In the "Universal Century" 0079, Earth and its space colonies are split between the democratic Federation and the Principality of Zeon. The Earth ship White Base arrives at the Side 7 research facility to pick up some prototype "mobile suits" (humanoid piloted robots), but it is ambushed by Zeon attackers with orders to destroy them. Fifteen-year-old Earth boy Amuro Ray climbs into the cockpit of his father's prototype RX-78 Gundam unit and fights them off. With most of the original military crew dead, the White Base is commandeered by young Side 7 evacuees - as they head for Earth, they are hounded by Zeon forces led by the dashing enemy officer Char Aznable. Touching down in enemy territory, they fight their way out to their own forces, who reveal that they are "newtypes," a new breed of human with nascent psionic powers. Eventually, they lead a final assault on the asteroid fortress of A Baoa Qu, the Zeon forces are riven by internal struggles (Char himself kills one of their leaders as part of a family feud), and the One Year War is over.

Along with STAR BLAZERS and MACROSS, Gundam is a cornerstone of anime SF, an ever-present franchise and sprawling saga, still active two decade after its premiere. Its distinguishing features are firmly rooted in merchandising and its own longevity - a vast taxonomy of robot types ready for exploitation in model kits and action figures (compare to POKEMON) and a long-running future saga that has often collapsed under its own weight only to be brought back with several attempts to reset the continuity. As with other successful franchises like Star Trek, keeping track of the characters themselves also requires a sizable concordance. It's bad enough that they often seem named after random words picked from a Scrabble bag, let alone that they switch sides and identities. Matters are not helped by "joke" names that seem like a great idea to the Japanese but they caused endless difficulties to English translators trying to keep romanizations consistent. Most infamously, Char Aznable is named after the French singer Charles Aznavour, which would have been a poor enough gag in a shallow comedy like SORCERER HUNTERS, but it's quite damaging to the tone of an otherwise serious SF saga. The creation of Yoshiyuki Tomino, veteran of ASTRO BOY and BRAVE RAIDEEN, Gundam combines elements of Star Wars with space-colony politices and a subtle metaphor for Japan's postwar "new breed" baby boomers - the "newtype" name was appropriated for Japan's most popular anime magazine.

The original series was rereleased in three movie editions - Mobile Suit Gundam (1981), MSG 2: Soliders of Sorrow (1981), and MSG 3: Encounters in Space (1982), the latter two comprising roughly 50% new material between them, with the bulk of it concentrated in the third movie. Part of the new footage showed Char escaping from A Baoa Qu, setting up the sequel series Zeta Gundam (1985 - the seventh year of the franchise named for the seventh letter of the Greek alphabet). Zeta kept surviving members of the original cast but reorganized their allegiances, with Char and the White Base now on the same side, resisting the Earth Federation's attempts to wipe out remaining rebels. The series' ambiguity toward enemies has come to be another of its distinguishing marks, though much of it may originate less in a desire for foes with feelings, and more from Tomino's own ambiguous attitude toward the series for which he has come to be known. Zeta was followed by a second season, Double Zeta (1986), with an all new cast, while the "conclusion" to the long feud between Char Aznable and Amuro Ray came in the movie edition Char's Counterattack (1988, Char no Gyakushu). Determined that all humankind will join the colonists in space, Char plans to drop the Axis asteroid on Earth but is finally persuaded to work with Amuro to prevent the tragedy both side have created.

The series was parodied in Tetsuro Amino's 1988 SD Gundam video series, which featured "super-deformed" squashed-down cartoon versions of the characters and machines in unlikely comedic situations. The original ten-part video series was followed by two short movies, and video sequels numbered Mark II-IV. There was also the two-part video series SD Warrior Gundam (1989), and a spinoff of the spinoff - SD Gundam Side Story (1990).

Gaps in the continuity of the original, serious Gundam were plugged by two video series, Fumihiko Takayama's MSG 0080: War In The Pocket (1989), which observed the One Year War from the new viewpoint of a very young child learning the real meaning of war, and MSG 0083: Stardust Memory (1991), which bridged the gap between Double Zeta and the same year's movie, Gundam F91. Following a template no less predictable than that of TIME BOKAN, Stardust Memory features a rehashed Char character, Anavel Gato, and a brash young Amuro clone, Ko Uraki. Three years after A Baoa Qu, as the Earth Federation struggles to rebuild its shattered fleet and zeon plots revenge, the enemy ace once again tries to steal a Gundam. Drawn unwittingly into a conspiracy to wipe out the Earth Federation HQ by crashing a colony onto it, Ko does his utmost to prevent disaster but is still court-martialled and jailed, set free only because further political machinations require that the whole affair be forgotten. F91 was a stalled attempt to start again with a clean slate, moving the action thirty years into the future with an all-new cast - teenagers Seabrook Arno and love-interest Cecily Fairchild, who discover that Cecily is, like Char before her, a scion of powerful noble family (in this case the Ronah dynasty), determined to impose a thousand-year Reich on the solar system. Though the story was continued in novel form with the Crossbone Gundam follow-up, it did not last as an anime. Aiming itself, like the same studio's successful BRAVE SAGA franchise, at a younger audience, the franchise returned as the TV series Victory Gundam (1993), though the director (who had gained the nickname "Kill 'em All" Tomino after ZAMBOT 3) soon asserted his trademark angst and tragedy. Set another thirty years on (in the year U.C. 0153), it featured yet another all-new cast, headed by the 13-year-old wonder-pilot Usso Ebbing. Takeyuki Kanda's video series MSG: 08th M[obile] S[uit] Team (1996) returns to the events of the first year in the saga (0079) and the activities of yet another group of characters in and around the events already established in the continuity.

The gap between Victory and 08th MS Team saw several unrelated series that sought to capitalize on the Gundam brand without adhering to the future history continuity. Depending on your point of view, these are either interesting speculations on alternate universe or a cavalier attempt to jettison everything from the series except those all-import robot merchandise tie-ins. Released in the same year as STREET FIGHTER II, Yasuhiro Imagawa's completely unhinged G-Gundam TV series was redolent of Stuart Gordon's Robot Jox (1989), with gladiatorial bouts between giant robots used to settle quarrels between nations (culturally sterotyped to ludicrous degrees with an elephant Gundam for India, a wind-mill gundam for the Netherlands, and a Viking Gundam complete with its own rowing boat). No one is entirely sure why Neo-Sweden's Nobel Gundam looks like SAILOR MOON. The kids-in-combat premise was rehashed in another "alternate universe," Masashi Ikeda's Gundam Wing (1995), in which five 15-year-old teenagers, inspired by the pretty-boys of SAINT SEIYA, are mobile-suit pilots in a new war between Earth and its colonies in space. Once more, political and economic machinations are out to crush the colonists' desire for self-determination. Wing was also reedited into the four-part Operation Meteor clip-shows and is arguably the most successful alternative universe adventure so far, though its sudden cancellation forced an ending on video as MSG Wing: Endless Waltz (1997), itself reissued with extra footage as the Endless Waltz Special Edition movie. A third alternate saga, Shinji Takamatsu's Gundam X (1996), did not flourish in the post - EVANGELION climate and was ignominiously dragged of the air. The series' next major outing after Wingwas Turn-A Gundam (1999), literally V Gundam), yet another attempt to encompass as many previous serial as possible into one overarching continuity (compare to similar problems that dogged the Macross Saga, especially post - ROBOTECH). Leaping two millenia into the future (a period guaranteed to make most continuity errors irrelevant), it depicts Earth people who have forgotten about their space-faring past, rudely awakened into relearning about the mythical Gundam robots (refer to Tomino's DUNBINE) after they are invaded by a highly advanced society that has languished forgotten on the moon. Featuring new music from Yoko Kanno, controversially bizarre robot designs by American futurist Syd Mead (see STAR BLAZERS), and a move to the Fuji TV network, Turn-A is the most recent incarnation of the franchise to date, though the story line is constantly revisited through novels, manga, games, and other spinoffs. These have included the live-action game and mini-movie G Saviour (2000), the A Baoa Qu ride at the Fuji Express Highland amusement park (featuring original animation designs by War in the Pocket - designer Haruhiko Mikimoto), and Gichi Otsuka's novel/manga For the Barrel (2000), which refashions Tomino's own Gundam novels - the most recent attempt to streamline the continuity to date.