[Scourge of Ages]

I've never seen it, not even a little, a fact I plan to remedy. I'd like to watch all of it, or at least enough to know what all the fuss is about.
I know you guys are pros, so I figured this would be the best place to ask: Where do I start?

(I don't know Japanese, so I'll need subtitles and/or English dubs. Preferred media is DVD, North American region.)

Thanks!

[General Battuta]

Everyone tells me it's mostly terrible but that 08th MS Team is the one to watch. (disclaimer, I do not watch much/really any anime)

[StarSlayer]

The Universal Century stuff is pretty good and generally much more grounded in reality and grittiness.  The original Mobile Suit Gundam maybe a bit technically dated but is still pretty fun and sets the context for the other shows.  08th MS Team, 0083 Stardust Memory and the Unicorn series are pretty awesome.  I found 0080 and Char's Couterattack are also good but i haven't seen any of the series dealing with the Titans.

The alternate universe/storyline Seed/Wing stuff I find is all cliche and over the top but YMMV. 

[Mongoose]

The only Gundam material I've seen so far is both seasons of 00, which got really goofy plot-wise but was still enjoyable for the most part.  Like StarSlayer said, most legitimate Gundam fans label the main Universal Century series as the best of the bunch, with the original Mobile Suit Gundam, Zeta Gundam, and 08th MS team as particular standouts.  Gundam Unicorn is a new OVA series that is supposed to be really good and can apparently be watched without much familiarity with the rest of the UC stuff.  I've heard vague good things about Turn A Gundam, although that's supposed to be a very "different" sort of series.  Gundam Wing was the first title in the franchise that hit it big in the US, though I think its large pretty-boy cast was a significant reason for that.  From what I've heard, I'd advise staying away from Gundam Seed, since its sequel series Destiny is almost universally panned.

(And if you want to see Gundam meets super robots, Gundam G's supposed to be a riot.  SHINING FINGER!)

[Unknown Target]

08th MS Team is great.

[Flaser]

I recommend starting with the movie trilogy version of the original Mobile Suit Gundam. (I - MSG, II - Soldier of Sorrow, III - Encounters in Space). It's a lot closer to Yoshiyuki Tomino's original vision and had a lot of excessive (toy & toy sale oriented) stuff cut out leaving a much more streamlined show with strong narrative.

Granted the animation *style* is dated, but the movies still have some choreography in them, that modern mecha shows would just "love" to live up to, but are too busy posing their (mobile-)suits in cool poses rather than doing so. It's also chock full of memorable characters and has one of the best villians of all time, Char Aznable. He is a multifaceted character who you can't walk away from without a strong impression.

Next I'd recommend Gundam 0080, the *best* damn OVA. It has excellent animation - it's almost unbelievable that all of it was hand drawn! - a good, concise plot and some anvilicious drama about the horrors of war... but for once that's a good thing as some anvils need to be dropped.

Finally at a toss up between Gundam 0083 (Top Gun! in the Universal Century, except there's less homo-eroticism and more drama involving men of destiny) and 8th MS Team. Frankly, both shows are flawed and have been hampered by a change of director near their last 1/3. 0083 has a somewhat forced love triangle, while 8th MS' romance plot seems a bit contrived. Animation wise I'd rate 0083 higher as it has some really nice designs, however when it comes to *animating* things (how stuff moves, whether you get a sense of "weight") 8th MS takes the crown.

[JGZinv]

Mobile Suit Gundam is the original and is part of the Universal Century line. IMO - didn't like it due to the outdated animation and constant whining of characters.
This is the template from which the majority of Gundams are spawned. But it is the original, worth one watch anyway to get the idea.

8th MS Team, F91 (movie), 0080, 0083, Turn A gundam (set in the UC but way way in the future farther than anything else, a "cap stone"), were all good.
From the alternate lines, Gundam Wing, G Gundam, Gundam 00, are probably the best. Unicorn Gundam is an OVA right now, only about 4 episodes are
out, but it's sort of a updated retelling of the original MS Gundam with added stuff thrown in. So far I'm liking it, reminds me a bit of Seed though.

G Gundam takes place in a reality where the Gundams are fighters for each country in a international tournament, but there's another evil plot afoot that takes over towards the middle
of the series. It's more like a really over the top version of RobotJox.

Wing, while I'm not a fan of Endless Waltz (movie) probably moved the entire franchise forward into the more advanced mecha with super abilities and had more to do with
political relations and the idea of peace as desired by the people. 5 young pilots were set to destroy the earth, but double crossed the people that sent them and start to fight
both on earth and in space. It's got some of the best music in the series in terms of BGM for battles, lots of strings and brass. It introduced individual regular size high powered mecha,
and a lot of the philosophical or political vibe that has since been carried on in Seed and 00. Somewhat has elements of 8th MS team in it too. It ran on Toonami back in the day and gained
popularity quickly with young kids - which was sort of the tipping point for a lot of Gundam showing up in the US after that.

00 Gundam sort of is the logical step if you combined Wing and Seed. It's unfortunately got a heavy anti religious spin due to the main character being the fictional equivalent
of a ex-arab terrorist. The plot is that a organization with advanced weapons and tech begins armed interventions into wars and events trying to shape the world into a midset
of peace. Essentially becoming a small police force. Of course that doesn't quite work out how they'd like. Season 2 is better than 1.  It moves the plot along quite a bit and has some
better character dev' and battles. An example is where there's a huge planet side battle going on between different factions and the Gundams, but an orbital elevator is destroyed
and begins to fall on the earth, for a short time everyone stops fighting each other and helps destroy the massive falling debris aiming for local cities.
The Trailblazer movie had some great battles in it. You can expect lots of yelling and super powered Gundams that barely make sense.


Now as to the bad stuff IMO.

SD Gundam - super deformed tiny chibi Gundams that are there own characters, not piloted by anyone. Sort of like if you combined Pokemon and Gundam, and covered
it in fairy dust... this would be the result.

Seed Gundam and it's offshoot movies - I watched it... I'm sorry I did. Other than the idea that you could have a Gundam with different attachment packs, ala Zoids, the
characters were really quite annoying. The plot rather drones on and doesn't do anything any of the above hadn't already done. It was a update to the MS Gundam story, meant to emulate
MSG and Wing, and it took super powered Gundams way over the top for it's time. Characters look younger than in most other series due to the bright and cheery animation style.
Just not my cup o tea... and thank goodness when Flay finally died.

Char's Counter Attack - Movie, somewhat important in terms of the UC overall story. It caps off the MSG story arc. But you could rename it "Gundam: Drama and Death" and
it'd work. Basically kids whining, followed by everyone dying. The end. Pointless deaths ala mode in whatever flavor you like.

[Dark Hunter]

As you can probably tell, Gundam fans are quite divided on which series is the best, and which ones sucked. Personally, I've liked nearly all the ones I've seen, save G Gundam. Haven't seen Seed as of yet, so I'm still wondering why people hate it so much.

My favorite series has to be Gundam 00, which is the most recent full series released. The animation and music are both spectacular, and the fights were awesome. Some people don't like the movie, "Awakening of the Trailblazer", since it features aliens (for the first time in 30 years of Gundam), but I thought it was pretty sweet.

I've also seen Gundam Wing, which was my first Gundam series back when it was airing on Toonami, so I think I see it through a bit of a nostalgia filter. Nonetheless, quite enjoyable, and it focuses really heavily on the geopolitics of the war, arguably moreso than on the Gundams themselves (who don't really become important in the grand scheme of things until the very end).

Currently watching through the UC timeline, in the middle of Gundam ZZ, which everyone seems to hate, but I find hilarious and far better written than I was lead to expect. The original Gundam is extremely dated, but still good, if you can tolerate late 70's animation. And it has Char "The Red Comet" Aznable in it, so major points for that. Zeta Gundam is much darker, but also much better. 08th MS Team is flat-out awesome, as is Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory, which is an interquel miniseries between Gundam and Zeta Gundam, and explains just how the crappy political situation in Zeta came about.

Common themes across most of Gundam include actually paying some attention to physics for the most part (save G Gundam), that there are good and bad people on both sides of the conflict, and war in general really, really sucks. It's cheesy at times but very awesome: there's a damn good reason it's lasted more than 30 years as a franchise.

So, as a starter, I'd probably recommend the original series trilogy (subtitled... the dub is hard to find these days, largely because it really sucked), or Gundam 00 (which is fully dubbed... the movie dub is getting released in a couple of weeks).

[Droid803]

JGZinv, a friendly tip: trust text wrapping and please DON'T add your own line breaks.
For example a quote from you looks like this:

Sort of like if you combined Pokemon and Gundam,
and covered
it in fairy dust... this would be the result.

to my resolution. Pretty silly no?


If you want to start, either start with either the UC timeline (in order) if you don't mind dated animation style (but still good story), or pick a random AU and start from there if you want something flashier.

The entirety of UC is fairly solid in my books (yes, including ZZ, you haters. ZZ has ple. <3 loli, even though the rest of it was like WUT for some parts).

In terms of AU series, they usually tend to start decent but end up in the ****hole one way or another.

00 season 1 was cool, season 2 was less so (but was very particle spam and had sexy animation budget so it was watchable), and then the movie fluctated between decent (**** YEAH MOAR DAKKA!) and totally retarded (holy **** space flower).
SEED was a cool re-imagining of MSG in more modern animation style with better special effects, then SEED Destiny went and **** the bed. \o/
Gundam X was pretty cool but then it got chopped
Wing...well, uh...it was kinda hard to take seriously, then I decided it wouldn't worth it to take it seriously.

[General Battuta]

Agreed, JGZinv, you don't need to add your own line breaks and it chops your text up in weird ways.

[redsniper]

08th MS Team is god-tier. It's like a vietnam war movie, but with mechs.

[JGZinv]

JGZinv, a friendly tip: trust text wrapping and please DON'T add your own line breaks.
For example a quote from you looks like this:

Sort of like if you combined Pokemon and Gundam,
and covered
it in fairy dust... this would be the result.

to my resolution. Pretty silly no?

I've done it naturally for years before text wrapping and widescreen was normal...
Back then human beings still used the hard return for things like writing letters for print, etc.

But yeah I know... it looks terrible. I end up editing every post I make for announcements, etc.
I'm on dual 23" screens, so it doesn't bother me as much as other folks though. Darn you technology!

[JGZinv]

Haven't seen Seed as of yet, so I'm still wondering why people hate it so much.

From my post:  "...the characters were really quite annoying. The plot rather drones on and doesn't do anything any of the (others) hadn't already done."
"...and thank goodness when Flay finally died."

There you go... in a nutshell.

..and I would have merged this with my post above, but there's no delete post button --__--

[Mongoose]

Char's Counter Attack - Movie, somewhat important in terms of the UC overall story. It caps off the MSG story arc. But you could rename it "Gundam: Drama and Death" and it'd work. Basically kids whining, followed by everyone dying. The end. Pointless deaths ala mode in whatever flavor you like.

The man sure didn't earn the nickname "Kill 'em All Tomino" for nothing.

[Scourge of Ages]

OK, this is good stuff. Keep it coming. Hoo boy this is complicated.

If I understand so far, it seems like each series is not interconnected, so it doesn't really matter which one I start with. Though the original MSG seems like a good point, if I don't mind dated animation, which I don't think I do.
Would it be safe to generally just work my way through at least the first 5 on this list on Wikipedia and go from there, or should I definitely skip or just rent any of them (besides Seed)?

[JGZinv]

The UC era ones are connected...

The side story movies or OVAs that are UC based will tie into the UC timeline and usually reference events prior as well.
So I'd go by the list there, but go by UC date and watch in order.

Then you can see Wing, Seed, 00, or the others on their own.

You can watch 99% of these online... although mostly subs. Some of the recent ones like the 00 trailblazer movie and Unicorn are not dubbed yet. So they are online only at this point.

[NGTM-1R]

08th MS Team is probably the best in terms of art-direction (there are a lot of little touches that make the giant robots really feel like giant robots), and for sheer awesome few things compare to somebody ripping off their giant robot's arm and beating another giant robot to death with it.

The original MS Gundam is not terribly well-animated or acted, but tells an excellent story. One can find a UC Gundam series or OVA that touches on nearly any theme you care to, they're an awful lot of them. More recent works such as Seed and 00 are generally more poorly written than UC-era stuff, not in the least because they're trying to retell the UC story.

Wing was good when I was 15 but like most shows I liked back then I can't watch it without going "my god, did this always suck so bad". No idea about X or Turn A, though the second one tends to cause a violent shift in opinion on the series on contact.

[JGZinv]

Probably the reason people hate Turn A is the ending, in which the history of the UC series is told briefly and a lot of the side alternate universe
series are folded into the UC universe as canon. Wing Gundam being the most obvious one.  Then the ending character wise and suit wise, is sort
of a let down depending on who you're rooting for.  It really does start out slow and gradually turns around into a decent show. Turn A is also meant
to be the final end of the UC era, along with the Gsavior movie that no one liked. So I can see where perhaps other fans would dislike it compared
to perhaps their own ideas of how it should end.

Yeah I somewhat feel the same about Wing after 10 years... I ran through it here recently, but it still appeals to me somewhat. It's unique in it's own way.
The toonami intros really sold the show too...    Suit Up... Again!

Wing + Waltz
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVcCB4fze94
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2a7clqqbHZI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMXlQoWH9Kg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSAe5MMJZ2w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QR8UiOVLaGw

Original
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6c30IcxtrnU
8th ms promo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSAe5MMJZ2w
0080
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHhY8Xtzik0
0083
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gqbc_qogARo

GGundam
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-IIfWEV_dA

SD Gundam
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWfl5qYHGcs

Seed
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToV3SqqD240

[Bobboau]

hmmm..... gundam.... was never a big fan of it....

[redsniper]

Omg, <3 Toonami promos. Nostalgiaaaaaaaaaa HNNNNNNNNNNNNG-

Here's one for 08th:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHORiWcYzEY