It always seemed a little strange to me how Gundam series often recycle the same elements over and over. What became obvious once I started Mobile Suit Gundam was how these traditions were inherited directly from the original series. Even the opening shot was a spine-tinglingly iconic one, with the sun peeking out behind Earth and the sunlight tracing a circle around the outline of the planet. The backstory exposition immediately introduces a few other familiar elements, including the war between the Earth faction and the space colony faction with a name beginning with Z - in this case Zeon - and their infamous cyclops mech designs, as well as the notorious colony drop event, which I was surprised to see occurred only in the backstory and not the main one.
The original Gundam series begins in the middle of the war, during a lull in the action. It doesn't take long to see this lull broken, as Zeon forces led by Char Aznable, the original blond, masked maverick (whose doppelgangers are a staple of later Gundam series), finds a newly deployed Federation warship White Base picking up a batch of secretly developed weapons from a space colony. One of these weapons happen to be … drum roll please … the mobile suit (aka robot) Gundam. The action ramps up quickly as Zeon attacks the colony, and 15-year old prodigy Amuro Ray gets caught up in the conflict and ends up piloting the Gundam against Zeon forces as White Base tries to escape the colony, salvaging what they could of the newly developed weaponry.
Mobile Suit Gundam impressed me immediately with its watchability. For a show hailing from the 70s, just about the worst you can say about its production values is how amusingly dated its opening theme is. Having struggled through other 70s shows like Space Battleship Yamato, I was relieved to discover this 40+ episode series would not require nearly the amount of effort to sit through.
The early episodes consisted of mostly military tactics/action fare, and showcased some impressive battles despite the clearly limited animation budget. I found myself more engrossed in these primitively animated battles than many modern, better animated action sequences, which made me realise that well thought through tactics and clean choreography often trumps flashy, fast paced animation. One of the things that stands out about the battles is the importance of ammunition and energy: someone is always running out of one or the other, often changing the course of battle. These kind of detail clearly establish Mobile Suit Gundam as a new breed of mecha show - these are not super robots in action with their seemingly infinite supply of Thunderclap Groin Rockets and whatnot.
The highlights of the early battles are the repeated run-ins between Char and Amuro. The clash of styles keeps the contest interesting: one is an experienced, supremely talented mecha pilot; the other is a rookie with deep potential piloting a mecha with vastly superior technology. Another reason why these encounters are so enjoyable is due to Char himself. He instantly comes across as an anti-villain with a fascinating personality and bundles of charisma. What's more, his complex relationship with other Zeon commanders adds a layer of political intrigue to the proceedings. No wonder his is the only name I'd heard of prior to watching this show.
Beyond the tactical elements, the early story plays out as a bunch of rookies getting to grips with a powerful but unfamiliar space ship while engaging in continuous skirmishes with Zeon forces. It reminds me of the early episodes of a certain show called Macross (you may have heard of it) that aired several years later. This shouldn't come as a surprise though, when you learn that several of the creative minds behind Macross graduated from the same Gundam fan club in university.
The second part of Mobile Suit Gundam takes place on Earth. This stretch lasts for a while, and it certainly feels like it too; they exhibit both the strongest and the weakest aspects of the series. On the plus side, there's some impressive character developments, with Kai's growth from a selfish shithead to a sympathetic character elevating him as an unexpected highlight of the series. In addition, there's more meat to the story, which showcases an astonishing number of ideas which would resurface and be further explored in later anime. Certain political and aesthetic elements would return in force in Legend of the Galactic Heroes (you may have heard of this too), and, perhaps more significantly and certainly more obviously, the mini storyline that illustrates the toll war exacts on a child civilian soldier germinated an idea that, well over a decade later, would grow and form the backbone of a little series called Neon Genesis Evangeleon (you probably hear-- nah, this is one series you probably haven't heard of).
To give Mobile Suit Gundam its due, some of its ideas were executed with surprising amount of nuance and emotional weight, making for compelling viewing even today. But as often is the case with early pioneers, at least as many ideas had too many rough edges. What made things worse was that, as much as Mobile Suit Gundam broke away from the super robot genre, it couldn't do so completely. Despite the attempted serialised storytelling, the series rarely thinks about more than two episodes at a time. As a result, romantic subplots would surface then get forgotten; minor characters get introduced and killed off within a couple of episodes like clockwork; side stories and ideas mostly resolves within the same time frame, even the more complex ones desperately in need of fleshing out. On top of this, the format of the episodes are rigid, and after a while the obligatory battle of the week begins to resemble the monster-of-the-week format so omnipresent in the show's super robot predecessors.
Hampered by the short-termism of the writing and the pseudo-episodic format, the series soon began to drag, in spite of the semi-regular short bursts of quality. Even the initially thoughtful military engagements peter out into mostly paint-by-numbers affairs thanks to the sheer number of battles exhausting the limited supply of good ideas. In addition, due to the children's toy tie in (unsuitable though it may be considering the content of the show), the show regularly gets hijacked by toy manufacturers keen to sell merch, so we're inundated with Gundam specs and battle configurations that aren't detailed enough to satisfy those (like me) who enjoy getting into the nitty gritty details of combat, but at the same time more than enough to bore those who don't care about such things.
The show also suffers from other flaws symptomatic of the times. For instance the comic relief kids, looking like they came from an entirely different type of show, whose greatest contributions were that of annoyance - and as a parent of a toddler going through the terrible twos phase at the time of watching I don't say this lightly. Then there's the smattering of casual 70s sexism which jars especially when placed next to the strong roles given to the female characters who aren't just damsels in distress. A few years later, Macross would take the strong women characterisations further, but here we're very much in the early stages of these ideas.
As the Mobile Suit Gundam limps into the final stretch with a return back to space, it gets an injection of renewed energy, and the meandering overarching plot appears to suddenly rediscover a sense of purpose. Unfortunately this is counterbalanced by a palpable shift for the direction of the plot. If it feels like the story's been redone, that's probably because it had: series creator Yoshiki Tomino's original story draft differed dramatically from what eventually got made. In addition, the series got cancelled due to low ratings, and the writers had to tie up the series sooner than planned. This left the show's home straight feeling invigorated but disjointed: ideas and concepts that went unmentioned for the first 30+ episodes are suddenly everywhere and on all the characters' lips ("newtype" anyone?); the new concepts predictably remain underdeveloped; characters forge unconvincingly deep connections practically over night; character motivations went through 180s (sometimes multiple ones). Char's character in particular suffered, and comes across as borderline split personality disorder towards the end. These gripes aside, the last few episodes were sprinkled with some of the most exciting battles and well directed scenes in the series. It really felt like team worked hard to pull out all the stops to end the series on a high. Alas, I found its deus ex style ending a bit of a let down.
So, how does the show hold up today? Probably better than I expected. It's a bit of a mixed bag for sure: it features a serialised story constrained by the episodic narrative mentality; it contains some fascinating characters along with some dubious character development; it exhibited some great military battles early on only to run out of steam under the relentless rigid format. While far from unwatchable, I'm also not convinced Mobile Suit Gundam has enough to keep most modern audiences engaged. There is one group for which this show is an easy sell though - those with an interest in anime history, especially of the mecha genre. It's no exaggeration to say that you can trace visible, direct lines from this show to other giants of the medium that came out years and even decades later. It's one of those shows where I came out feeling like I'd grown as an anime fan just by having experience it first hand.
But for all its obvious influential clout, personally I think Mobile Suit Gundam was eclipsed by another legendary - though perhaps less influential - anime that started airing just half a year later: The Rose of Versailles. The two shows provide a fascinating contrast: while at first impressions the hilariously dated production of The Rose of Versailles aged far more poorly than Mobile Suit Gundam, as The Rose of Versailles goes on the story gained more and more momentum (perhaps due to having the unfair advantage of adapting an existing manga); it took full advantage of the serialised format and spun a superbly engrossing yarn that won me over completely by the end. Now there is a show I'd still recommend to a lot of audiences today. Mobile Suit Gundam? I'm not so sure.
Personal rating: +0.5 (decent)
