The history of Gundam Ace and the Magazines That Came Before: or how Ban-Dai somehow screwed up 3 separate magazines and needed to be coerced into making a Gundam magazine

Happy new year. I hope you enjoyed your year, as much as I did mine. I welcomed a new addition to the family, met my father after years of believing he was dead, got to take my job in music further than ever before, and I've gotten to start this blog, so the year has been special for me. To commemorate the year I started this blog, here is one last article to close out the year, after months of repeated delays and false promises of new articles getting released.

So after writing my "how to watch Gundam" article I've been inspired to reread Origin. When I finished Origin I thought "wow that was great I should read more" and so I chose to read not just Origin but all the Gundam manga in the Universal Century I could. Then during some research I did for some of my articles I wrote previously on Gundam, a friend who helped me with said research found some things on Gundam Ace and its founding. I started this article in late September with the goal of publishing it on the 30th, before a huge work opportunity dragged me away followed by family stuff. I didn't leave the blog devoid of content, as throughout September and October I updated all the previous Gundam articles (except that bad Zeta New Translation slander piece I wrote while sleep deprived) to feature more accurate information, some minor spelling corrections and some new points I felt that should have been there in the first place or decided would make the article better with the benefit of hindsight. Seriously I keep starting new articles and then get so caught up with editing/fixing/adding to old articles that my old ones keep getting updates while I keep struggling to get out new ones. With things having calmed down, I finally found the time to finish it and rewrite many parts of it. So, here it is 3+ months later than I wanted.

For those unaware the history of Gundam manga and such starts with small steps, those being manga adaptations of Gundam shows from the late seventies and throughout the eighties. Then later "Mobile Suit Gundam Revival of Zeon" and other minor manga and one offs. These were published in other magazines. This was until the late 80s when Ban-Dai established their own Cyber Comix magazine. This was a serialized magazine by Ban-Dai that specialized in mecha comics, related articles and so on and so forth. Some of the earliest Gundam manga were featured here. Some of these early Gundam manga were actually really neat stories like "Under the Gundam: Double Fake", some of these are still looked back on fondly and influencing the canon today by current Gundam media such as "Gudnam F90", some are really cool but dated now by the simple fact that the Universal Century has become more concrete and thought out over the years as more people have decided on lore for it, added to said lore and a lot of the principals of its technology. Such as "The Story of Dr Minovsky" and "Outer Gundam", which are both interesting reads, with "Outer Gundam" being one of the first proper Gundam AUs with multiple entries. However they're are no longer accurate at all due to their explanations on the history of the Universal Century as well how the technology works having been dated and made any possibility of these being canon absolutely thrown out the window. For example some of these say the UC started after the moon landing, or after the challenger incident, when it was later established that colony construction likely began in the 2040s. Others were just weird. Some of these weird ones like "Cyber Newtype Story: Another Z Gundam Story" are great stories that can be enjoyed by anyone, others like "Gundam Saigon" (think Cocaine Bear meets Gundam, and I am not joking at all when I say that) are just bizarre in a fascinating way. While including original grassroots series and tie ins to established ones like "Armored Troops Votoms", the magazine became increasingly Gundam dominated and would leave less and less room for the rest of the stuff in the magazine. This and other factors, most notably a new deal offered to them by the newly formed Mediaworks company formed by the former VP of Kadokawa, would culminate in the decision to terminate Cyber Comix and replace it. Following Cyber Comix's dissolution it was replaced by two magazines, the first being Media Comix Dyne. This Magazine did not get the audience of Cyber Comix out of the gate and was cancelled due to middling sales after few volumes. This would lead to it being replaced by Dengeki Daioh, a general manga and anime magazine covering a wide variety of franchises and series, which is still being published today. The second magazine replacing Cyber Comix was MS Saga, a magazine dedicated entirely to Gundam, which was not the best idea since Gundam was seeing a decline in popularity at the time in comparison to the 80s. (one that would soon turn around when "Gundam Wing" came out in the mid 90s) MS Saga didn't last, even after serializing sequels to some of Cyber Comix's stories such as "Cyber Newtype Story: Mad Wang 1160". 

Following the cancellation of MS Saga after only a dozen or so volumes, Gundam would require other comic magazines to publish manga, leading to a decline in Gundam manga. However things would change with the success of two comics in particular. The first major Gundam side story told outside the medium of animation was "Blue Destiny", a video game trilogy released on Sega's hugely popular Sega Saturn console. It had a novelization and a corresponding single volume comic serialized in Comic Bon Bon, which proved very successful. The other of these two manga was "Crossbone Gundam". "Crossbone Gundam" was a sequel to the Gundam F91 film. Originally a draft and outline by Tomino for a sequel, but abandoned. Yuichi Hasegawa, who had worked on Gundam comics before, was brought on to adapt it as a manga, to which he agreed on the condition that he could change the draft as he saw fit, and create his own character to center the story around. The resulting series was serialized in Shonen Ace, a manga magazine by Kadokawa focused on anime tie ins and manga with a less broad appeal, where the manga would be hugely successful. It ran for a long time and got 6 volumes. The huge success of this series would lead to the start of a close relationship between Kadokawa and Gundam. Kadokawa had already named their massively popular entertainment magazine "Newtype" after a term frequently used in Gundam's Universal Century.

I can't be the only one thinking MS Saga's covers have no personality in comparison to Cyber Comix

Back in the early 2000s "Gundam Wing", the show that revived interest in Gundam by giving it a new audience (the series was aimed towards the shoujo demographic) was dubbed in English and aired on Toonami. The series was a success in the west, leading to them next doing "Mobile Fighter G Gundam" and then seeking to do "Turn A Gundam" and "After War Gundam X". However Sunrise refused and insisted that the original "Mobile Suit Gundam", a show of great historical significance in Japan, be brought over. Eventually Toonami relented and dubbed it, airing it on TV. It went well until a certain event happened in 2001 that made programs like Gundam undesirable on TV. It was during this big push in the states during the early 2000s that Sunrise asked "Mobile Suit Gundam" character designer Yoshikazu Yasuhiko to write a manga version of that series specifically for the western market. Yas said no. He always thought Gundam was Tomino's work, and starting with Zeta, his own story ideas were left by the wayside, and he felt dissatisfied with the direction of the franchise and its focus on newtypes, not to mention he was not happy during the production process of "Zeta Gundam". However during a hospitalization he began drawing scenes from "Mobile Suit Gundam" to pass time. Drawing scenes like Garma's last stand made him realize just how attached he was to Gundam. Eventually he decided maybe retelling that show's story as a manga could be interesting. After some support from other people he respected Yas gave in and agreed to do it.

Now there was a couple things. First of all was that a manga retelling of "Mobile Suit Gundam" was already a thing. In 1993 Dengeki Daioh serialized "Mobile Suit Gundam 0079", a manga retelling of "Mobile Suit Gundam" written and illustrated by Kazuhisa Kondo. At the time this manga was still on going, and it was still going up until 2005 when it ended. Second, Yas had a specific way he wanted the comic released. He wanted around 100 pages per release early on, and to highlight important scenes with beautiful full watercolor illustrations. However this presented a problem as the publisher Sunrise had in mind was Kadokawa. Kadokawa couldn't put a comic like that in any of their existing magazines, and the magazine succeeding Cyber Comix and MS Saga, Dengeki Daioh, already had a manga remake of "Mobile Suit Gundam" in serialization. So Kadokawa's solution was to make a magazine focused exclusively on Gundam, thus Kadokawa launched Gundam Ace for the sole purpose of releasing this new manga retelling of "Mobile Suit Gundam" as Yas intended. Unlike MS Saga everything was right for this magazine. It was published by Kadokawa, a huge magazine publisher since the 80s, and Gundam at the time was on the cusp of "Gundam Seed", a show that love it or hate it brought Gundam to a whole new generation of fans and became one of the most popular works in the franchise's history. However this was not enough

Gundam Ace launched with "Gundam the Origin" front and center and as its premier title. Kadokawa Shoten's president was the one who made the push for Gundam the Origin getting its own magazine, but many higher ups in the company feared that a regular magazine dedicated to just one franchise would be unsustainable, and I'm sure MS Saga's failure was something that justified these fears. A heavy hitter like Origin would not be enough to carry a regular magazine alone. So they went about negotiating with mangaka and other people involved in Gundam to contribute columns, articles, interviews, and other manga series, all in hopes of filling out a regular magazine. Because of this, Gundam Ace became more than just a shounen magazine, but something of a general Gundam magazine, with manga at the forefront.

The second heavy hitting manga to help push Gundam Ace was "Char's Deleted Affair". Kadokawa saw the potential in a manga remake of Zeta much like Origin, and wanted Gundam Ace to debut with manga retellings of both. For this they approached Hiroyuki Kitazume. Kitazume was an animation director on Zeta Gundam, and he had a host of other jobs while making Zeta too, and he took on even more duties while working on ZZ and Char's Counterattack. After Gundam, the cancellation of the Space Battleship Yamato sequel he was heavily involved in, and the failure of his own projects, he had been left as an animation director and key animator on shows like "Ah! My Goddess" and "Dragonball". When Kadokawa approached him he said no, not seeing a point to remaking Zeta nor a need to, since he felt Zeta was great as is and unlike "Mobile Suit Gundam", it didn't need any major fixing. In addition to this, he had never taken any time to make big manga series like Yas did, so he didn't feel like it was right. However he would warm up to the idea of making manga when he got to thinking about the transition from Mobile Suit Gundam to Zeta Gundam. We never saw what happened to Char in that time or his past with Haman, and Operation Stardust wasn't even an idea anyone had during the time frame when Zeta was made. So he ended up writing for Gundam Ace a comic bridging the gap between the two, starting during the final episode of Mobile Suit Gundam, and ending right before the first episode of Zeta Gundam. This manga would be the other heavy hitting title in Gundam Ace's debut issue. The third big title in Gundam Ace's debut would be the officially licensed serialization of the Gundam San parody web comic.

The plan was for the magazine to be released quarterly, then after serializing more manga series and adding more to it they would release it bimonthly, then later monthly if the demand was high enough. In the September issue they added the Gundam Seed side story "Seed Astray", and "Crossbone Gundam Skull Heart". They had approached Hasegawa with the idea of a Crossbone sequel rushed out to help sell Gundam Ace, and while biding his time coming up with what he felt would be a worthy sequel he made "Skull Heart", an anthology series showing different characters in the aftermath of the original "Crossbone Gundam" manga's events. In the winter issue they had legendary anime character designer Haruhiko Mikimoto write his own Zeta side story "Ecole du Ciel", detailing a Zeon immigrant's time in a Federation pilot academy and watching the rise of the Titans. They also had "Tony Takezaki presents Gundam Manga", yet another parody manga. Over time the magazine got even more comics in regular serialization and was eventually able to move to the fabled monthly release schedule, where it has remained since. 

Not every Gundam manga is serialized in Gundam Ace. Thunderbolt is published in Big Comic Superior, Rust Horizon is published in Grand Jump Mucha, Battle Tales of Flannagan Boone is published in Hero's Inc, Aggressor is published in Shounen Sunday Super, etc. However Gundam Ace has become the premier place for Gundam manga. They give mangaka great creative control (usually), and celebrate many of their own grassroots kind of series such as "Return of Johnny Ridden", "Crossbone" and "Char's Deleted Affair". The manga really has this isolated feeling compared to other shounen/seinen magazines, but it really helps make it feel special and distinct. Being centered around one franchise allows it to be more diverse than most shounen magazines by featuring several detailed non manga related topics and columns, As well as some seinen manga occaisionally published in it too. Being so laser focused on one franchise with everything inside it allows for a real sense of community with its readers, knowing most of them like the same thing. I know people who are subscribed to shounen jump to just read the 3 or 4 series they like and then just leave it on their bookshelf. With Gundam Ace, if you picked it up you are probably a Gundam fan, and so everything there is from a franchise you like. The stuff in the different timelines and such help add variety, and they've found new ways to keep it fresh with unique takes on adapting the franchise to other genres, such as the currently publishing manga about Haman Karn living in our world as an overworked head of a fashion company. Gundam Ace has something for all Gundam fans, and it really feels special. I believe it is one of the best currently printing manga magazines in Japan right now, and I'm glad to keep getting such great titles from it.

Before I end the article, I want to give my thanks to a YouTuber named Cheems. He's a very nice guy and has been a good friend. I told him of my plans to write this article and shared with him parts of a rough draft of it. It inspired him to make a video on the subject, and he was nice enough to thank me and shoutout this blog in his video. Please check out his video, as it presents this subject more concisely, entertainingly and professionally than I could hope to. Subscribe to him if you want some solid informative and entertaining anime (mostly mecha) videos. With that out of the way, thank you for reading, and have a happy new year.