Mobile Suit Gundam is one of anime’s most expansive and longest-running franchises, starting all the way back in 1979 and continuing to this day. With dozens of different continuities, lore quirks, characters, and conflicts, it can be difficult to simply jump into the franchise and expect to know exactly what’s going on.
Fans looking to get started with Gundam might be attracted to Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn, a seven-episode series, due to its beautiful animation, music, and overall excellent production value (as well as it being available on North American Netflix). Overall, the show works as an entry point to Gundam because it exhibits the franchise’s characteristic ruminations on what war does to its participants, as well as top-tier mecha action. However, fans new to the franchise will definitely want to keep this background information in mind before starting Gundam Unicorn.
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What Is The Universal Century?
The Universal Century (or UC) timeline is Gundam‘s primary canon timeline. The Universal Century is home to many of the franchise’s most famous entries, including the original 1979 T.V. anime, and characters like Amuro and Char. It’s also the timeline that Unicorn takes place in, so there’s a lot of history to catch up on here.
Lore-wise, the Universal Century begins when humanity started to shift its population into space colonies. Chronologically, the original Gundam anime takes place in UC0079 (that is, 79 years after space colonization began), and Unicorn takes place in UC0096.
What Is The Earth Sphere?
The Earth Sphere is the catch-all term for the setting of Gundam in the UC timeline. Full-scale interstellar colonization is not possible in the world of the Universal Century, so space colonists (called “spacenoids”) live in massive artificial space stations (called “sides”), and asteroid installations located in orbit around the Earth and its Moon.
Since basically everything in the UC timeline takes place within the Earth Sphere, characters don’t have to worry about things like faster-than-light travel or lightspeed communications, and travel times between the Earth and its colonies are manageable on the normal propulsion engines of Gundam‘s spacecraft.
What Was The One Year War?
The One Year War, taking place from UC0079 to UC0080, is the inciting incident of the entire UC story, and the conflict that the original Gundam anime concerns itself with. The war started when a rebel faction of spacenoids from Side 3 declared themselves independent from the Earth Federation as the Principality of Zeon.
While the was quickly ended after Zeon’s decisive defeat at the battle of A Baoa Qu, the widespread use of weapons of mass destruction on civilian infrastructure resulted in an estimated 5.9 billion dead, as well as entire colonies destroyed, and swaths of the Earth rendered uninhabitable.
What Is A Mobile Suit?
In the early days of the One Year War, Zeon was able to gain an upper hand over the Federation due to its deployment of Mobile Suits: 20-meter humanoid mechanical weapons capable of operating both in space and inside colonies. The tactical superiority of early mobile suits lead the Federation to develop their own, and they soon became the primary weapon of war in the Earth Sphere.
Another reason for the proliferation of mobile suits was the introduction of the Minovsky Particle, a sort of jamming technology that rendered long-range communications and targeting impossible, which meant that confrontations needed to happen up close — a role the mobile suit was well suited to, given their maneuverability.
What Is A Gundam?
The RX-78 Gundam was the first prototype mobile suit developed by the Federation as an answer to the tactical superiority of Zeon’s MS-06 Zaku II. The Gundam had a number of technological advantages that gave it an edge in combat over other mobile suits, and in the hands of pilot Amuro Ray, it was instrumental in turning the tide of the One Year War.
The legendary status of the RX-78 meant that going forward, “Gundam Type” mobile suits (those with advanced capabilities and weapons) would be styled after the original Gundam. An example of this is the titular RX-0 Unicorn Gundam featured in the anime.
What Is The Earth Federation?
The Earth Federation represents the central governing entity for the Earth Sphere, administering the affairs of both the people of Earth and the spacenoids that reside in its colonies. While the Federation is ostensibly democratic, its bureaucratic overreach, perceived corruption, and ambivalent approach towards spacenoid suffrage make it unpopular among some.
The Earth Federation maintains a number of military elements for security purposes, namely the Earth Federation Space Force, as well as its special forces attachments Londo Bell and ECOAS. As of UC0096, the Federation’s main security concerns are rebels and splinter factions aiming to undermine its authority.
What Is Zeon?
Emerging as a sort of spacenoid nationalism in the mind of philosopher Zeon Zum Deikun, the Zeonic movement rapidly militarized in the run-up to the One Year War and kicked off the conflict when the spacenoids of Side 3 declared themselves independent as the Principality of Zeon.
While many characters sympathize with the plight of the spacenoids, Zeon’s use of weapons of mass destruction against civilians during the One Year War left even many spacenoids wondering if the ends actually did justify the means. Needless to say, the war crimes committed by Zeon during the war have left scars that characters are grappling with up to UC0096.
Who Are The Zabis?
The members Zabi family were the de-facto inheritors of the Zeonic legacy after Deikun’s death (which some allege was a result of foul play) and functioned as the military and political leadership of the Principality during the war.
Most of the Zabi clan met their end during the war at the hands of ace Zeon pilot Char Aznable, who made it his mission to exact revenge on the family even if it meant being a traitor to Zeon. Despite their near extinction, the political legacy of the Zabis lives on, and many of the disparate Zeon remnants in UC0096 are looking for a similar sort of leadership.
Who Is Char Aznable?
Char Aznable was Zeon’s preeminent mobile suit ace during the One Year War and sworn rival to series protagonist Amuro Ray. After the war, in UC0087, Char would emerge again as the leader of an insurgent group combatting an extremist militant wing within the Earth Federation government. Finally, in UC0093, Char lead a climactic final assault on the Earth Federation, which ultimately ended in his disappearance.
The mysterious circumstances of Char’s disappearance and his legendary status as an ace pilot that could go toe-to-toe with the Federation’s Gundam make him a symbol of hope among spacenoids, who refer to him reverently by the nom de guerre, “Red Comet.”
What Is A Newtype?
A critical point of Zeon Zum Deikun’s philosophy was the prediction that as humanity began to shift more and more of its burgeoning population into space, a “new type” of human would evolve — supposedly one with heightened empathy and awareness due to the three-dimensional environment of outer space.
This did end up coming to pass, but a side effect of a newtype’s heightened awareness was an extreme aptitude for piloting a mobile suit. The success of notable newtypes like Amuro Ray during the war later lead to the relentless exploitation of potential newtypes as military assets, rather than as the hope for mankind that Deikun predicted.