Favorite Gundam series?

[eklipse]

I want to start but not sure which one to choose?  (Maybe that’s not even how this show works 😂) 

Any recs appreciated! 

[ghostrek]

I have not found a Gundam series I really really like next to Double O

Edited July 15, 2023 by ghostrek

[stilgar]

1 hour ago, eklipse said:

I want to start but not sure which one to choose?  (Maybe that’s not even how this show works 😂) 

Any recs appreciated! 

Well, I know  a lot of people would tell you to start with the first Gundam series. But it is quite old. Then there are the weirdos who would tell you to watch G Gundam which is....G Gundam. Then there is the Gundam that most people started with Gundam Wing. Which is just full of twinks and war crimes. Turn A Gundam has a mustache. There is the entire UC timeline which starts with the original but boy can that get silly. Seed is, well, Seed. Iron blooded orphans ha a lot of hand to hand mech combat. And the newest one, Gundam: Witch from Mercury is Revolutionary Girl Utena in space. Which is not a bad thing. I guess it all comes down to what you like. Hopefully you like war crimes because those are in all Gundam shows. There are the more "grounded" shows like the original and most of the UC timeline. There are the goofier ones like G which has a horse gundam piloted by a horse. There are ones that are really gay like Iron Blooded Orphans, Wing, and Witch from Mercury. So, what do you like?

[Jman]

I'm a believer that there's a Gundam for everyone, given the franchise's history.  It depends on what you want.  Gunpla is freedom, after all, meaning that while there's certain shows that are considered good and bad, there's no "wrong" way to approach the franchise.  Except G-Savior.  That's wrong.

G is my admitted favorite but it's also an unabashed shounen action series that appeals to people who like Street Fighter and DBZ, rather than the real robot military drama Gundam is known for.

If you want something more akin to a modern J-Drama, watch SEED.

If you want that textual yuri or happened to be a fan of the Fire Emblem games, watch Witch from Mercury.

If you want to watch the original series, watch the movie trilogy, because it's more tightly plotted, and they fix animation errors and get rid of some of the sillier corporate mandates.  From there, it's easy to go to Zeta, ZZ, and Char's Counterattack.

If you want social commentary with your Gundam, watch 00.  I stand by a statement I've made a few times, that 00 is Wing if Wing made sense.

And if you just want to get into model kit building, watch Build Fighters.

[PokeNirvash]

Of the four Gundam series I've seen to completion, Origin is my favorite, with IBO as my favorite non-UC.

[eklipse]

Wow, thanks for all the feedback.  I like the space/mecha genre.  e.g. enjoyed Legend of the Galactic Heroes, Tengen Toppa, Terra e, Eva, etc. My taste is kind of all over but I enjoy dramatic giant robot/space fights lol.

Based on this, I’ll try to watch the movies and go for SEED and IBO.  

[Gemini]

The first Gundam series I ever watched was Gundam Wing. I enjoyed it immensely. (I was in high school when it first premiered on old-school Toonami.)

[MasqueradeOverture]

I'm partial to Top Gundam myself (0083).

[Top Gun]

I've seen precious little of Gundam as a whole myself, really just 00 on SyFy and then the few assorted series that [as] has aired in the past decade, though I know at least a bit about what I haven't seen. Out of those, 00 was a fun ride and like Jman said is viewed as something of a more modern take on Wing. Iron-Blooded Orphans was...well, if you know the name Mari Okada, she did the series composition for it, and it's very much one of her series for better or worse. I really liked both Unicorn and Origin, but they're both very much part of the main Universal Century timeline (Origin is a direct prequel to the original Gundam series), so they'd probably work best after getting more exposure to that.

On the Universal Century side of things, your core UC experience is the original Mobile Suit Gundam series, followed by Zeta, ZZ, and then the Char's Counterattack film that's the climax of the Amuro-vs-Char rivalry. Like Jman said, a lot of people recommend the movie trilogy for the original Gundam (Zeta has one too but I know less about it), since the series proper very much looks like a weekly television airing from 1978, but when I get around to it I think I want to go the OG route for authenticity's sake. Zeta gets pretty consistent high praise, ZZ is a "happy Tomino" series so there's some goofiness in there, and then Char's Counterattack is pretty universally loved too. Victory Gundam is UC too but set further in the future, and by all accounts it's peak "depressed Tomino" so yeah, brace yourself. Beyond those, I've heard many people say that "anything with an 8 in the title is awesome." 08th MS Team (which I think aired on the OG Toonami) is about as "real robot" as Gundam gets, focusing on a team of everyday soldiers during the One-Year War of the original series. 0080: War in the Pocket is a much more personal look at the tragedy of war theme that's so common in Gundam series, and like Masquerade said 0083: Stardust Memory is all about Gundam test pilots. The nice thing about all of these is that they're comparatively shorter as Gundam series go, so they don't require a huge time investment.

For non-UC stuff, Wing is a Toonami classic that got a lot of US fans into the franchise in the first place, though I'm not sure just how well it holds up today. Turn A is another Tomino series that gets a good deal of praise, though by most accounts it's somewhat different than most other series in the franchise, particularly in its visual design. G Gundam is the one I'm probably most excited to watch myself, because it's pure hot-blooded super robot action, albeit nothing like anything else in the entire franchise. I don't know much about Seed other than the fact that it's absurdly popular in Japan (and has derpy sameface character designs by the same guy who worked on the likes of s-CRY-ed and Fafner), but Seed Destiny is widely considered to be hot garbage. I know jack squat about After War Gundam X or Gundam AGE (though I don't think the latter has the best reputation). The whole Gundam Build spinoff seems to be "what if Gunpla, but you could fight them against each other?" Reconguista in G is Tomino's most recent contribution, and from what I've heard it's...um...it's something all right. And then your most recent main thing is Witch from Mercury, which as Jman alluded to is basically LESBIANS!

[Martinman]

I would suggest starting with either the movie trilogy based on the original series, Gundam 00, Gundam Wing, or Gundam SEED based on whether you prefer old school anime, our world timeline (?), 90's nostalgia, or Code Geass, respectively.

Particularly with the original movie trilogy you can then branch out to the excellent smaller series such as War in the Pocket and 08th MS Team and move on to Zeta if you're so inclined.

[eklipse]

I definitely came to the right place to ask about gundam.  It’s nice to know there are some shorter series too and that I can pick/choose (not all super connected). 

Thanks all!

[Gemini]

3 hours ago, eklipse said:

I definitely came to the right place to ask about gundam.  It’s nice to know there are some shorter series too and that I can pick/choose (not all super connected). 

Thanks all!

You’re welcome! ☺️

[Chapinator_X]

Turn A Gundam

[stilgar]

10 hours ago, Chapinator_X said:

Turn A Gundam