Illuminate My Heart, My Darling! (Day 263)

I've been watching a lot of the original Mobile Suit Gundam series lately and I'm surprised to say that I enjoy it. I think the fact that the Englsh dub was done many many years after the anime was initially released contributes to that, because the voice acting is actually quite good. It makes up for the extremely poor animation. I don't mind the artwork at all, really. The weirdest thing about it is the anime's opening theme which is hilarious and extremely dated.

The anime's protagonist is Amuro Ray, an ostensibly teenage kid with a mechanical inclination. In the first episode he stumbles upon the Gundam prototype and puzzles out how to operate it. For some reason, it seems he's the only one capable of using it from then on--instead of some seasoned mobile suit pilot. Evidently the Gundam is much different from other mobile suits and is capable of adapting and learning based on battle experience. I'm not sure if this trend continues in the rest of the Gundam series. It does remind me of some of the stuff I've seen in Mobile Suit Gundam SEED, but I remember almost nothing from Gundam Wing.

Mobile Suit Gundam introduces a lot of traits that would become traditions for the series such as a red, white, and blue Gundam, beam rifles, beam swords, head-mounted vulcan cannons, and an oversized shield. I'm sure there's a lot more I'm missing since I'm not that familiar with the series myself. Actually, another tradition lies in Char, the anime's primary antagonist. I can think of at least two instances where a masked villain character plays an important role. There's Creuset in Gundam SEED and I could swear there was someone like that in Wing as well.

At first I was pretty skeptical that I'd watch more than a few episodes of Mobile Suit Gundam, but I'm a bit more interested now, especially considering the fact that this particular timeline has a lot of different anime associated with it. If I remember correctly, the next two Gundam series are more or less direct sequels to it, so I may very well check those out as well. It helps that characters from those anime are included in Super Robot Wars Alpha Gaiden, although I don't believe characters from the original series appear.

To be honest, I might decide to go back and play some of the original Super Robot Wars games since Mobile Suit Gundam characters definitely do appear in those. I'd like to skim through some Combattler V, Mazinger Z, and Getter Robo episodes as well, just to get a familiarity with them. I watched the first episode of Mazinger Z but the quality was pretty terrible and the subtitles were riddled with grammar errors. The first half of that show is being released very soon but it's extremely expensive, especially for my tight budget at the moment. I'd love to own it (as well as a lot of other anime) but I'm going to have to take care of some debts first.