General Gundam Thread

[Kareem Said]

Title kind of says it all. What Gundam series are the best, or at least the best for people who have never really been in to Gundam (such as myself)? I've personally thought about trying out Gundam Wing, Mobile Suit OO, and Gundam Seed (not Seed Destiny, because I heard it was terrible). But what series do you think are the best? Or the worst? Either way this thread could have the dual purpose of being a general Gundam discussion, since I haven't seen a Gundam discussion anywhere.

[RobbyBevard]

Most of the major Gundam series has basically the same plot, so it mostly just comes down to pure character personalities, and for that, there's no telling what you'll like best.

The original series, or Zeta Gundam (the second series) is probably the best start, but the animation, storytelling and pacing are pretty hard to get past. Probably just try watching the movies. They're shorter and cleaned up, but still increeeedibly long and slow for my personal tastes. Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ is a sequel to both of those and should probably not be watched first. That entire set is a mixed bag of production values.

Chars Counter Attack is a final movie that wraps up that story.

08th MS team is Gundams in the jungle. My favorite of what I've seen, but its also pretty short.

0080:War in the Pocket and 0083: Stardust Memory are subsets of the original story with OVA quality and are good, but also very short and without any of the characters from the main story... so they're probably good starting places to see if you like the universe or not.

Wing is the one everyone in America is familiar with, so just for mutual discussion that might be a good one. Apparently most Gundam fans find it to be pretty bad overall, (but if its your first and only Gundam you have no real comparison...) and I havent really watched it for a long time. If you go in with a gay joke mindset, its a very, very, very different series.

G-Gundam is a wacky tournament series with craaaaazy mechs and unlike any other Gundam. Not a good first one, probably, due sheerly to being soooo different. On the other hand if you dislike the war stuff you might just love G-Gundam. Its completely different.

Turn A is the one I really want to watch at some point, because the designs are unique and it has Yoko Kanno music, but I haven't actually seen a single episode so can't tell much about it.

Seed is one of the newest ones, and its basically yet another retelling of the original series.

Unicorn is even newer.

Zoids: Chaotic Century isn't a Gundam series, but it might as well be.

I haven't seen most of these personally, just little bits and pieces, (and info gleamed from the Musou games) but as I understand it they're *largely* the same most of the time. Art style, mech design, and current animation level are the biggies, but the main themes and ideas carry over pretty consistently, as do a lot of the plot points, right down to a blonde masked guy as the main villain.

[The Beast]

I'm kind of tired so I won't give you my typical, huge Gundam spiel about everything: I'll narrow it down for you. Out of the UC series (the original Gundam universe, Universal Century), the absolute best ones are The 08th MS Team, 0080 War in the Pocket, and Victory Gundam. There are some good series such as 0079 (the original Gundam) that are followed upon closely by direct sequels, but it's a bit of an investment to watch everything and a lot of it actually just sucks anyways so don't worry about it right now. Gundam Unicorn is also really good and it's actually the newest Gundam right now!

Outside of the UC timeline and universe, there are individual standalone Gundams like G Gundam (which is superb). My personal favorite of them is Turn A Gundam. Gundam X, too, is very, very good.

Stuff like Gundam Wing, Gundam Seed, and Gundam 00 is a very different kind of Gundam aesthetically and in direction and I personally find them absolutely bad.

The timeline is as follows for UC Gundam, in case you were wondering where everything fits in:

Mobile Suit Gundam (UC 0079)
Mobile Suit Gundam Movie I (UC 0079)
Mobile Suit Gundam Movie II (UC 0079)
Mobile Suit Gundam Movie III (UC 0079)
Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team (UC 0079)
Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket (UC 0079)
Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory (UC 0083)
Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Last Blitz of Zeon (UC 0083)
Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam (UC 0087)
Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ (UC 0088)
Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack (UC 0093)
Mobile Suit Gundam: Formula 91 (UC 0123)
Mobile Suit Victory Gundam (UC 0153)
G-Saviour (UC 0223)
Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn (UC 0096)

Half of it sucks.

The 0079 movies are better and more streamlined than the series. Zeta and ZZ are both the direct sequels to the original Gundam series, since you can't tell on the timeline. I'm trying to remember since I'm not huge on either, but I think it was Zeta that had good characters and a bad narrative, while ZZ has a better narrative that is ruined by atrocious characters and bad directing and just overall a lot of bad decisions. They are followed by Char's Counterattack, which is hard to say if it's very good, or somewhat bad. Everything that isn't something I just said is considered a side story, if not related. If I haven't mentioned it, it's not noteworthy.

For the record, the best overall narrative in the entire Gundam series is probably War in the Pocket, because it is completely lacking in Tomino's heavy handedness. Being that it's also six episodes, it's a great starting place.

[Tokoro Ataru]

I need to get back to my Gundam (since I've own the Zeta box but never got even to the halfway point mostly due to lack of time) but probably the best place to start would be the 3-movies for original series (so you can get the gist without some stuff that probably could have been kept in and a few weird decisions more to appease toy makers even if they were cool...oh, and the occasional terrible filler) and something like 08th Team. For the most part it all goes back to the UC so starting in the UC is a good place to start watching Gundam.

Though if you like a lot of craziness and epic manliness, give G a try somewhere along the line.

[Mister_Anbu]

00 and Seed kind fall under the same category. Both use a lot of one-dimensional characters and everything is completely over-dramatized. There is a lot of pubescent angst and really it probably is just horrible. That said, the aesthetics make them very pretty and I don't mind that. I liked them both regardless of criticism and them being cheesy. It's a guilt pleasure, I suppose. Oh Gundam Wing fits under that as well, but it's pretty old.

I will echo the above sentiment and say G Gundam is great. I don't think it's a bad palce to start at all.

[Tokoro Ataru]

00 and Seed kind fall under the same category. Both use a lot of one-dimensional characters and everything is completely over-dramatized. There is a lot of pubescent angst and really it probably is just horrible. That said, the aesthetics make them very pretty and I don't mind that. I liked them both regardless of criticism and them being cheesy. It's a guilt pleasure, I suppose. Oh Gundam Wing fits under that as well, but it's pretty old.

Heh, nice to be warned. I heard SEED was terrible (well more SEED was mediocre and Destiny sucked) but some said when 00 started it was going to avoid a lot of that crap and was actually good...guess it wasn't.

[Crossword]

The three series that I've seen are, well, SEED, SEED Destiny, and 00. SEED was rather middling and did have its handful of silly moments, but by the time it was allowed to go its own way by the end as opposed to being ''attack of the week'', I though it was moderately engaging, despite the blatant riffs off of Star Wars. SEED Destiny...that was pretty bad, and even managed to make me feel insulted by the end.

00...I did like how, for taking place in the ''real'' world, its depiction of the future was relatively grounded, giant robots and space elevator network aside. The politics of the first season were very post-9/11 and I did like how it avoided some of the cliches and formulas I'd seen in the Cosmic Era shows. Then the second season largely did away with that and returned to a more typical plot of taking down superhumans, and the battles weren't as visually interesting as the first season. And finally the movie that wrapped everything up had a highly derpy plot. A shame that a series that started out on the right foot with me jumped its own shark by the end, so to speak.

[The Beast]

G Gundam is a nice thing to watch first, but I wouldn't call it a start if you're going to watch a series of Gundam things.

It's Gundam in name only, its very existence has more in common with Giant Robo and 70s SR than Gundam.

[Malintex_Terek]

Turn A as your first Gundam for laughs. That's what I'm doing right now in between LOTGH, and it's pissing the people I talk to off because I miss both OBSCURE and BLATANT UC references. I can definitely understand how this is - Muv-Luv has a ton of references to Gundam and catching them ("what is the kinetic energy of a space colony plummeting to Earth traveling on an arc trajectory...") but getting my hands on the original MSG, let alone watching it, is a major task. And everyone says ZZ is terrible and Tomino has disowned it.

Turn A is actually not that bad a show, just not GOD GLORIOUS from what others have said. But definitely not "terrible" because Loran takes a while to actually find Moustache Gundam. Some of the appeal was lost after the first few eps though.

[Brizan]

Contrary to what others say, I would watch SEED first. People like to say it is bad simply because its rather recent but I love it and most anyone just getting into gundam would. SEED destiny on the other hand sucked the big one, this is where the others are saying characters from SEED are one dimensional. It Kira and Athrun are definitely deeper characters than Kamille the protagonist from Zeta(not ripping on Zeta, I would say Char is the deepest character in the franchise). SEED is also a lot better than Wing with its ultra bland protagonists(besides the deathscythe dude) and G Gundam which was an extremely fun watch but rather shallow.

The greatest gundam series in my opinion was 08th MS team then war in a pocket. However, do not watch these first as you would not understand them. After finishing SEED, I would suggest going to Gundam wiki to look up what happened in the first gundam as its and SEED's stories reflect eachother. Then watch Zeta once you are familiar with the UC characters. After this go back and watch 08th, 0080 and 0083 then skip double zeta as it was rather horrible as it made me miss kamille.

Kind of rambled there but I would definitely watch SEED first, its modern and isn't bad. It is also only really predictable if you know the gundam formula.

Other gundams you should watch

-After war: Gundam X - Cool series in an alternate universe but it was cut short.
-Mobile Fighter: G Gundam- G is also the only gundam series based in its universe. The story is extremely simple yet fun. Also the people pilot the Gundams with thei movements, how cool is that?

[lelandlancaster]

I enjoyed G Gundam the most, because I love wacky shenanigans and ridiculousness, but it's a bit different than the rest of them.

[The Beast]

People like to say it is bad simply because its rather recent but I love it and most anyone just getting into gundam would.

I disagree strongly, recent has nothing to do with it. Gundam Unicorn is recent and it's great, as is the Gundam Crossbones manga.

The greatest gundam series in my opinion was 08th MS team then war in a pocket.

But I like how no matter how much disagreement comes from Gundam, nobody can refute the quality of 08th MS Team and War in the Pocket. It's where we stand united.

[loledinmypants]

To sum up my opinion since most have covered the relevant info:

Best: Victory, Zeta, 0080, 08th MS, X, and G (probably Turn A too; it's coming soon on my to-watch list and is the only one I haven't watched)

Passable: Anything but SEED, SEED Destiny and 00 Season 2. 0083 only arguably fits here since most of what I liked about it were seeing Zeta/ZZ characters pre-Zeta and Gundam designs (except the nigh-plothole Physalis; long story short there's an anti-nuke treaty, it's peacetime, and yet the Federation thinks it's wise to make a nuke-launching Gundam... that gets stolen...). Wing is also questionable since it's an alternate UC on fast-forward.

Avoid unless you really want to: SEED (took too long to get decent), SEED Destiny (shat all over anything even partially likeable about SEED while stealing mobile suits from the original series), and 00 Season 2 (Zeta Gundam ripoff with worse characters; Allelujah was done developing, Tieria was walking plot, Setsuna was a worse version of Heero, and Lockon II had annoying inferiority issues).

[Kareem Said]

I was personally hoping to watch a modern series, something that was in the 2000's (or late 90's at earliest). So I guess I should rephrase my question to, what's the best modern Gundam series?

[loledinmypants]

I was personally hoping to watch a modern series, something that was in the 2000's (or late 90's at earliest). So I guess I should rephrase my question to, what's the best modern Gundam series?

00 Season 1, Gundam Unicorn. And Turn A is 1999 iirc, maybe 2000.

Unfortunately for you, SEED and SEED Destiny are the first post-2000 series and the former takes a while to get "fairly good" and the latter sequel tears apart anything the former had. Gundam 00 starts off nicely, basically because it takes Gundam and directly inserts terrorism, but the good guys are the arguable terrorists. But then, as I said, Season 2 scraps that atmosphere in favor of ripping off Zeta Gundam.

[kyoushirowolf]

I'm not very much into Gundam, but I have watched a couple series and movies. I loved the first OVA of Gundam Unicorn, the second was so-so, plainly boring.

[Nobodyman]

Quite honestly, I have never really seen the appeal of the Gundam series. To date I have seen: SEED, Endless Waltz, and Zeta. SEED and Zeta were pretty good, I guess, but not good enough for me want to delve more into the franchise.

For me, it's not something that you can easily engage. You really have to pay attention to understand what's going on. But it's just so BORING.

[super "pet" robot]

G gundam for the manly man!!

[Kareem Said]

Quite honestly, I have never really seen the appeal of the Gundam series. To date I have seen: SEED, Endless Waltz, and Zeta. SEED and Zeta were pretty good, I guess, but not good enough for me want to delve more into the franchise.

For me, it's not something that you can easily engage. You really have to pay attention to understand what's going on. But it's just so BORING.

Yeah I'm starting to think that I'm in over my head with Gundam. I probably don't have enough interest to really spend too much time on it, I'm sorry if this makes all of this discussion a bit pointless. Well anyway thanks for telling me that Unicorn was good, I didn't think much of that series because I don't think Unicorn when I think badass, but I'll keep it in mind.

[The Beast]

Quite honestly, I have never really seen the appeal of the Gundam series. To date I have seen: SEED, Endless Waltz, and Zeta.

Maaaan Seed is an awful place to begin with in Gundam and an awful thing to watch period, it's so bad. It's like an amalgam of an imitation of Tomino's worst storytelling crutches (he has hams for hands and they are heavy hands) placed into a mold that "modern anime audiences" would find accepting. And modern anime audiences are bullshit. And Endless Waltz is the sequel movie to a series you haven't watched (that also sucks). I think that might be your problem. Honestly Kareem you don't need to find UC Gundam a very intimidating watch. Like seriously, you could watch 0080: War in the Pocket and you would not need a single bit of back story, it is completely self contained. Same goes for 08th MS Team. If you want to watch amazing series that just happen to be Gundam, instead of getting roped into a long sequence of related stories involving idiot psychics, watch these two things and then watch G Gundam and then fly into a rainbow or something. You'll be done. Because really the best Gundams are totally self contained ones (add Turn A Gundam and Gundam X to this and you've wrapped up my favorites)