2021 continues to be a big year for Mobile Suit Gundam, as animation studio Sunrise has just announced three brand new anime projects within the storied mecha franchise.The first of the new projects is a new series of TV specials that will condense and retell the story of Iron-Blooded Orphans. The original fifty-episode anime series from 2015 will be condensed into 9 specials that will air over the course of spring 2022. Iron-Blooded Orphans tells the story of a group of child soldiers who rebel against their abusive commanders and a corrupt society. The series was lauded for its more grounded, grittier take on the franchise and its willingness to tackle prescient social issues such as the lasting effects of colonialism and economic inequality. While new content for the specials was not specified, Sunrise has announced that the new specials will help the original series connect with its upcoming spinoff Uror Hunt. Uror Hunt is being created by many of the same staff that worked on the original Iron-Blooded Orphans, including director Tatsuyuki Nagai. The spin-off series takes place concurrently with the main series' story and details a conflict on Venus. Uror Hunt is a combination anime and game, and both elements of the series will be released through a dedicated app for the spin-off. An international release for the Iron-Blooded Orphans specials, as well as the Uror Hunt app, have yet to be announced.
Sunrise will once again return to the Universal Century with their latest movie sidestory, Mobile Suit Gundam: Cucuruz Doan’s Island. The new movie will retell the events of episode 15 of the original Mobile Suit Gundam anime, “Cucuruz Doan’s Island†from a new perspective. The film will be released in Japanese theaters sometime during 2022.
The third and final new Gundam project announced by Sunrise is Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury. Sunrise is promoting as the first new Gundam TV series since Iron-Blooded Orphans aired 7 years ago in 2015, as the company apparently doesn't count 2018's Gundam Build Divers or its two season sequel series Gundam Build Divers: ReRISE as part of the main Gundam franchise. No other new details about the series were released, but Sunrise says the new show should begin airing before the end of 2022.
These new announcements are in addition to all of the new Gundam projects Bandai announced earlier in the year: Mobile Suit Gundam Hathaway producer Naohiro Ogata recently revealed the first details about that movie's upcoming sequel, including its title and the return of one of the series' most famous heroes, Bright Noa. The next Gunpla-focused anime series, Gundam Breaker Battlogue, will make its debut in Japan this October. The series will also be simulcast on the official Gundam YouTube channel.