Mobile Suit Gundam, a.k.a Gundam 0079, is a Japanese anime released in 1979 created by Yoshiyuki Tomino. After having seen the whole series I was instantly hooked into the Universe of Gundam's UC Timeline. It's a show I wasn't expecting a whole lot out of, but I was pleasantly surprised with how well it did hold up. It's a little dated sure, but there are a lot of good things that hold up really damn well.
Story
The set up for the story feels like it's been done numerous times and in the early episodes it drags on quite a bit with some fairly unimpressive fight sequences that maybe for the time were pretty good, but having been spoiled by newer animation I found them to be quite boring. However as the series went on I was rather intrigued with the political situations the series presents. It's less focused on making the antagonists look evil and instead present them as soldiers on the opposite side of a war. Don't get me wrong there are villains in the series but it never presents all of the Zeons as evil bastards, in fact they take time to establish some empathy for the Zeons by showing the way of life that the Zeon citizens and commanding officers lead. This part of the show is probably the best part of not just this series but the franchise as a whole. The whole story is carrying us through this war and we get to see every side of it.
Art
The series has a good art style as we get to see some really nice looking technology design for the time. The RX-78 is arguably the most iconic mech of all time and the ships are all uniquely designed and memorable. The character designs are unique enough to distinguish each character from each other in particular Captain Bright, Amuro and Char. My only fault with the art is some of the color pallets look a little goofy, in particular some of the ships, but that's really only something I can blame the time when this series came out more than anything. The animation didn't age too well either with some really stiff movements for the fight sequences. Though by the final fifth of the series they definitely improve and the climax was animated rather well
Sound
the soundtrack hasn't aged too well, some of the music is cheesy, but the opening is really good and tracks such as "The Long Sleep" and "Gallant Char" remains as some of the more memorable music of the series. The voice acting is quite good for the time, Char's voice in particular is one of the most Iconic voices in the franchise and has voiced him in nearly every iteration of the series he has appeared in.
Character
The Majority of the cast is memorable, Amuro is a rather well developed protagonist who goes through several changes in the series. We get to see him develop from a young boy to a teenager who must learn to be strong in order to survive this ongoing war. I also have to give credit to the series for not making Fraw Bow a love interest seeing as it's so easy to make the heroin just another love interest. Outside of that though I didn't care ll that much for her. Bright Noa was also a really likable character, I wasn't expecting to like him much as I did, but it's really fun to se him deal with his subordinates whenever they get out of line and how has to adapt to his own crew as time goes on. Of course I can't forget about everyone's favorite smug bastard, Char. Char is without a doubt one of the most interesting characters in the series and is also the most popular. The series does an excellent job of masking his true intentions and it's rather interesting seeing what he does and eventually see his true intention revealed. Him an Amuro share a pretty engaging rivalry which reaches it's peak after a certain moment in the series.
Enjoyment
My enjoyment of the series has increased the more I think about it, Especially as I watch some of the later Gundams, I have a much greater appreciation for 0079 and is a great starting point for the franchise. With memorable characters and an intriguing universe, this is the start of an incredible ride that I don't want off of anytime soon.
Overall
Fantastic series, the visuals and soundtrack are a little dated, but It doesn't detract much from the overall enjoyment of seeing this war play out. Definitely worth anyone's time and I highly recommend it to anyone who is looking for a good place to get into Gundam.
