Interest Stacks

The first recommendation is for the people who do have issues with older animation in general. While I do get their point, I really don't think it's fair to diss a show for it's dated visuals, considering the writing and characterization are spot on. Still, Gundam Thunderbolt is just a small snippet of what Gundam has to offer, but it does a couple of things perfectly - shows the grit of the war, while not being afraid to be stylistic in portraying the characters' emotions, it boasts superb animation, very specific, jazz-inspired soundtrack and most importantly, portrays both characters from the warring factions with empathy and understanding, being objective and biased, and letting us to root for both. This is a concept that was eloquently explored in almost all of the Gundam franchise, and is maybe the most distinct feature of this universe.

This one is lovingly dubbed by fans as "Gundam: War in Vietnam", for a very obvious reason, the setting in this one really does feels as the planning and tactics of the battles that occur are heavily inspired from the guerilla warfare, and yes, albeit being a sci-fi as hell franchise, the cannon UC shows do stick to the basic principles of the "hard sci-fi", which basically means that the sci-fi elements are thoroughly explained and justified to the viewer, making them pretty tangible and believable. Again, the setting of this one is showing a small fragment of the One-Year War, the cast is compact, but likeable, and it does work as a decent introduction to the franchise, being fairly staindalone.

This short series are made as commemoration of the franchise's 10 year anniversary, and they sure does feel special. While the first two recommends tackles the topic of war and how our society feels about it very head-on, this show does show us the the human factor of it, and the many and subtle ways it does affect the society and it's cumulative psyche as a whole. The show presents us the war. from the viewpoint of our protagonist, a young and naive boy who shows juvenile passion for the "cool robots" that he sees and hears about, and oh my, does his viewpoint and understanding does changes over time. For it's short duration, the show easily manages to get you interested in it's cast, and I personally believe the conclusion of the series are phenomenal, for the aftertaste that this show gives to the whole franchise.

More or less standalone, this show is very poignant in it's portrayal of the themes that the Gundam franchise is praised for, while in the same way it does work as a masterful and evocative portrayal of the human drama.

It's a great rewatch for the Gundam veterans as a whole, since the show has very subtle, but tangible criticism to the somewhat ignorant, average avid Gundam, or loosely speaking, mecha fan in general. The reason why our main protagonist is a young boy, excited by the big war machines and he shallowly thinks that war is cool, is a harsh but fair mirroring of these beforementioned fans, so this whole show can be taken as a grim reminder that while anime can be considered as an escapist media, in which the viewers can indulge in their power fantasies, we must never forget the unquestionable brutality and the material and mental devastation that the wars in mankind had always brought with themselves, and for me this is probably one of the major reasons I wholeheartedly love this franchise.

As we finished with the appetizers, which had supposedly piqued your interest, it's time for the main dish.

Now, I'll be blunt, I do believe this one may feel difficult to tackle as a somewhat new viewer or as a person, not really engaged with the older shows this media has to offer. Visually speaking, it might look ancient to the before mentioned viewers, and it sort of is, at the moment of writing this show is 43 years old, and in the current anime landscape, 5 or so years old shows are considered "dated". In the show's defense, I can say that many tropes you've seen from other mech series had sprawled from here, so for viewers who do like to dabble in this genre for more of a historical sense, it is a nice treat.

While the visuals can feel jarring, I do believe the story, both it's narrative and structure, are pretty engaging and well-presented, and the main cast of characters are decently defined and written, having very decent middle ground of presenting them as human beings, with their respective strengths and weaknesses. This show briskly presents us the One-Year War, the main conflict which defines the UC and it's main cast, so watching this show is paramount to understanding why people usually praises this whole franchise.

A valid critique for this show is it's pacing, many people did stated that the three movies trilogy, which condenses this whole show far more neatly than it's bloated 43 episode runtime is far better viewing experience, and they might be right. For me it was the exact opposite, I hardly got invested into the movies as I watched then first, so I did gave the series a go afterwards, and yes, you can say some of the show's episodes does seem inconsequential, the slow and steady approach of the storytelling was much more to my liking, so as an alternative route you can go for the movie trilogy, if you prefer more brisk run through this show.

Stardust Memory is a side story about the post-war consequences of the One-Year War, it does have fabulous animation, solid OST and decent main cast, tho certainly not perfectly written. While this one is not really a must watch, I do believe it is a nice epilogue, and interesting historical reminder, that there is no such thing as nicely wrapped ending of a war, there's always the remaining lingering resentment, hatred and lust for vengeance.

Again, returning to the main course, Zeta might be the single show in UC, which is universally praised as the best as of character writing, narrative structure, conclusion, and ... dark and unapologetic way in which it treats it's cast.

The story is the direct continuation of MSG 079, so naturally we do see our old cast, and a lot of decent new additions. A personal praise of mine for it's setting is the way it treats the warring factions, the more or less victors of the One-Year War, now having the means and the force to, unscrupulously abuse their newfound authorities, resorting to use of brutal and ruthless tactics in order to maintain the status quo, which sadly is a historical parallel from our own history, which makes our main cast of characters a rebel movement. Again, this just so shows that both factions have their decent and ugly sides, which is a constant duality for all the UC.

In theory, this show is canon, tho some of the fans feels repulsed to say so for it's entirety, for rightful reasons. This show's production did felt a bit different, since the series's original creator Yoshiyuki Tomino, while feeling that Zeta ended on a bleak note, he desired to create series which would refresh, and invigorate the fans, in a way relaxing them. This did majorly backfired, since around half of the show's runtime is so goofy and relaxed in it's pace, you can sort of end up feeling like you're not watching a Gundam show right now.

Personally speaking I did found this pace not really to my liking, and I do know some people honestly dropped this show for it, which totally makes sense, tho the second half you do have yourself a decent UC show, with some interesting conclusions of the villains from Zeta, so as a person who feels the urge to consume as much Gundam there is, you should totally give it a go, but then again you can skip this one, if you're aggravated by the pace and the somewhat super-robot feel that the show has in it's first half.

This movie marks the conclusion of the end of the UC, it can be considered as the grand finale that the first ever series started, back in 1979. While being just a single movie, it does manages to end in a perfectly satisfying way for the overall narrative, as well as to show us the spectacle that the final confrontation between Amuro and Char is. Their ideological clashes, presented in their rivalry throughout the shows, is something that one can ponder about way after this movie has ended, which of them was the right and the wrong one is up to the viewer to decide.

As a veteran Gundam fan, watching as the end credits roll and listening to The Network's Beyond the Time, you can't really help but feel emotional after this hell of the ride, and the song's lyrics, about the transience of our feelings and our perpetual struggle between our ideals and the reality doesn't help to ease the feeling.

Now, we had our exquisite main meal with Char's Counterattack, so it's just natural to look forward to some dessert, if you're still craving for more UC media. Sadly, this project feels a bit underwhelming, and there are various reasons for this.

This series takes place 3 years after the events in Char's Counterattack, with more or less fresh cast and a couple of side characters from the previous series, which are probably the more noteworthy characters of the whole cast. Again, these series feels a bit like milking of the whole past grand buildup of the franchise rather than fresh, new and groundbreaking addition to the classical saga, which is not really to my liking. Still, the show has it's memorable beats and moments so for the people, looking for more content, it does it's thing, it's just so the aftertaste doesn't really feel like from the shows you ended up liking the franchise for.

Another turning point for a vast majority of the fans is the newer direction that the Newtypes are being presented as. Whereas the shows from the past were pretty vague about it, for good reasons, it more or less it felt like a heightened gut feeling, a peculiar aura and sharpened feelings of empathy towards the others, be they your allies or enemies, which worked more or less as a tool to heighten the human drama that we were witnessing. From this show on, the Newtype powers does feel more like an almighty god-mode,an omnipresent feeling that everything can be made possible with it, and that it more or less can solve any problems, which is very clichéd, on top of making the show looking like a soft sci-fi, rather than the hard sci-fi the series was known for.

Uh, remember the whole thing about the series, straying from it's roots ? If you did felt that my criticism towards Unicorn Gundam is fair, you can wholeheartedly skip this one, and be absolutely content about it.

But still, if you're willing to give this a go, you can expect somewhat interesting, but badly delivered plot, very basic characters, and flashy fight scenes, with very weird and quirky superpowers. If you enjoyed the older shows, it's very likely you'll dislike this.

In theory we're still in the UC timeline, but nothing much gives us a hint for this, except that it's said it's happening in 123 UC.

The setting and premise of the movie is interesting, the problem for it's mediocrity arises from the fact, that F91 was supposed to be 50 episode series, as the main UC shows, but then there was a budget cut so it went to 24 episodes, which after another cut, became a movie. So the cluttered mess of a 50 episodes epic, dumped in a movie is bound to be bad. I don't really think this adds anything into the UC timeline, it's just hanging there since it was made, but it has zero to none significance.

It has a couple of great animated dogfights, so I can recommend this to the Gundam/old-school mecha sakuga fans.

Hmm, remember when we said that ZZ Gundam had a weird tonal shifts from the first to second half ? Imagine this, but without the support of the old cast, and with some of the most questionable writing decisions/scenes in the all of the UC's history. Riding bike over the clouds with your girl? Check, bikini clad girls with rocket launchers as a last line of defense ? Check.

You can easily pin the fault of Tomino, honestly hating to work on this project for the simple reason their studio, getting merged, and his feelings, going haywire up to the point he has officially mentioned that people shouldn't watch these series.

But still, beyond these anecdotal misfits, the show's setting is bleak at best, presenting us with the Earth, being almost destroyed, and the only people left as the last bastion of defense are children and women, since the majority of men have died in prior conflicts. Seeing this naive and pure kids, fighting for their lives in this unforgiving war, against all odds does give these series a different viewpoint, one focused on preserving and creating life, rather than taking it.

I don't think alot of people would enjoy these series, but albeit flawed, this show had it's good and gripping moments.

Now, stepping down from the fixed chronology, the Origin basically does explains the circumstances of the fan favourite villain of UC - Char Aznable. The production quiality is top notch, the writing and the character consistence, even if the show is quite new for UC standards, hold out great, and it is lovely addition to the famed classics.

The reason why this show needs to be seen after the end of the main timeline is evident, it does spoil some major parts of the initial series, so it's just bad idea to start with this one. Also the way the story's presented, it really is expected the viewer to have decent prior knowledge of the UC happenings.

This show is a very high recommendation, and it is sort of a unicorn for our day and age, this one is feast for the eyes and the nostalgia of any UC timeline fan.

There are a few more series, said to have connection to UC, but the thread that binds them is that loose, that you can safely classify them as non-UC Gundam shows, and just say it's one of the many alternate timelines.

MS IGLOO though, is an odd case, and even stranger production. This trilogy of OVA's were officially meant to be part of a special exhibition of a Gundam related museum, but after some time passed, Sunrise just decided to put them out there, with no real explanation.
The way this show is presented is very dry, and scientific, it does feel more of a documentary about this fictional universe.

There are two things that needs to be addressed, the first one being the unconventional episode pacing, and the second, the oh so dated CGI that was being used. I do believe any type of older, hand drawn animation could have it's charm, but I can't say the same for the 3D usage.

Still if you can stomach the visuals, the show does give you pretty interesting insight into the One-Year War, and more specifically, the Zeon's experimental implementations of various mobile armours. Again this is certainly something for the hardcore fans.

This is the conclusion of the MS IGLOO OVA's from the Zeon viewpoint, which was actually concluded in a very touching and thought-provoking manner. I do believe the first IGLOO's made the proper build-up leading to it, so I do believe that considering you've seen the first ones, you need to see this one as well.

The last of the IGLOO's OVA series is, this. Extremely underwhelming ones, even tho the concept was pretty nice, of these series to show the war efforts from the Zeon's troops, attempting to invade the Earth in the first days of the One-Year War. Premise aside, the execution is alright at best, but it certainly felt as it's lost it's hone compared to the other two IGLOO series.

Another key element to the major fan dissatisfaction was the concept that was introduced, since it was featuring a Newtype Ghost/Spectre, which was considering themselves as a Death God on the battlefield. This plot point honestly makes zero sense, and it just goes to show how out of touch the production was while making this, I can only recommend this for the select few who are just craving for more UC Gundam, despite it's low value, or simply to people who wana see all of it, for the heck of it.

Considering the fact that you've made it this far into this list, probably, you do really found something meaningful and special in the Gundam franchise, for which I'm more than happy. It's a special type of media, building itself for 43 years around it's themes and motifs, as this political war drama that is actually showing the real face of the war much better than any live-action can do, for the simple fact that within this fictional universe, there's no subjectivity and favoritism in the writing, and from both factions you can see the human psyche at it's brightest and darkest of moments.

In 2020, this franchise had it's 40 years anniversary, and this short video was commemoration to this, it does features the first episode of Gundam 0079, heavily reimagined, but still, it can feel quite the nostalgic trip, perfect fit for the end of our virtual piligrimage.