Despite having some less-than-great entries, I still find Gundam to be one of the most captivating and consistent mecha franchises out there, and I think it deserves way more attention than what it already has.

So as the title says, what are your thoughts on the franchise?

 

There's already a thread genius.

Gundam

 

I'm aware of that; A while ago there's also a dedicated thread for what do people think of the ST Star Wars movies, despite the existence of a dedicated Star Wars thread.

This thread is just for the general thoughts of what does everyone here thinks of the Gundam franchise as a whole; As to not bog down the already existing thread.

 

It's given me my favorite Christmas movie... despite its Drinking Game cringe nature.

 

I’m more familiar with Gunbuster, honestly.

 

I like Gundam, I enjoyed most of the seasons. Gundam X is my least favorite. I am not a fan of the build fighters stuff.

 

Its one of my favorite franchise next to Transformers, in fact, my attention usually sways between the two either from media consumption to merchandise collecting.

I could watch/play/read most entries and find some good in them, even the less than stellar series gets a second appreciation through crossovers like Super Robot Wars and the Versus series. Model kits also helped me appreciate some designs which will eventually lead me to re-watch a series and get some new enjoyment out of them.

It is also a good generator for memes, I think my media consumption has become a lot more enjoyable because of how much Gundam parallels and jokes I could recognise in other shows.

 

It's anime and I don't like anime. Cool robot designs though.

 

I like the franchise and Gundam Wing is one of my favorite and already was broadcast here in Brazil through Cartoon Network.

 

I like the franchise, but it can be really convoluted.

 

I like Gundam, it's alright, but I haven't really followed anything Gundam related in about a decade. The shows I've seen are all shows that made it to Toonami. I like Gundam Wing, MS 8TH Team, and G-Gundam the best. Never really liked the original Gundam too much, but it might of had more to do with the dub at the time, than anything else. Perhaps if I watch the original Japanese version, I will like it more. But, I like things like Patlabor, and Gunbuster far more. So, that holds my interest far better than Gundam. I have also been growing partically found of Ginga Hyōryū Vifam, an anime I discovered on You Tube, which is also very similar to Gundam, but I just find it more interesting than Gundam is. So, I guess I don't really think that much about the Gundam franchise at all. It just rarely enters my mind anymore. There are so many other shows/anime I'd rather be watching.

 

One of the best anime franchises out there. Except for one series, even their worst series are better than half of the mech anime out there.

 

You mean in the West? Because it's hard to imagine it having any more attention in Japan than it already does. It's more ubiquitous than Star Wars, Harry Potter, and the MCU combined. It's not even close.

 

Gundam has done what Star Wars and many other long running franchises have trouble doing and stretching g story out 40 something years with new characters without totally taking a piss on everything before it.

 

I think it somehow survived the fall of Mecha but UC and CE are the best sellers.

 

What can I say that hasn't been said already? It's beyond legendary, even if it doesn't seem that way in the West.

 

Bandai made 4 license Gundam statues (Rx-78, Nu, unicorn and Freedom) and had gunpla sale boosted during the pandemic.

 

It's rather unwieldy to me. Some starter guides would help.

But I respect its place in anime as a founding member of the mecha genre.

 

For the Universal Century canon (Basically the G1 of Gundam), if you're fine with watching the older style animations from the 80s then I'll say that the original Mobile Suit Gundam 0079 anime (Either the TV series or the compilation movies) is still a good place to get started with the Universal Century portion of the franchise (Basically the G1 of Gundam). Despite the dated visuals, I think the overall story and plot of 0079 still age very well even by today's standard to be worth a watch IMO.

if you prefer chrological order, you could watch either 08th MS Team or 0080: War In the Pocket (Both are short, smaller-scale side stories set during the One Year War era where 0079 simultaneously takes place). The other post-0079 OVA is 0083: Stardust Memory which bridges the chronological gap between 0079 and Zeta.

You can then watch Zeta Gundam, and after this there's some stuff set after like ZZ, Char's Counterattack, Unicorn, Narrative, Hathaway, F91, and Victory. Many of these older anime are much more watchable now that every single one has been remastered on Blu-ray.

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Your other main option is to try an AU (Alternate Universe) Gundam series and there are several options for that as most take place only as their own thing unrelated to any of the other canons. 00, SEED, and Iron-Blooded Orphans are 3 of the more accessible and well-known AUs, but there are also some other AUs that I'm quite a fan of such as Mobile Fighter G Gundam (my favorite Gundam series, and has a more hot-blooded tone that was unlike any other Gundam series ever) and After War Gundam X (a post-apocalyptic AU that's almost a "what if everyone lost in the original series").

There's also a fun side meta-series called Gundam Build Fighters (and its sequel Build Fighters Try) that's more a celebration of the IRL Gundam models. I recommend watching a few regular Gundam before you try this series since it references almost all of them. Build Divers was a bit of a lackluster series, but its sequel Build Divers Re:RISE is a shockingly good series with a surprisingly mature story.

I have watched quite a substantial amount of Gundam series; and despite the huge amount of series the franchise had makes it seems intimidating at first glance, it isn't actually that complicated, mostly because almost none of the timelines are even connected. The AU Gundam shows aren't even "parallel universe" or "alternate timeline" kind of deal, they're just different unrelated stories with the only thing they had in common was that a mobile suit called "Gundam" was in it.

Universal Century isn't really too out there either because of the same reason. It's literally just a straight line of chronology stories that spans for decades.

 

Of all the AU, CE is the Most Successful Series that rival UC and treated as a modern classic.