Gundam F91 - Tumblr Posts

‘Flame Tiger’ Beginner Zera Einzelkamp by dawnblue_ZB

Frontier Colony Invasion

How to get into Gundam

Because fuck it, I was gonna do one of these sooner or later anyway.

So you want to know what this Gundam thing’s about, maybe you like the mecha design, maybe you caught part of an episode one time and want to catch up, or maybe you saw a nice piece of Chamuro fanart and want to go to the source.

But there’s so many shows and timelines that it can be quite daunting on first look, so this guide is intended to give a rough overview.

I would however like to stress two four things beforehand however:

This guide is not intended as “The One True Way” or anything. There’s no harm it coming into it a different way, and these are only my own opinions.

There’s nothing stopping you from just watching one show and leaving it there. You don’t have to watch every single show going, even I’ve only seen most of these, not all. Gundam typically has variations on similar themes - it’s very nice watching multiple shows because they complement one another, but it’s not necessarily required.

I am very much an insider looking out here, so let me know if there’s any details I’ve missed.

I’m not gonna recommend these on a “if you like X, then watch Y basis”, mostly because I don’t personally find genre recommendations helpful, so I’d recommend picking based on promotional material (vibes, if you will).

I’ll be using this chart, supplied by the excellent@l-crimson-l, to illustrate everything.

Gundam as a whole can principally be divided into three sections: Universal Century (or UC), the Alternate Universes (AU’s) and the Build Series.

The AU’s are below the light blue line, near the bottom of the Chart, the Build Series is within the bright green line at the top-right corner of the chart and UC is the big line in the middle. We’ll talk about each of them individually.

The AU’s

The Alternate Universes were conceived as a way to get away from the continuity-heavy nature of Universal Century and provide an easy jumping-on point for new fans. The AU’s are standalone and require no prior knowledge, and are thus an excellent place to start. Honestly, I’d recommend quickly searching some promotional materials (like posters) and just going with the one you find most appealing based on that. They are (in production order):

Mobile Fighter G Gundam (1994)

New Mobile Report Gundam Wing (1995)

After War Gundam X (1996)

Turn A Gundam (1999)

Mobile Suit Gundam SEED (2002)

Mobile Suit Gundam 00 (2007)

Mobile Suit Gundam AGE (2011)

Gundam: Reconguista in G (2014)

Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron Blooded Orphans (2015)

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury (2022)

There’s side series and movies and other things besides, but these are the mainline shows, if you will. I have specific notes on a few of them:

Witch From Mercury - It’s of a shorter length than is usual for mainline shows, so consequently it’s a much smaller time investment than the others.

Mobile Fighter G Gundam - While undeniably rad as hell, I would recommend watching another AU first. G Gundam differs from its stablemates in a few key areas, and I find it helps to have a contrast to fully appreciate those differences.

Gundam AGE - is probably the only one I wouldn’t recommend. I didn’t like the art style and the technical explanations just got on my nerves, so I stopped watching.

Turn A and G-Reconguista are technically part of UC as well, but it’s not really crucial information so don’t feel like you have to watch UC first (I’m only including this detail for completionism).

I’ve found all the AU’s I’ve seen to be pretty good, so I’d say that which one you start with really just comes down to personal taste.

The Build Series

Is just kind of doing its own thing. The Build series is basically Buy Our Toys: the series. It’s got a far lighter tone, and I’ve had cause to compare it to pokemon prior. It’s also chock full of references and in-jokes to the other series.

Build Fighters and Build Fighters Try are the ones I’d recommend - they’ve got actual stakes and the fight scenes are really good.

Build Divers and Build Divers Re:rise I can’t recommend - I just find Build Divers aggressively boring. Build Divers Re:Rise is just okay - neither standout good or particularly bad. Its main flaw is that it’s a sequel to Build Divers.

The OVA’s are pretty much bad across the board - I’d particularly recommend avoiding Gundam Build Metaverse.

Universal Century

Universal Century is the big main timeline of Gundam, and is the timeline the original Mobile Suit Gundam from 1979 takes place in. There’s a tendency among certain fans to place UC as the one-above-all of Gundam, but I wouldn’t really go that far. It’s all pretty good, but I wouldnt really say one timeline is better than another (save personal preference, anyway).

Because UC is so big, it can be subdivided a couple times. The primary division is “Mainline” UC versus everything else. Basically there’s four-five shows in Universal Century from which everything else flows. As long as you know roughly what happens in these shows, then you can watch basically anything else in UC and have a good idea of what’s going on. These are (in order):

Mobile Suit Gundam (1979) - sometimes called Mobile Suit Gundam 0079.

Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam (1985)

Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ (1986)

Mobile Suit Gundam: Char’s Counterattack (1988)

With Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn (2010) as a nominal fifth (honestly I feel like you could argue either way).

The rest of the shows are:

Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket (1989 Three-Episode OVA)

Mobile Suit Gundam F91 (1991 Movie)

Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory (1991 Thirteen-episode OVA)

Mobile Suit Victory Gundam (1993)

Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team (1999 Twelve-episode OVA)

G-Saviour (2000 Live Action Movie) - nobody ever talks about or acknowledges this one, it’s just here for completionism.

Mobile Suit Gundam MS Igloo (2004-2009 Three OVA’s with three Episodes each)

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin (2015 Six-Episode OVA, adapted from the Manga of the same name)

Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt (2015 Eight-Episode Series, adapted from the Manga of the same name)

Mobile Suit Gundam: Twilight Axis (2017 episode, adapted from a light novel of the same name. Later rereleased as Gundam Twilight Axis Red Trace, with additional footage)

Mobile Suit Gundam Narrative (2018 sequel movie to Gundam Unicorn)

Mobile Suit Gundam Hathaway (2021 ongoing movie series, very much adapted from the novel Hathaway’s Flash)

Most of the other series relate to events in the aforementioned “mainline” shows in some way, but a lot of the sidestories set during the One Year War require very little introduction (Thunderbolt, 0080 and 08th MS Team). Similarly, works set in “Late UC” (F91 and Victory Gundam) carry on from the other series thematically but don’t have any plot connections, so they can all be watched without any background knowledge of the rest of the Universal Century.

Compilation Movies

Just a quick note here - many of the Gundam series have compilation movies, where either a whole series or part of one are compressed down into a movie. While each movie compares differently, they usually boil down to this: Compilation Movies usually have worse pacing, but really nice animation.

One of the great things about Gundam is that different shows offer variations on themes, so seeing how different characters react to similar situations, or how different settings change their approaches can make it incredibly rewarding.

I haven’t seen enough of SD Gundam to make any sort of recommendations there, and Manga is something I might touch on another day.

EDIT: Oh hey also: You can watch a good chunk of these on YouTube, for free, officially. The Official Gundam.Info YouTube channel rotates the series shown on its channel periodically. I think it’s got F91 and SEED on there currently? But it’s had Wing, 00 and Witch From Mercury before. Also all of the Build Fighters series are there.

So yeah, that’s a thing.

Okay, I have been wanting to ramble on about the Jupiter Energy Fleet and Mars Zeon for ages.

Right, so the “World” of Gundam Universal Century can be divided into roughly three sections:

The Earth Sphere, where pretty much all of the shows and main events of “Early UC”happen, including The One Year War, The Gryps Conflict, both Neo Zeon Wars etc. This is essentially the Earth Federation’s backyard, that they don’t take care of at all (hence all the wars).

The Jupiter Sphere, appearing mostly in Crossbone Gundam. They’re present and active in pretty much every series, just typically offscreen. They only really get themselves together militarily around the time of F91, in Universal Century 0123.

The Mars Sphere, who are also there. They’re essentially just a fairly quiet (though massive) colony, until they receive several fleeing Zeon loyalists in the wake of the One Year War and Operation Stardust. They’re the big villain of Gundam F90, the prequel manga to F91.

Earth Sphere

Which means I get to use this rad graphic again.

The Earth Sphere encompasses Earth (obviously) and the 7-8 Space Colony “Sides” in various places in the Earth Sphere. The Sides are essentially clusters of multiple colonies (which are largely self-sufficient). It’s not listed how many were at each side, but we know Side 3 , Munzo aka Zeon, had a lot (at least 40, and that’s just my conservative estimate), whereas Side 7, Noa (later known as Green Oasis) only had one at the outbreak of war. Side 8 was added postwar, and a good deal of the colonies present in each side were shuffled around in the Colony Reclamation Project in UC 0084 (below, also several new colonies were built postwar, both to replenish near-destroyed sides and ease overcrowding).

The Earth sphere typically plays host to various wars of independence (i.e. Zeon), simply because they’re in close enough proximity to the Earth Federation Government for them to realistically claim ownership of the colonies. It’s that sweet spot where they’re close enough that independence is an actual affront to the Earth Federation, but it’s also economically attractive for the secessionists (since there’s actual other entities about).

The above graphic depicts the sides in roughly the arrangement they were at the outbreak of the One Year War in UC 0079 (though obviously their position relative to the Earth would change). The precise organisation changed later, and we have another, absolutely gorgeous in-universe graphic from UC 99 indicates how things were changed:

Side 7 (Noa), 1 (Zahn) and 2 (Hatte) have stayed roughly the same. Whereas the remaining sides have all moved, with the exception of Side 4, Moore, which was devastated in the One Year War. Moore does still exist by the time of UC 0099 (it should be around the L1, or Lagrange Point 1 on the map), but it would be reconstructed into the Frontier Side by/around UC 120. Its omission is likely due to there just not being much there at the time. - Industrial 7, home of Unicorn Protagonist Banagher Links, was located at Side 4 however it’s status as an independent colony under the control of Anaheim Electronics, and it’s under construction status in UC 0096 seems to suggest that reconstruction efforts in the Side are underway, and thus there isn’t much business there. It’s also possible that AirUNA just doesn’t stop there, with Anaheim directly managing the shuttles to and fro.

(Looking at all this though, I do wonder if the “air fare” was cheaper to certain colonies depending on the time of year, since it’d take less time and fuel to get there).

I should mention that the Colony Reclamation Project in UC 0084 is only the largest restructuring we know of. It’s quite likely that there were several smaller changes over time, and we know that several colonies were relocated from Side 2 (Hatte) to Side 5 (Loum) either during or just prior to the Zanscare War in UC 0149. There are also Two independent colonies that exist outside of the Sides - Moon Moon (as seen in ZZ) and Magallanica, a colony builder structure owned by the Vist Foundation (though it would be moved to Side 3 Munzo/The Republic of Zeon) by UC 0097).

It’s also worth noting that the reason for the mass dominance of megacorporations like Anaheim Electronics, Luio&co and the Colony Public Corporation is due to the fact that they build the Space Colonies. The Earth Federation is dependent on them to construct the various sides and prevent an overpopulation crisis since they’re the only ones that can leverage the skills and material to do so. While the space colonisation plan was certainly spearheaded by the Earth Federation government (and seems to have gone impressively well, all things considered), it seems that at least a good chunk of colony construction was privatised, as evidenced with the massive power these corporations wield and how not all sides were created equal (IE, Side 3).

Lastly, I should mention that in UC 0169, the overall structure of the Earth Sphere is completely upended due to the Earth Federation weakening enough that it’s completely unable to impose any sort of order on the Earth Sphere, leading to the “Warring States of Space Period”, which I know very little about.

Jupiter Sphere

The Jupiter Sphere is typically depicted as the immediate area around Jupiter, with it stopping at the asteroid belt. Jupiter is best known for for the Jupiter Energy Fleet. See, in Universal Century, (mostly) safe and effective power is available through thermonuclear reactors, such as the Minovsky Reactor. The catch? These reactors run on a rare isotope of Helium-3, which has to be “mined” from Jupiter, and transported back to the Earth Sphere in massive helium-3 supertankers, like the Jupitris (below).

Because of this, the Jupiter Energy Fleet wields considerable political power, and attacking their ships in wartime is considered forbidden by treaty (Zeon remnant groups break this treaty postwar). The consequences of attacking Helium-3 supertankers are depicted in Gundam Narrative (though technically that’s an extreme case). They essentially provide the fuel that the rest of the setting runs on. It’s also noted that the Jupiter Fleet has a higher-than-average number of “psychic’s” among their ranks (it’s unclear how much the Jupiter Sphere buys into the Newtype theory, so they’re often just called psychics, despite being especially strong newtypes for all intents and purposes). Indeed, both Challia Bull and Paptimus Scirocco are Jupiter Sphere natives.

The Jupiter Sphere eventually gives birth to the Jupiter Empire in U.C. 0120, lead by Crux Dogatie, who really hates the Earth Federation for basically leaving the Jupiter Colonies to fend for themselves, then trying to win him over with a political marriage. The Jupiter Empire Functions as the Big Villains of the Manga, Gundam Crossbone, but they are also backing Cosmo Babylonia, the Big Villains of Gundam F91.

Slight sidebar on Mobile Suit Crossbone Gundam: read it. It’s really good. You don’t have to read every sequel series or anything, just read the original all the way through. It’s essentially a Gundam series as a manga, but the mobile suits didn’t have to have really toyetic designs, so they can be a bit weirder with it. They have a bunch of really good designs, like the Pez Batalla, Zondo Gei and the Divinidad. It’s really, really good.

The Jupiter Empire is opposed by the Crossbone Vanguard Space Pirates, remnants of the old Cosmo Babylonia forces united under Berah Ronah (as well as elements from the Earth Federation and some independent forces) operating from their mothership, the Mother Vanguard. They operate under the banner of space pirates, both as camouflage amongst other space pirate groups and in order to allow assets to be funnelled to them with some sense of deniability “Oh, those dastardly space pirates, they stole four three of our newest prototypes!”. Also they just look really cool.

The Jupiter Sphere really doesn’t have much of an economy compared to the Earth Sphere, which eventually causes enough resentment to lead to war (and the Jupiter Empire’s impending bankruptcy). It’s also notable that the Jupiter Energy Fleet took in several remnants from both Zeon and the AEUG post OYW and Neo Zeon War, respectively. The Jupiter Empire as an entity is technically still a thing up until the most recent date in UC (0169), so other than the Jupiter Sphere being the little-mentioned backbone of UC and its eventual resentment leading to the Jupiter Empire (and in turn the Crossbone Vanguard), there’s not much more to say.

Mars Sphere

Okay, I both only know the absolute basics on the Mars Sphere, and have an incredible personal bias against it, so this is going to be a lot more opinion than fact.

The Mars sphere really only shows up twice in Universal Century however, both times quite different. First, in Mobile Suit Gundam F90 (which takes place around UC 0111) the prologue to F91, in which Mars Zeon, Zeon remnants that fled to Mars, are the big villain. Second, in Advance of Zeta Re-Boot: Black Rabbit had a Dream, which takes place around UC 0091.

Slight sidebar again; F90’s pretty good. It’s not amazing or anything, but it’s a fairly solid self-contained story that reads like one of the Side Manga to an AU. The fight scenes are pretty good as well, if memory serves. The only real issue is that it kinda doesn’t make the most of Mars as a setting, reducing it to “just” a Zeon remnant holdout.

Which kinda just leads to my main criticism of the Mars Sphere in Gundam - it’s essentially just another Zeon Remnants base. Both series do interesting things with it, but it’s just not that different from the usual Zeon Remnant modus operandi.

The Mars Sphere was colonised early in the universal century, with the various settlements eventually uniting into Side A (Arcadia). A spaceport was constructed on Phobos, Mars’ moon, and became the primary point of entry into Mars. Mars is essentially remnant groups a-go-go. There was the usual wave of Zeon Remnants in the wake of the One Year War, who would form Zeon Mars. More Zeon remnant groups migrated to Mars after Operation Stardust in U.C. 0083, and formed the organisation ReZeon, who proceeded to wage a civil war on Mars against Mars Zeon in U.C. 0088. Zeon Mars was specifically made up of Gihren Faction Remnants, whereas ReZeon was comprised of Kycilia Faction Remnants, hence the two groups animosity. Mars also played host to Titans remnants after the conclusion of the Gryps Conflict. Members of Zeon Mars (The Chester Fleet) were dispatched to aid Neo Zeon during the Neo Zeon War, with ReZeon taking advantage of the enemy force’s absence.

I don’t actually know how the civil war shaped out, but by UC 0120, Zeon Mars (which could’ve been original Zeon Mars, Supplanted by ReZeon or something else) constructed the Olympus Mons Cannon (sometimes called the Olympus Cannon) which Zeon Mars planned to use to commence long range bombardment of the Earth. They also stole the prototype Gundam F90 unit 2, and planned to use it as the flagship mobile suit of their fleet. The Earth Federation dispatched the 13th Autonomous mobile fleet and F90 unit 1 to Mars in response in order to recover the stolen unit and destroy the Olympus Mons Cannon. This iteration of Zeon Mars was also known as “The Oldsmobile Army”, due to their mobile suits appearing similar to Zeon mobile suits from the One Year War (though internally they were actually derived from the notably excellent Geara Doga).

Notably, elements of Mars Zeon were the absolute last group of Zeon Remnants to be active, acting as a diversionary force for the Crossbone Vanguard in U.C. 0122, drawing Earth Federation forces away from the Frontier side by once again attempting to bombard Earth using a mass driver on the moon, before being wiped out by the Earth Federation forces. Led by Charles Rochester, they were cut down to the last, with the dream of Zeon dying with them. Mars basically settles down afterwards.

And that’s basically all the “Spheres” in Universal Century. I miiight do a follow up about the various Zeon remnant groups later.

Gundam's Universal Century be like

“1PLAYER LOST” -

Battle Dodgeball 2 (Nova Games - Super Famicom - 1993)