With which Gundam do i start?

[YukiKaze]

Wanted to try this Anime but i heard that there are a feq sequels and actually i dont know which one is the "first" Gundam.

[Goodfellow]

The one named "Mobile Suit Gundam", produced in 1979 (I think)

[Biolink]

The first Gundam is, "Mobile Suit Gundam:0079"

After that in terms of anime Gundam and not OAV stuff, there was Zeta Gundam, Double Zeta Gundam, Char's Counter Attack(Movie), F-91 Gundam(Movie), and Victory Gundam in terms of when it takes place in the Anime is the last of the UC.

There are also some Gundams that you can watch independently with no prior knowledge of previous universes as they are "closed" in their own universe.

G-Gundam, Gundam Wing, Gundam X,

Turn-A Gundam is in its own universe technically, but Turn-A Gundam was meant to connect all of the Gundams that came before it, so there may be vague references to other series(Honestly I haven't watched all of it yet).

Then there's Gundam Seed, and its sequel Gundam Seed Destiny. I didn't think too highly of the Seed anime series in general, but it's easy to understand and if you like a lot of action you may enjoy Gundam Seed. Gundam Seed Destiny, I'll leave that up to you to decide, if you actually watch it. I kind of feel like Gundam Seed was made to appeal to more mainstream Anime fans in general, which is probably why I didn't enjoy it as much as other series, but it's really up to you to decide how you feel about it.

The series that's going on right now is Gundam 00. It's in its own universe so no prior knowledge of other series are needed. There are very vague and surface comparisons to a few of the older series and Gundam 00, but again it's just surface comparisons at best.

I've seen every series in its entirety except Turn-A Gundam. For me, I'm probably enjoying Gundam 00 the most. Followed by Gundam X, and then ZZ Gundam.

[kulgan18]

First you should know that a lot of the gundams are not connected to each other and like half are alternative universes.

Start with gundam:war in the pocket and Ms 8th team, they are short and that should give you a clear idea of the UC universe.

The only ones with a recurrent cast are:
Mobil suit gundam(the original), ZETA, ZZ, char counter attack.

All the others have completly different characters and if is not UC, a complete different setting.

[Code]

I'd recommend starting with the three 0079 movies. They do a good job of coverting most important events in the first series.

[Triste Morningstar]

The others did a good job explaining the history of the Gundam series, so let me just say: you don't have to start with the first Gundam. Many of the series are in a totally new universe which is explained to the viewer. If you're not into older series (some people aren't into older style animation, I know, though you're missing out if you skip G Gundam because of that) you can start with one of the newer ones. Gundam 00 is the current ongoing series and it's pretty good, so you can start there if you like, or you can start with any of the other series.

[NewtypeS3]

Going ahead and resposting something from a much earlier topic I worked on at Gamefaqs and a much earlier topic here...

Depends on the continuity, to be honest.
Some shows are sequels to other shows, other shows contain heavy tributes to the ones that came before and still others are just stand-alone. The real best bets to start out with are...

---Classic Gundam, from 1979. If you don't mind iffy animation and a rather generic plot, it's a great series. Also available in movie trilogy format, which compresses it into 6 hours rather well.
---Gundam Wing, from 1995. Despite being over a decade old, the animation holds strong - and the political talks actually wind up being a ton more relevant today. Solid characterization, but needs a few manga books to be read to fully understand a few things (Episode Zero, Blind Target, Battlefield of Pacifists. All found online for dirt cheap, all with solid translations to boot).
---Gundam Seed, from 2003. Rather flashy and touches upon some social issues few other Gundam shows have, but aside from the flash and generi-character designs, there's not too much to think about. Still a great starter series, and the music is really fun. Also available in a movie format... which is to be avoided, because the compression is into four and a half hours and skips nearly everything good about the TV show.

From there, it depends on what you liked.

---

Classic Gundam moves into a quartet of short-series

Original Video Animation works:
---MS Igloo, a completely CGI work made in 2004. It's currently divided into three, three-episode segments. The first two chunks of the sub-franchise focus on random Zeon experiments... and a rather unlikable main cast. The current chunk, The Gravity War, focuses on the Ground Forces of the Federation trying to survive the Zeon blitz. Unfortunately, nothing in Igloo is really worth watching aside from the CGI. The writing is crap, and it's... just plain uninteresting.
---Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket (1989) takes a look into how the war from the first series affects people on the civilian side of things when they're supposedly neutral. Also looks at a child's point-of-view and even makes a few of the 'bad guys' into genuinely likable characters. Also co-stars Bernard Wiseman. While he's not the best pilot around, he's arguably one of the best at planning his fights - and he's voiced by Solid Snake in the dub, to boot. Unfortunately, the music is some of the worst I've ever heard in anime.
---Gundam: The 08th MS Team (1996) takes a look at the grunts on the front-lines of Earth during the war of the first series. A solid series with great animation and some fun fights, but also packs in a kinda generic romance as well that just doesn't quite pay off. There's also a movie, Miller's Report, which adds a lot to the third disc's events - included with the mega-cheap-brick-release.
---Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory (1991), a side-story that happens between Classic Gundam and it's sequel, Zeta Gundam. If you watch this series before Zeta, a lot of things will make some sense, and others will click soon after you start up Zeta. It's not perfect, as some of the music is iffy and a few characters are horrid... and some of the dub actors sound miscast, but it's worth a look. Easily has some of the best animation in Gundam to date, as well.

Each of those three are entirely skippable if you don't want to watch them, but it doesn't hurt to watch them either. MS Igloo is the only one I don't recommend at all, but that's just my personal taste there.

Reguardless of if you saw them or not, Zeta Gundam comes next. It was made in 1985 and takes place 7 years after the events of the 1979 series, featuring new characters and old faces alike. I personally enjoyed this series, but felt it dragged on quite a bit at certain points. However, it features a lot of things to like anyhow - though a few of the actors on both the dub and sub don't sound like they're giving it their all at times.
There's also a movie trilogy, made in 2005... but it changes a whole lot and is recommended to be seen after watching the series for that simple fact: it creates an entirely different timeline for Gundam!

After Zeta comes ZZ Gundam, made the following year in 1986. This one's not out in America yet, but fansubs are readily available if you know where to look. Taking place three months after Zeta, ZZ finishes up the conflict from Zeta... and throws new characters into the mix as well. Though it's got a rocky start (the first... 16 episodes or so are almost entirely painful at times), the series blooms and becomes damned awesome, if you ask me.
It should be noted, though, that ZZ reuses a lot of Zeta's musical score. A few new songs are added to the mix, but most of the musical budget actually appears to have gone into the animation budget. Thus, ZZ is perhaps one of the best-looking TV anime of the 1980's.

From ZZ (though you can skip it too if you wish) comes Char's Counterattack. If you know the character, appearing in Classic and Zeta, you know what most likely happens. It's not the best piece of Gundam around, but it's fun and has aged insanely well for something made in 1988.

After Char's Counterattack come two stand-alone works that take place in the same continuity: Gundam F91 and Victory Gundam.
F91, made in 1991, was originally planned to be a TV series... but the first 11 episodes were turned into the movie instead for reasons still not quite known. It's not important to watch and actual closure comes in a manga sequel, Crossbone Gundam, just now being scanlated by groups online. Skippable, but enjoyable.
Victory Gundam is also a stand-alone work, but is one of those things where you either love it or you hate it. Tomino himself, co-creator of Gundam and director of Victory, hates the series, whereas many fans love it. It all comes down to personal taste on this one, and the only way to really know if you'll like it or not is to sample it in the first place. However, you'll have to grab fansubs, as it's not out in the USA yet.
Thanks to post limits, I'll post the rest of my text block in a second post.

[NewtypeS3]

Concluding my post...
If you started with Gundam Wing, there's only one place to go.
After those manga I mentioned above,grab the DVD Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz (1996). Taking place a year after Wing, this movie/OVA reveals much of the actual backstory for the series itself. There's also some serious closure for the series and is thoroughly entertaining, though I wish they'd included more fighting scenes - or at least extended them beyond the 20-minutes they added for the movie version.

And then you're finished with Wing.

However, you can move onto Mobile Fighter G-Gundam (1994), which is much like the love child of Gundam and shows like Voltron or GaoGaiGar. It's not for everyone, but the story is insanely enjoyable if you can get past the ruts in the first and third segments of the show (out of four, of course).

If you'd rather not dive into G-Gundam yet, there's also After War Gundam X (1996). In many ways, X is a spiritual sequel to Gundam Wing - the character designs, mecha and music all retain elements of Wing, much like how Wing retained elements from G-Gundam (the series before it). However, X is also a nice transition into the stuff under the Classic Gundam banner: the Universal Century. Think of it as a smoothie blending the ice cream of the Universal Century and the fruit of the non-Universal-Century-shows together into one series.
I can't begin to recommend this series enough, it's just all-around-awesome because of... everything.

---

If you watched Gundam Seed, then there's a few things for you.

The manga sidestories Gundam Seed Astray, Gundam Seed Astray R, Gundam Seed Astray B (this one not available in the USA) and Gundam Seed X Astray all cover the important side-events of Seed thatwe never quite got to see.
Astray focuses on the adventures of Lowe Gear and Gai Murkamo, while R follows Lowe closely and B follows Gai closely during the events of plain Astray. You can skip R or B, but R is an entertaining read (never read B, though). X Astray happens after Plain Astray and focuses on more background info of Seed's own main... sorta.

Gundam Seed Destiny (2005) is the sequel to Gundam Seed and follows a new main character. Opinion on this series is... split down the middle around here, so to speak. Some love the series, others hate it. Quite frankly, if you liked Seed, you'll find at least something to like about Destiny - so it's at least worth checking out for yourself.

Gundam Seed: CE73 Stargazer (2005) is a brief (45-minute-long!) 3-episode series focusing a little on side-characters who pilot mecha made to make Bandai a little extra cash. At 45-minutes-long, there's not a whole lot going on here, but the animation is pretty to look at and some of the things going on are pretty cool...
...just don't expect a whole lot, considering the length.

---

And after any one of those, there's always...

Gundam 00 (2007) is the most recent (and still incomplete) Gundam series to date. Starting in our own timeline of Anno Domini, rather than a made-up name like Universal Century, this series focuses much on the 'why' and 'how' of war, much like predecessors Turn-A Gundam (1999) and Gundam Wing (1995).
However, Gundam 00 also has a poor startup speed - spending great lengths of time explaining the how and why of the world this series takes place in. But once these episodes are past (I'd guess around episode 9 or so), the series begins to pick up steam and keeps gaining speed right down to the finale... of the first half of the series. The second half of the series has started nicely, with new events keeping the same energy.
As for the characters, they all recieve their own moments to shine at some point or another - and the music for this series is outstanding.
However, 00 isn't even out on DVD in the USA yet (licensing has been done, it's aired on Sci-Fi, but no DVDs yet), so downloads are your only road if you choose this one.

00 isn't a bad series, but it has a few flaws keeping it from reaching the best as it stands right now.
At least, that's my opinion.

---

And when you get through pretty much all of that, there's one series left.
Turn-A Gundam.

The reason it's not under any of those is because it's kind of a treat to the Gundam fan, featuring nods of the head to... just about everything made before the series' premier in 1999. It's recommended you watch this as close to last as possible, simply because of all the references and nods to the past - as well as the fact that this was the creator's best 'farewell' to his creation.

---

...so... yeah... Hope I didn't scare you with the list, but

that's pretty much how it all goes.
Notice how I don't actually insult one single series of Gundam, or recommend a single series above all others - because a true fan trying to recommend a series to a newbie would let them choose what they wanted to see, encourage seeing Gundam, and seeing where they want to go.

Then again, that's just me.

[Naruyamcha]

If only logistical issues would allow for the former series to air in America (pardon the Bandit Keith pun). Hopefully Bandai of America would come up with something for us, this year being Gundam's 30th Anniversary and all.

[crabman]

I'm going to go across the grain and say start with Gundam Seed. If you're new to Gundam you're probably not going to be able to appreciate the earlier Gundams. So start with something that's a bit more familiar. If you like that I'd definitely move onto Gundam 08th MS team. Which is really good if you're into explosions and good fights and a pretty shallow story. I actually liked G Gundam a lot if you can't get enough of those Gundam fights. Gundam 00 somewhere in there wouldn't be a bad choice either.

If you've finished all that you can now go to the 0079, Zeta, ZZ series. By than you should be able to appreciate Gundam enough and forgive the fact that they didn't have computers or that much money to help them with their animation.

[TheWon]

The first Gundam is, "Mobile Suit Gundam:0079"

After that in terms of anime Gundam and not OAV stuff, there was Zeta Gundam, Double Zeta Gundam, Char's Counter Attack(Movie), F-91 Gundam(Movie), and Victory Gundam in terms of when it takes place in the Anime is the last of the UC.

There are also some Gundams that you can watch independently with no prior knowledge of previous universes as they are "closed" in their own universe.

G-Gundam, Gundam Wing, Gundam X,

Turn-A Gundam is in its own universe technically, but Turn-A Gundam was meant to connect all of the Gundams that came before it, so there may be vague references to other series(Honestly I haven't watched all of it yet).

Then there's Gundam Seed, and its sequel Gundam Seed Destiny. I didn't think too highly of the Seed anime series in general, but it's easy to understand and if you like a lot of action you may enjoy Gundam Seed. Gundam Seed Destiny, I'll leave that up to you to decide, if you actually watch it. I kind of feel like Gundam Seed was made to appeal to more mainstream Anime fans in general, which is probably why I didn't enjoy it as much as other series, but it's really up to you to decide how you feel about it.

The series that's going on right now is Gundam 00. It's in its own universe so no prior knowledge of other series are needed. There are very vague and surface comparisons to a few of the older series and Gundam 00, but again it's just surface comparisons at best.

I've seen every series in its entirety except Turn-A Gundam. For me, I'm probably enjoying Gundam 00 the most. Followed by Gundam X, and then ZZ Gundam.

I totally agree with you. Except I would go X, Wing then maybe 00. Depending on how it ends. If you just watch Seed then you will be ok. If you watch Seed and Destiny then your better off. Letting someone kick you in the privates.