Gundam is a series that has more fans than you think, and like any franchise it's impossible to please everyone in the fanbase. Gundam Seed had ushered in a new era of Gundam and roped in tons of new fans. Gundam 00 carefully tackled subject matter that appeal to a wide demographic of people, especially younger viewers and western viewers, and it is seen as one of the best latter day Gundam shows. However when Gundam Age, a series made in collaboration with Level 5 games, underperformed it kind of left everyone at Ban-Dai and Sunrise scratching their heads. It wasn't until they took a chance and adapted the Gundam Unicorn light novel series that they had struck gold again and found something that pleased most of the fanbase, leading to surge in content taking place in the Universal Century that we are still seeing the effects of to this day. This opened the floodgates for the topic of today's article: "Gundam Reconguista in G".
Series creator Yoshiyuki Tomino had claimed during Gundam Seed's airing in the early 2000s that kids and young audiences probably will have a hard time relating to the Gundam shows of old because they never had to grow up in a traumatic post war era or during the cold war. They would have a hard time relating to those characters and their struggles as well as viewers from that time period could. He then said Gundam was best left in the hands of younger people who could tell new and fresh stories for generations to come. That was the end of it, and everybody understood because the franchise was kind of like his poison and he had just given it proper closure. However all of that was thrown out the window when he had began writing a new sci-fi novel. Whether or not this novel was originally intended to be its own thing like "Brain Powered" or a Gundam related work is unknown, but we know that it evolved into a Gundam series over time. Around the late 2000s he canned this novel and approached Kenichi Yoshida (famous for his work on numerous Studio Ghibli films and the TV series "Overman King Gainer" and "Eureka Seven") to start creating character designs. Tomino went to Gundam Ace magazine to talk about the scrapped novel and that seemed like the end of it. However in the early 2010s Tomino had pitched an anime based on his scrapped novel to Sunrise, and surprisingly they said yes. (Remember, Unicorn's adaptation was an active runaway success at this time so anything UC related was a hot new goldmine for Ban-Dai) and they gave Tomino the blank check to go make what he intended to be his final Gundam series, and one made in celebration of the 35th anniversary of the franchise. With Tomino directing and serving as the creative mind behind the series, as well as Kenichi Yoshida serving as character designer and being in charge of animation, we were in for a promising series. Tomino even made it a weird hybrid between a Universal Century series and an alternate timeline Gundam series, bridging the gap between Gundam's classic era of shows and where it is now with new timelines. The series was named "Gundam Reconguista in G" using the Portuguese word "reconquista" meaning to conquer something again. Tomino wanted a hard G sound (because Gundam) and put a G in there to give it the title. As always I am going to be as spoiler free as possible, with my plot synopsis only spoiling the basic story set up in the first few episodes.
It is Reguild Century 1014, this century has replaced the Universal Century, as the Reguild Century is an era of peace where the technology of the Universal Century is left behind in favor of establishing world peace free from the chains of conflict that plagued the Universal Century. Everything from the Universal Century is nothing more than history, with space colonies no longer being a thing as well. The peace is maintained by a taboo placed on the advancement of weapons and Universal Century related technology, which all countries uphold. One boy Bellri Zenam is training to be a soldier in the capital guard, the defense force of the Capital Territory. This country is important as the special photon batteries that serve as humanity's clean source of energy are outsourced from a special elevator that reaches from the moon to the capital territory. However during a training exercise Bellri encounters a new Gundam unit known as The G-Self and a mysterious girl he feels some connection to. With the emergence of this new Gundam unit comes accusations between nations of the taboo being broken, and Bellri resolves to find where this Gundam came from so he can stop a world war 3 from breaking out and to help this mysterious girl he feels a connection to.
So that's the general story. There is a lot of people including Tomino himself who states the series takes place after Turn A, but a lot of the technology and references in the show supports it taking place after the UC instead, and the status of things on the moon and regression of moon technology doesn't support this either, and Sunrise themselves also say officially that it takes place after the Universal Century, so for all intents and purposes I will say it takes place after the UC and before Turn A, if you disagree please feel free to explain your reasoning. G Reco was received among the fanbase with a resounding "meh" here in the west, and some unfortunate underperformance in Japan despite of its praise. I don't like to be a contrarian because it's a bad label, but sometimes I just feel like I am when it comes to this franchise. Either that or I am a some obsessive fan who will take whatever this franchise presents me with in stride. When I like something I can look past the flaws and see something wonderful, I feel like this allows me a better understanding of whatever piece of media I am consuming in some ways. I feel this way towards G Reco, but I've also done a lot of digging into the series and its production. First I'm going to do my usual defense of the series and critiques, both with minimal spoilers and one where I talk about more spoilery critiques, than go into what I love about it and all that good stuff. Still you may skip the next four paragraphs if you wish to remain spoiler free.
The first critique is the writing. I've heard from some people that the dialogue is poorly written. No it isn't, Tomino's way of writing things is just weird, and it has evolved since his original 14 year tenure with the series. If you've kept up with Tomino's post Gundam works and/or have seen his early works you know that he writes in his own distinct style, which is a big reason why all his works stand apart from anything else in the UC. Seriously compare the writing in the second half of Gundam ZZ to the writing in Unicorn and it's night and day. Nothing against Unicorn, but doesn't feel very UC compared to say Zeta because its writing is more direct, especially in the dialogue. And many of Fukui's thought processes behind things in the UC are different from Tomino's. It's just not as smartly or poetically written as Tomino's earlier Gundam stuff. People didn't notice this as much in the earlier Gundam works because those shows had a big legacy to them and were influential, G Reco is more so this weird passion project of his he made and it doesn't have the same weight or impact as those shows and more people feel less inclined to look past many things here present in other shows or less inclined to just like it because of that. This is only an issue if you aren't used to Tomino's writing style. Second is the pacing. The show is only 26 episodes and three times it introduces an even bigger threat to center the conflict around. Part of this was Sunrise and Ban-Dai's fault. It wouldn't be a Tomino Gundam project post Gundam ZZ without Studio meddling. (actually they meddled very little on one thing we'll get to in a future article) It's not known exactly what went on because the show's newer and production related stuff on it was still being done as late as 2022. (I'll get there in a bit) However the show was in fact cut to 26 episodes, making it the shortest Gundam series to not be a spin off until Witch From Mercury broke this record with 24 episodes. I can't imagine this show fitting a 50 episode run like intended, but there are a lot of plot points that are underdeveloped and a lot of characters introduced late in the series that we don't spend enough time with. I will admit that yes, this does make some of the emotional beats not hit as hard as they should. This also means only the two main characters get major development, and most of it is in the middle of the series and some in the second half. The pacing does suffer for this too, because this means the show is always moving forward and stopping to let you get a chance to take everything in only a very small handful of times. This is an issue, but not one that is exactly Tomino's fault. I see people complain that the conflict doesn't feel very high stakes or anything, as it's just a power struggle between a couple factions and Bellri is right in the middle of it. For those people I simply must point out that this is a completely modern and realistic conflict, and it is something not typical in mecha anime, which is what Tomino was going for. He wanted to make a Gundam series that had elements of those classic Gundam shows, but with a modern and understandable conflict at its heart and a resolution younger generations could relate to better. If anything this only makes me like the series more because Tomino was telling a new story to pass on his ideas about Gundam in the hands of the younger generation of fans and creators, all with this new series as his means of doing so. The series was intended to be modern and fresh, but very much so a Gundam series at it's core. Its a show meant for newcomers to the series, with its references to classic Gundam and adherence to the same timeline, but its new setting and style.
On to some more spoiler centric complaints. (skip the next two paragraphs if you haven't seen it and wish to remain spoiler free) Bellri joining a group of pirates early into the series and fighting with them instead of his home country is something people say is bad writing, but I kind of just question what makes them think that. Bellri once with them sees the possible threat of some kind of world war breaking out, and they're holding two of his friends hostage, he has no choice early on, but decides to work with them so he can stop whatever coming conflict himself. And it's not like he doesn't try to return home, in one episode him and his friends plot an escape with them stowing away on one of the support craft while Bellri fights. Joining forces with them he still refuses to officially be listed among their ranks despite getting offers for high ranking positions due to his skill with the Gundam. His siding with them is completely believable because it is the only option where he can probably stop this war from breaking out. Next is some gripes I personally have. Next is our studio mandated Char adjacent/Char clone Captain Mask, who is a very blatant Char clone. They give him a canon reason to wear the mask, that being that the mask is a prototype that gives him better vision and spatial awareness in combat, but it's limited to him because he is merely testing it before it can be produced further. Sounds fine, I buy that. They make it super obvious who he is from the moment we first see him in the mask and even more so when we meet some of the characters around him. Yet it treats it like this mystery and the other characters don't know. I actually appreciate this because letting us figure out ourselves early on and making the other characters find out later is a fun narrative tool that makes it interesting to watch other characters figure out his identity. (Take notes Seed Destiny and Neo Roanoke, which did a similar thing but worse) However this character's reason for adopting the captain mask persona is because they are jealous of Bellri being adopted by a privileged family as a child and that with the G-Self he poses too big a threat to the balance of the world and he will become a dictator. He says he came to this conclusion while being friends with Bellri, but this is where I have to voice my own grievances. Nowhere at all in the series before he became captain mask did he show any kind of contempt or jealousy towards Bellri, just occasionally saying that he was lucky or it's a coincidence that so and so thing happened to or worked out for him him. The guy was established as one of his closest friends too, and there is nothing even suggesting he has a reason to betray him or that his life has been really hard. They don't build up to or elaborate it on it at all until after, and it kind of doesn't make much sense. Even the audience would probably get confused by this because knowing who he is but not his motivation for the first three quarters of the series, his actions as Captain Mask just doesn't make sense at all until then, and even then the pay off isn't terribly satisfying beyond a final battle between Bellri and Mask. Mask teams up with the faction that wants to do the titular "Reconquista", but that makes his point about him wanting to stop Bellri because he will become a dictator to be kind of hypocritical, since "operation reconquista" involves taking over Earth as its first step. Maybe a full 50 episode version of this series would have built up to this and made it more interesting, but we'll never know. Mask's love interest is initially a member on his crew who was looking for her boyfriend and pieced together he had become Mask while she was working with his crew. She later teams with Bellri and everyone to do a raid on the place where the G-self was produced and she steals an experimental Gundam unit in the raid. She goes back to Mask, reveals she figured out his identity and then simps for her boyfriend so hard she willingly does whatever detestable stuff Mask wants just because she loves him so much. All this despite the fact that Bellri and the main cast helped her get that experimental Gundam unit, she could very well have died if it wasn't for Bellri and the main cast only a few episodes prior, and yet she'd still be willing to turn a blade to them because Mask said so, all in the same day she went on that whole adventure with the main cast. Part of it is the pacing due to the show being cut in half during production, I know, but the writing of that whole thing to the core is kind of just bad, and makes her kind of unlikable in the final couple episodes, especially when she has been established as a close friend of one of our female leads and a nice character. Again, maybe this would have been handled better if Tomino got to make the series a full 50 episodes, but we'll never know.
Lastly is one thing that really rubbed me the wrong way. Near the end of the series the faction that tried to carry out the titular reconquista is defeated and Bellri uses the G-Self to declare an end to the fighting and he forces everyone to stop, then everything is at peace. Some of the important characters of this faction died only minutes before and the show didn't make it seem like a sad thing, but then they redeem the one who survived off screen and make it seem like a good thing she is now at peace with everything and lives happy. So wait why didn't Bellri stop the fighting before the others needlessly died? Literally minutes before Bellri forced everyone to stop fighting she watched in horror as her best friend was killed, and then minutes later in the epilogue where we see the characters after the events of the series, she is happy at starting her new life. Her best friend dying was completely avoidable and stupid and she is just so calm about the whole thing. Why were they even fighting then if there was no reason to? The resolution overall to the conflict is nice, but it also works in invalidating some of the characters who had died in this final battle and makes it seem like things could have been completely avoidable if they just talked. This is really just me nitpicking, but it doesn't change that it is kind of weird. The execution in particular does not help, and only make this whole thing feel worse. If I watched my best friend die because the person who called an end to the fighting didn't do anything to stop the fighting until after she died than I would be sad and upset, this just seems weird to me and is my biggest gripe with the ending. Rather than leaving me happy and satisfied, I just felt like Bellri was an idiot for not stopping the fighting sooner and I had to watch some characters die unnecessarily. Gundam having the balls to let anyone, even members of the main cast die off is something the series is famous for, so this isn't as big a deal as I am making it. There is a twist involving Bellri and another member of our main cast half way through the series, and it is an interesting twist that adds to their backstories, you probably know what I am talking about if you have seen it. It's a cool twist, but it is also not expanded upon much, nor is it built up to that much. This leaves it not as impactful as the show makes it out to be, and it doesn't have too great an impact in the grand scheme of things. They don't elaborate too much on it, even though from what it explained it should have much bigger consequences. It seems like it was going to lead to a separate conflict involving the moon and whoever rules that, and if that was the case it was probably cut when the show's episode count was halved early in production, leaving our only major antagonist from the moon being this lovestruck fleet commander we see in several episodes who is in love with a jerkish ace pilot with a death wish. She is a great antagonist, but it just feels like her stake in everything is small and unimportant. Her absence for a large part of the last chunk of the series seriously hurts this too. The finale to her arc is supposed to make her seem crazy or like a tragic character we are forced to watch, but it leaves little impact aside from "Is she really? oh... okay then..." Like I said, the whole thing with the moon was seriously cut down so we could fast track our way to our characters meeting the Reconquista faction and better establishing them. If the show was a full 50 episodes, this moon part of the plot would probably be much better fleshed out. Seriously Sunrise puts Tomino on this pedestal and always talks about how amazing he is and all the good he has done the franchise, how it couldn't have been possible without him and how amazing his stories are, etc. However it is really hypocritical when they have gotten in the way of every Gundam production since Char's Counterattack (with Turn A as kind of the exception) with studio mandates or meddling and interfering, as well as studio politics of some kind.
Now for things I like about the show. I love the character designs and how much they don't look like Gundam character designs or mecha anime character designs at all. They look very expressive and pretty stylized and I really like that. They look a bit bouncy and very energetic, which can be seen in many areas of the animation in some scenes. The only designs I'm not huge on are the ones that look like JoJo rejects introduced late into the series. The whole aesthetic overall with this show is very pleasing to the eyes, blending modern animation and mechanical designs with these stylized characters is neat. I love the setting and the look of the world here. It looks stunning and just gorgeous. Any shot where you just see the cities from far away or any shot in space, the locations here are just so neat and good looking. The overall look of this show is something I just love, it has it's own unique visual style and that is one thing I just love about it. The opening theme "Blazing" was written and performed by Japanese pop rock duo Gardenelia, and apparently they submitted it late or there was some kind of issue with the song, but it lead to some issue with the creation of the intro, though I've also heard contridctory statements saying this was with the second intro theme "Futari no Mahou" which was performed by pop singer May J. Regardless of whatever issues I love the OST to this show. "Blazing" is a fun and energetic rocker that really does a good job at getting the viewer hyped, and "Futari no Mahou" while often overlooked is a beautiful adventurous symphonic pop song that represents the spirit of this series very well. The credits theme to this show was once again co-written by Rin Iogi (the "person" who wrote or cowrote a theme song to every Gundam series Tomino ever worked on) and Yugo Kanno, and the entire credits sequence is the most Rin Iogi thing to have ever existed and I mean that in the best way possible. I don't know why but seeing all the characters dance together joyously regardless of nationality and the show's conflict with this credits theme playing is just something that gives me dopamine. The credits theme "G no Senko" performed by Daisuke Hasegawa (most famous for contributing to the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure soundtrack) is one of my favorites in the franchise, and that's some stiff competition, as Zeta, Gundam X and Turn A all have songs up there with it. The song is just cheerful in a way that represents the series quite strangely yet well. I just love it. It and the whole credits sequence is a neat thing that shows the more adventurous and less dark tone of the conflict of this series compared to literally every other project Tomino headed in the franchise. The whole series just feels like an adventure. Bellri wants to find the source of the Gundam in hopes of finding the answer to stopping world war 3 from breaking out, and it's an exciting adventure from location to location as we see very interesting places that we've never seen in Gundam. The whole blending tonally and stylistically of old and new is a fun thing too. This show in so many ways really carries Tomino's idea that Gundam is a series passed down generationally and needs to thrive in the hands of younger audiences and creators as it the franchise gets older, all while serving as a neat capstone to his time with the franchise. A lot of these action sequences are really cool, it's always fun seeing what backpack the G-Self is going to use next and how it will be used in combat. I love how energetic and expressive these character designs are. They just look so expressive and unique compared to a lot of designs found in other works in this franchise probably more expressive than the characters in any series made after Turn A Gundam. This all plays into what I said before about this show's unique visual identity being one of my favorite things about it. I love the overall presentation of this show, it's really well done considering a lot of this show's faults and shows the strength of Tomino as a director quite well. The fights and action scenes are mostly really good. The different back packs on the G Self make for interesting fights and the unique designs are all really fun to see in action. I like the characters, they develop our main cast well enough and I understand a lot of the my problems with the lack of development for some and for most of our supporting cast is due to the show being cut half early in production. The UC references while small really reward people who watched previous UC shows. For example there is one character in Victory Gundam who heroically sacrificed himself in a suicide charge with his battleship, and we never know his real name, as he used a code name throughout the entire series, but he says if his sacrifice helps The League Militaire win he will adopt his code name as his real name and that it will live on forever as the name of a legend. In Reconguista in G there is a mobile suit with the same name as his codename. That is such a small detail that I just love and only hardcore Gundam fans or people who love Victory Gundam would get it. It helps show Tomino really did know what he was doing when he made this show.
Now onto the next thing. The second article I ever posted on this blog was my article explaining things I liked and disliked about Zeta Gundam's compilation films. If you haven't read that article, please don't it is a mediocre unresearched slander piece with my just finding excuses to hate on something I passionately dislike. The gist of it is that to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the franchise Sunrise hired Tomino to comeback and compile Gundam Zeta into 3 films that not only make it more self contained, but add new animation to scenes he wanted changed and remastering old animation. They only remastered roughly 20 or 30 percent of the animation and they butchered the story of the series, making it kind of crappy and ruining a masterful series. They announced back in in the mid to late 2010s they would be reanimating the final episode of Reconguista in G and later near the end of 2018 he announced a Reconguista in G film project. This would compile the series into 5 films with some newly animated sequences. They were released starting in 2019, and finished releasing in august 2022. Most of the pictures you've been looking at while reading this article are actually key visuals from the posters to these movies. I've seen them and I can tell you that it is an interesting way to watch the series. I wouldn't say it is better, not by a longshot, but it streamlines the series into a much more concise viewing experience and fixes some of the complaints people had with it. The new stuff is not as noticeable as you'd think except in the final couple films. No, none of my issues with the ending are fixed, the story is more or less the exact same. I guess if you liked the series this could be a fun companion piece to watch after or maybe wait a bit and then rewatch it like this? The movies seem kind of pointless actually, since the show was already pretty short and briskly paced, the most these movies do is cut out a lot of the stuff that are clear symptoms of this series being cut in half during production, so maybe that was the point? If anything though these movies are validated for at least one thing. Once they realized they were exhausting the original series' soundtrack Tomino realized they needed a new song, and one of the people working on it saw the poster to the second film and said "doesn't it remind you of Dreams Come True?" or something to that effect, and Tomino reached out to their producer and songwriter Masato Nakamura, who had interviewed Tomino a decade prior on his radio show. Nakamura agreed to take a break from their 30th anniversary tour to do a soundtrack single.. For those of you who don't know, Dreams Come True is a very famous and popular J pop band most well known for doing the soundtrack to "Sonic the Hedgehog" and "Sonic the Hedgehog 2" on the Sega Genesis. That's right the guys who did the Green Hill Zone music did the theme for the second and third Reconguista in G compilation films.
Their song "G" is a very fun and sleek J pop song with an electronic sound that makes it sound modern yet kind of futuristic. It is great and one of the best Gundam themes done in recent memory. Nakamura had said despite never having watched Gundam back in the day, it was so omni present in culture back in the day that ever since its premier in 1979 he has been deeply rooted in the culture surrounding the series because everyone he knew was super into it and he kind of absorbed a bunch of Gundam knowledge through osmosis and knew he had to jump at the chance for Dreams Come True to contribute Japan's biggest anime franchise when the opportunity presented itself. Absolute legend, and the song contributed was great. It doesn't stop there, Daisuke Hasegawa was brought back to sing a new theme for the fourth and fifth films in the series, that like "G no Senko" was written by Rin Iogi and Yugo Kanno. This song "Coloring by G Reco" is much more fast and energetic than the previous song Hasegawa did and it's great too. I don't like it as much, but it is great and keeps up the trend of Reconguista in G having an awesome OST. Kind of sounds like "G no Senko" meets "Soldiers of Sorrow", which I'm 90% sure was intentional, and only makes me like it more.
"Gundam Reconguista in G" is a weird show. It's made for new viewers while carrying over many aspects of classic Gundam and forgoing many others. Tomino really wanted to just make one more series showing younger audiences the appeal of Gundam when previously they may not have been able to relate to classic Gundam. Because of this the show turned off some long time and hardcore fans, as well as a lot of western fans who just didn't get it, and that's fine. Unfortunately though it didn't seem to be all that successful in attracting new viewers. The series isn't perfect and it isn't trying to be. Tomino had a set mission when he made this series and I think he accomplished it decently well. Yes it has its short comings, you'll notice I had quite a lot to say about my own issues with it, but still I really enjoy the series despite its flaws. The style, the action scenes, the soundtrack, so many things here just work even with many things holding it back. I wouldn't say it is the most beginner friendly entry into the franchise nor is it one of the best, Tomino's story telling is on display doing a lot of good, but also on full display at some of its worst too. If you want to check it out go ahead, just go in with the mindset that it is different if you are watching it as your first series or that it is not going to be like classic Gundam if you are one of those people who just love classic Gundam. I will always be ready to go up to bat for this series. I for one love this show and it's unique visuals, and think that regardless of flaws it is a misunderstood series that deserves a lot of respect. It gets a 7.5/10 and ranks probably as my fifth or sixth favorite Gundam series.
