tek's rating: ½

Mobile Suit Gundam, on Nagoya Broadcasting Network
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This was the first Gundam series, made in 1979, set in Universal Century year 0079. 43 episodes*. Apparently a major revolution at the time in anime and animation in general, though it doesn't really look all that great today, with decades of improvement in animation since then. Anyway, Cartoon Network never finished airing the series, so I haven't seen all of it, but I definitely want to do, eventually. It doesn't seem terribly well written or anything (which may just be the fault of the English translation, I dunno), but at least I think it's better than some of the other Gundam series. And besides, it was the start of a major franchise. There've been tons of Gundam series and movies and stuff since then, most of which I haven't seen yet, but wouldn't mind seeing sometime.

Anyway, this series, set during the One Year War, focused on a kid named Amuro Ray, who was one of a group of Earth Federation colonists or something being evacuated when the Zeon attacked. There are a bunch of space colonies orbiting the Earth, and some of them declare themselves independent, calling themselves the Principality of Zeon. I think partly they had a legitmate right to seek independence from the Earth Federation, but partly it was just a power play on the part of a leading Zeon family, the Zabis.

Anyway, Amuro is on this Federation ship called White Base (which the Zeon call "the Trojan Horse"), and ends up piloting this experimental new Federation mobile suit (a giant robot) called a Gundam. He'll mainly fight against a Zeon officer and mobile suit pilot called Char Aznable. It turns out Amuro is a special kind of person called a "newtype," which means basically he's got faster reflexes than normal people and some sort of psychic and telepathic ability. Char is training a young woman as a mobile pilot, who is also a newtype. Well, eventually the Federation wins the war I guess, though like I said, I didn't see the end. Not sure what else to say about it, but if I ever get around to rewatching the series, I'll try to write up a better review.

*Note: the series had 43 episodes in Japan, but in North America episode 15 was never shown or released, so it has only 42 episodes.


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