrays a character that is young, intelligent, and growing. But the problem I had with the dub was Char. I don’t remember who played him, but I felt he was not as charismatic as Ikeda Shuuichi. But overall, you’ll get an incredible experience watching it in either language though it is a pity that the TV series DVD set is only in English and the trilogy DVD set is exclusively in Japanese. But the DVD trilogy does have a new set of voice actors such as Dozle’s and Ma Kube’s voices were changed. Ma Kube’s original voice actor passed away while Dozle’s voice actor, Gouri Daisuke was busy with other stuff, I guess.
The music is also cheesy, but also catchy. If you think of the Ashita no Joe themes as true old school Japanese music, expect the same, but still represents a transition period to where Japanese popular music is now with beats but in a retro sense. The TV series music is of course a bit more campy, but sings about how the Gundam will rise and defeat their enemy and the ending theme is about Amuro being a man. But the trilogy soundtrack is much more mature and also maintains themes in relation to the series.
I understand that Gundam isn’t really a series that’s for everybody. Afterall, I grew up on Transformers and Voltron, and the concept of robots as a potential military weapon does have a lot of appeal to me. But when I got a first hand view of the series, I was later captured by the characters and intrigued by the story and that this just wasn’t some shallow action anime. Tomino truly made a revolution of this series that initially failed in the ratings, but would now become one of Japan’s biggest anime franchises. Despite the success Gundam continues to have, it is a pity it never caught on in the long run outside of Japan, but I still manage to always find myself back to sometimes watching either the TV series and/or movie.
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Recommendations
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Gundam Original is what Seed is based on! The story of seed is almost a carbon copy of Gundam the original! The background story of Gundam is very deep and well developed. The only flaw for today's viewer is that the animation for the original Gundam is very dated. But the story does not cop out (like Gundam Seed Destiny). The reason that Gundam Seed doesn't cop out, which is the tradition that came from the classic gundam TV series. The characters who are forced to be involved in the conflicts in the story because of the circumstance are wonderfully developed. Do take note that the original Gundam TV was cut short.
They more or less follow a very similar story line - Seed is simply better animated, longer, and tackles the problems of genetic engineering - along with providing an entertaining experience. Both are great and although Seed is most likely the better of the two - either is a great watch.
This is where it all began so if you've only seen Gundam Wing/Seed/00 then I suggest you watch some real Gundam and check out Mobile Suit Gundam 0079 :P
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For Gundam fans: If you've ever wanted a comedy anime that shamelessly panders to fans of Gundam, especially U.C. Gundam series, Keroro is the series for you. From Keroro cosplaying as Char to Keroro piloting a 1:1 scale RX-78-2 Gunpla in the third movie, there are plenty of amusing references to the franchise throughout the series.
For Keroro fans: If you've ever wondered why it is that Keroro is so obsessed with Gundam, viewing either the original Mobile Suit Gundam series or movie trilogy is a great way to find out. After all, what kind of Keroro fan doesn't know the difference between a Zaku and a GM?
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Opening Theme"Tobe! Gundam (Fly! Gundam)" by Koh Ikeda
Ending Theme"Eien Ni Amuro (Forever Amuro)" by Koh Ikeda
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