Mobile Suit Victory Gundam (Mobile Suit V Gundam)

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Alternative Titles

Synonyms: Kidou Senshi Victory Gundam

Japanese: 機動戦士Vガンダム

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Information

Type: TV

Episodes: 51

Status: Finished Airing

Aired: Apr 2, 1993 to Mar 25, 1994

Premiered: Spring 1993

Broadcast: Fridays at 17:00 (JST)

Producers: TV Asahi, Sotsu, Apollon

Licensors: Nozomi Entertainment

Studios: Sunrise

Source: Original

Genres: Drama, Sci-Fi

Themes: Mecha, Military, Space

Duration: 24 min. per ep.

Rating: PG-13 - Teens 13 or older

Statistics

Score: 6.74¹ (scored by 9,344 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #5080²

² based on the top anime page. Please note that 'Not yet aired' and 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #3881

Members: 23,972

Favorites: 109

External Links

Official Site, AnimeDB, AnimeNewsNetwork, Wikipedia

6.74

Ranked #5080Popularity #3881Members 23,972

Spring 1993TVSunrise

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Episodes: /51

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Synopsis

In the year 153 of the Universal Century, the tyrannical Zanscare Empire has taken hostile control over Side 2, a space colony outside of Earth's orbit. Following in the footsteps of the long expired Principality of Zeon and the more recent Crossbone Vanguard, Zanscare rules over its subjects with cruelty, routinely using a large guillotine for public executions.

Living in Central Europe, space immigrant Üso Ewin joins the League Militaire, a militia made up of civilians frustrated with the Earth Federation's inability to combat the Zanscare Empire. Üso's latent abilities as a psychic Newtype awaken and allow him to pilot the Victory Gundam, the only mobile suit capable of holding off the elite BESPA forces of the Zanscare Empire.

Hoping to protect his best friend Shakti Kareen and locate his parents within the ranks of the Federation, Üso fights on with the Victory, striving to bring an end to the empire's reign.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Related Anime

Adaptation:	Kidou Senshi V Gundam
Prequel:	Mobile Suit Gundam F91
Sequel:	Turn A Gundam, Gundam: G no Reconguista
Summary:	Mobile Suit Gundam: Hikaru Inochi Chronicle U.C.

Nakata, Masayuki
Japanese

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Staff

Yatate, Hajime

Producer, Original Creator

Ueda, Masuo

Producer

Tomino, Yoshiyuki

Director, Original Creator

Sekita, Osamu

Director

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Opening Theme

	1: "Stand Up To The Victory" by Tomohisa Kawasoe (eps 1-31)
	2: "Don't Stop Carry On" by RD (eps 32-51)

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Ending Theme

	1: "Winners Forever" by INFIX (eps 1-31)
	2: "Moichido Tenderness" by KIX S (eps 32-51)

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Reviews

Aug 19, 2008

51 of 51 episodes seen

Overall Rating: 8

ninjasan8 (All reviews)

68 people found this review helpful

Story: Without a doubt, V Gundam is the saddest Gundam story to date. And before anything else is said, I think it's worth a mention to say that a lot of people die, and most of the time for no good reason at all. That aside, I have to say I really loved the storyline. However, some of the story arcs in the middle could have been left out, and the story would still be intact; a lot of the time during said arcs I found myself wondering why the characters were doing what they were doing. There's not a lot of narrative glue to stick the parts together, and to keep one interested during some of the low parts. But, overall it's a nice story, with an emphasis on death, and at least during the last arc, a huge emphasis on the beauty of life.

Art: Very good. V Gundam uses a very simple art style to convey the characters and the Mobile Suits; which is both good and bad. Most of the Suits are very similar to each other, and are very rarely any unique. Characters however, look very nice, and some are just too cool for words, while others are just meh. Battles are everything you would expect from a mecha show, and although somewhat exaggerated at times (or almost all of the time), they're mostly very good. The simple style works here to make the art very nice looking even today.

Sound: Not much to say here. There's an excellent cast of actors working on the voices, and the mecha sounds are great, but nothing really stands out in this category.

Characters: We've got a cast of mostly children and women, with the main villain and one of the main characters being male. The rest of the male cast are either lesser characters or very old men. I can't quite remember why the cast is like it is, but it brings a fresh look on what might be a stale storyline. It also has the effect of removing almost all romantic involvement between the main characters. There's a peace-loving-battle-scarred boy, a princess girl, and a group of what seem to be orphaned children. Interaction between them is what really pushes the story along. Without a doubt, Oliver and Captain Gomez were my favorite characters, both of which received little screen time, but both of whom were very central to the story.

Overall: No where near as good as First Gundam, V Gundam is nonetheless a very nice looking, anime featuring a somewhat lacking storyline that'll get your emotions running if you're not prepared for it. Definitely recommended if you've seen the other UC animes, however, the story is completely separate from the main meta-plot.

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Sep 5, 2014

51 of 51 episodes seen

Overall Rating: 8

JizzyHitler (All reviews)

40 people found this review helpful

Victory gundam is a series that catches quite the bad rep with it often being regarded as one of the worst entries in the franchise, when I was going into the series I was embracing for the worst , but what I ended up seeing wasn’t the travesty some see it as but rather a solid series that was able to convey some truly beautiful moments and messages that can even act as a entry level gundam as its pretty much stand alone from other gundam despite being a universal century entry. Now don’t get me wrong, victory gundam has flaws that has garnered it read more

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Apr 17, 2010

51 of 51 episodes seen

Overall Rating: 8

MS06FZ (All reviews)

39 people found this review helpful

Renowned as being the most depressing Gundam show, Victory is an odd sort of a series. At times it evokes the bleakness of Tomino's older works such as The Ideon and Zeta Gundam, while at others it's a humorous space adventure with wacky kids in the vein of Xabungle.

The art is similarly variable, with some episodes looking wonderful and others distinctly less so.

The music is consistently good, however, with a full set of quality OPs and EDs, plus a brilliant, poignant insert song or two.

Essentially, Victory picks up the UC storyline long after even F91 and Unicorn are done and dusted, with the Earth Federation completely ineffective. Elements of the show work with this, such as the cameo appearance from a Salamis or two in some episodes, but it does stand alone in its own right.

The main character is incredibly likeable - Usso gets on with it, does what has to be done and doesn't vacillate, whine or arbitrarily punch people for making fun of his name (too much.) He has a badass action Haro. He has a likeable dog which survives the whole series.

Contrasting him is Shakti, who is useless and annoying for a good part of the series. The villains are similarly unimpressive, with the only really good ones being Katejina and a few of the minor Zanscare leaders. The rest are fairly forgettable rehashes of UC archetypes (Chronicle is one of the weakest Char analogues in the franchise, notable for being as much of a failure as Zeta Gundam's Jerid Messa)

Mech design is all over the place, from the stylish and deadly V2AB to the plain insane Dodgore and Adastrea, which would be better suited to a super robot show. When it hits its stride, the results are spectacular but unfortunately that doesn't happen too often.

In terms of serious military drama, Victory comes across as a slightly tasteless black comedy rather than a bleak space horror ala Ideon or a depiction of a morally bankrupt hellhole as shown in Dougram. The climactic moments when Usso loses someone close to him are rarely hard-hitting but often ridiculous - almost equivalent to a mecha version of the Saw or Final Destination movies in their overly elaborate and telegraphed natures.

So all this criticism laid bare, what redeems Victory?

Firstly that it's different to a lot of Gundam despite deriving from it. It's at times fun, at times kind of bleak and frequently unpredictable.

Secondly, its likeable characters are really pleasant and nice to watch.

Thirdly, while the pacing is a little wacky and sometimes not ideal, the ending arc is very intense and powerful. One moment, where the insert song is used perfectly to accompany a moment of sacrifice, will stick with you.

By all means give Victory a good go before giving up on it. Just be prepared to accept it is very flawed.

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Apr 1, 2009

51 of 51 episodes seen

Overall Rating: 7

Stormy_77 (All reviews)

22 people found this review helpful

Gundam has always been a series I watch. I've always been drawn to the Mecha Genre, the newer series are usually awesome in sound/animation but that doesn't mean we shouldn't give a chance to the older ones. Luckily for me Victory Gundam was actually enjoyable (unlike Z or ZZ)

Story and Characters

Story wise, Victory Gundam follows the generic gundam story line. Young hero, happens to "fall" into piloting the "latest and greatest" suit. Gets conscripted into fighting for adults whether willingly or unwillingly. Grows up, finds his own reasons to fight/not fight which usually includes a love interest somewhere. Goes to space, comes back to earth, goes back to space and there is the inevitable big battle to end it all.

Victory Gundam succeeds for three reasons.

First - the character development is very well done. Unlike some heroes, Uso is actually both identifiable and likeable. The supporting cast of characters all have their own storyline and despite the fact that there are a lot of supporting characters somehow you grow to know (like or dislike) each and every one of them even the dog and baby. That's a smart dog. I want one just like him. Throw in a Haro too while you're at it. By the end of the series the baby is actually walking and starting to talk. How is that for true to life?

Second - This portrays war in a realistic manner. It isn't one of those gundam series where people escape death all the time in fact, if I were to give a tagline to this series it would be "In War People Die". I felt bad at 90% of the deaths and cried more than once. That is effective storytelling.

Third - although there was the slow part, the story really picked up in the last 5 episodes and I probably enjoyed those more than the preceding 46. The ability to surprise, move the viewer and entertain at the end is the mark of good anime.

Art/Animation

Very dated with a lot of frame reuse, so was ok for its time but compared to current anime it really shows its age. Nothing special here and one reason why I couldn't give this anime a higher score.

Sound

Pretty average OP/ED songs although Shakti's song was very catchy and the sad music really works. Sound effects were ok also.

Enjoyment

I only had 2 issues with this anime. First - Katejina (ugh!). Secondly, why is it in every Gundam Series the adults are all too willing to give their latest and greatest suit to some young, irresponsible fighter pilot ace? Ok the second reason is applicable to all gundam series but seriously if I were a captain I would NEVER let them pilot those suits until they were mature.

That being said, although it took some time to finish it I liked this a lot. Completionists should watch this series.

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Mobile Suit Victory Gundam

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