Help Wrath get into Gundam

[Wrath2X]

I always enjoyed the games I played, I even owned some of the toys as a kid. Yet somehow outside of catching a few episodes of Wing here and there I can't say I ever did follow it as much as I liked to. Two years ago I knocked out Star Trek as my large cultural blindspot so now it's time for something animated and with subtitles.

Mr. Gundam where you at?

[CatsCatsCats]

Just watch G Gundam

[Himu]

Start with 0079 movie trilogy. Then watch 0080 war in the pocket(best gundam), 08th ms team, then 0083. Those three are ovas and the best Gundams to start with.

From there you've got the Gundam basics. If you want more 0079 watch the series. If you want a continuation watch Zeta. Be warned that it's mostly trash and that UC timeline is a massive time sink and largely overrated af. If you want cheesy Super Robot crap where Gundams wear Klogs watch G Gundam. Want so bad it's good complete cheese ball? Watch Wing. Want FF7: Gundam? Watch 00 (season 1 ONLY). Want Gundam with a pretty enjoyable story and world? Watch Turn-A. Gundam has something for everyone and completely varies in quality.

Those four however will give you a good base, aren't time consuming and will show you whether you will like Gundam or not.

The negative is that 0080 is the best Gundam and the franchise never really gets better than that.

[Himu]

There is nothing really generic about 00 s1. 00 s1 is perhaps the best tv series.

Gundam 0079 is thoroughly better than Zeta. Zeta and CCA introduce completely bonkers and bananas characters. CCA, despite being regarded as an anime classic, has utter balls characters. Fun note: I have never finished 0079 tv series because it was cancelled due to 9/11. Zeta is full of filler episodes, dipshit characters, and half the show is crap. It doesn't get good until like episode 32. Btw, it's a 50 episode series.

Unicorn is a prime example of style over substance. What I saw of it ten years ago was ass and the definition of losing a boner.

Turn-A is fantastic and refreshing for Gundam.

I have never seen Iron Blooded Orphans and haven't watched a Gundam since Builders.

[Himu]

You say monster-of-the-week as if that's a thing that would be an issue to me. I love good Monser/Case/whatever of the week shit and wish shows would do that again.

Thanks for the recs, guys. One of the weeb torrent sites i know has packs so I'm starting somewhat with chronological release order.

Chronological release order might not be for the best because Zeta was released before the ovas. In general, people usually suggest Gundam by year. 0079 is the first year of Gundam main timeline, then you've got 0080, 0083, then Zeta. 08th MS happens during 0079.

[Himu]

Okay. You're going to be dealing with two 50 episode series then. You might also have to watch Double Zeta.

There's a lot of Gundam series'. A LOT. You're essentially dealing with literally over a dozen series, many of which are 50 episodes long.

But okay, have at it.

[Nintex]

I was a big fan of Gundam Wing back in the day.

Although over the years I found out it was the least like the other series with a heavy emphasis on political drama, no 'likable' heroes and overall a more dark and depressing tone.

[Himu]

UC Gundam is the most overrated thing. The benefit of going chronological is you'll get out of UC very fast.

If you go chronological you'll do 0079 -> Zeta -> ZZ -> CCA and then 0080 and 0083 and then Victory to my memory.

Personally I really dislike both Zeta and ZZ but you may have completely different opinion as me.

[Himu]

so general consensus is avoid ZZ at all costs?

Not really. It starts out light but then gets darker later on. It's a slow build show. If you can watch Zeta, with half of it being filler, you can watch ZZ. ZZ is almost on par with Zeta.

[Himu]

You can make the case it doesn't matter but nothing in Zeta or ZZ factor into CCA anyways. One reason among many that CCA blows.

Jesus Christ, just talking about UC Gundam reminds me why I don't like it. Char's Counterattack takes Char Aznable, one of the coolest anime characters, and completely undoes his development. Baffling decision.

[Himu]

How does Zeta propel Char into a the best written anime character? Char's whole reasoning in CCA is stupid.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Char starts a war and dropping a colony over Lalah and Char and Amuro fight about it when in Zeta they seemed completely fine. Never mind that in the original Gundam Char treats Lalah basically like an experiment but now he's willing to destroy Earth over it. CCA sucks balls.

[close]

The character completely backtracked and I think Zeta might be the most overrated anime I've ever watched besides Trigun. I really dislike it which is shocking considering how much I stan 0079.

I think there's only four UC Gundam worth watching:

0079 either tv or trilogy
0080
08th MS
0083 (not a good story but it looks dope and isn't boring)

I'd rather watch Wing than the majority of UC.

[Himu]

Thinking about it, I enjoy ZZ more than Zeta.

[Occam]

Zeta is the best, and while I like CCA, it makes no sense after Zeta.

Turn A is awful, I only have 3 episodes to go and can't make myself watch them. That's not Gundam, it's a nonsensical show with giant robots and some people living like in the early 20th century, but several thousand years from now. Maybe Tomino was on Prozac when he wrote this.

[Himu]

Zeta is the best

 

and while I like CCA, it makes no sense after Zeta.

 

Turn A is awful, I only have 3 episodes to go and can't make myself watch them. That's not Gundam, it's a nonsensical show with giant robots and some people living like in the early 20th century, but several thousand years from now.

[Tasty]

G is awesome.

I like 00 including season two and the movie even thought it devolves into nonsense and loses the plot fairly quickly.

Absolutely everyone everywhere including here hated AGE but I really enjoyed it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I haven't seen Wing but I think I'd enjoy it and intend on watching it shortly.

[Beezy]

I still haven't watched Zeta, ZZ, or CCA, so I guess I've avoided the worst of UC? Everything else that I saw from UC was good, but I do remember that Unicorn was pretty boring when there's no mecha action going on.

Outside of UC, each Gundam series feels very different. I don't think you'll have any problems watching them back to back. Not many Iron Blodded Orphan recs in here (Cindi just watch it), but keep it on your list. The harem shit is very minimal and doesn't center around the main cast at all. It's been a while so I honestly can't remember what the pedo shit was that 213 mentioned.

Absolutely everyone everywhere including here hated AGE but I really enjoyed it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I dropped it after the final timeskip. The mech designs had gotten so bad.

[Himu]

You may like the rest of UC, you may not. It's something to decide for yourself.

[Great Rumbler]

Watch G Gundam!

[Bebpo]

G is a bad place to start tbh. It's goofy awesome at its best, but it's also long and episodic and gets repetitive and boring outside the lolz factor. G is a great place to be after you're cool with Gundam and want something silly fun.

Now if G Gundam had been a 7 ep OAV like Giant Robo I'm sure it'd be 100% perfect from start to finish. But at 50 eps...yeah.


I wouldn't recommend anyone trying to get into or check out Gundam start with a 50 ep series. That's just way too much commitment and 50 eps shows are gonna have good & bad. Like Iron-Blood Orphans has a fantastic first 13 eps and excellent finish in the last 13 eps, but you still gotta go through a rough middle 26 eps (13 hours!) of stuff in the center.

Watch:

Gundam Movie trilogy - 3 movies, easy to digest, still great, best basis for main gundam timeline
0080 - Short 4ep OAV that's about peoples and not robots
0083 - 13 eps kinda mediocre but flashy Top Gun of Gundam. It's short enough that it's worth watching for the turn your brain off watch cool mecha explode
CCA - single movie, you kinda should watch Zeta Gundam (50 eps) before it, but eh, you can watch Zeta later and just enjoy Nu Gundam and sick animation and the ending to the Char/Amuro rivarly

Unicorn Gundam - Don't watch this before watching at least the Gundam Movie trilogy & CCA, then watch this because it's all over the place, but it's short at 7eps, the animation and mecha are awesome, and the last ep is 40 mins of beautiful mecha nonsense.

If you want to get into the long ass TV shows after that, then Zeta, Iron-Blood Orphans, 00 S1 and then bail because S2 is shit (ignore the movie too), G Gundam, Turn A Gundam, Gundam X, Wing TV + Eternal Waltz are all solid watches.

[Himu]

G Gundam isn't even great outside of the memes. It's repetitive as fuck. SHINING....FINGER! For 50 eps. Literal mecha of the week. Super robot, unless it's heavily plot based like Gurren Lagann or Big O, just isn't enough to sustain my interest if it's a long ass tv show. G would be fantastic as an ova. Instead it's just an average tv show with funny lols.

Still suggest watching the 0079 movie trilogy over the tv series.

[Positive Touch]

i'm with you wrath. i found some collections of all the gundamns and LEGALLY PURCHASED them. will be watching in chronological order because old anime is the best anime.

[CatsCatsCats]

Haha shining finger go brrrrr

[Positive Touch]

  so zone of the enders is just gundam without the license

[Bebpo]

so zone of the enders is just gundam without the license

I'd say nah. Gundam is always about a team even if the other people don't have gundams. Almost no gundams are just one person and their mecha on an adventure to save the world and ZoE is more like that.

[OnlyRegret]

do it quick so meltdown may ends with a bang

[kingv]

I build a lot of Gundam models and have tried watching some of the series, from what I have seen (not at all comprehensive, mind you)
The Thunderbolt OVAs => very good. Nice animation, and you don’t really need to know anything. Emphasis on the horrors of war
Unicorn=> couldn’t stand it. Benager is a stupid name, and imo he’s more annoying than any incarnation of shinji.
IBO => good, but I haven’t finished it. Also doesn’t need any pre-existing knowledge
Gundam Narrative => continuation of unicorn. I liked it ok, but was only half watching and didn’t really have a clue what was happening. I still don’t know what Laplaces box is.

[Bebpo]

fwiw, Unicorn was essentially a fan fiction sequel novel to Char's Counterattack. So it really helps to have seen that & UC stuff prior.

It's still all over the place with ridiculous OP mecha that make no sense in UC and cringe characters but it's enjoyable and I dig the crazy af ending.

I thought Thunderbolt series 1 was really good, yeah. I heard the second series was bad though so haven't seen it.

I haven't kept up with the latest Gundam stuff after IBO since it's weird like 3 min web short eps or Hathaway's Flash which is another lolz cringe fan fiction. Will watch Gundam again whenever they make a normal series again.

[Himu]

fwiw, Unicorn was essentially a fan fiction sequel novel to Char's Counterattack. So it really helps to have seen that & UC stuff prior.

It's still all over the place with ridiculous OP mecha that make no sense in UC and cringe characters but it's enjoyable and I dig the crazy af ending.

I thought Thunderbolt series 1 was really good, yeah. I heard the second series was bad though so haven't seen it.

I haven't kept up with the latest Gundam stuff after IBO since it's weird like 3 min web short eps or Hathaway's Flash which is another lolz cringe fan fiction. Will watch Gundam again whenever they make a normal series again.

I wish they would leave UC behind. There hasn't been anything good in UC since 08th MS.

[Borealis]

I'm half way through S1 of 00, it's not bad, and I'll eventually finish it sometime.

Out of curiosity, can anyone summarise what went wrong with S2?

[Bebpo]

The biggest issue with modern UC is that they feel old simple UC mecha are too boring for kids these days. So they have to come up with something big and flashy and also try to explain how it could exist in UC timeline. It's always an issue.

I think more UC is fine if they can do normal mecha. The Origin is like that, right? I haven't seen the anime, just read the manga.

The ironic thing is that IBO's mostly grounded mecha would fit better in UC than some UC stuff.

[Bebpo]

I'm half way through S1 of 00, it's not bad, and I'll eventually finish it sometime.

Out of curiosity, can anyone summarise what went wrong with S2?

You're at the part where it gets good. The second half of S1 is the best and the season finale is basically a show finale and awesome.

S2 is bad because there was a time gap in production and studio execs stepped in and basically told them to do x and y to sell more toys and the writer/director lost a lot of creative control on where they wanted to take the show. Lots of stupid new characters that are super anime.

[Himu]

S

The biggest issue with modern UC is that they feel old simple UC mecha are too boring for kids these days. So they have to come up with something big and flashy and also try to explain how it could exist in UC timeline. It's always an issue.

I think more UC is fine if they can do normal mecha. The Origin is like that, right? I haven't seen the anime, just read the manga.

The ironic thing is that IBO's mostly grounded mecha would fit better in UC than some UC stuff.

The crappy stories that are about dumb relationships and less on the nature of war is what I don't like.

[Bebpo]

S

The biggest issue with modern UC is that they feel old simple UC mecha are too boring for kids these days. So they have to come up with something big and flashy and also try to explain how it could exist in UC timeline. It's always an issue.

I think more UC is fine if they can do normal mecha. The Origin is like that, right? I haven't seen the anime, just read the manga.

The ironic thing is that IBO's mostly grounded mecha would fit better in UC than some UC stuff.

The crappy stories that are about dumb relationships and less on the nature of war is what I don't like.

I mean that's not a UC thing, that's like 90% of Gundam series.

[Tasty]

I'm half way through S1 of 00, it's not bad, and I'll eventually finish it sometime.

Out of curiosity, can anyone summarise what went wrong with S2?

You're at the part where it gets good. The second half of S1 is the best and the season finale is basically a show finale and awesome.

S2 is bad because there was a time gap in production and studio execs stepped in and basically told them to do x and y to sell more toys and the writer/director lost a lot of creative control on where they wanted to take the show. Lots of stupid new characters that are super anime.

I absolutely *love* a lot of the scifi concepts they intro in s2 (quantization, GN field stuff, etc.) so that kinda carried it for me. I don't remember much about it except thinking "You know, they introduced way too many characters in s1, there's no way they all get satisfying conclusions for their arcs" and lo.