Universal Century Love Thread

[KuwabaraTheMan]

Too much Wing/SEED here, let's get some classic Universal Century stuff going. If it weren't for it, Gundam wouldn't exist.

Note, if you haven't watched UC shows, you aren't really a Gundam fan, get out of this forum now and go buy the Zeta Boxset. You'll thank me later.


The Universal Century is awesome.

An amazing epic:

The Main works:
Mobile Suit Gundam(43 episodes)
Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam(50 episodes)
Mobile Suit ZZ Gundam(47 episodes)
Mobile Suit Gundam Char's Counterattack(movie)
Mobile Suit Gundam F91(movie)
Mobile Suit Victory Gundam(51 episodes)

Important sidestories:
Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket(6 episodes)
Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory(13 episodes)
Mobile Suit Gundam: 08th MS Team(13 episodes)
MS Igloo: The Hidden One Year War(3 episodes)
MS Igloo: Apocalypse 0079(3 episodes, later this year)

Not to mention movie remakes, manga(the most famous being Origin(retelling of the Original series by the character designer) and Crossbone Gundam(which takes place 10 years after F91), novels, etc.

The Universal Century is huge, spanning 74 years time.

Notable characters:
Amuro Ray
Char Aznable
Kamille Bidan
Bright Noa
Judau Ashta
Haman Karn
and many, many others

UC is like a great war epic told over many generations, and it only improves over time.


Zeta Gundam is my personal favorite, how about everyone else?

[Sieg]

I agree.

UC is greater than any alternate universe, especially Zeta and Victory.
Some people say their tired of stories in the UC universe, but as long as they don't interfere with the main stories, i can't get enough.

I'm getting tired of seed actually. New UC :yell

[Mindless]

Hm... where do I start.

The first Gundam anime I actually watched was Gundam Wing (ages ago, around when it was on TV in Japan), but that never really got me hooked. I came back to the whole gundam scene some years later and started watching Zeta and later ZZ and after that I was hooked.

Personally, I have yet to find a kind of anime that has better characters, story and plot than the Universal Century gundams. They are in a class of their own. They had the ideal rivals (Char and Amuro), the ideal antagonists (Jerid), the ideal main characters (Judau, well, that's what I think anyway :wink ) and an ideal plot development.

All of the UC gundam animes started out slowly and with the classic 'gundam theft' (not all but most of them). I probably like Zeta's beginning the best because it had the biggest forward movement of them all. MSG had a very slow start where it mostly focuses on building up the rivalry between Char and Amuro.

However, the absolute favourite of all the gundam animes for me is Victory. Awsome mecha, awsome battles and a great story mixed with some very funny moments. I couldn't stop laughing when Uso and Chronicle were fighting inside the cockpit of Chronicle's mobile suit. That was hilarious. After Victory would probably be Zeta (haven't finished MSG yet) and after that either Turn A (you could call it a sequel to Victory because it takes place in the same Universe, just thousands of years later) or 8th MS Team.

[O-ushi]

Gundam Seed Destiny was the first gundam anime I watched. After the few eps I was hooked. I put a pause on Destiny and watched all of Gundam Seed. Then alongside Destiny I watched all of the Gundam Shows from the very first one in Chronological order of Timelime. By the time I knew it I had watched almost every Gundam Show except G Gundam by the time GSD finished.
Without a doubt my favourite Gundam Show would be Victory. Favorite Gundam, had awsome fights, awsome story, great character development, even little known characters would get some development. It was also a show that I found much easier to follow than the other shows. Due to its entirely new cast and being set far in the future it almost like a seperate show as it doesnt really require knowloedge of the othe UC shows to watch it. I really found the mecha designs in Victory Gundam to be awsome. Although I admit I was initially going :huh with mobile suits that had Helicopter mode I was okay with it afterwards. The mecha designs of this show also prompt me to watch Turn-A Gundam next, which to my surprise turned out great. Even though I say Victory is my favourite show, I really like most of UC, and among the AU line Gundam X, Turn-A, and Gundam Seed were great, Although there is a lot of hate for Destiny I cant bring myself to hate it, sure I was dissapointed, but hey it showed me my first Gundam. There is still a chance in CE for redemption.

[Raistlin-sama]

I started my gundam life by watching Seed. At that time I loved it, and it really hooked me on Gundam in general. However since I began looking for vintage anime (I pretty much didn't watch anything pre-1995 in my first year as an animefan), the UC Gundam shows was a natural choice. I saw the movie trilogy of MSG 0079, and I was pretty impressed. It was however clear that the first half of Seed ripped of the first half of MSG a lot. I still like Seed, but I can definitely see why some fans would be annoyed by this. Then I watched all the UC Gundam series chronologically, so I actually saw all the side-stories before I went on to Zeta Gundam. In my opinion most of the OVAs pale in comparison with the TV-series, however they were not really bad.

I loved Zeta, when I finally got to see it. ZZ Gundam however threw me a bit of at first. I still don't think it's a bad show, it just didn't do the same for me as Zeta.

Char's counterattack was awesome, although it was over very quickly. I like to see the culmination between Char and Amuro's rivalry, but the end was perhaps a little to "easy". Still a great movie.

F91 was alright, however it was plagued by bad pacing. Far to short for it's story.

Victory Gundam was once again awesome.

Tomino you're my hero!

That being said I don't think UC Gundam blows away all other anime-series...but it's definitely some great quality shows which is high up there on my "good anime" list.

[Sieg]

^They should have gone ahead and made the 50 ep F91 series.
Now i was wishing they made a crossbone series :plot

[Mindless]

^They should have gone ahead and made the 50 ep F91 series.
Now i was wishing they made a crossbone series :plot

Actually, a anime including the Crossbone 'era' was supposed to be released but the idea got scrapped for some reason and they decided it would just be a manga. Same thing with Gundam X. It was intended to be 50 episodes but the lack of viewers forced it to a rushed ending at episode 39.

[Sieg]

I know, it was turned into the F91 movie rather than a series.

[ShangDOh]

I agree completely, the UC universe is the best, so far nothing I've seen from the alternate universes comes close to matching UC's story and plot. My favorite series to this day is still the original Mobile Suit Gundam. Ah memories of Amuro openly counting how many Zeon MS he trashed still reigns freshly in my mind.

[Jikes]

and first i only watched SEED and GSD, however after seeing CCA and the first 2 zeta movies i can gladly say compared to these three movies the SEED universe in nothing but crap.

UC seems to have better developed characters IMO which always makes for a better series.

[Hokage Naruto]

UC had Char therefore it was awesome.

Jikes; check out Gundam X since it can at least compete with UC since it had a few UC elements in it eventhough it was consider an AU Gundam.