After procrastinating it for so long, I finally got around to watching the original 1979 Mobile Suit Gundam.

With the old-ass animation, lame-sounding music and mechs that don’t look cool at all, the only things the show has going for it are the story and it characters. And boy, did the story and characters carry the anime hard.

Now that I have watched it, I finally understand why Gundam fans place the Universal Century timeline and its characters on a pedestal.

It is the most “Gundam” Gundam show (duh, since it’s the OG). It stars a very likable protagonist - Amuro Ray - and his found family, a hotchpotch crew of rookie soldiers and civilians onboard a warship - White Base -, just trying to survive the war. They spent most of the run from enemy forces, being pursuit mostly by an enigmatic yet charismatic masked antagonist - Char Aznable.

It’s got all the anti-war themes that it helped pioneered: child soldiers, killing of civilians, WMDs, etc. Heck, they even straight-up referenced Hitler at one point.

I can see how every Gundam shows (and Gundam-like shows) that came after drew inspiration from it. Out of those that I have watched, I find that Gundam SEED is the most similar. In fact, they are similar not just in terms of the story, characters and tropes but also in their main flaw (IMO): reused animations!

Personally, another benefit of watching it is that I finally get some of the Gundam memes. It’s like watching Lord of the Rings and coming across the meme scenes.

So, despite this being such an old anime - which I usually can’t be bothered with -, I ended up liking it so much that

1. I binged it
2. I’m giving it a score of 10 / 10

I’ve still got a long way to go with the rest of the Universal Century timeline. However, now that I have at least watch the OG, I’m going to try rating the Gundam-ness of some shows that I have watched.

I won’t be buying the Gunpla of this show anytime soon. I still prefer the looks of mobile suits from SEED, 00, IBO and Witch from Mercury.