The Witch From Mercury - Tumblr Posts
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.
Witch From Mercury for the Game Boy Advanced
My life would be easier and more fun if I just drew silly sketches like this always
Pero no
Huh, just realised something. Gundam normally makes a big deal about red Mobile suits, since it’s the colour associated with Char and the various Char Clones (I’m not gonna do a taxonomic breakdown right now, but the only Char Clone without those associations that leap to mind is Rau le Cruset, which is because Athrun is the one with red mobile suits in that series). So Red=Important, in other words.
Thing is, I can’t really think of any way Witch From Mercury uses this. Yeah, the Darilbalde above is red, and it’s piloted by Guel Jeturk, one of the Three House Rivals in Witch From Mercury, but it doesn’t really do much? And while Guel himself is an Antagonist, he’s nothing like Char.
So giving him a red suit seems pretty meaningless, moreso because he already had a custom pink colour scheme on his Dilanza. But it’s the only red suit we see, so….?
Feel free to let me know if I’ve missed something here.
Silly Poll For Those Who Have Watched The Witch from Mercury
Below are two automobiles:
The 1962 Pontiac Tempest
The 1972 Mercury Cougar
This is some good analysis, especially of Shaddiq. It reminds me of something Paptimus Scirocco, the big bad of Zeta Gundam says: “All the worlds a stage, and the men and woman, merely players”. I think he’s quoting Shakespeare there, but I’ve typically taken it to mean one of two things:
Scirocco thinks himself a puppet master, or more to the point for this;
He’s essentially saying “It’s just my nature”. He’s playing the role he feels he should, for whatever reason, which sounds pretty close to Shaddiq playing the role of “Prince”, both in his relationship with Miorine and for the wider academy.
being the world's only shaddiq zenelli fan is tough... tomatoes thrown at you... they take your arms and legs...
by @Milsha_486
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Desde hace meses que me regalaron una tableta gráfica y este fue el primer dibujo que hice con ella, me falta mucho por saber pero me siento orgullosa
omg... the witch from mercury
Based: Suletta is trans
Woke: Miorine is trans
Bespoke: they're t4t
They’re so cute I just want them to be happy 😭
💯
The Gwitch ost is out now. Give it a listen on Spotify!! It's genuinely so fantastic. Not a bad track on the entire album.
suletta sunday 🌞
by @new_nonoka
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There's a child in the Sulemio family! by @kusattatofuuuu
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Miorine: This is yesterday's specification sheet, but can we do something a little more? Ojelo: Wow, that's quite packed, isn't it? Nika: Hi there. M: But then the buyer... Nika? N: This is a Haro bike for toddlers, so I thought I'd give it a test drive. Chuchu: Oy, spacer, are you going to work with me now? M: Watch your language! Suletta: Ms. Miorine, you're done for the day~ M: That went faster than I expected.
by @Nori_Miaoster
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Sulemio by @bfncyobonbon
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sulemio week day 2 - disability!!
suletta has regular physio and miorine always makes time to go with her (suletta's usually pretty tired after)
One year anniversary by @AniLu199077
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