Mobile Suit Gundam I

Mobile Suit Gundam I (Kidô senshi Gandamu I) is an animated movie that was created after a popular Japanese anime titled Mobile Suit Gundam. This first movie in the series was released in 1981. The series was originally written by Yoshiyuki Tomino, but the movie was co-written by a group of various writers under the pseudonym Hajime Yatate. This series and movie is considered by some to be where anime and manga first started using what is considered the “real robot” genre.

Synopsis

Mobile Suit Gundam I is ultimately a collection of different parts of the series, rolled up into one movie and tweaked a bit. The movie and series are about the exploits of 15 year old Amuro Ray. Amuro is the son of one of the head researchers that has been working on a project known as the V Project. The show is set in the distant future, when mankind has colonized a space station outside of the earth. A group known as the Duchy of Zeon has decided to take over the world, and by using super robots known as mobile suits, has managed to destroy over half of the Earth’s population.

The V Project is a project that has been started by the good guys, the Federation, in an effort to be able to take on the mobile suits. When Zeon attacks a colony known as Side 7, they do their best to destroy the V Project so that they will be able to take over easily. Amuro ends up stumbling across the only undestroyed mobile suit for the V Project, which has been named Gundam. This suit gives Amuro the ability to fight against Zeon successfully, and from there on he is more or less drafted into the Federation’s fight against the Zeon colony.

In the first movie, the main mission is to successfully bring a battleship to a Federal base that is on Earth. Amuro has friends to help him on his mission.

• Frau Bow – Frau is Amuro’s next door neighbor. She and Amuro have feelings for each other, but they tend to fight more than they express them.

• Kai Shiden – Kai is a peace loving photographer that wants to avoid fighting, but gets wrapped up into the mission.

• Sayla Mass – Another female teen who is handy to have around and who likes to flirt incessantly.

Misc Info

The interesting thing to note about Mobile Suit Gundam, the series, is that it was extremely unpopular when it first aired. Back in the late 1970’s, kids and adults alike were not favorable towards animes that focused on robots. It was after the producers decided to take the anime to the next level and create toys to go with the series that it became popular.

Mobile Suit Gundam started appearing in the United States right before the September 11th attacks, and was canceled shortly thereafter. There are those that believe that the show, which focuses on civil war and acts of terrorism, was canceled due to the delicate nature of the US after the terrorist attacks.