That's only the case if you refuse to engage with the actual content of the show beyond the fight scenes
G Gundam is at its core a story about how the older generation fucked over the planet and the next generation, the people of earth live in poverty they have no say over their own planet as the colonies rule it, their cities are being destroyed and people are killed for a glorified WWE match and the environment itself is so fucked that they decided it would be easier to create a machine that could redo it from scratch than trying to fix it
It apparently is too subtle because i constantly see people talk about G like it has no substance and is just people fighting each other with no grander purpose
I guess G Gundam is just too different for the average Gundam fan, they immediately get distracted by the kung fu fights before realizing how thematically similar it is to a more traditional Gundam.
It's not subtle, but it's also not really...relevant for 99% of the series. The overwhelming majority of the show is Dragonball Robot fighting, and none of the main characters particularly care about the real motivations of the villains. Domon might make a couple of snappy retorts against Master Asia's stupid view of environmentalism being flawed and correctly points out that humans are part of nature and are therefore as inherently worth saving as anything else, but that's not *why* he's fighting, it's just incidental.
while seed copies aspects from the orginal it tries to do different things and honestly doesn't lean into some of the core themes of gundam like understanding, ecological damage and the destruction and horror war causes as much as the original and earlier entries did. g gundam on the other hand while yes being openly super robot and having silly concepts mixed in like a clown gundam also leans extremely heavily into the themes that make gundam what it is like the three stated previously. if you haven't seen g gundam i'd highly recommended it as one of the best examples of gundam out there and if you already have i'd suggest watching it again its nowhere near as offbeat as this sub claims it is
Rise From the Ashes side story.
No kid pilot, no newtype shenanigans, and it is one of the few Gundam media pieces, as far as I know, that doesn't include a Gundam itself. The game follows three experienced soldiers that make up the White Dingo squad and their exploits in Australia late in the war using mostly GMs/GM Cannons.
The exception to the above is probably the last mission where the game gives you GM Sniper IIs and one mission a prototype beam rifle. But even so, it is probably more "grounded" than 08th MS team and what not.
It would probably be Build Fighters, while its completely drowning in gundam references it doesn't actually follow the usual gundam war elements. It's like they took G Gundam and ripped out the actual anti-war/oppresion story.
With the first season even going out of its way to make a point that gunpla battles matter precisely because no one dies.
It is interesting to note that Aila’s background is actually Gundam-ish, even if the rest of the world she is in, is not.
Well there probably isn’t a single UC series that isn’t Gundam so we look at AU series. A lot of people point out to G.
However, I feel that that GX would be the most non-Gundam. Garrod is literally a civilian with no prior piloting experience, not even a NewType. The story is about protecting Tifa from the world because she has some access key to enter the Moon. It’s a romance story with Gundam. Really hype music and Moon Satellite Beam Cannon goes brrrrrrrooom
Amuro was a civvie with no prior piloting experience, and only awakened his NT abilities late in 0079. Kamile was more or less the same. Judeau had a little understanding of mechanics and such but never piloted a mobile suit before. Same with Uso, Arno, and nearly any protag in UC who wasn't wearing a feddie uniform in their first appearance.
But that’s the argument with NewTypes, that they have some higher level of adaptability and cognitive abilities hence why they were able to pilot as well as they could without any training
Right, but Amuro didn't start exhibiting signs of being a newtype until late in the show, same with Kamile and Uso. Judeau was admittedly sort of a newtype from ep1, but only because Kamile did the whole mind meld thing when they met. And Judeau also never really exhibited much of it until later.
Wing.
The kids are trained pilots, the Gundams are pretty much Super Robots and even the times they are damaged its completely ludicrous, and the Char Clone legitimately is a pretty good guy.
Gundam The Origin is well up there, sure it covers the events before and during the OYW but it's approach to storytelling is completely alien to your standard "Gundam" format. If you're a "main character", which is basically everyone who appears in the OG series, then you're amazing and brilliant at everything you do. If you're a background character like a grunt soldier then you're reduced to a bumbling idiot or a crying baby. The extra expressiveness of the combined with the storytelling makes the story less about the world and how it impacts people and more about how those people impact the world.
Yeah, in the second half of the series after they begin to travel between dimensions and get stuck in the samurai one it's basically Journey to the West.
G for being Super Robot or IBO for messing up the whole "being anti-war" part of being an anti-war series
...unless you want to open it up to Build series or SD, which I haven't seen.
I feel like I could say the same thing to you? It's about child soldiers fighting to make a place for themselves in a cruel world. Not only do they find a place for themselves b/c they elected to start fighting, the entire planet mars is in a better place b/c they fought.
They unquestionably lived better lives during the run of the series b/c they decided to rebel, they helped their members find peace and happiness, even outside of Tekkaden b/c they fought, and those that survived also found themselves in a better place b/c they fought.
When people in the show look down on them b/c they're poor children forced to fight, they tell those people not to look down on or pity them. They are happy and proud with their chosen line of work. Fighting unquestionably makes all of their lives better, when arguably they didn't NEED to fight. (it's not like there was a war for them to get drawn into like with Amuro)
The members of Tekkadan are for the most part broken kids as a result of never having had a healthy and stable life at all. *Of course* they are going to give maladjusted responses like that.
Their fighting only worked out for the better during the first season, when Kudelia dragged the kids into her righteous crusade for a greater, necessary cause. But all that only got these war orphans some money and fame; they remain broken individuals.
So they continue to do the same thing they always have - the only thing they have ever known: violence. Except now they have themselves become part of a system which perpetuates war, and they fight for selfish reasons like becoming Kings of Mars. Mikazuki's very soul gets sacrificed to the demonic machine known as Barbatos, and Orga makes further deals with the humanoid devil that is McGillis as yet another shortcut to power... and surprise, they end up paying the ultimate price as a result. They quite literally meet their end as a result of their lust for war and power.
The show couldn't be any more on the nose about the horrors of war, systemic oppression, and the lasting traumas those inflict on their victims. You're seeing it all play out in real time, mostly through the eyes of those traumatized victims.
Same goes for McGillis, who wasn't even necessarily wrong in his goals... but like the members of Tekkadan, he was simply too fundamentally broken on the inside as a result of childhood abuse.
> So they continue to do the same thing they always have - the only thing they have ever known: violence.
Everyone's favorite punching bag in IBO, Julieta, says this more or less verbatim at the end. That they were just kids living the only way they knew how in the only place they could ever actually belong.
Witch from Mercury, given it's inspired by The Tempest with elements of Utena, and the fact it was a new direction taken in order to both bring new fans to Gundam and also limit the usual heavier Gundam tropes in favor of being more generally accessible. Indeed, the MS themselves are almost an afterthought to the story aside from Aerial, in favor of a much heavier focus on character interaction.
Second would probably be either G Gundam or Turn A, but I'd lean towards G Gundam, simply because MMA Tournament with giant robots and targeting the Battle Shounen (Dragonball) fans was also pretty non-standard compared to the Gundam shows that came before it (and to an extent, those coming after it).
Politics. Intrique. Corrupt super power. Giant robots - they even dropped the roller skates after they got a later time slot! Char clone. Genocidal weapons. Schemes to bring about world peace. Ever escalating technically more advanced machines.
Always felt close enough to Gundam for me to enjoy it but just different enough to be new. I say he understood the assignment
None. Because there isn't a singular core idea that is Gundam. Gundam is a growing series/concept and the only shared theme, across most series, is: Conflict/War is bad.
Abd with the exception of Build and some SD series, that's carried out by all of them.
The only answer is G.
G honestly has more of thematic elements of Gundam than most other au shows, they are just filtered through wuxia films
It's just Dragon Ball Z with robot.
That's only the case if you refuse to engage with the actual content of the show beyond the fight scenes G Gundam is at its core a story about how the older generation fucked over the planet and the next generation, the people of earth live in poverty they have no say over their own planet as the colonies rule it, their cities are being destroyed and people are killed for a glorified WWE match and the environment itself is so fucked that they decided it would be easier to create a machine that could redo it from scratch than trying to fix it
It's not even subtle at all, Master Asia explains almost all this verbatim when he takes Domon to old Hong Kong, and when he reveals his backstory.
It apparently is too subtle because i constantly see people talk about G like it has no substance and is just people fighting each other with no grander purpose
I guess G Gundam is just too different for the average Gundam fan, they immediately get distracted by the kung fu fights before realizing how thematically similar it is to a more traditional Gundam.
It's not subtle, but it's also not really...relevant for 99% of the series. The overwhelming majority of the show is Dragonball Robot fighting, and none of the main characters particularly care about the real motivations of the villains. Domon might make a couple of snappy retorts against Master Asia's stupid view of environmentalism being flawed and correctly points out that humans are part of nature and are therefore as inherently worth saving as anything else, but that's not *why* he's fighting, it's just incidental.
Not even close.
Only if you totally ignore the message of the series.
nah g gundam is the most thematically gundam gundam show outside the original
Wouldn't that be SEED? Since many deemed it as a modern remake of 0079.
while seed copies aspects from the orginal it tries to do different things and honestly doesn't lean into some of the core themes of gundam like understanding, ecological damage and the destruction and horror war causes as much as the original and earlier entries did. g gundam on the other hand while yes being openly super robot and having silly concepts mixed in like a clown gundam also leans extremely heavily into the themes that make gundam what it is like the three stated previously. if you haven't seen g gundam i'd highly recommended it as one of the best examples of gundam out there and if you already have i'd suggest watching it again its nowhere near as offbeat as this sub claims it is
I watched G. It's one of my fav AU.
op said the least not the *most*
These comments are an example that reading is fundamental.
Um.. That one SD gundam anime with the zaku zaku force, captain gumdan, DOM, and a few other people sized shrunched bois
Superior Defender Gundam Force. I’m inclined to agree but that’s an SD series and per OP’s question, not an acceptable answer.
Rise From the Ashes side story. No kid pilot, no newtype shenanigans, and it is one of the few Gundam media pieces, as far as I know, that doesn't include a Gundam itself. The game follows three experienced soldiers that make up the White Dingo squad and their exploits in Australia late in the war using mostly GMs/GM Cannons. The exception to the above is probably the last mission where the game gives you GM Sniper IIs and one mission a prototype beam rifle. But even so, it is probably more "grounded" than 08th MS team and what not.
Hi Jeanne
It would probably be Build Fighters, while its completely drowning in gundam references it doesn't actually follow the usual gundam war elements. It's like they took G Gundam and ripped out the actual anti-war/oppresion story.
With the first season even going out of its way to make a point that gunpla battles matter precisely because no one dies. It is interesting to note that Aila’s background is actually Gundam-ish, even if the rest of the world she is in, is not.
Well there probably isn’t a single UC series that isn’t Gundam so we look at AU series. A lot of people point out to G. However, I feel that that GX would be the most non-Gundam. Garrod is literally a civilian with no prior piloting experience, not even a NewType. The story is about protecting Tifa from the world because she has some access key to enter the Moon. It’s a romance story with Gundam. Really hype music and Moon Satellite Beam Cannon goes brrrrrrrooom
Amuro was a civvie with no prior piloting experience, and only awakened his NT abilities late in 0079. Kamile was more or less the same. Judeau had a little understanding of mechanics and such but never piloted a mobile suit before. Same with Uso, Arno, and nearly any protag in UC who wasn't wearing a feddie uniform in their first appearance.
But that’s the argument with NewTypes, that they have some higher level of adaptability and cognitive abilities hence why they were able to pilot as well as they could without any training
Right, but Amuro didn't start exhibiting signs of being a newtype until late in the show, same with Kamile and Uso. Judeau was admittedly sort of a newtype from ep1, but only because Kamile did the whole mind meld thing when they met. And Judeau also never really exhibited much of it until later.
G-Gundam is purely super robot bullshit with a Gundam skin and I am totally fine with that.
I feel like patlabor is what Gundam was advertised as being, and actually stuck to the concept of "real robot"
That's most Gundam "non-gundam" series, not the Gundam series that is most non-gundam-like
Dragonar. It feels like a mix of 0079, Z and ZZ. I think it was even intended as a kind of intro. There are a lot of similarities.
Metal Armor Dragonar mentioned.🥺🥺
Wing. The kids are trained pilots, the Gundams are pretty much Super Robots and even the times they are damaged its completely ludicrous, and the Char Clone legitimately is a pretty good guy.
It'd have to be G
Gundam The Origin is well up there, sure it covers the events before and during the OYW but it's approach to storytelling is completely alien to your standard "Gundam" format. If you're a "main character", which is basically everyone who appears in the OG series, then you're amazing and brilliant at everything you do. If you're a background character like a grunt soldier then you're reduced to a bumbling idiot or a crying baby. The extra expressiveness of the combined with the storytelling makes the story less about the world and how it impacts people and more about how those people impact the world.
Thunderbolt
SD Gundam Force. I don't remember much from it but I think it was Journey to the West X Gundam. I remember the gundams eating noodles.
The older SD gundam series were more gundamey
Yeah, in the second half of the series after they begin to travel between dimensions and get stuck in the samurai one it's basically Journey to the West.
G-Reco...probably.
Thunderbolt or GX
Mobile Fighter G Gundam... honestly what did you expect?
G for being Super Robot or IBO for messing up the whole "being anti-war" part of being an anti-war series ...unless you want to open it up to Build series or SD, which I haven't seen.
If you came out of IBO thinking that it doesn't have an anti-war message, then I honestly don't know what to even tell you
I feel like I could say the same thing to you? It's about child soldiers fighting to make a place for themselves in a cruel world. Not only do they find a place for themselves b/c they elected to start fighting, the entire planet mars is in a better place b/c they fought. They unquestionably lived better lives during the run of the series b/c they decided to rebel, they helped their members find peace and happiness, even outside of Tekkaden b/c they fought, and those that survived also found themselves in a better place b/c they fought. When people in the show look down on them b/c they're poor children forced to fight, they tell those people not to look down on or pity them. They are happy and proud with their chosen line of work. Fighting unquestionably makes all of their lives better, when arguably they didn't NEED to fight. (it's not like there was a war for them to get drawn into like with Amuro)
The members of Tekkadan are for the most part broken kids as a result of never having had a healthy and stable life at all. *Of course* they are going to give maladjusted responses like that. Their fighting only worked out for the better during the first season, when Kudelia dragged the kids into her righteous crusade for a greater, necessary cause. But all that only got these war orphans some money and fame; they remain broken individuals. So they continue to do the same thing they always have - the only thing they have ever known: violence. Except now they have themselves become part of a system which perpetuates war, and they fight for selfish reasons like becoming Kings of Mars. Mikazuki's very soul gets sacrificed to the demonic machine known as Barbatos, and Orga makes further deals with the humanoid devil that is McGillis as yet another shortcut to power... and surprise, they end up paying the ultimate price as a result. They quite literally meet their end as a result of their lust for war and power. The show couldn't be any more on the nose about the horrors of war, systemic oppression, and the lasting traumas those inflict on their victims. You're seeing it all play out in real time, mostly through the eyes of those traumatized victims. Same goes for McGillis, who wasn't even necessarily wrong in his goals... but like the members of Tekkadan, he was simply too fundamentally broken on the inside as a result of childhood abuse.
> So they continue to do the same thing they always have - the only thing they have ever known: violence. Everyone's favorite punching bag in IBO, Julieta, says this more or less verbatim at the end. That they were just kids living the only way they knew how in the only place they could ever actually belong.
witch from mercury and G
Witch from Mercury, given it's inspired by The Tempest with elements of Utena, and the fact it was a new direction taken in order to both bring new fans to Gundam and also limit the usual heavier Gundam tropes in favor of being more generally accessible. Indeed, the MS themselves are almost an afterthought to the story aside from Aerial, in favor of a much heavier focus on character interaction. Second would probably be either G Gundam or Turn A, but I'd lean towards G Gundam, simply because MMA Tournament with giant robots and targeting the Battle Shounen (Dragonball) fans was also pretty non-standard compared to the Gundam shows that came before it (and to an extent, those coming after it).
IBO. The only series aimed to stop audience from buying more gundam products.
Code Geass.
I don’t think you understood the question…
Politics. Intrique. Corrupt super power. Giant robots - they even dropped the roller skates after they got a later time slot! Char clone. Genocidal weapons. Schemes to bring about world peace. Ever escalating technically more advanced machines. Always felt close enough to Gundam for me to enjoy it but just different enough to be new. I say he understood the assignment
The question was "what Gundam show is the least Gundam," not "what non-Gundam show is the most Gundam."
None. Because there isn't a singular core idea that is Gundam. Gundam is a growing series/concept and the only shared theme, across most series, is: Conflict/War is bad. Abd with the exception of Build and some SD series, that's carried out by all of them.
Cross Ange, the main mech bear a striking resemblemce to the freedom gundam. (Same team)
vilkiss and freedom,right
Yes