Gundam is a series that is apparently hard to get into, especially considering that it encompasses a vast amount of tv shows,mangas and video games.It is one of the longest running anime series of all tine and it all began here with 1979's Mobile Suit Gundam or referred casually by fans as gundam 0079.
Originally getting into gundam through the gundam thunderbolt manga and completing 08ms team as my first gundam anime, I dreaded having to watch an anime so old and one that looked so outdated.However when i finally sat down to watch 0079, I completly fell in love with it.The old art style is actually charming and the animation quality is very consistently good throughout almost the enitre show.The story revolves around Amuro ray, a 15 year old boy forced to befome the pilot of the earth federation main close combat fighting mecha, the titular gundam and use it to fight against the pricipality of zeon in the one year war.Zeon aimed to gain independence from the earth federation and hence started a ruthless war against the federation that involved a massive and now iconic 'colony drop" on earth destroying sydney and gaining superiority with their own mechs.The mefh design are reallg good in this anime and both sides of the war have clearly distinct design doctrines.As foe the characters, they are all really well written, with Amuro,Bright,Char and sayla (best waifu) being my favorites.The ship design is an underrated part of this anime. The Pegasus class white base is a beautiful ship (took me too much time to realise that it actually looks like a Pegasus) and the musai class is a cool take on star destroyer like ship.The series also shows the war from the prespective of both sides with characters like Ramba Ral and admiral Revil.The show is able to show us the larger scope of the war which would later be expanded on by the ovas and many side stories while remaining focused on a small group of characters that follow.The soundtrack is also really strong tho it sometimes sound like disco music which is not something you would expect in a serious war story.
The ending is one of the best of an anime I have seen. It clears up all the plot threads in a satisfying way and the two giant battles between both sides are one of the best sci-fi senarios ever made. The concept of newtype is introduced abruptly tho it is very much expanded on in the later shows and even in the movie trioligy adaption of the show.Gundam could have ended at just that and it would have probably still be considered a classic anime, I am very glad that we got its sequel Zeta gundam even tho it zeta is a beast of its own.
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