Media I've Consumed: Mobile Suit Gundam (1979) (Rewatch)

I FUCKING LOVE GUNDAM! I could probably end the post there tbh. I watched the original Mobile Suit Gundam for the first time in October of last year and it really impressed me. At it's core the original Mobile Suit Gundam is a show about taking a bunch of people and putting them into a pressure cooker and watching how they deal with the that. It is the foundation for one of the most important, and lucrative franchises in anime history it was made in 1979 and boy you can feel it sometimes! You can get some rather choice frames of the Gundam by pausing at the right times. Ultimately though the animation falls in to the category of charmingly old, rather than oh god oh god what the fuck. Plus the story still holds up immensely well! I was genuinely surprised at how well a show from 1979 dealt with issues like trauma and ptsd with the main character Amuro Ray absolutely going through the ringer throughout the show. Albeit that's not particularly unique to him other than it's sheer intensity. Every crew member on the White Base, the ship our main cast is operating is absolutely struggling under the pressure as they attempt to navigate through the One Year War and across it's 43 (42 if you don't ignore Tomino's wishes) episode runtime you get to experience the intense action yes, but also the calm in between mecha fights. There is an episode where one of the main plot points is the White Base attempting to find a saltwater lake because they are out of salt. You get to see the crew eat, work, rest, and fight which helps grow an attachment to the characters.

For a quick gist of the plot I'm gonna quote the opening of the first episode "A half century has passed since humanity began moving its burgeoning population into space. These gigantic space cities orbiting the Earth became a second home to humanity where people were born and raised, and where they died. It is the year 0079 of the Universal Century. The furthest space city from Earth, known as Side 3, proclaimed itself the Principality of Zeon. It launched a war of independence against the Earth Federation. In roughly one month of fighting, the Principality of Zeon and the Federation Forces caused the death of half the total population. Humanity was horrified by it's own actions. The war became a stalemate and eight months have now passed". Along with that Amuro Ray is living on Side 7 with his father who has designed the first mobile suits for the Earth Federation as well as a fancy new ship when Side 7 is attacked by Zeon forces. Amuro gets in the Gundam to fight them and most of the military personnel die. Leaving the White Base to be staffed by the few actual soldiers left and a bunch of civilians who had to escape Side 7.

I genuinely think this show holds up amazingly well. You can't say I'm blinded by nostalgia I watched it for the first time last year!! It tells a very human story and has some very interesting if incredibly unsubtle themes. So really what I'm trying to say is 

Anyways hopefully a shorter gap between this and my next blog, I'm sure all my nonexistant readers were devastated by my like half month hiatus before I talked about the funny robot show. Next thing will probably be another funny robot show.