As of this coming April, the Mobile Suit Gundam Franchise
will be 42 years old.
That’s just over 4
decades of time to produces dozens of stories and features from TV Series to
Movies, OVAs, Manga, Video Games and more.
Since it has become one of, if not THE, most definitive name in Mecha
Anime of all time, you can be there are a few moments that have been
immortalized in history, the ones most closely associated with the name
“Gundam”.
So I did a bit of a deep dive
to see if I could find 5 of those moments that I hopefully hadn’t touched on
already in other Top 5 lists.
These are
the moments that define the Gundam franchise, these are the Top 5 Immortal
Gundam Moments.
#5-Unicorn Gundam NTD Mode (Mobile Suit Gundam
Unicorn)
It was the moment that brought Gundam back to its Universal
Century roots and into the 2010’s in grandiose style.
The Unicorn Gundam’s basic design is the most
un-Gundam looking since Syd Mead’s controversial design for the Turn A Gundam.
However, fans were doing a double take at the
end of Gundam Unicorn’s first episode.
The sequence where the Unicorn activates it’s Newtype Destroyer (NTD)
Mode and morphs into a more familiar Gundam is beyond epic.
Accompanied by a very fitting musical score
by Hiroyuki Sawano and boasting some stellar CG Animation, the Unicorn Gundam’s
“true form” flew into battle and back to the Universal Century like a true
boss.
#4-Al Fails (Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the
Pocket)
Poor Al Izuruha.
He might be an obnoxious pain in the ass through the bulk of 0080 but
even he didn’t deserve this kind of heartache.
With the Zeon threat to the Libot Colony taken care of, there’s no need
for rookie Zeon pilot, Bernie Wiseman, to attempt a futile mission to destroy
the Alex Gundam.
The battle itself is
pretty intense as Bernie dukes it out with the Gundam, unaware that the pilot
is his kind of sort of love interest, the forever beautiful Christina
Mackenzie.
But this specific moment,
when the Gundam and Zaku head into one last charge, with Al in the middle
desperately trying to stop the fighting, is one of Gundams most hard
hitting.
War is hell and even kids
aren’t spared of its atrocities, even when they try to do the right thing.
#3-Bitter Victory for Kamille Bidan (Mobile Suit Zeta
Gundam)
If anyone was still on the fence about Zeta Gundam being
a much darker series than Mobile Suit Gundam, the ending should have shut them
up for good.
In a climactic final battle
with the insane Paptimus Scirocco, Kamille Bidan unleashes all of his latent
Newtype power against him, channeling the lost souls of all his friends lost in
the apocalyptic finale.
Sure Scirocco
falls but he gets the last laugh as he manages to damage Kamille’s mind
seemingly beyond repair.
It’s an ending
so tragic it makes you want to cry.
Kamille went through the ringer in Zeta, losing more than anyone could
imagine.
There’s always the notion that
the hero will sacrifice all to save the world but this…this was too much and
this no holds barred finale is one of the reasons Zeta is considered one of the
best shows in the Gundam franchise.
#2-Wing Zero Custom (Mobile Suit Gundam Wing: Endless
Waltz)
As a kid watching Gundam Wing on Toonami for the first
time in the early 2000’s, my world was rocked.
This series changed my life and Anime for me in a big way.
So when the sequel movie, Endless Waltz,
finally aired, I was hyped as heck to see the next (and I guess final) chapter
of the Gundam Wing Saga.
And yeah, I was
a little bummed it took so long for the Gundams themselves to get
involved.
But when Heero Yuy activated
the brand new Endless Waltz Wing Zero and those wings spanned out…sayyyyy
whaaaaaat?
Endless Waltz is fine, it
could be better overall.
This moment,
however, is one I associate with Wing more than anything from the TV
Series.
A close second runner for this
option could be another Wing Zero related one: when the battle scarred Wing
Zero hovers above the Mariemeia Mansion ready to bust it open with its Buster
Rifle.
#1-The Farewell Shot of the RX-78-2 (Mobile Suit
Gundam)
I’m honestly surprised there hasn’t been a life size
display made of this moment.
The finale
of Mobile Suit Gundam is full of chaos, greatness and heartache as legends fall
and villains get their just rewards.
In
the middle of it all, Amuro Ray and Char Aznable clash one last time with their
Mobile Suits and do a good job at getting equally smashed up.
Finally, Amuro abandons his headless Gundam
and sets it on a preprogrammed course into A Boa A Qu to search for the remains
of Char’s Zeong.
It pauses, raises its
arm above and fires on final shot with its rifle, destroying the Zeong (though
Char isn’t in it) and getting destroyed itself in the process.
Much like seeing the destruction of
Deathsythe in Gundam Wing, this isn’t an easy moment to watch as the legendary
Mobile Suit meets it demise.
Unlike the
fall of Deathsythe though, the RX-78-2 goes down swinging.
Heroes get remembered, but Legends never die.
No comments:
Post a Comment