I've done a great deal of reading up on the future of Gundam because it's a series near and and dear to my heart. No I haven't watched Witch From Mercury, I'm waiting for the hype around that show to die down, just like I did with the second season of Iron Blooded Orphans. My main love of Gundam stems from that original timeline in which the series was rooted before series creator Yoshiyuki Tomino was gave up his position as writer and director. I know many have grown to criticize the works in the Universal Century taking place after the Char's Counterattack film, and I can see why. People have also gone on to criticize that revolutionary original series for being old, a bit dated and the rushed and troubled production making the animation not look so good, something that was remedied a lot with the compilation films compiling the series into one trilogy that changes things to become the canon version of events. I decided while reading up on the backlash surrounding Narrative by the western Gundam fanbase and series purists, that I a fan of the series of over twenty years should weigh in. (even if nobody reads this or asked for me to) Because the Universal Century is precious, and something contributed to greatly by so many great people such as Yoshiyuki Tomino, Yoshikazu Yasuhiko, Kunio Okawara, Haruhiko Mikimoto, Hiroyuki Kitazume, Yuuichi Hasegawa, Harutoshi Fukui, Hiroshi Osaka, Fumihiko Takeyama, Takeyuki Kanda and the many other brilliant minds who came together over the 40+ year long history of one of the biggest media franchises on earth. I could also mention the many amazing bands and artists who have contributed to the soundtracks like TM Network, Luna Sea, Hiroko Moriguchi and so many more, with many of the songs having writing contributions from Tomino. The point is that so many hands have gone into the building of the Universal Century that it is no longer just the prime Gundam timeline, but the representation of everything that makes Gundam great past and present. People hold the works in this timeline under such scrutiny because Gundam began in the UC and most of its greatest and most endearing stories began and ended in the UC. The Universal Century and its stories mean so much to me, so I've decided I want to break down many of the projects within the UC after Char's Counterattack so I can give my finite opinion of Gundam's original timeline after the franchise's golden age.
Rather than breakdown everything in a release order I'm going to talk about things in a chronological order, addressing criticisms, praises, the making of and more of many of these releases. Now Gundam much like Star Wars wasn't made with a set "canon" in mind during the early years, that was until the late 90s when Lucasfilm hired a guy to keep track of all things canon and establish a hierarchy of different canons that made up star wars in order of what was most important to least important as a matter of settling conflicts and contradictions between media over what was canon, leading to a "canon until proven otherwise" system that was in place until Disney threw aside 30+ years of Star Wars legends. Gundam kind of operates on a similar basis. The first time we seriously had any contradicting pieces of media was during the making of "Gundam ZZ" when Tomino had written a one off novel called "Mobile Suit Gundam High-Streamer" to serve as a potential capstone to Amuro and Char's stories while also serving as a neat stand alone story. The novel ended up being well liked by Sunrise, who green lit a film based on High-Streamer. Tomino changed his plans to include Char in "Gundam ZZ" and instead wrote a new story based on High-Streamer typing up many loose ends presented with Gundam Zeta that were left unanswered in ZZ, but Sunrise didn't like his script and requested something that more closely followed the book in order to not be entirely a turn off to newcomers who see the film. This lead to the Char's Counterattack film that we ended up getting, which was a stand alone film that wrapped up the stories of many of the important characters from the franchise's past. This marked the first major instance where we had a piece of Gundam canon contradicting another piece of officially licensed Gundam media, with High-Streamer originally being something you could've considered canon back when it was first published, as at the time there was nothing contradicting it.
Now there was previously a novelization of the original "Mobile Suit Gundam" series based on many of Tomino's rejected ideas for the series, making a much more dark and mature take on that story, but back then Gundam didn't really have a Gundam canon because when the novelization came out there was no other piece of media taking place before or after the series, meaning it was simply an alternate take on that series with elements like Amuro's will they won't they relationship with the character Sayla Mass fully realized or more gritty and dark actions taken by both The Federation, and Zeon. In a way you could see Char's Counterattack as just an alternate take on High-Streamer, just one that took that novel's place in canon, as with this we soon established a canon hierarchy much like that of Star Wars, with what you see on screen being animated as canon, with novels and manga being a sort of supplementary canon, meaning these works can be considered canon until proven otherwise in a way that contradicts things seen in the animated continuity or it gets a full on animated adaption that changes things. We were given a novelization based on Tomino's original script for Char's Counterattack called "Mobile Suit Gundam Char's Counterattack: Beltorchika's Children", which being based on Tomino's original script became what in his mind was the definitive version of the story, but it's not canon because its events directly contradict what we see in the film, meaning it's not canon no matter what Tomino himself says. In this same way the changes made to the original "Mobile Suit Gundam" series when compiling it into the compilation films make it the canon version over the original series despite cutting many elements, though it can be assumed things not shown in the compilation films but seen in the series that do not contradict it can very easily be taken as canon or to have happened similarly in canon such as their run in with colonel M'Quve (a character completely removed from the compilation films) despite not being shown in the compilation films. This is because it is animated, and Sunrise has made it clear that the animated stuff is definitively canon and trumps everything else. Because that the official means of canon for Gundam is different than most franchises in the west and even most anime franchises in general. A lot of anime are typically "manga first" in terms of canon because a lot of popular anime are based on manga, but Gundam isn't so anime is always first in canon.
Back in 2001 Yoshikazu Yasuhiko returned to the series for the first time since F91. Yasuhiko was originally a major creative force behind the original series, and he served as the character designer for its sequel series Gundam Zeta. While brought on to help with the story of Gundam F91, he served exclusively as the character designer and assistant animator during its production. In 2001 he began a manga series retelling the events of the original "Mobile Suit Gundam" series and all the events leading up to that series, which was titled "Gundam: The Origin". It was inspired by many ideas he never got to go through with on the original series due to his illness and overworking during the production of that series. Yasuhiko was one of the huge creative forced behind the original series, and so his new take on it with "The Origin" was a big deal. It basically serves even today as a total replacement for the original series and the definitive take on its story.
It eventually ended it's run 2011, before subsequently being adapted as an OVA series between 2015 and 2018 focused exclusively on the chapters taking place before the events of the series. Yasuhiko's "The Origin" manga clearly took lots of inspiration from his own manga series "Venus Wars", and the adaptation of "The Origin" followed the manga closely since Yasuhiko was heavily involved in the production of the OVA series. With this being said it means that it's a prelude to "The Origin" manga's version events, meaning the OVA isn't canon but in it's own timeline, as "The Origin" manga is very clearly stated to be in it's own timeline. This is supported by the existence of the "Cucuruz Doan's Island" movie, based on an episode Tomino felt wasn't realized well and showed the series' rushed and troubled production. This movie amends the problems with that episode while following Yasuhiko's direction. It follows through with changes "The Origin" manga made including featuring Slegger Law, who wasn't a part of the cast at that point in the show, but was by that point in "The Origin" manga, placing the film in "The Origin" timeline and definitively cementing "The Origin" OVA in that timeline as opposed to the canon one. This concludes that "The Origin" OVA and the "Doan's Island" film aren't canon, but events seen in "The Origin" OVA that don't directly contradict anything seen in any of the existing animated canon can be assumed to have happened as we see it in "The Origin" OVA series. Though changes between "The Origin" OVA and manga such as the story behind Char's mask make whether it is more canon in it's timeline than the manga its own can of worms I don't feel like opening right now. The Origin started a messy yet beautiful trend of manga remakes of existing UC works. This is where things get messy. Some are pretty simple like the manga remake of War in the Pocket or Narrative, which expands those stories greatly and arguably improve them in some ways, but they are non canon as they are based on existing animated works, and animated works will always be the definitively canon version of anything. Then there are cases like the manga remake of Zeta Gundam by that show's animation director and key animator: Hiroyuki Kitazume. The manga is actually a sequel to another manga by Kitazume made called "Char's Deleted Affair", which is a manga bridging the gap between the original Mobile Suit Gundam series/compilation films and Zeta Gundam. That manga's events fit into canon easily, but Zeta Define being a direct sequel throws all that question. If you want to get even messier the "Mobile Suit Gundam Side Story: The Blue Destiny" video game trilogy had a tie in manga in the 90s. Simple enough until you factor in that the manga has an ongoing remake that expands upon the story from the games and the original manga while also connecting it more closely to other Gundam manga released since the original's publication such as "Lost War Chronicles", and now between the game trilogy, the tie in manga and the manga remake we don't know which version is most canon. Messy, I know...
Thusly going into this we have a canon hierarchy starting with animated media making up the actual canon. Directly below this is supplementary material like novels, video games, novels and manga such as the "Mobile Suit Gundam Crossbone" manga series, which have nothing found disproving their events. So They can be assumed to be canon or their events to have happened in canon like we see them there, despite usually having no visible impact on the events of animated Gundam media taking place after the fact. Below this is a third tier for mostly non canon works. If it isn't canon but fills in gaps we don't otherwise have answers for meaning no way to disprove it other than the overall work's status as non canon, it's safe to assume that at least that happened as we see it there or similar to as we see it there. Thusly we can consider these works as canon, but in the case it has an anime adaptation such as the case with "Thunderbolt" and "Unicorn", the original work is decanonized definitively in favor of the animated version. This third tier is where alternate timelines like "The Origin" or the "Zeta Define" manga series, which while not canon some of the the things seen in there and not in canon animated Gundam media can be seen as canon or to have happened at a similar point in the animated canon to like we see it there in the media presenting us with the alternate timeline, as long as it doesn't directly contradict the animated canon. I hope that makes sense. An exception to this would be something like Gundam Zeta a new translation, which Tomino himself said isn't canon, and is just a new take on the show, and it makes sense considering all the changes made to the events of Zeta with the A New Translation trilogy of compilation films. Below this is spin offs. Build Fighters and its spin offs and sequels exist in an alternate version of our own reality in the same era in time, leading to theories like its after Turn A when humanity found peace, or the many cameos from existing Gundam characters leading to the theory that deceased Gundam characters get reincarnated there. However possible these theories may be, Build Fighters and its sequels and spin offs aren't canon. This goes for pretty much every gag manga such as "Char's Daily Life", "Around 30 years old Office Worker Haman", "Ramba Ral's Immoral Meal", "Mobile Suit Gundam San", etc and all the SD Gundam shows as well as video games that just straight up play fast and loose with canon for the sake of telling their own interesting story like "SD Gundam G Generation DS", "SD Gundam G Generation Monoeye Gundams" and the Super Robot Wars series. It's a tricky thing to understand, but this is necessary for me to explain in the events going forward as I discuss novels and such playing into the pieces of animated canon I will be discussing in the following paragraphs and subsequent articles continuing this discussion, and in a way that keeps the endings of such or most major moments from them from being spoiled. However should you want to remain completely spoiler free you can skip past all my paragraphs addressing criticisms entirely in the offset chance you haven't seen some of these yet and would very much like to watch them without knowing anymore than just the synopsis.
I know the natural expectation would be for me to dive right into Unicorn considering it is the most popular piece of Gundam media in the UC post Char's Counterattack, but I'm actually going to talk about a pretty controversial (to the western fanbase) piece of Gundam media first, that being "Mobile Suit Gundam: Twilight Axis" ONA. The plot of Twilight Axis is about The Earth Federation sending a special forces unit to asteroid Axis where the remains of the final battle from Char's Counterattack are. The goal is to retrieve the psycho-frame because The Earth Federation deems it as too big of a threat to just be left alone. Presumably it will be destroyed by them once retrieved (but Unicorn confirmed they just used psychoframe for themselves instead), but they are stopped by a salvaging company named Birnam, who wants to destroy them and take everything for themselves, and try to do so using a makeshift Gundam made of spare parts. Our main characters are the captain of this group, a test pilot who has never seen real combat, and an engineer tasked with retrieving the psychommu used to make the pscyho-frame from the mobile suits. For those who aren't familiar Psychommu is a system used in the development of experimental mobile suits for the purpose of making a machine controlled mostly with thought alone rather than with traditional controls. We see some of the origin of this technology in the Gundam Thunderbolt manga and it's anime adaptation, which made its origin from there canon. When we first saw it period, not even just chronologically was in Char's Counterattack, where it's revealed it can react to newtypes and their wills. The material was built into the very frame of Amuro and Char's machines, and its resonation with Amuro's will as a new type and the spirit of everyone there lead to the "miracle" at the end of that film. Now I want to get out of the way a common misconception regarding this ONA and that is that it is an adaptation of a novel and made to sell said novel, when that is simply not true. Twilight Axis was supposed to be a series of shorts made exclusively for the Gundam fan club, and during development they got the idea to expand upon it with a light novel and manga series, which was released first and used a more long form means of story telling, being able to tell more in the novel format. The series was conceived by Ark Performance, who's "MSVR The Return of Johnny Ridden" and "The Plot to Assassinate Gihren" mangas were very successful, and thusly Ark Performance is credited with the original story, leading to the misconception that the ONA is an adaptation. I think contrary to what people say the characters are fine, especially in the novel and manga versions. The issues with this ONA stem from the format, that being a series of shorts. With the story being told across 5 episodes of three minutes each, with a sixth episode that is nine minutes in length. With this jarring format it is weird to even watch cohesively, which is where I'd recommend watching the film compilation of the OVA, which makes the pacing and flow much better.
Now I want to address some of the critiques such as Char's relationship with our main protagonist Arlette Almage. People like to critique her relationship with Char, because Char had already undertaken a newtype protégé in the original series with the character Lalah Sune and there was no point during the One Year War for him to have taken on a second, and while the OVA doesn't explain this well enough, it wasn't like that. She was a member of the Flanagan Institute, which was an infamously ruthless Zeon organization that would do rigorous tests with newtype and newtype oriented weapons with little regard to the safety of the newtype children they experimented with. Arlette was an oldtype (regular human), and being a regular human they were to discard her until Char took note of her engineering skills and offered to take her as his mobile suit mechanic. Char was frequently tested by the institute as was Lalah, making it not unlikely he would have met her during a visit. It's not a contradictory thing either, going back during a recent rewatch of the original series done in the last couple months we never got a finite answer to who in Char's crew repairs his mobile suits, so this more so just fills in a blank that the average viewer probably wouldn't think about while watching the original series. The other huge complaint with her is that we see her activate the psycho frame with no build up and nothing saying the mobile armor activated even had one. It doesn't have a psycho frame, and we don't know if its compatible with psychoframe or not. If you pay attention we see her activate the piece of psychoframe she took from the Sazabi and put around her neck, which reacted to her will and with it caused the "miracle" to happen for her. We know for a fact that a lone piece of psychoframe is capable of such things as we see the piece held by Chan Agi in Char's Counterattack controlled by her will and appear throughout the final battle between Amuro and Char. Chan and Arlette were both oldtypes, so none of what she did is entirely out of the question. People complain that the fighting stops after this "miracle" happens and they don't seem to realize that's because it linked consciousness between Arlette and the pilots of the enemy mobile suits, as it did with Char and Amuro in Char's Counterattack. The final complaint leveled at the series is the lack of consequence. I admit that its events don't seem very impactful, and a big part of that is the anime itself, as in the novel and manga adaptations it is revealed that the salvage company was started by Scharnhorst Buch, who would purchase the European noble family name "Ronah", revealing that he is the father of Meitzer Ronah from Gundam F91, and in the manga adaptation we see Meitzer Ronah order the pilots in the salvage group to attack the team sent to retrieve the psycho-frame, directly tying the actions here to him, which is significant because he is a major player in F91. This helps show us where he got his start before becoming the wealthy opportunist he would later become by the events of F91. Though these are good rebukes, I do know a lot of this works against the ONA for the simple fact of the matter that if this is all true than why didn't they show all of it in there? Sadly it's just that the format Sunrise chose pretty much neutered the ONA, leaving the novel and manga to kind of play catch-up and do a lot of the heavy lifting explaining the backstory behind a lot of these events
What this means in the canon hierarchy is a bit confusing. As we've established if it's animated and presented in the same timeline as everything else, it is canon, because they change all the material they adapt to fit within the same continuity with as little contradiction as possible. The anime was developed at the same time as the light novel from the same story concept. With neither media sharing any real contradictions it is safe to say that the novel's additional material fleshing out the story can be seen as completely canon. Overall the actual ONA itself is pretty weird and disjointed at points, and it's a mostly unimportant watch that can be completely skipped as a lot of it's significance on the greater Universal Century timeline wasn't conveyed well, all for an attempt to give it this unique format as a series of streaming shorts for the Gundam fan club. I feel had they made it six full length episodes rather than six shorts, or even just three full length episodes, it would actually be pretty good and get to reach its full potential. It was always supposed to be an animated project before the light novel was ever an idea, so making it so short and not giving the time it needs kind of suffocates the story and leaves it in this weird state. I'd say go read the novel or manga, but I already illustrated some of the most significant parts of the novel in my rebuke to some of the criticisms leveled at this ONA, making reading it unnecessary now that you know a lot of the important things there not featured in the ONA. As it stands I think it's alright, but on a presentation and editing level it's just weird and not good, specifically for the ONA version. I'm going to give it a 3.5/10 and I'm giving the compilation film a 5/10.
Now onto the big thing that takes place the same year as Twilight Axis, and that's "Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn". Unicorn was originally a light novel series published from 2006 to 2009 and written by Harutoshi Fukui. Fukui had previously written the adult oriented novelizations of the then on going "Turn A Gundam" series in 1999. Fukui had also previously written many military related works, most notably a novel that was adapted into the film "Aegis" in 2005. Unicorn was his first time working on an original story set within the Gundam universe. Unicorn was not canon because it included elements that contradicted some things seen in canon and tried to establish some very wild things about Newtypes, however the novel featuring Yoshikazu Yasuhiko doing character designs and painting the covers lead many to believing it was in the same continuity as Yasuhiko's own "The Origin" manga series. Fukui wrote a prequel novel explaining the origin of the antagonist Full Frontal, and then a side chapter to serve as the final chapter in the light novel series after the Unicorn OVA came out, the latter of which was released in a box set full of his books before being compiled with the other chapters. The novels had a huge marketing push behind them, and it worked. The novels were a major hit that spurred Sunrise to adapt them into an anime OVA, giving it special treatment with a full theatrical budget. It was composed of six 50 minute episodes and one final episode totaling 90 minutes. The OVA was released from 2010-2014 and adapts the first ten chapters. (because chapter eleven was a side chapter separate from the main story and it wasn't released until 2016)
The story takes place three years after Char's Counter Attack, and is centered around an item known as Laplace's Box which has the ability to destroy the Earth Federation. The Federation is after it so they can destroy it, Neo Zeon wants it so they can blackmail the Federation with it, and the last heir to Zeon's royal family the Zabi's: Mineva Lao Zabi, is trying to take control of it for herself to prevent the box from leading to another war. The main protagonist Banahger Links awakens his newtype abilities and saves Mineva, leading to him getting wrapped up in the conflict and eventually being the only one allowed to use the key to Laplace's Box, The Unicorn Gundam, which was developed out of a secret project to make mobile suits utilizing Psycho-Frame on the entire body as the ultimate weapon to wipe out every trace of Zeon and newtypes. So it's a mad dash to see who can grab the box first, with Banahger joining all sides in the conflict so he can bring an end to this foolish conflict himself. This might sound like a complicated synopsis, but both the novel and series give you this information in a timely, well paced, and digestible manner better than I ever could. The story was originally different from what we got, with Fukui's original story centering around a character who was very much an early version of Banahger who is instead from the colony of Moon Moon. (Moon Moon was an isolated space colony seen in Gundam ZZ that wanted to spread their pacifist and spiritual ideals while also closing themselves off from the public) The story would have followed him saving Mineva and teaming up with the crew of the Nehel Argama to stop a second in command to Char who was commanding Neo Zeon in the wake of the events of Char's Counterattack. Fukui's story was heavily reworked to feature more original elements and to drop almost all of the connections to Gundam ZZ, leading to the novel series we know now. Unicorn was a runaway success, and the same thing for its anime OVA adaptation can be said ten fold, with it single handedly reviving interest for content based in the Universal Century, and its success leading to Ban-Dai reassessing the marketability of new animated projects taking place in the UC. A renaissance of UC focused content came afterwards that we are still seeing the effects of including "The Origin", "Thunderbolt", "Twilight Axis", and more. Most notably it directly lead to the creation of the "UC NexT: 0100 Project", which according to Ban-Dai was the next hundred years of the Universal Century after Char's Counterattack, with that film having been deemed as the beginning point for this project, and all subsequent major pieces of media taking place after it being considered entries in it. This also lead to an influx of green lighting manga taking place in the Universal Century, and Sunrise even having some of their own staff take part in a few of these manga taking place after Char's Counterattack all as part of the UC NexT 100 Project.
I personally loved Unicorn and found the overall direction and soundtrack were probably the best in the entire series. Seriously, Hiroyuki Sawano (known for his work on Attack on Titan, Kill La Kill, One Piece Film Red and Blue Exorcist) absolutely killed it, and gave us what is most definitely the greatest soundtrack in the entire franchise. The animation itself was incredible, and thankfully they didn't make all the mobile suits CG. I don't mind CG being used in Gundam, it looked fine in Origin, but to me it will 100% of the time look better if it's 2D animated, and I am glad not everything was CG, which they blended into the 2D animation really well during the moments they did use it, such as the Unicorn's transformation sequences. The series wraps up a lot of the loose ends of the UC timeline pretty much perfectly, leaving a neat little bow on it. Now despite the wide spread critical acclaim and the huge amount of people who love it, there is a lot of people who have pointed their fair share of criticism towards it. The first is a piece of criticism is actually something a lot of Gundam media is criticized and that is a thing known as Relena clones, and another thing known as Char clones. Char's popularity and purpose in the story was a big part of the original Gundam series, which lead to the idea of a tough rival character who wears a mask or some kind of face covering being a common thing in Gundam, first with Iron Mask from F91, then years later with Ulube Ishikawa from G Gundam, then Zechs Marquise from Gundam Wing (arguably the most blatant aside from a certain someone), and went on to inspire more like Rau Le Creuset (the most blatant one), Neo Roanoke, Graham Aker, Zeheart Gallete, Captain Mask (who is actually a sort of parody and deconstruction of the trope as his wole reasoning for wearing the mask is intentionally dumb and ridiculous), and lastly my favorite Char clone and the most original: Harry Ord, and even to an extent you can consider Prospera Mercury from the new Gundam series airing on TV now as of writing this to be one as well. The other type of clone is known as Relena clones. This is named after the Char clone trope and the character Relena Peacecraft, a pacifist princess introduced in the alt timeline series Gundam Wing as the princess of a forgotten kingdom that was destroyed by their pacifist ways not allowing them to fight back. Gundam Wing was the first Gundam show released in the west, and it was very popular in Japan leading to them creating more characters like Relena in later Gundam media such as Kudelia from Gundam IBO (Expect a big post about IBO unrelated to this one sometime in the next couple months), Marina from Gundam 00, Lacus from Gundam Seed, Aida from G Reco, Diana from Turn A (probably gonna talk about Turn A when I finish this UC breakdown) and another example would be Mineva Lao Zabi from Unicorn. However traces of this trope can be seen dating back to Victory Gundam with the character Shakti, so it's improper to just say Relena clone, especially when Mineva was already a character who was seen in the original series, albeit as a baby, and when Shakti was from a series a few years prior to the creation of "Gundam Wing". So from here on I'll refer to the Relena clone trope as the Princess of Peace trope to be fair to Relena, as this did not start with her.
To start, our main antagonist is "Full Frontal" who not only looks like Char, but is implied heavily to be him or a clone of him until the end of the series where they debunk that it's not him. In the prequel novel it's explained that he is a literal clone of Char, making him the most blatant example of this trope, which has garnered a certain level of criticism towards the series for that and the character. However here's my take. We know Full Frontal is a clone made using the remaining bit of his newtype essence left behind, as when Char was involved with the "miracle" and disappeared he left all his malice and negativity behind, so when they took his remaining essence from his brainwaves absorbed by the Sazabi (being a machine built with Psycho frame it could do that) it was all his malice that lead to him attempting to cause the doomsday level event seen in the "Char's Counterattack" film, leading to Full Frontal being a very pessimistic person who wanted to bleed the Federation and the world dry for Zeon, not caring of what it means for the world and the people there. He declared himself a vessel of the people and became the embodiment of all the political turmoil and malice from the Universal Century up to that point, similar to what Char had become in "Char's Counterattack". To further point out that he is literally Char's malice is that he is voiced by Suichi Ikeda in the original Japanese version of the series. Ikeda has served as the voice of Char in every major Gundam installment in the franchise since the original series first aired in 1979 including "The Origin", and has voiced Char in a staggering number of minor installments, spin offs, commercials and videogames. In the dub he is voiced by the same man who does the English dub voice char in all modern Gundam dubs. This cements making the main villain a literal clone of Char being a intentional creative choice that gives a level of closure to the character that was missing a bit from Char's Counterattack. By the end of that movie he moved on because he had to, there was nothing he could do, but even till the end he stubbornly reinforced his points and why he thought he was right. My mother once told me you can't move on to the after life until you let go of your mortal worries and all of your negativity. I believe this is what happened to Char. This is supported by the fact that once Full Frontal is defeated and his struggle is over, he is assimilated into the rest of Char's spirit and moves on to whatever Newtype afterlife Fukui made canon. This gives an extra level of closure to Char's character with the final episode of the series that "Char's Counterattack" missed out on.
Now to rebuke the points about Mineva Zabi being a part of the princess of peace trope as a bad thing and the whole trope in general. One thing that made Relena work compared to other characters in this trope was her agency. Relena's actions were always a driving force in the story for better and for worse. She would act as she saw fit regardless of the situation and how smart it was, it made her a flawed yet well meaning character. Her agency in the story is what sets her apart from other characters in this trope. Same goes for Mineva I am aware that Marina and Kudelia differ in other ways from this trope too, like Marina serving as a major political force in Gundam 00 and therefore being in Celestial Being's best interests to keep her alive and help protect her (also she is wholesome), or Kudelia's purpose as a love interest to give Mikazuki a reason to not fight unwinnable battles until he dies, and as a supporter of Tekkaden during even their darkest days, making her naturally important to the story a. Not to mention Diana who straight up decides to stop and live life as a normal person because nobody listens, leading to so many beautiful episodes where she has great moments of personal growth and learning how hard life is for people on earth. Mineva differs from this trope in that she isn't actively preaching peace to people or acting recklessly about it. Mineva is pragmatic. She goes to earth to try and negotiate and when that fails she goes back to Banahger and tells him to do as he must to obtain the box. When she reaches the box she chooses to do with it the option that will cause the most immediate uproar and outrage from people, but asks everyone to use the box to lead to a better future in space in the second century of the UC. She's idealistic, but she's mostly being pragmatic in what she thinks is best for people, an understandable stance for a politician. A lot of people like to also say Banahger is angsty or whiney, and I know a lot of whether a character's angsty or emotional behavior is appropriate is a situational thing and a lot of it is a subjective thing. Banahger naturally subscribes to a lot of Mineva's ideas, and after killing someone on the battlefield that he got to know and befriend he wanted to kill as little as possible. Honestly protagonists in Gundam getting hung up on killing people and not wanting to do it isn't an uncommon thing (Uso, Kira, Sulleta). Of course it would break him up inside to kill someone who isn't fighting just for malicious intent, people he befriended and trusted died because of this conflict and he doesn't want more unnecessary casualties. The last major criticism I see is that there is no greater significance to the series, because you don't immediately feel its actions on a grand scale in the greater UC following this. This is an initially understandable thing to critique it for, because some elements of the novel were changed to make it fit within the animated canon, this way it could fit in the same timeline as all the other canon Gundam media. Besides, there's no possible way Tomino could write Gundam F91 with the knowledge that some guy in the future would write a story about Mineva and some newtype boy finding some super coveted long forgotten item that hadn't even been introduced as a concept into the canon at that point. First of all Unicorn is an OVA, and many of Gundam's best works are OVAs with very little impact such as "08th MS Team" and "0080 War in the Pocket". The ending of Unicorn kind of renders fighting further fighting between Neo Zeon and The Earth Federation over the primary source of conflict across the first 3 major Gundam series (and Char's Counterattack) moot and unnecessary, and it shows that had things gone the way they were supposed to we could have avoided so much conflict. Sure there would be chaos in the aftermath of the box being found, but the overall dispute would be over. Which completely fits in with why it's not even an issue or thing on anyone's minds by the events of Gundam F91, Unicorn explains why by the events of F91 the conflict between Earth and Space over the freedom of people in space and newtypes isn't a thing, because Mineva and Banahger's actions eliminated any argument of it. I can't be the only one who watched Char's Counterattack and thought "The remaining forces are still out there, winning the decisive battle isn't going to make the fractured Neo Zeon stop over night." A piece of media wrapping that up is something I always wanted, which is why I liked the novel and was stoked for the adaptation. The end of the series helped shake and rattle people's trust in The Earth Federation, since they were aware of it's existence and knowingly hid it from people, and we see this distrust clearly in Gundam Hathaway. On top of that we see some of the immediate aftermath of this in Gundam Narrative. It may not have been impactful at first, but future Gundam media taking place after Unicorn add to the show's impact even more, justifying its place in the UC timeline and it's purpose of tying up many loose ends left unattended by prior media.
Thankfully Gundam Unicorn's place in canon is pretty cut and dry. The novel itself was probably non canon, but not outright confirmed to be completely non canon. The series itself is canon, as many changes were made in the move from novel to OVA in order to make it fit in as canon with the other stuff in the animated canon. The OVA itself gets a 9/10 from me. There was a television edit that adds a banger ending credits theme (the first ending credits theme, the followings ones are good too) and cuts it into 22 episodes, but making it like this leads to some editing choices reliant on commercial breaks, which breaks the immersion on a streaming or DVD viewing, having watched both I'll give the TV cut an 7.5/10. As for the other stuff, that's a different story The prequel novel isn't directly canon, as it is a prequel to the Unicorn light novel and not the OVA, but fits in the second tier of the canon hierarchy, thusly giving many of the events within the prequel novel merit as happening as we saw it there or similar to how we saw it there. However with the Unicorn novel itself not canon definitively with the OVA's existence disproving it as such, this means Chapter 11 is not canon because its events rely on things playing out as they did in the novel, and that is what leads me to next piece of Gundam media I'm going to talk about.
I had a lot to say about Unicorn and it's novel in particular because it had a great impact on the franchise as a whole, but also because understanding Unicorn is important to understanding it's film follow-up: "Mobile Suit Gundam Narrative" . Narrative is commonly misunderstood as a pointless concept of a ghost commiting "grand theft Gundam", but many people who say this also don't know its history or the original source material to begin with. People keep asking for more media in the Universal Century, and when we get some in the animated canon it's held under such scrutiny. It's understandable though, as stated before people hold the UC in high regards and if something is added and not on par with even the lowest points of the UC during Tomino's original tenure, people get upset, and it's all from a place of care and passion. I don't think Narrative is amazing, let alone even reaching the same highs as Unicorn, but I think that many misunderstand it, and that itself is where a lot of the ire and criticism directed towards Narrative comes from, leading to many overlooking some of the strengths of the film.
Now "Mobile Suit Gundam Narrative" is commonly regarded as or considered an original work made to cash in on Unicorn's success, when that simply is not true, and the same goes for people saying it is a sequel to Unicorn that fell short, when that is also not true. The two are related for sure, but it's not exactly in the way most people think. The whole thing started when Harutoshi Fukui wrote an animated short film tying into Unicorn for a special attraction. This short film centered around the test flights of Gundam Unicorn unit 2, and Unicorn unit 3, the former of which we later see in Unicorn. They ran into a Neo Zeon mobile suit and in the aftermath the psycho frame of unit 3: The Phenex, was unstable and it became uncontrollable, attacking Unit 2. Fukui wanted to expand on this concept, and he later did when he wrote the eleventh chapter to the Unicorn light novel: "Phoenix Hunting" and published it in 2015 six years after Unicorn had already finished. The chapter took place six months after the events of the short film and a little before the final battle in the Unicorn novel took place, being it's own separate event with little connection to the rest of the novel. When he was approached with the idea of adapting Phoenix Hunting for the sake of having Unicorn in it's entirety adapted (we all know it really was so Sunrise could cash in Unicorn's success though) into the main canon Fukui agreed, this time being hands on with it. Despite being the final Unicorn novel, it is largely it's own thing that is loosely tied to Unicorn, as the Phenex itself was made to combat psycho frame in response to the UC project and the development of the Unicorn Gundam and unit 2. Narrative was made to tie in to Unicorn's events more than the novel chapter itself did, and this was because they had to remove a lot of elements from Unicorn that appeared in Phoenix Hunting for the sake of not contradicting Unicorn's OVA adaptation. The issue was that Phoenix Hunting followed the Unicorn novel's series of events and a short film which at the time had a stance that remained unclear in the canon hierarchy due to being an animated project made for a special attraction, so Phoenix Hunting needed to under go major changes in order to fit within the animated canon proper. To help with this Fukui was asked directly to write the film's story and script. One thing a lot of people fail to even realize is that Fukui had little to no involvement in Unicorn's adaptation, meaning he wasn't there to choose what was changed to fit within canon, and he wasn't there to oversee it adapted faithfully, which actually lead to significant number of small and/or minor differences between the novel and the OVA and even a couple major ones. Fukui was involved with Narrative and wrote the entire thing, changing it drastically from the novel in order to fit into a full movie, and the success of the OVA encouraged him to set it after Unicorn to show the aftermath of that OVA's events. Fukui wrote the script in 3 months, because he was given a fierce deadline, and at one point they were going to market this as a sequel but it didn't live up to Fukui's hopes. He said they worked on it during the eleventh hour, and that during the first ever screening he felt so bad about the rushed product until he saw the test audience (made up of mostly female office workers who won a lottery by their employer to see it) who he was sure weren't very familiar with Gundam, crying at the emotional parts of the film. Thusly inspiring the decision to not market it as a Unicorn sequel. For reference This movie is an hour and twenty-nine minutes and based on a single chapter of the Unicorn light novel, as opposed to the Unicorn OVA which had seven episodes with six averaging 50 minutes plus a seventh that was 90 minutes and adapting 10 novels. This means that we had 6.5 hours worth of anime adapting all ten of the then released Unicorn novels. This means we're allocating a piece of animated media the length of more than 30% of the entire Unicorn OVA to a single novel, meaning it required drastic changes to fit the run time of a film as well as to make it canon without contradicting the Unicorn OVA's events. Granted yes the OVA cut and/or condensed a significant number of things to make for better pacing,
I'll first explain the novel's events, and then the movies and then go into some changes between versions, mostly the significant ones. The novel takes place a little before the climax of the Unicorn novels. Our story focuses on Earth Federation pilot Jona Basta assisting The Earth Federation in catching the Phenex, in hopes of reuniting with his friend Rita Burnal, who was made its test pilot after rigorous experiments on her by the head of a Titans newtype lab. The movie has a similar premise, but adds characters and so much more backstory. In the movie we focus on three characters known as the miracle children, who predicted Operation British during the One Year War and saved many lives in their predicting it. During this time they were realized to be orphans and were sent away to a newtype experimentation lab after the war so that researchers could see if their prediction was because they were newtypes. At this point The Earth Federation has begun picking up where Zeon left off with the newtype experiments, particularly the Titans during their reign as The Earth Federation's dominant military force. While at the Titans research lab the researchers discover only one of them (Rita) was an actual newtype, so they take her and experiment on her to try and perfect the cyber newtype formula as well as making her test pilot newtype weapons. They lie and pawn one off one as a real newtype (Michele) and give her up to a wealthy company threatening them, and the third one (Jona) is released after the Gryps war (the conflict from Gundam Zeta) and aftermath of that where through Michele's company connections they reunite and begin a search for the Phenex with the help of the Federation group in charge of the Phoenix Hunt operation. For starters the first change is the time the film takes place, which is a year after Unicorn and not during it. Jona piloted a Stark Jegan in the novel and not a Gundam, which I assume was a change made to make the climax more interesting and because Ban-Dai basically mandates all major Gundam releases have a new Gundam they can sell as a model kit. Secondly Michele doesn't exist in the novel, Jona is instead part of The Earth Federation's team sent to hunt the Phenex. The main villain Zoltan and the whole subplot of a Neo Zeon crew going after the Phenex too is non existent as well, the antagonist of Phoenix Hunt was Full Frontal. The huge showdown in the end with the gas tanks and the focus on newtypes and their power in the finale was also not at all like the novel barring the Neo Zeong.. All the characters from Gundam Unicorn who cameoed in the film were not present in the novel, with their inclusion probably being to connect the film to Unicorn as a sort of loose sequel. The Phenex went missing six months prior to the events of the novel following the events of that short film Fukui wrote, as opposed to the movie, where it's been missing for two years as of the events of the film, taking place in 0097. There are too many changes to list here and I'll explain why. Gundam Unicorn was an adaptation of the light novel series, and if you read the light novels' first ten chapters and watched the OVA you could see that they are close with the OVA following the novel's story pretty well. This is in stark contrast to Narrative, which took a few characters from Phoenix Hunting as well as its story and concept to make a completely stand alone story taking place in the aftermath of Unicorn rather than being it's own thing that was directly tied to Unicorn's story and events, so it's safer to say it was based on or inspired by Phoenix Hunting rather than being an actual adaptation.
Now I'm going to do as I did with the last two entries on this list and address the criticisms and defend them with my own counter arguments, but I'm also going to address criticisms I feel are fair and/or deserved as well as criticism of my own. First is that it holds no impact on the Universal Century and is unimportant. As I have mentioned at length this was adapted from a bonus chapter to the Unicorn light novel that Fukui wrote after the fact because he just got a cool idea to continue the story of a minor short film he wrote for a special attraction Ban-Dai had. The original story itself was an after thought, just a cool side thing Fukui basically wrote as "but what also happened" long after Unicorn had finished it's run. If you weren't going into Narrative expecting its story to follow the same precedent as the chapter it is adapting you have no-one to blame but yourself for being so ignorant and/or not even looking into the source material yourself. Same for if you were expecting this to be a direct continuation of Unicorn despite none of the characters from said series being advertised. Bringing in characters from Unicorn like Martha Vist was to tie it to Unicorn so it could retain the connection to the series, as the movie was based on the novel's final chapter, but couldn't be adapted as is because things played out a little differently in the Unicorn OVA than they did in the novel and Fukui's assumption that people wanted to see the UC in the aftermath of Unicorn. Narrative also serves as cool world building, such as making one of the supporting characters one of the pilots who pushed Axis in Char's Counterattack. Another neat piece of world building was the inclusion of Stephanie Luio, who was a minor character in Zeta. Giving her direct relation to one of our protagonists helps expand upon her character and the company she headed where as we previously didn't know much about it when we saw her in Zeta. Second criticism I'm going to address is that "basically a ghost committed grand theft Gundam". In Unicorn it was established that the NT-D system the Unicorn models are equipped with takes control of its pilot and basically just takes control in their place. An inexperienced pilot, even a newtype like Rita would be unable to take control the NT-D in effect due to her lack of actual combat experience and experience with the machine. It is stated that the psychoframe absorbed her sprit, which wouldn't even be the first time something like this has happened in Gundam, as Chan Agi's spirit seemingly possessed the piece of psychoframe she was carrying in Char's Counterattack. I know not everybody has played the popular "Mobile Suit Gundam Side Story: The Blue Destiny" video game trilogy for the Sega Saturn, but Fukui could have also taken inspiration from them when developing Rita's character, especially because the manga adapting the story from those games' became pretty popular. In those games the character Marion Whelch was the test pilot who tested the Exam system, and her soul was trapped in the system following an accident, giving whoever used it her newtype abilities at the cost of hearing her call out to the pilot during battle. This is a scenario like what happened to Rita, albeit what happened to Marion was in Blue Destiny which is below Narrative in the canon hierarchy I established at the beginning of this. I myself have also done my fair share of research on the paranormal and spirits and such. (yes I'm not joking, and no it was years ago and not related for this article) It's not an uncommon theory in this field that some souls just can't move on after death because they still have unfinished business they want to see through, or they can't accept the fact they are dead, or they may even tethered to this world by something physical or spiritual that is preventing them from moving on. It is commonly mentioned in the film multiple times that Rita is taking care of unfinished business, and it is implied her spirit is trapped in the psycho-frame which now responds to her will and thought, and psycho frame responding to a pilot's will and thought is a thing well established in canon. On a similar note, people also joke about her wanting to be reincarnated as a bird (yes an admittedly silly line), but many cultures that believe in reincarnation believe in being reincarnated as animals, so I was able to look past it pretty easily, and I don't see why people tried so hard to meme it.
This extends to an issue many fans have with the greater UC itself, and that is a thing I will refer to as "newtype magic space stuff" because I've heard what I'm about to talk about now referred to as this many times and it's just a nice term that sums up what a lot of people think of this. So Newtypes are big part of the Gundam canon in the Universal Century. They were people born in space "who's souls aren't weighed down by gravity". They further explain in Gundam media that it's because humans born in space (who become newtypes) are the way they are because they can use all their brain at once, as opposed to regular humans. This incidentally makes them better pilots because of an ability to sense things in battle and control small pieces like separate weapons from within their mobile suit. Zeta introduced the concept that potentially they ascend and their souls carry on after the fact, as seen in some events where we see deceased newtypes come together in Zeta and it's sequel series Gundam ZZ. Zeta also introduced the idea that newtypes can communicate without misunderstanding on some kind of cosmic level, like what an ideal evolution to humanity will be in the future if they all move to space. They establish further in Char's Counterattack that psychommu can take a newtype's brainwaves and enhance them, as well as other things. Such as the event that lead to the "miracle" at the end of that film. Tomino likely just envisioned newtypes as a kind of idealistic thing and the exploitation of them and trying to recreate them with cyber newtypes as a cautionary thing. It wasn't until after he left the series and Unicorn introduced all these new concepts based on Fukui's own newtype theory and philosophy (something he wrote an article about in a Gundam magazine), like solidifying that newtypes ascend to some greater plane of existence after death, and it reinforced and solidified newtypes as a fantastical element of Gundam. Tomino had likely never intended them to become this crazy super human thing that made you better than everyone else the way they ended up being known as in later UC works, but you can thank Gundam Unicorn for that. Narrative reinforces that in a kind of weird way, and kind of reintroducing the concept of what happened to Marion Whelch from Blue Destiny in a weird way with a different character. You can also thank Fukui for being the one who established psychoframe and psychommu as some super system beyond just "the miracle" from Char's Counterattack and something that can amplify the effect a pilot's will. This isn't a bad thing, but it muddies up what was already decently established stuff and makes it more confusing, which is a big part of why the UC itself is such a daunting thing to someone new to the series instead of whatever main series show in an alternate timeline is new or interesting. This movie does push suspension of disbelief quite a bit with the climax and the weird uses of psychommu. I know a lot of people think of newtype stuff as the one bit of weirdness they could do without or with less of in their gritty sci-fi series that has been going since 1979, but it's a big part of those main shows in the Universal Century (or most of them anyways) and Unicorn clearing up a lot of unknowns about it and filling in blanks of what we knew about it was just something that came with adapting it because it was a big part of the light novel series.
Narrative actually shows us in some flashbacks sequences the Titans' newtype research labs, which showcase a lot of the mistreatment faced by the people there. I feel this gives further impact to characters who we know suffered greatly at the hands of the Titans and their newtype research labs like Four Murasame and Rosamia Badam. I liked this because it's very rare we ever see the newtype labs that did such things outside of niche Gundam media you'd have to go super out of your way to find such as the very excellent novel "Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam: Four's Story - Soshite Senshi ni", which showcased in great detail the newtype labs and the horrors faced there, but it's not like any western fans of the series aside from myself have read it. Back to the subject at hand I love that we got to see the newtype labs first hand. However the film's focus on newtypes does kind of become a weird point by the end where they don't really establish what happened to Rita after the Phenex left or even what purpose it is still serving. Making the villain a weird newtype as well was also a strange choice. I think if the movie didn't have such a huge focus on newtypes or focused on some of the more grounded aspects of it rather than embracing the more fantastical elements of it established in Unicorn it could have been way better. Especially when some newtype and Psychommu shenanigans in the middle portion of the film happen that don't make too much sense. This actually leads me to a criticism with the film I see quite a bit while also having it's fair share of defenders, and that is Zoltan, the villain of the film.
Now Phoenix hunting had Full Frontal and the Neo Zeong, but with Unicorn's OVA having changed the order of events a bit to make for a more streamlined viewing experience that rendered him coming into contact with Jona impossible. One of Fukui's attempts to more closely adapt the events of the novel was Zoltan as the villain. Zoltan was a failed attempt at making a clone of Char that just lead to some messed up in the head newtype clone who inherited none of Char's qualities or traits, he was from the same project as Full Frontal, but he failed to inherit anything relating to Char at all. So, while not a Char clone, he's still a weird villain. The Neo Zeong II is something Zoltan tries to use to cause as much damage as possible to the surrounding areas and to destroy the Phenex. I get wanting to adapt elements from the novel such as Full Frontal and the Neo Zeong, but Zoltan and the Neo Zeong II aren't built up to at all. They make for an entertaining fight scene sure, but both are only here because the story now needs a big bad, and oops Full Frontal isn't a threat anymore. Fukui had some interesting ideas with him, and he could have been so interesting, but instead they make him some loon who hijacks the mission because he's insecure as a result of being a clone that couldn't be a host to what became Full Frontal. I'm fine with the concept of a team of Neo Zeon coming to blows with The Earth Federation over trying to capture the Phenex, but I think the story didn't need a definitive villain much like how Full Frontal was never a HUGE part of Phoenix Hunting. I think a lot of the time spent in the final battle could be time spent further expanding on the relationship the three protagonists had before they were torn away from each-other. I know Jona was the main protagonist of the Phoenix Hunting light novel chapter, but I really feel like focusing on Michele and giving a big focus to having her atone for what she did to their friendship could be a great concept. It is established in the middle portion that Michelle did something unforgivable to Rita and that a big part of why she is involved in Operation Phoenix Hunt is to atone for it and make up for her sin, masking her own guilt by saying this mission is to find the key to immortality. Focusing on that and making her the main character would have made for a much more compelling story in my opinion. Or they could've instead remove Zoltan and that whole final battle entirely and used the extra time to develop Jona better, because he could really used the extra character development. As it stands he is a somewhat boring protagonist, and his most interesting qualities are his story in relation to Rita and Michele, and not anything he has himself
One complaint I see is the animation. I got to say the animation is gorgeous, though I think the art direction could have used some work and the rushed aspets of the project reflect in some parts of the animation at timmes. By the time Phoenix Hunting was published Yoshikazu Yasuhiko had already finished his contributions to Unicorn, and so we aren't using his character designs at this point, which is obvious in the art style. The only real time I'd say it looks weird is when we're looking at some of the characters (particularly in the non action sequences) and the linework on them or their movements just look a little off, and a big part of that is because the movie was rushed. Narrative actually used much less CG than Unicorn, which I always applaud. I think Narrative overall was super promising, but the hype around it and everyone's misunderstandings lead to it becoming a sort of black sheep in the Universal Century. The memes didn't help either like that one poster people joked about where everybody is posed together weird in what looks like some weird game of Twister, (pictured above) or the bird comment made by Rita. Fukui chose some strange parts of Phoenix Hunting to try and adapt and in doing so had to introduce so much new stuff he might as well have not even bothered and just did something that had less to do with that chapter. He tried to expand it into an original story independent of Unicorn while still connected to that series, and in balancing that with the other new stuff introduced to try and retain some of the light novel chapter's original elements lead to something that tried to do too much in an hour and a half. I already suggested in the above paragraphs some ways they could have fixed it. I think going with some of these ideas mentioned above to fix it, or even just lengthening it to almost 2 hours would do wonders for it. Because as it stands it's a weirdly paced movie that's trying to do too much considering the rather modest origin of the story it is adapting, and also considering the limited runtime it is working with. Likewise I feel working it into a six episode OVA would work, even with standard twenty minute episodes. Another major problem is all the references to Zeta Gundam, Unicorn and other Gundam media, which basically mandates that you watch those to fully understand and appreciate the movie, and I know for a fact quite a few people who watched Unicorn haven't seen Zeta, meaning there is going to be a number of younger Gundam fans and fans of the Unicorn OVA going into this who probably don't dedicate unhealthy amounts of time to understanding every facet and element of this franchise in the same way I do who just didn't understand everything about this movie because it is not anywhere close to beginner friendly like Unicorn was, and a lot of references and concepts probably flew over their heads. As Narrative stands I definitely feel like it is underrated, but I also think it's a bit of a mess for reasons a lot of people just don't realize and some a lot of people do realize. The movie changing the canon around the Phenex also throws into question prior works featuring it such as the Gundam "Last Sun" manga. I read Phoenix Hunting ahead of writing this and it shares little in common with the actual film beyond the characters, the encounter with the Neo Zeong (replaced in the movie by the Neo Zeong II) and Jona, Rita and a few federation pilots from the novel being in it. I think they should have leaned more on the original aspects of this instead of trying to change so many things from the novel to make them fit (Looking at you Neo Zeong 2), but oh well. I liked what we got pretty alright. I'm going to give Narrative a 7/10
Before I finish talking about Narrative, I want to mention the tie in manga. Narrative's tie in manga is credited to writer Harutoshi Fukui and artist Kouzou Oomori. Oomori basically credited Fukui out of respect, because it is entirely Oomori's work, just based on the movie, with Fukui just approving of his direction for the expanded on story. The manga is set to finish publication by early 2024 if I recall correctly. It expands and improves upon the story of Narrative so much, and is basically the definitive version of it, it gets a definite recommendation from me, though only the first 3 volumes have been fan translated.
I understand I may have some people disagree with me on my opinions on any of the media talked about here, (feel free to comment and I'd love to hear your opinion and keep the discussion going) and I tried being somewhat objective and fair here, but ultimately I don't and can't look at media objectively. The simple fact of the matter is I like what I like, it's not bias, but just my subjective take. Rita Bernal piloting the Phenex as the ace in the hole in my team on the Gundam Wars mobile game didn't influence my score on the film, but I'm not denying that it may have softened my opinion on the character a bit. I'm just weird like that. I was going to actually talk about more than just this, but I'll save that for a part 2, because this was more than 3 times longer than what I intended, and I will have to split this up into more than just the two parts I intended this to be. Until then keep an eye out for part 2.
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