My Gundam Comic

Come And See (This Awesome Robot)

One might consider this comic a sort of refutation of that popular 'wow, cool robot' meme, which I think gives the show a little too much credit. I’m told that the creator, Tomino, originally wanted a more grounded show, but was mandated by the higher ups to include a steady stream of fight scenes and new robot designs in order to sell toys—which is a shame, because the best parts of the show are easily the times when people aren’t inside robots. Still, we can only really judge what we got in the end, which is a decades long show that remained pretty consistently style over substance, from what I can tell –after all, nobody is buying model kits of bombed out hospitals. War is horrible… but the weapons of war? Well, those are incredibly cool.

The exception to this, In my experience, is the OVA war in the pocket, which I wouldn’t go so far as to call profound, but which is far more interesting and emotionally resonant than the other series I’ve watched, and even manage to make me cry. The OVA follows a young boy, obsessed with mobile suits but ignorant to the horrors of war, who gets a harsh dose of reality. One might read this as an Evangelion-esque fuck you to the fans, if it weren’t for the fact that it wasn’t written by the original creator. As such, I like to interpret it more as a sort of reflection or reckoning, whether by a fan of the series, or by one of its critics. Still, it tends to ring a little hollow when you see how little the series has ultimately changed (and when it does, it’s typically for the more bombastic). It almost seems to say “All right, we’ve addressed the elephant in the room, now can we get on with it?”

None of this is the say I didn’t enjoy the original series. It’s an iconic cultural artifact, and there’s a reason it was so popular in the first place. It gives us a glimpse into a fashionably quirked-up alternate reality in which T-shirts have been replaced by sleeveless turtlenecks, and protagonists who would otherwise have names like Akira Tojo are now called Sharshnew Bangarang. The hard sci-fi world building is delightful, and I think the relationship between Amuro and his father is far more interesting and poignant then the melodramatic Shinji/Gendo dynamic, which now appears to be the gold standard for fucked up robot daddy issues. Gundam is a fine show! But let’s call a spade a spade.