The White Base steadily approaches its destination point. What the crew doesnt know is that theres a trap laid down by the forces of Zeon right around the corner of the mountain. A sudden hit to the starboard puts everyone back on their feet. Bright quickly yells orders as Mirai turns the main ship towards the enemy. Sayla quickly informs Amuro Kai and Hayato and asks them to get into their respective machines and launch. As soon as they get out theyre barraged by the enemy mobile suits. And so begins another battle another day on board the White Base and another episode of a legend that is Mobile Suit Gundam. 1. Teenage struggles portrayed through war experience Mobile Suit Gundam is a tale of a bunch of survivors from a space colony that incidentally held a new ship and a new machine that were created by the scientists of the Earth Federation. In the first episode the colony gets attacked by the forces of the Principality of Zeon. Amuro Ray one of the main scientists son attempts to escape amidst the death and chaos that the Zeon soldiers created using their machines. He finds the very first Federation mobile suit Gundam and takes it upon himself to drive away the opposing forces. Hes forced to retreat and escape his home alongside a few of his peers and some adults inside the White Base a new technologically advanced spaceship with a plan to find help and safety. The main theme for more than a half of the show is that those kids arent real soldiers they are inexperienced escapees who have to learn how to properly adapt to their new roles while escaping from danger that follows them wherever they go. A few of them have military training but most find themselves in a situation theyve never been in before. As so Noa Bright the most experienced out of all the survivors takes command of White Base and assigns people to certain roles: Sayla Mass communicates with the crew on the ship through the communication system Mirai Yashima steers the spaceship and so on. The most important role ends up being given to Amuro who will pilot the Gundam as he is the only one with any resemblance of experience in that regard. On the ship itself we also find out that the White Base was storing two other mobile suits: The Guntank which can be piloted by two people at once and the Guncannon. They end up being piloted by Hayato Kobayashi Ryu Jose and Kai Shiden respectively. Out of those four pilots the only adult one is Ryu while the others are teenagers that didnt have the chance to overcome their rebellious phases in the peace and comfort of their daily lives like most of us did. A sudden and drastic change appears to have sped up the process as both Kai and Amuro initially act like pompous brats that havent experienced life before but they arent the only ones to act immaturely. Despite their age most of the people aboard the White Base are pretty bad at what theyre doing. Im not saying that they arent smart far from it but they have troubles utilizing their strengths and most importantly cant quite overcome the obstacle of sudden adaptation to their new reality. The further away they get from home they begin to grow as both individuals and as companions. Despite numerous quarrels and severe casualties the White Base is able to overcome each trap laid down by the Zeon forces as well as their own negative mentalities. Bright who starts off as a loud and thoughtless leader becomes acquainted with the ways to handle his crew. Kai finds the strive to fight despite always being the most reluctant and skeptic towards the idea. Sayla comes to terms with her past and her future as she collects all the pieces that end up creating her true self. With each character and the cast as whole overcoming different phases to uncover their true purpose you can easily compare them to a teen whos undergoing puberty. The characterization is obviously skewed in a certain direction to properly underline that comparison and the structure of the plot itself feels like it was put together with that thought in mind. The episodic nature of the show allows for a much clearer short and direct messages like trust in your own abilities uncover the things that youre good at let people see your true talent dont hide your true thoughts and many other moral lessons that could prove useful someone with a teenagelike mentality. Another thing thats worth remembering is that the cast is in a constant state of danger right in the middle of an ongoing war. They are quite literally at the turning point of history. They hold the strongest weapons of the Federation their most talented skilled and experienced mobile suit pilots and they travel in the most innovative and powerful spaceship out there. Its not easy being in a center of attention of your allies but its the enemies that actually disrupt your sleep and you can see that weight being put on them as time goes on. Those people dont have time to rest not with the constant array of death that they have to face. You could almost say that Death travels alongside them at all times just so it wont have to move too far to collect each soul that they will unavoidably provide to it sooner or later. So not only have they been thrust into a new reality without any warning but they never have the time to properly collect themselves in the midst of whats been going on. They cant adapt appropriately to their current situation and each others personalities. Thats the thing that creates the chaos aboard the ship and the huge amount of misunderstandings and conflict among them however after all the fighting and madness theyre able to develop a bond and a stable relationship with each other becoming a proper team where everyones considered a worthy comrade. But why is all that actually important? Ill tell you: because it creates a stable connection between the viewer and the cast despite massive barriers that divide them. If you look at the world of Mobile Suit Gundam youll realize that it is nothing like ours. Technological advancement far beyond our reach political systems that we cant imagine coming back and the sheer idea of traveling in space would normally create a huge disconnect between our world and the one that is presented to the viewer but thanks to the shows ability to portray problems that all of us went through without breaking the immersion or turning any characters into obvious mouthpieces its able to make the cast seem believable realistic and worth following. This is definitely one of the biggest strengths of original Gundam but whats more it is able to perfectly represent those ideals through its main character. 2. Amuro Ray is a perfect Gundam protagonist Take all the ideas that Ive presented before and mix them up into one person and you will inevitably end up with Amuro Ray and if you couldnt tell that is really damn good. Amuro at the start is an indecisive impulsive egoistic brat that perfectly represents the stereotypical puberty stage. Not to say that hes not smart far from it he is quite capable when it comes to robotics Gundam repairs and adapting to the battlefield so his biggest enemies often end up being his own rebellious side as seen when hes arguing with Bright his tendency to undervalue others especially noticeable when hes monologuing to himself about how a woman gives him orders or how he thinks Bright is an idiot and sexual frustration which you can spot on numerous occasions when he gets to be around mature women like Mirai or Matlida. All of it cumulates and explodes when he decides to leave the ship along with Gundam eventually returning and deciding to fight out of his own volition. He decided on it after meeting a true man Ramba Ral and noticing his desire to become manlier and stronger. And he does as the series progresses we see Amuro turn into a true warrior who instead of blindly charging into the battle blinded by the need for violence calmly dissects each battle and trusts in his abilities to carry him to victory. He becomes more comfortable and each life experience appears to make him stronger and more reliable which resonates with the rest of the crew as they begin to respect and value him. Amuros progress teaches the viewer which I assume was intended to be around 15 while watching it that simply working hard and not complaining will turn you into a great respectable man. Its a tale that we all know but done well enough to not feel boring especially since we see it being presented in such a manly setting. War is a place where true heroes and true men arise to present themselves onto the pages of history and the show is all about it. Not to mention that there are some truly beautiful women around Amuro. All around you can really see how a teenager like him could end up with his hormones almost bursting out. Ekhm Moving on. But thats not the end of his story. Amuro is actually so much more than just a skilled teenager. Hes actually a staple of the next generation of humanity and in a way you might not expect. 3. The new era of humanity Normally when someone writes about the idea of a new generation of humanity in fiction they try to simplify it as just one generation going away and a new one stepping in to change the flow things. Not to say that theres anything wrong with that especially in something as grounded as lets say Legend of The Galactic Heroes but watching Mobile Suit Gundam really opened up my eyes to possibilities of just going for that extra step pushing the suspension of disbelief further to include a certain thing that would easily help the viewer with both the understanding of the topic and with the entertainment factor: evolution. In the last arc of Mobile Suit Gundam we find out that Amuro as well as his main rival Char and a bunch of other people are Newtypes. Newtypes are people that evolved an ability to adapt to living in space which comes with higher mental awareness as well as better perception which naturally comes with better military potential. Now you may say that such a turn completely undervalues the effort that all the characters underwent throughout the series but I dont think thats true. Despite the problems that the crew that worked behind Gundam had to face with the last episodes I feel like they did a good enough job at setting down their stance on the topic. Despite having the same advantage Amuro is better than Char at piloting Mobile Suits despite Chars clear technological advantage. Thats purely because Amuro is better at utilizing his potential coming to terms with it and building off of it. Char has problems with coming to terms whether or not he is a Newtype and whether he has the same potential as others while Amuro never cared about that. He just pushed on learned in a lot of different ways and evolved not only as a human but also as an individual. Its important to really understand how well crafted this storyline is or perhaps how well thought out would be the better term because the execution turned out to be very minimal due to the production issues. The idea that even if we can get on some sort of a higher plane of humanity people who will worry about it will never catch up to people who continue striving even further to better themselves. It honestly boils down to no matter how far we go the humanitys problem will remain the same which can also be said about the war thats been going on in the Gundam universe but its done within an already thematically complete show as Amuros story almost came to a halt at the point of introducing it. Not to mention how filled to the brim with awesome action scenes the show is making it so that it rarely gets boring. Speaking of not being boring... 4. Old but gold: Gundams visuals and music You may be surprised when I say it but one of Mobile Suit Gundams strongest advantage are the visuals. The character designs are great very distinguishable and surprisingly detailed with their faces especially for the time. They all feel different due to their postures face shapes or hair. Theres clearly a lot of effort put into this area. Same goes for the Mobile Suits which have become a staple for one of the most expensive and popular toys especially in Japan. Such a nationwide phenomenon couldnt be achieved if not for their brilliant designs. The Gundam is white and easily reminiscent of a hero when stepping on the gloomy battlefield the darker designs of the Zeon mobile suits that just scream thats an enemy from the first moment we see them and those are only a few examples. They really get creative with some of them. Another asset that it has in this area are the fights. The show has possibly some of the most systematically highquality fight scripts in all of anime. Theres a fight in pretty much every episode but each one is truly different the pilots pull off different moves and even if there are some reused shots theres always a lot of variety that makes them fresh. Of course a lot of it goes to the setup where there are different enemies to fight and different terrain but there are long stretches of time where those dont change and yet the show can still feel refined in that area. Its a huge achievement that really won over my heart while watching. Thats not to say that the animation doesnt have its fair share of problems. I already mentioned the reused shots which during fights can just be seen as using the same move again and that being somewhat of a trademark of the show same cant be said about others that take place on board the White Base most notably Bright picking up his phone which is ingrained in my mind ever since I finished it. Even worse are the clearly repeated backgrounds. Imagine if backgrounds in anime were just an image on a conveyor belt which restarted whenever the picture was shown in its entirety. Its really silly and embarrassing but even that cant take out from the rest of the shows visual strengths. As for the music theres almost nothing more to say than that its a classic. The wide range of emotions throughout the show is perfectly embodied in the variety of the tracks on the soundtrack. From the ambient creepy ones to the grandiose and louder ones it keeps being consistent with the militaristic feel the usage of trumpets and drums that are used in military bands bring it out especially well. While the soundtrack isnt large it doesnt have to be. It makes it so each track becomes more recognizable and specific. You can understand what scenes about to go down when you hear it like Oh its time for Char to strike or finally the battle is over. With that the repetition proves to be an asset especially when the show is pretty episodic and it has a somewhat consistent outline. I dont believe I need to mention how amazing the opening Tobe Gundam is or how majestic the ending Eien Ni Amuro is but Im just going to leave it here. All in all Mobile Suit Gundam despite not aging particularly well works because of the effort put into it even back then. There were some cut corners occasionally but you cant dispute the sheer magic of watching Gundam. There are really very few things that can rival it in some of its areas even to this day. 5. The impact of Gundam Last but not least I feel its only fair to talk about the impact that Gundam had on the industry even though it was mostly the movies that truly got the ball rolling. Mobile Suit Gundam is easily one of the most influential works for all of anime. Its considered to be a father of the true mecha genre without which we would never see the birth of shows such as Neon Genesis Evangelion Gurren Lagann Escaflowne or Code Geass. It is also one of the first anime ever to humanize villains giving them a clear sense of morality Char being the prime example of that. It was also innovative for its use of Minovsky Physics which rationalized the normally completely fictional systems of a world helping it become even more grounded than it already was and creating a world that truly felt like it was just our future where a next big step in technology occurred. Its something that series such as Legend of the Galactic Heroes used later to a similar effect. In Japan it spawned multiple sequels and sold thousands of toys it became engraved in Japanese culture so much that there are numerous statues and other tributes to the show all around the country. As for some trivia to see how much the people in Japan care about the show the Japanese militarys code name for their underdevelopment advanced personal combat equipment is Gundam the series robot designer Kunio Okawara has begun designing realworld electric cars and theres even a project to build a reallife functional Gundam with the budget being around a billion dollars funded by the government. I think that last fact alone is enough to make people understand but what I said here is just the barebones of all that it did and if youre interested you can surely find more if you do your own research. 6. Overall thoughts Mobile Suit Gundam is a true classic a mustwatch for anyone who wants to dig deeper into the history of anime but also a damn good watch as a piece of media. Perhaps on the outside it didnt stand the test of the time as much as some wouldve liked but on the inside it can still be influential and its themes can be applied to any era of humanity. As we evolved and changed as we fought and died as we tried to understand everything around us and the passage of time only made it harder humanity always remained the same on the outside. Thats what Mobile Suit Gundam exemplifies and does so through a really cool actionpacked relatable animated TV series. If you want to learn more I can only implore you to check it out for yourself be that either through this TV series or the movie trilogy. I know that after this I became a serious Gundam fan and I will surely be checking out more more of this legendary series that to me lived up to the status that it holds. All that it has done has been done better by the time Im writing this review its storyline ends up becoming pretty basic and the forcefully rushed last stretch is easily visible theres nothing that I can say to refute that. However I wholeheartedly believe that any viewer will be able to look past that and truly enjoy it to the fullest if they truly want to and an ability to make the viewer overlook mistakes is not something to be undervalued. So if you havent checked out the original Gundam yet you should. Ill leave it at that.