so..I want to get into Gundam...where to start?

[pondo]

I'm a bit of a completest...which would be the series to start with?

Is Gundam like macross in the sense that it's all part of one universe? Or could I start with a later series. Is there a user friendly movie?

[Bri]

You're probably best of to check out the different series on the Gundam wiki page, it gives a nice overview of the sequence and more details. In short, the original TV series of MS Gundam still is a nice place to start for the Universal Century titels, the primary universe. You could also take the three movies that condense the storyline as a starting point as the TV series can be a tad tedious at times.

The alternate universe series are mostly stand alone and can pretty much watched at any time.

[lechuck]

Well for starters, you have to separate between Universal Century (UC) and Alternate Universes (AU).

UC (Chronological)

- Mobile Suit Gundam

- Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team

- Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in a Pocket

- Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory

- Mobile Suit Z Gundam

- Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ

- Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack

- Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn

- Mobile Suit Gundam F91

- Mobile Suit V Gundam

Gundam Unicorn is still in production, only Ep. 1 has been released.

If you wanted a more abbreviated experience to get down to the core of UC, then watching

- MS Gundam Movies 1-3

- Z Gundam Movies 1-3

- Char's Counterattack

should cover you. CCA is my personal favourite. Nu Gundam owns all!!!

AU

- After War Gundam X

- Mobile Suit Gundam Wing

- Mobile Suit Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz

- Mobile Fighter G Gundam

- Turn A Gundam

- Mobile Suit Gundam SEED

- Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny

- Mobile Suit Gundam SEED C.E. 73 STARGAZER

- Mobile Suit Gundam 00

Non of the AU shows are connected with each other, but ones with the same preceding title belong together in their respective universe.

[Gubaba]

To quote the Mad Hatter, "Start at the beginning, go through the middle, and when you come to the end, stop."

There are a couple of different ways to approach Gundam...the two I would recommend would be either

A. Start with the original Mobile Gundam (series or movies, it doesn't really matter) and then proceed chronologically through the series (MS Igloo second, 08th MS Team third, 0080 fourth, and so on).

B. Start with the original Mobile Gundam (series or movies, it doesn't really matter) and then proceed through production order (Zeta Gundam TV series second, ZZ third, Char's Counterattack fourth, and so on).

This is assuming you don't mind "dated" animation, of course (which, on Macross World, is usually a safe assumption).

[Ghost Train]

In "semi" Chronological Order if you wanna do it "historically"

These First three intertwine, and describe the OYW saga:

-(The First) Mobile Suit Gundam

-08th MS Team

-MS Igloo

-0080

-0083

-Zeta

-ZZ

-Char's Counter Attack

-Gundam UC (this is ongoing)

-Mobile Suit Gundam F-91

-Mobile Suit Victory Gundam

-G-Saviour (watch this one at your own risk )

[Vostok 7]

I thought Turn A Gundam was "technically" canon to UC. At least that's what I've gathered from some canon UC timelines I've read.

[anubis20]

I thought Turn A Gundam was "technically" canon to UC. At least that's what I've gathered from some canon UC timelines I've read.

Turn A gundam was supposed to unify all of the Gundam Universes thats what they refer to as the "Dark History". If you want to watch some of the newer stuff like Igloo and Unicorn then you're going to have to go all the way back to Mobile Suit Gundam and progress from there. For stuff like 00, Wing, Seed you can watch those without having any previous knowledge. This is the order in which I watched Gundam.

Wing

08th MS team (it was on Toonami at night and had nothing better to watch... kick ass OVA though)

0079

0080

0083

SEED

Zeta

ZZ

Chars Counterattack

F-91

G-Saviour (Only got through 15 minutes of this)

G-Gundam

Turn A Gundam

Igloo

SEED Destiny

Gundam 00

Gundam Unicorn (This is one badass OVA for those who havent seen it)

Edited May 28, 2010 by anubis20

[Ginrai]

Just watch the original Mobile Suit Gundam movie trilogy and see if you like it. It's really good (especially movie 3) as long as you don't have a problem with '70s animation. It's also not THAT much of a time investment. You might also try Gundam 0080 to start with as it's self-contained as well.

[Vifam7]

If you wanted a more abbreviated experience to get down to the core of UC, then watching

- MS Gundam Movies 1-3

- Z Gundam Movies 1-3

- Char's Counterattack

should cover you. CCA is my personal favourite. Nu Gundam owns all!!!

This is what I'd recommend. Maybe suggest the Zeta Gundam TV series instead of the movies. But these 3 titles are the core of UC Gundam and great place to start with. you could branch to the other UC era stories from here.

I'd recommend staying away from the AU series until/unless you become a Gundam fan.

[azrael]

Turn A gundam was supposed to unify all of the Gundam Universes thats what they refer to as the "Dark History".

However, it is still considered an AU in the Gundam-world, which is why it uses the "Correct Century"-timeline.

[Ghost Train]

But the best Gundam was 00.... (looks around)

/equip flamesuit

[Mr March]

Watch Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket. Just because I say so

[The Shade]

I'm currently watching the Universal Century series in chronological order. If you don't mind watching a show that starts slow, but finishes rather well, I would watch the original Mobile Suit Gundam. Mind you, my impression of it is that the first 30 episodes, while not terrible, were somewhat slow. The payoff is episodes 31-43. Once you reach this point, it picks up rather well. Most Gundam series are like this, the first 20 to 30 episodes are usually the establishing episodes (setting up the world, characters, mecha, etc). Once they pick up, they usually do so rather well.

I have not yet watched the movie trilogy. These are compilation movies. They are composed of footage from the TV series and contain some new animation. While I can't give you an opinion of them, my impression from various reviews are that they flow pretty well, for compilation films that is.

As for the side series (8th MS team, 0080 War in the Pocket, MS Igloo, and 0083 Stardust Memory), watch them only if you are a completist. My opinion of them is that, while they contain nice animation (certainly much nicer than the original TV series), they never really did it for me at all (8th MS Team being the best of the lot).

As for the next major TV series, Zeta Gundam, I'm still in the process of watching that. My review of it will follow.

Oh, and don't follow Mr March's suggestion. If you start with 0080 War in the Pocket, you may end up castrating yourself in order to make sure you never have children as annoying as the lead in this show.

[Roy Focker]

Watch 0079 Trilogy

Watch all of Zeta

Watch 0080

Watch 0083

Watch Char Counterattack.

The End

[taksraven]

Just watch the original Mobile Suit Gundam movie trilogy and see if you like it. It's really good (especially movie 3) as long as you don't have a problem with '70s animation. It's also not THAT much of a time investment. You might also try Gundam 0080 to start with as it's self-contained as well.

Agree Ginrai on this one. Definitely a good place to start. The third movie blew me away, sooooooooo good. I enjoy 0083 Stardust Memories the most though. Good structure, only screws up a bit at the end. (not too much though)

Taksraven

[David Hingtgen]

Roy---you skipped 08th MS team?!?!

[JB0]

Only UC I've seen is some F91 fansub.

...

PLEASE someone tell me the reference to the space colony's coal mines is a huge translation error in the fansub.

Because my first thought was "Isn't burning fossil fuels in an enclosed space a bad idea?" followed immediately by "Wait, coal MINES? As in someone shipped several thousand tons of coal into space, then shipped tens of thousands of tons of dirt up JUST to be a dick and bury the coal that is apparently a vital resource to the colonists?"

[anime52k8]

watch all of The Tomino gundam's first (0079, zeta, ZZ, CCA, F91, Victory).

I would wait till after you've seen all the main UC stuff before watching any of the side story OVAs. None of them add that much to the overall UC storyline, and they end up introducing a lot of stuff that feels out of place compared to the rest of UC gundam (theirs a LOT of retcon going on in UC side stories).

of the side stories 0080 and 8th MS are both quite good and worth checking out; 0083 isn't ok (characters suck, story is weak, but the animation and mecha designs are good so at least it's fun to watch.); MS Igloo is crap.

of the AC stuff, watch turn A gundam and G gundam.

[areaseven]

What - no votes for SD Gundam Force?

[Agent ONE]

Don't do it. Gundam is a mess.

Full of Macross 7 type stuff.

For every good hour of Gundam there are 5 bad.

[Seto Kaiba]

I'm a bit of a completest...which would be the series to start with?

Is Gundam like macross in the sense that it's all part of one universe? Or could I start with a later series. Is there a user friendly movie?

Okay... for a completest, Gundam is probably a really bad franchise to attempt to get into. It's just too massive for anyone to try tackling all at once. I guarantee that if you attempt to marathon your way through any Gundam show more than 13 episodes long or, god forbid, attempt to watch multiple Gundam shows back-to-back, you'll quickly find yourself heartily sick of protagonist du jour's whining and the way the franchise treats endlessly recycling the same handful of plots and set pieces as an appropriate substitute for innovation.

In practice, I suppose it's really more the protagonists who ruin attempts to marathon the Gundam shows than it is the recycled plot devices. After all, if you've got yourself a winning formula, why screw with it? The problem is that, with very VERY few exceptions, the Gundam protagonists are basically cast from the same three basic molds. You've got your whining, naive, immature pubescent boys with daddy issues who'll fall into the cockpit of a super prototype and then whine about how tough their life is afterward (basically a proto-Shinji, ex.: Amuro Ray, Camille Bidan); personality-less, gun-toting, stoic child soldiers (Setsuna F. Seiei, Heero Yuy); and pointlessly badass robot action heros who do six impossible things before breakfast just because, and who really just underline how depressing everyone else is (Domon Kasshu, Tobia Arronax).

To be frank, what I'd recommend is that you go in production order (start with the 1979 Mobile Suit Gundam or the compilation movies), and watch at most two episodes a day. That way the grimdark, the whining, and everything else won't have a chance to get to the threshold where watching the show feels more like a chore than a leisure time activity.

While I'm sure the completest in you will rebel against this idea, I would say that you could probably skip several shows as superfluous or just plain not worth watching. For starters, if you didn't like Macross 7, you'll probably want to skip Mobile Suit ZZ Gundam, the first half of which is painfully dull and kinda stupid. You'll probably also do yourself a favor by skipping the whole Cosmic Era (Gundam SEED), since it's basically "Universal Century for Dummies" brimming with implied bromance for the yaoi crowd. You can skip Gundam Wing for similar reasons... LOTS of implied bromance and you can get the same basic story without most of the suck by watching the Gundam 00 TV series instead. If you're down on super robots, you might wanna give Mobile Fighter G Gundam a wide berth too... since it's the domain of manly men with long sideburns who shout a lot and wear spandex to pilot their giant robots. (If that's your bag, or you just have an anarchic sense of humor, you may find Mobile Fighter G Gundam weirdly compelling)

For every good hour of Gundam there are 5 bad.

To paraphrase Gioacchino Rossini, Gundam has some good moments... and some bad halves of an hour.

Edited May 29, 2010 by Seto Kaiba

[anime52k8]

wow, considering how much you love MacII I would have thought you'd be totally into SERIOUS BUSINESS shows about rehashed plots and uninteresting, cookie cutter characters.

Seriously though, Gundam is way better than you make it out to be, especially 0079 and Zeta (but not SEED, SEED does suck).

ZZ does have a bit of a Mac7 feel, but in a good way. Because Macross 7 is quirky and awesome, and so is ZZ. so if you like Macross 7 (which you should) you'll like ZZ, and You'll LOVE G gundam.

and you should watch Wing instead of 00. it's the same show except wing has better mecha designs (better design and animation work in general, actually). also the second half of wing doesn't degenerate into a really, REALLY terrible rehash of zeta.

[lechuck]

Okay... for a completest, Gundam is probably a really bad franchise to attempt to get into. It's just too massive for anyone to try tackling all at once. I guarantee that if you attempt to marathon your way through any Gundam show more than 13 episodes long or, god forbid, attempt to watch multiple Gundam shows back-to-back, you'll quickly find yourself heartily sick of protagonist du jour's whining and the way the franchise treats endlessly recycling the same handful of plots and set pieces as an appropriate substitute for innovation.

In practice, I suppose it's really more the protagonists who ruin attempts to marathon the Gundam shows than it is the recycled plot devices. After all, if you've got yourself a winning formula, why screw with it? The problem is that, with very VERY few exceptions, the Gundam protagonists are basically cast from the same three basic molds. You've got your whining, naive, immature pubescent boys with daddy issues who'll fall into the cockpit of a super prototype and then whine about how tough their life is afterward (basically a proto-Shinji, ex.: Amuro Ray, Camille Bidan); personality-less, gun-toting, stoic child soldiers (Setsuna F. Seiei, Heero Yuy); and pointlessly badass robot action heros who do six impossible things before breakfast just because, and who really just underline how depressing everyone else is (Domon Kasshu, Tobia Arronax).

And what do you call Macross' constant usage of love-triangles, j-pop music, characters with annoying attributes

and battling of misunderstood aliens of the week... "Innovative Repetition"?

Double standards can be a dangerous thing...

[Seto Kaiba]

wow, considering how much you love MacII I would have thought you'd be totally into SERIOUS BUSINESS shows about rehashed plots and uninteresting, cookie cutter characters.

Speaking of obnoxious things that don't mix it up, would you kindly come up with a new ad hominem attack? That one lost all its bite a loooooooong time ago.

Seriously... even though Macross II was, by all accounts, a sequel that played it safe and didn't try to mix it up as much as subsequent efforts did, it still had a hell of a lot more originality than most of the later UC Gundam shows. There comes a time when, even if you have a winning formula, you still need to mix it up a little to keep things from getting stale. Gundam doesn't exactly do that a lot, and on the rare occasion it does, it's usually an alternate universe story. As a result, the whole UC timeline is a parade of samey conflicts against space fascists (and usually the same bunch of space fascists at that) who usually want to drop some kind of large stellar mass on Earth's surface and/or commit genocide, broken up by the occasional rebellion against the corrupt Earth Federation when they get too heavy-handed trying to keep the space fascists in line.

Seriously though, Gundam is way better than you make it out to be, especially 0079 and Zeta (but not SEED, SEED does suck).

Like I said (and you apparently ignored), it's a winning formula and they're smart enough not to screw with it just because they can... but it's best to take it in small doses to keep the conflicts from running together and the standard-issue whiny protagonist from driving the viewer up a tree.

It's the same problem Evangelion has... it's a classic show, but the average viewer can only take so much whining per day, so it's best to pace yourself when you're watching it. This is actually what I suggest for Macross 7 as well... it's not a BAD show, it's just not a show most people should try watching all in one sitting.

ZZ does have a bit of a Mac7 feel, but in a good way. Because Macross 7 is quirky and awesome, and so is ZZ. so if you like Macross 7 (which you should) you'll like ZZ, and You'll LOVE G gundam.

Eh... Quirky? Yes. Awesome? No. To be entirely fair to ZZ Gundam, if you prefer the somewhat grimmer tone of the rest of Gundam then you'll find the second half of ZZ Gundam much more enjoyable. The first half is, as you said, similar to the Macross 7 TV series. In particular, it has that lightness of tone and silliness that occasionally crosses the line into what some might consider full-blown stupidity, and others might consider highly amusing anarchic comedy. It's all down to taste, but I'll be surprised if anyone seriously attempts to defend the Moon-Moon episodes as anything but a clandestine attempt to weaponize bad writing.

and you should watch Wing instead of 00. it's the same show except wing has better mecha designs (better design and animation work in general, actually). also the second half of wing doesn't degenerate into a really, REALLY terrible rehash of zeta.

The "better mechanical designs" thing is really down to taste too... Gundam 00's got a lot less recycled footage. I don't deny that the second season was a steady slide towards a train wreck ending, but the first half was an extremely well-executed show. I can't really say the same for Wing, which never really bothers to explain why the protagonists are wrecking Earth's poo and killing everybody until the wrap-up OVA, and tosses new factions in and has characters make knee-jerk faction changes whenever they run out of ideas.

And what do you call Macross' constant usage of love-triangles, j-pop music, characters with annoying attributes

and battling of misunderstood aliens of the week... "Innovative Repetition"?

Double standards can be a dangerous thing...

If you'd read my whole post, you'd realize it's not a double standard at all. Both shows have a formula that works for them. The difference is that Macross makes a concerted effort to mix it up a bit with each iteration, trying new things with the characters, the mechanical designs, the love triangle, etc. They take their concept to new and interesting places. Gundam doesn't make as much of an effort to try new things, which can leave some of the shows feeling like the only thing that changed were the names of the characters, and sometimes not even that much (like the jump from Mobile Suit Gundam to Zeta Gundam and from Zeta Gundam to the latter half of ZZ Gunadm).

Edited May 29, 2010 by Seto Kaiba

[pondo]

Thanks guys!

Now I'm even MORE intimidated.

maybe I'll check out space battleship yamato instead.

(and no, I don't mind older animation.)

[areaseven]

Thanks guys!

Now I'm even MORE intimidated.

maybe I'll check out space battleship yamato instead.

(and no, I don't mind older animation.)

The old animation is perfect. It's just the numerous story arcs you'll go through when it comes to Yamato. And that doesn't count the legal battles that ran longer than the entire series.

[Mr March]

Thanks guys!

Now I'm even MORE intimidated.

maybe I'll check out space battleship yamato instead.

(and no, I don't mind older animation.)

Which is why you should take my advice and just watch Gundam 0080. It's a nicely animated, short, 6-episode side-story that anyone can enjoy without knowing anything about Gundam and without being daunted by the enormity of exposition from the franchise. You posted because you wanted some distillation of all the numerous options and because you wanted some sound advice, so why not take mine. Gundam 0080 is the least amount of time and effort you can spend on any Gundam show without the need for back story. "Do it. Do it now! Kill me! Come on, I'm here! Kill me! Get to da choppa!"

Edited May 29, 2010 by Mr March

[pondo]

Which is why you should take my advice and just watch Gundam 0080. It's a nicely animated, short, 6-episode side-story that anyone can enjoy without knowing anything about Gundam and without being daunted by the enormity of exposition from the franchise. You posted because you wanted some distillation of all the numerous options and because you wanted some sound advice, so why not take mine. Gundam 0080 is the least amount of time and effort you can spend on any Gundam show without the need for back story. "Do it. Do it now! Kill me! Come on, I'm here! Kill me! Get to da choppa!"

thanks!

[Wanzerfan]

My take on the series:

I liked what I saw of the original before CN gave it the axe (I also read the one of the more recent translations of Tomino's novels three noves Awakening, Escalation, and Confrontation; the translator gave different names to some of the characters, names which were, in his opinion, truer to the Japanese meaning: Char became Sha, for example).

I loved the 08th. M.S. team, it had an excellent story; too bad it ended the way it did, I would've loved to see more of the characters.

I couldn't get into Seed.

Mobile Fighter G-Gundam was goofy at parts, but the endidng made up for the bad storyline, but not by much.

I only saw Mobile Suit Gundam W cut on Cartoon Network; it was good, but I'm suspecting it was better uncut (one of the few animes I saw where one of the main heros was an out and out prick; I'm talking to you, Heero). I couldn't stand Endless Waltz. Was I the only one who nodiced that most of the main characters were named after numerals?

I didn't see any of the other series to make a comment on them.

[Ghost Train]

If you just want to see mobile suits flying around going pew pew Macross-style, while yelling manly things... watch 0083 first.

[azrael]

If you'd read my whole post, you'd realize it's not a double standard at all. Both shows have a formula that works for them. The difference is that Macross makes a concerted effort to mix it up a bit with each iteration, trying new things with the characters, the mechanical designs, the love triangle, etc. They take their concept to new and interesting places. Gundam doesn't make as much of an effort to try new things, which can leave some of the shows feeling like the only thing that changed were the names of the characters, and sometimes not even that much (like the jump from Mobile Suit Gundam to Zeta Gundam and from Zeta Gundam to the latter half of ZZ Gunadm).

But that's only within the UC-timeline. Once you start branching out of UC and into the AU-timelines, then things get a little mixed and jumbled around.

[lechuck]

Even within UC there is enough mixing and differences going on.

- We've had stories that have centered on locations like a colony or earth with no big space battles.

- We've had protagonist characters that weren't all whiny, angsty or newtypes.

- We've had plenty different takes on the Gundams design; with core-blocks, without them, transformable, with bits/funnels, big/small.

- We've had a love story, love-triangle, rivalries, team-ups etc.

That's plenty of mix up for me, and probably more effort than swapping females with males (or vice versa) for love triangles or lead pop idol

within the very spotty chronological setup of Macross.

[Gubaba]

The thing I hate about threads like this is that the original poster asks, "Where should I start?" which can be taken as a pretty cut-and-dried question.

But it usually turns into Poster A saying, "Well, Show X is great, so watch that first, but Show Y sucks, so don't watch it." And then Poster B says, "No, Show Y was incredible. Show X is the one that sucks." And Poster C comes in and says "Show Z is the only one that's good," and so on.

I always take the question to mean, "Which series does not require knowledge of the franchise as a whole in order to understand it?" In which case, there is only one answer: the original TV series, or the original movie trilogy.

Mr. March's suggestion of 0080 is not bad (it's a short series, and a powerful story, and thus might whet your appetite for more), but it spoils the end of the original series. The same is true of most of the shorter OVAs.

The first is the only one that doesn't assume you know the world or the characters, which makes it the perfect entry place.

[Vifam7]

thanks!

Pondo,

At the very least you should watch the First Gundam trilogy movies before you watch Gundam 0080. While not essential, it'll give you a better appreciation and some background to the UC era world.

If anything, the trilogy movies is where the popularity of Gundam truly began. It's the foundation and inspiration for all the other Gundam anime.

[Ghost Train]

How's this:

If you want to watch one Gundam series/OVA/movie that is so bad that you will never want to watch any Gundam forever and ever... watch G-Saviour (it's live action too!).