Mobile Suit Gundam has been around for over forty years now, and still seems just as strong as ever. These days, the franchise seems to live on in movies about the main continuity the Universal Century, and television series set in their Gundam Build universe.
With the new film trilogy Hathaway's Flash getting ready to release soon, there's no better time to get started on the franchise. But it can be easy to get lost and not understand where every individual series started and their connections to one another. Figuring out what series Sunrise chose to put out from year to year is always a great start for a viewer, though.
10 Mobile Suit Gundam - 1979
The first Gundam series started with the story of Amuro Ray, a teenaged boy thrown into the middle of a war between the Earth Federation and the Principality of Zeon. After the Zeon attack Amuro’s colony, he winds up getting inside of the experimental robot the RX-78-2 Gundam to stay alive.
This series introduces much of what makes Gundam work from the beginning, but it isn’t until the compilation movies are released a year where Gundam becomes one of the largest franchises of all time.
9 Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam - 1985
The sequel to the original Gundam series took place eight years after the original series, and centered around Kamille Bidan, a young man who gets pulled into Anti-Earth Union Group, an organization working against the Titans.
What made this so fascinating was the Zeon were pushed into the background, and Char Aznable went from a villain to a hero, while the Earth Federation now had a splinter group known as the Titans which became the primary villain for the storyline. Perhaps the most popular Gundam series, it took the franchise to even higher levels than it was before.
8 Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ - 1986
Gundam ZZ, or Double Zeta, was a follow-up to Zeta Gundam. Bright Noa and the Argama are still part of the storyline, but the main character shifts to Judau Ashta, a NewType with such incredible talent that he immediately takes to piloting a Gundam and helping the team deal with the Neo-Zeon forces.
Gundam ZZ’s problem is that the first half of the series is light-hearted, something which turned off a lot of fans and causes Universal Century fans to warn newcomers to skip the series.
7 Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack - 1988
Char’s Counterattack was the first completely original film for the Gundam franchise. Tomino circles back around to tell the story of Char Aznable and Amuro Ray as they wind up in combat against one another one last time. There’s a completely different feel to this film compared to the others, with the main characters on both sides now grown men.
Char is in charge of leading the Neo-Zeon forces as they try to gain independence from Earth, and Amuro is now a member of a special group known as Londo Bell, helping the Earth Federation. This story wraps up the Char and Amuro portion of the series, and put an end to the main storyline of the Universal Century .
6 Mobile Suit SD Gundam - 1988
Mobile Suit SD Gundam appeared for several years as theatrical shorts that were aired at the start of movies. They started out as parody stories of the actual storyline, with the original series poking fun at the One Year War, and having all the characters get together to do the Olympics together.
All of these were eventually collected into a single television series as a compilation.
5 Mobile Suit Gundam 0080 - 1989
Probably the first Gundam series to make people understand just how terrifying war is without driving home how awesome giant robots are. There aren’t any ace pilots in this series, it’s simply a side story that deals with an eleven year old boy named Alfred making friends with a Zeon pilot.
There’s a real sense of world building for this OVA that the main series doesn’t have time to do, and each fight scene is short and desperate.
4 Mobile Suit Gundam F91- 1991
Gundam F91 was originally meant to be another television series, but despite the franchise’s popularity it wasn’t able to meet it’s production goals and wound up being cut in scope.
The story distanced itself from the last part of the Universal Century and took place thirty years in the future, with the Earth Federation forces battling the Crossbone Vanguard. This time the main character is Seabrook Arno, who’s pushed into piloting the F91 to defend his colony against the Vanguard’s attacks.
3 Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory - 1991
Another side story, Gundam 0083 takes place in the aftermath of Zeon’s defeat during the One Year War. But a remnant of Zeon forces find themselves unable to let go, and even manage to steal the latest Federation mobile suit—one with a nuclear warhead—for their own personal use. This time the lead character is Kou Uraki, an older character but with all the inexperience of an Amuro or a Kamille...but none of the instant knowledge that comes with being a television main character.
He finds himself outmatched against Zeon pilot Anavel Gato, but still winds up in combat against him several times over the course of the series, attempting to stop this Zeon organization’s latest plan.
2 Mobile Suit Victory Gundam - 1993
Victory Gundam was set another thirty years in the future from Gundam F91. Introducing an entirely new set of factions and cast members, Victory Gundam had to start from scratch again. The main forces in the Universal Century timeline now are the Zanscare Empire, a group that terrorizes Earthlings with public executions, and the League Militaire.
Uso Evin is a thirteen year old boy who starts working with the League Militaire out of frustration with the Zanscare Empire, allowing them to fight back once he attains the Victory Gundam mobile suit.
1 Mobile Fighter G Gundam - 1994
G Gundam marked a turning point for the Gundam franchise in some major ways. The first was that this was the first time Gundam created a series that wasn't inside of the standard Universal Century timeline.
The second was that it was the first Gundam to eschew the idea of Real Robot to do their own version of the classic Super Robot. Gundam Fighter Domon Kasshu became the champion of Neo Japan to try and discover the whereabouts of his brother, who vanished along with the powerful Devil Gundam.