What is Gundam?
Mobile Suit Gundam is a long running franchise of Humongous Mecha Anime started by Yoshiyuki Tomino in 1979, Trope Maker for the Real Robot genre, and basically the Japanese equivalent of Star Wars. Gundam is a Long Running Franchise and a veritable merchandising empire, encompassing not just televised anime, but also theatrical releases, manga, OVAs, video games, plastic models, toys, theme park rides, and a racing team sponsorship.
The Gundam anime franchise is split amongst many different continuities and timelines. The oldest and largest timeline is the Universal Century, of which there are still animated works being made to this day.
Alternate timelines (referred to by Japanese fans as "Another Gundam") have their own distinct settings and histories. As the popularity of Gundam declined in the 1990s, these standalone settings were first conceived as a way to draw new viewers to the franchise without the need of navigating an already long and dense storyline. Although these timelines generally follow the Universal Century's Military Science Fiction roots and premise of The War of Earthly Aggression, they are also a way for Sunrise to be more experimental with their stories than what the U.C. setting would allow.
Gundam works are generally stories about how War Is Hell, covering conflicts between different groups of people fighting World War Whatever over ideology, resources, and other familiar real world issues — as opposed to fighting an Alien Invasion, Robot War, or other external threat. This conflict usually takes the form of the established Earth government fighting against people living in the enormous space colonies in Earth orbit in a downplayed form of The War of Earthly Aggression (though it's a toss up whether Earth or the colonies are actually the aggressors in any given series).
The plot of a Gundam series usually falls into one of two archetypes. The original version was an Ordinary High-School Student getting drawn into the ongoing war against his will when The Empire attacks their Doomed Hometown; they end up Falling into the Cockpit of the latest Super Prototype Gundam in order to save themselves and/or their friends, and gradually grow into an Ace Pilot in their own right. A variation of this arose as the franchise expanded, where the protagonist is a Child Soldier and already an Ace Pilot at the beginning of the story, sent on an important mission to use their powerful Gundam to strike a devastating blow against their enemy. Either way, the series is usually a Coming of Age story, where the protagonist suffers trauma and loss during the course of the conflict, but grows as a person in the process of examining their motivations and their place in the world and eventually deciding how to best live up to their ideals and fight for what they believe in.
Gundam is a long running franchise of Humongous Mecha Anime started by Yoshiyuki Tomino in 1979, Trope Maker for the Real Robot genre, and basically the Japanese equivalent of Star Wars. Gundam is a Long Running Franchise and a veritable merchandising empire, encompassing not just televised anime, but also theatrical releases, manga, OVAs, video games, plastic models, toys, theme park rides, and a racing team sponsorship.
The Gundam anime franchise is split amongst many different continuities and timelines. The oldest and largest timeline is the Universal Century, of which there are still animated works being made to this day.
Alternate timelines (referred to by Japanese fans as "Another Gundam") have their own distinct settings and histories. As the popularity of Gundam declined in the 1990s, these standalone settings were first conceived as a way to draw new viewers to the franchise without the need of navigating an already long and dense storyline. Although these timelines generally follow the Universal Century's Military Science Fiction roots and premise of The War of Earthly Aggression, they are also a way for Sunrise to be more experimental with their stories than what the U.C. setting would allow.
Gundam works are generally stories about how War Is Hell, covering conflicts between different groups of people fighting World War Whatever over ideology, resources, and other familiar real world issues — as opposed to fighting an Alien Invasion, Robot War, or other external threat. This conflict usually takes the form of the established Earth government fighting against people living in the enormous space colonies in Earth orbit in a downplayed form of The War of Earthly Aggression (though it's a toss up whether Earth or the colonies are actually the aggressors in any given series).
The plot of a Gundam series usually falls into one of two archetypes. The original version was an Ordinary High-School Student getting drawn into the ongoing war against his will when The Empire attacks their Doomed Hometown; they end up Falling into the Cockpit of the latest Super Prototype Gundam in order to save themselves and/or their friends, and gradually grow into an Ace Pilot in their own right. A variation of this arose as the franchise expanded, where the protagonist is a Child Soldier and already an Ace Pilot at the beginning of the story, sent on an important mission to use their powerful Gundam to strike a devastating blow against their enemy. Either way, the series is usually a Coming of Age story, where the protagonist suffers trauma and loss during the course of the conflict, but grows as a person in the process of examining their motivations and their place in the world and eventually deciding how to best live up to their ideals and fight for what they believe in.
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