Mobile Suit Gundam - A Brief Introduction

The Gundam franchise exists primarily as a means to sell toys. Bandi is a huge toy company in Japan and they wanted to expand sales of their model figurines by employing the strategy of making a television show about them. This strategy would be repeated by Bandi with the Macross series and again by rival toy company Takara with the world famous Transformers. I do not know of any toy franchise predating Gundam receiving this kind of marketing service which leads me to believe Gundam very well may have been the first.

Gentlemen, how do we
sell all these toys?

I have always been curious how the process of writing a show about children’s toys begins and unfolds. I know for a fact that in the example of Transformers Hasbro (Takara’s American associate business partner) hired Bob Budiansky from Marvel Comics to sit down look over the toys they wanted to sell and create unique personalities, functions and roles for each sentient robot and then to create a fantastic universe for them to exist in, and Mr. Budiansky did an incredible job. I imagine it must have been a very amusing business meeting for all involved, 

“Bob, how are we going to sell these toys to children?”

“Hang on I’m a mother fucking genius!”

Also I have always been curious how “Mobile Suit Gundam” came to exist. Mobile Suit Gundam predates Transformers by roughly a half decade, so the idea of creating a story staring toys for the purpose of selling those said toys would have been that much odder to the average person, furthermore the man Bandi hired to write the original Gundam series was a very methodical man. Yoshiyuki Tomino is an interesting writer as he had worked hard and long on multiple series and created a writing style that is very unique. Tomino was not some upstart writer willing to take on any kind of unusual work, Tomino was a seasoned veteran having worked on Astro Boy back in 1963 with the godfather of anime Osamu Tezuka, and Tomino had always commanded a great deal of respect from his fellow writers. Tezuka even referred to Tomino as Mr. Tomino, which was a great showing of respect from an elder.

The man Yoshiyuki
(Kill them all) Tomino

Yoshiyuki Tomino accepted the job of writing “Mobile Suit Gundam” and took it as an opportunity to write a grand work of science fiction. The technology in Mobile Suit Gundam is believable at least in concept. In the future mankind has polluted the earth far too much so we take to the stars and make a home for ourselves there.

We build “colonies” at Lagrangian points in space so they remained fixed in relative position to the earth, moon, mars etc. These colonies have contained atmospheres and subsequently are easily destroyed by advanced military weapons, since fracturing the dome of one of these colonies can easily kill the hundreds of millions of people inside. It is deemed a war crime to attack a colony.

By the way, Lagrangian points are real: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrangian_point

The first, the original, Gundam

The mobile suit, the Gundam itself, is sophisticated military hardware. Unlike the Zeon Zakus which are heavily armored, the Gundam has light armor and a laser rifle that cut through heavy armor. A unique balancing act begins between the two warring side, no amount of heavy armor can repel the beam saber of beam rifle so lighter armor is preferred to dodge the attack entirely, but without armor explosive rounds can now tare through the mobile suit and we see new and inventive solutions to this balancing act as the war progresses. And we see technology and warfare grow dramatically over the course of the series, by the mid way point the Gundam itself is an outdated weapon.

Living in space human beings begin to adapt to multi directional surroundings, not only do we see people struggling with zero gravity we see people who don’t struggle at all since they grew up in outer space. Combat is made all the more difficult because now enemies can come from every possible direction this also makes it easy to get lost. But humans are adaptable creatures, we evolve. Some humans are born with the ability to sense other people, giving them focus points surrounding them and helping them discern where they are. A particularly useful ability during battle since it is difficult to sneak up on someone when they can sense you coming. We call this gifted people “new types.” New types are a bit of stretch but there is no denying the explanation is one of science fiction, not fantasy.

Question: What is the difference between old science fiction and new science fiction?

Answer: Science.

Comparing the later Gundam series to the original ones is like comparing Jules Vern to the gentlemen who created Dr. Who. Tomino actually put thought and effort into the original Gundam series and that’s why it is an actually work of science fiction, this is also why it feels “real.”

Mazinger Z was the first
robot to be piloted

The Super Robot genre of anime was well established before 1979 with outstanding contributors like Tetsujin 28, Mazinger Z, and the Getter Robo, but the Gundam, that was the first real robot. All the super robots are more or less Japan’s answer to western superheroes. Our superheroes wear costumes; Japan’s super heroes command giant robots with incredible and poorly explained powers. The Gundam however made sense; it is possible, or at least arguable, that the mobile suit could exist in an alternate reality. The Gundam was plausible the explanation given to explain its existence and what it was capable of was very realistic given the premise of “it’s the future and science got awesome.”

Mobile Suit Gundam is many things; an elaborate ruse to sell toys; a true work of science fiction, an engaging and introspective war drama with great characters on both sides, a respectable Japanese writer’s magnum opus, and the first ever Real Robot anime.

Tomino took something silly like model kits and forced a great story upon it. I have heard multiple times that the creative process for the Gundam metaseries was difficult for both Bandi and Tomino. Bandi wanted to sell toys, to boys specifically, while Tomino wanted complete freedom to expand his high imagination in all possible directions. Tomino did not care what the robots looked like; he cared what practical purpose they served. He hardly cared about the robots at all he cared about the people piloting them. And this is why the original series along with the direct sequel Zeta, written by Tomino, are more famous for the storylines, plot devices, character developments, and history of the universal century more so than the mobile suits that were present. Other than the Gundam and the Zaku I would be hard pressed to remember the name of any of the other mobile suits in any of the Gundam series, but I can remember just about every character and if not by name then at least by personality and what they did. There is great difference between this and what would become of Gundam.

In future series the notion of a new type would be suggested as a superior human being, an elite member of society and ordinary humans were now lesser people. You might think a plot devices like that would be cause for civil unrest, a metaphor for racism, or cause of friction between characters who have special powers and those who do not, no such luck. This whole fascist undertone is written in series like Gundam Seed at face value, as if we are to accept that these special main characters are better than everyone else and all the elitist, fascist bullshit that comes with it should be ignored so we can praise our special main characters. These special main characters never really use the power of a new type, the power is more treated like dues ex machine if it ever actually comes into play at all. Basically they can do things because they have powers, even when the things they are doing could not be explained with new type powers.

The other great example of dues ex machina is now the Gundam itself. What made the original mobile suit so deadly was not that the Gundam itself, as stated before the Gundam was an obsolete piece of military hardware near the half way point of the first series, what made the Gundam, the white devil to those who opposed it, was the pilot Amuro Ray.

Amuro Ray the original
Gundam's pilot

Amuro Ray was a new type and there, are very few new types in the original series, so Amuro being one actually makes him unique. He doesn’t understand his powers, and lacking an instructor we see him learn about them as the shows progresses. We see Amuro use his powers frequently to sense enemy presence, identify enemy pilots by their aggression and feelings, and how he uses these powers to avoid being shot and to know how and when to attack. Also we are shown that Amuro has a real knack for machinery, and piloting, he is just a natural talent for this, yet still time is taken where we see him grow as a pilot and a soldier. Also get this, him being a young man is a handicap when it comes to being a soldier, something else we see him overcome. Also there is an event that explains why a sixteen year old kid is piloting the Gundam, when the Zeon attack the military die defending the civilians so a bunch of civilians end up commanding the White Base since everyone else is dead. Everything about Amuro Ray makes sense, and everything he does we understand fully and completely because it has been either explained to us or the sequence of events follows a coherent and logical pattern that we could understand.

In the later Gundam series, the fancy super god device being piloted by a child poses and shoots and things blow up... yeah that’s compelling. Why can only a child pilot this thing? Just cause.

Gihren Zabi is space Hitler.
No really. 

The politics in Mobile Suit Gundam was complicated and interesting. The rebels of Zeon fought for their independence, for they disagree with the Earth Federation on a few things, most notable they wanted us to leave earth alone so that it could recover from humankinds’ abuse. So one of the primary motivators of the Zeon was a noble cause of environmentalism, and their requests to leave earth are not unreasonable since we see just how comfortable humankind has adjusted to living on space colonies. However the effects of war are brutal and hideous and the nature of space warfare makes the slaughtering of armies and colonies very easy. Both sides lose half their respective populations and those noble space environmentalists all of a sudden have far too much blood on their hands to feign moral superiority. Over time we learn of many noble men and women on both sides of the war, we also learn of several villains, and many of the villains are sympathetic, others... not so much. In the end the fictional reality that is the universal century is an intriguing and seemingly plausible world full of dynamic and realistic human beings. Except maybe space Hitler.

In Gundam Seed, and even worse so in the sequel Gundam Seed Destiny a immature child is given a god machine by his platonic space princess pop star girlfriend (why would you put an underage pop star in charge of a multi star system spanning civilization?) so he can force his childish world view onto the rest of humanity through unreasonable whinny demands and hideous hypocrisy. Kira, the child with the god machine Gundam that solves all his problems, even the ones it shouldn’t be able too, is a hypocrite. Kira shows up during battle and tells everyone why it is bad to kill and proceeds to murder just about everyone, sometimes the writer can’t ignore this and are force to have at least someone in the cast address this but once the concern of a mass murdering child is brought up it is quickly ignored, as if by saying nothing Kira has dismissed any doubts about his destructive actions.

In fairness I have never watched much of Gundam Wing, Gundam Seed or Seed Destiny, but everything I have even seen screamed childish. Now these shows are intended for young boys, so perhaps I am wrong to list immature storytelling and characters as a primary flaw, but I must insist that the original “Mobile Suit Gundam” has so much more to offer. The only advantages the later series seem to posses over the original is modern (albeit it lazy) animation, androgynous lead characters, and a self serving plot chartering to those before mentioned blank characters. I nearly got through a montage episode of Gundam Seed, a recap episode that explained the dynamics of the war’s politics. Even though the episode was clearly created to give us viewers the message that Kira and his pals were the good guys and that we should route for them I felt the exact opposite. The writing was so bad that ever claim the heroes made was in direct contradiction with words and actions made by those characters, but they were right just because. But wait, right about what? Right about picking fights and killing people and then saying that fighting is bad? I must be missing something... but I don’t think I am. Again to be fair I have never seen Gundam Wing, Gundam Seed or Seed Destiny in their entirety.

Yoshiyuki Tomino is a great writer. He wrote a fantastic science fiction anime known as “Mobile Suit Gundam,” the direct sequal “Zeta Gundam” also written by Tomino is also really good, and “Turn A Gundam” a last hurray by Tomino to give the Gundam series a respectful end is also very well written and intellectually satisfying. The contrast I see in writing between past and present Gundam is very eye opening to just how much has changed. The marketing machine of selling toys has won and every cheap trick imaginable and unimaginable has been employed to dupe young people into buying toys and accepting incoherent subpar story telling. Observing this drop in quality of writing is significant, not just to the genre of anime and the Gundam mythology, but more so to the life and times of Yoshiyuki Tomino. Tomino in many ways is a tortured soul, his career, his passion for writing was being perverted by Bandi’s motives to make a buck and these capital forces influencing his work would cause Tomino to suffer from depression which in turn can be seen in his writings, but I’ll explain more about that when I talk about “Space Runaway Ideon.”