Toonami Flashback Friday Episode 8-Gundam Twilight

The year 2000 on Toonami belonged to Mobile Suit Gundam Wing.  For the first time in Toonami history, it’s reigning Anime champ, Dragon Ball Z, was threatened by a newcomer whose influence was unexpected and game changing.  The first couple runs of the series, along with that of Mobile Suit Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz, resulted in record viewing numbers for Toonami.  Naturally, Cartoon Network knew they needed to keep the train going and they had a vast universe of Gundam material to draw from, including a couple of popular titles from the 90’s such as G Gundam, Gundam X and Turn A Gundam (which actually wrapped its Japanese run while Wing was airing in the US).  And yet, Toonami decided not to lean on Gundams recent iterations closest to Wing.  Instead, they made the curious choice to go back to the beginnings of the Gundam franchise. 

 
Set in the year 0079 of the Universal Century, Mobile Suit Gundam tells the tale of Amuro Ray, a young prodigy who finds himself thrown into the middle of the One Year War between the Earth Federation and the space fairing Dutchy of Zeon.  The original Gundam series broke ground for the Giant Robot Genre.  Until 1979, most titles such as GoLion and Mazinger Z, saw Giant Robots being used to fend off giant monsters and Alien invasions.  Gundam was the first time Giant Robots would be used in a human Civil War, creating the Real Robot subgenre in the process.  While it faired poorly in its initial run, subsequent airings of Gundam in syndication helped give the franchise a chance to grow throughout the 80s, becoming one of the longest lasting and popular in Anime history.  

On Toonami, however, this was a strange move to make.  While the story and characters are timeless, the original Gundam’s animation hasn’t exactly aged gracefully.  Even if Toonami was counting on nostalgia for shows like G-Force and Voltron to boost its appeal, the truth was Mobile Suit Gundam wasn’t Mobile Suit Gundam Wing.  Toonami would reinforce their commitment to the Universal Century with two other titles, both of which were aired excluisivley on the Toonami: Midnight Run:  Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08^th MS Team and Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket.  Both were sides stories set during the One Year War and centered on characters unrelated to those of the main Mobile Suit Gundam Series.  While being aired late allowed them to be aired without as many edits, 08^th MS Team and 0080 didn’t fare much better than their parent series on Toonami.  

As if Mobile Suit Gundam’s struggle wasn’t bad enough, the attacks on September 11, 2001 forced Cartoon Network to do a major overhaul of its content to cut down on violence and anything pertaining to the topic of terrorism.  Mobile Suit Gundam, along with 08^th MS Team and Gundam Wing, were immediately removed from any Toonami line ups, which meant the original series never got to finish its first run properly for some time.  Gradually, Gundam would return to Toonami, with the aforementioned Gundam 0080 airing on the Midnight Run towards the end of 2001.  And while it might’ve been originally intended to run on Toonami, Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory became one of the first Anime aired on Adult Swim’s Saturday Night Anime Block in 2002 (We’ll be talking about that in a couple of weeks actually).  However, as history would show, no Gundam title ever came close to matching the lightning in a bottle success of Gundam Wing…which to me is a shame. 

Mobile Suit Gundam is filled with dozens of amazing stories and worlds that more than match the goodness found in Gundam Wing.  Somehow, sadly, none of these caught on like Wing did, that lightning in a bottle success story that is the stuff of Toonami Legend.  Personally, that hasn’t stopped me from watching Gundam on Toonami and exploring that vast multiverse and use it as a springboard to enjoy my favorite franchise of my favorite fandom.  Next Friday we’ll be looking at Toonami’s more Musical side of things, a special event Toonami did only once and remains one of its most creative and fun little experiments: The Toonami Midnight Run Special Edition.  See ya then Toonami Faithful.