Source: @NetEase Game Channel

Since the birth of Gundam in 1979, the name has undergone numerous changes over the past 30 years, and now it will return to its roots.

In 2002, Kadokawa Shoten launched a Gundam monograph called GUNDAMACE, one of the main serials of which was Mobile Suit Gundam THEORIGIN, a manga drawn by Yasuhiko himself, which retells the story of the original Gundam. In 2015, this work was finally animated.

On the eve of Gundam's birth

Before Gundam officially became Gundam, it was similar to many classic stories at the beginning. A group of legends, or people who will later become legends, have come together and are ready to make a difference in the industry. The names of these people included Yoshikazu Yasuhiko, Kunio Okawara, Hiroyuki Hoshiyama, or Toru Furutani and Shuichi Ikeda, as well as the most important person, Yuki Tomino, who still used the real name of Yoshiyuki Tomino at the time.

At this critical point in time in the late 70s of the last century, the Japanese animation industry, like the Japanese economy, was about to usher in a new round of rapid development after the war. Japanese animation established by "Astro Boy", "Re-creation 009", "Iron Man No. 28" and so on has been further developed in this era, 1972's "Demon God Z" successfully created a robot animation combined with toys promotional model, 1974's "Space Battleship Yamato" is known as one of several important works to guide the Japanese animation revolution, no longer limited to young children, from the setting of the plot to the production and marketing are oriented to a wider range of groups, In 1978, the second theatrical version of the Yamato set a box office record of 4.3 billion yen, which was not broken until later by Jun Miyazaki's "Witch Home Delivery Service". Finally, also in 1978, Japan introduced the first Star Wars movie, which was released a year earlier, and countless audiences, including industry insiders, were amazed and benefited from it.

From this point of view, the birth of Gundam was both accidental and inevitable, and the right time, place and people were indispensable.

It was still in 1978, and under the influence of the Yamato, the "Mobile Suit Gundam" project was officially proposed after several revisions and creations based on various sources. This is a few years ago,Today's famous "Sunrise Society" Sunrise company has just officially started animation production after independence from the insect production company,Their first two works are Tomino's first directorial "Invincible Superman Zampo 3" and "Invincible Steelman Titan 3", especially the latter's ratings and peripheral toy sales are good, so the company's senior management takes it for granted that this thing called Gundam will be the style of the previous series of trilogy, and it is still the tradition of robot animation since "Demon God Z", As for the whole bunch of additional settings for this bald Tomino, it doesn't seem to matter, just let him go.

Sunrise let go a little, thus revealing Tomino's true colors. Although judging from his later performance, everyone knows that Tomino in this period has been the result of his convergence and compromise, and it is really Tomino's nature that the animation he made himself will be something like "The Legend of the Giant God Eden...... However, as early as the production process of the work, everyone has already noticed the difference between this work and the previous ones: the requirements for the original painting scene, the research on the background setting, and the most important thing is the Gundam itself, which is no longer a super giant robot imagined according to the previous convention, but a tactical weapon on the battlefield under the overhead science fiction worldview. Although the concept of "realism" had not yet been established at the time, Gundam, which was about to rise above the ground, had already taken another step to change the Japanese animation industry ahead of schedule.

On April 7, 1979, the TV anime "Mobile Suit Gundam" began to broadcast, and this work, which would later be popularly called "0079" or "the first Gundam", did not become a blockbuster, on the contrary, it failed in the same ratings as "Space Battleship Yamato" five years ago, with an average of only 5% in the early days, and the first-line popular works at that time had to be counted from at least 20%, although some of the plots were changed according to feedback in the middle period, it did not have obvious results, so Gundam also ushered in the same result as the Yamato at the beginning, and it was cut in half. The originally scheduled 52 episodes of the anime were reduced to 43 episodes, which is also the only record in the history of Gundam TV anime to be cut in half twice - the other time was until Gundam X many years later.

And like the trajectory that the Yamato has experienced, the Gundam has truly become a classic from the moment it ends at the end of the screening.

Animation manifesto for the new century

On January 26, 1980, the final episode of Mobile Suit Gundam aired, and the final stage of the anime began to improve significantly compared to the previous results, proving that more viewers began to accept the changes brought by Gundam, and this part of the audience eventually became loyal fans of Gundam and was the key to laying the foundation for the series. After receiving more belated feedback, Sunrise decided to replay the TV version of the anime shortly after it ended, and began to consider Tomino's theatrical plans - the same trend that "Space Battleship Yamato" had developed back then.

In the same year, another important name in the story, BANDAI finally made its debut. Clover (now defunct), the first sponsor of the Gundam anime and the creation of toys was Clover (now defunct), and the only products were the alloy series that traditional robots are used to, but after the TV version was shown, Bandai was keenly aware of the upcoming trend of Gundam and decided to invest in it, and in July 1980, BANDAI released the first 1/144 scale RX-78-2 plastic assembly model, and the term "GUNPLA" was born. The brand's path to fame and fortune began, and the two promoted each other to further promote each other's popularity, leading to BANDAI officially adding Sunrise as one of its subsidiaries in 1994, giving Gundam a more unique backer than other works.

In October 1980, Mobile Suit Gundam decided to produce its first theatrical version, which would be released as a series and was scheduled to be released on March 14, 1981. He even threatened that it would be a work that would surpass the Yamato, and he once again went into battle himself, leading the whole class to work together from editing to painting, and interpreting the theatrical version as a new work.

In 1981, with the imminent release of the theatrical version of Gundam, various parties began to build up publicity, and in terms of peripherals, Gangpra won the first sales boom after more than half a year of release, and at the same time, the advance tickets for the theatrical version were sold out in the first week of 100,000 tickets, and the top management immediately approved Tomino's theatrical trilogy plan, bringing the entire story of the original Gundam to the screen, and the latter two works also had more room to play, "The Mourning Warrior" on July 22, 1981 and " "Encounter in the Universe" has added more new pictures than the TV version, as well as the mechanical settings of the replacement part, making the overall composition more cohesive and presenting the form of a real film work. In addition, an important description of the NEWTYPE setting was added, and the album of the same name and the theme song of the film created an unprecedented sensation in the history of pop music at the time, which contributed to the box office success of the movie and the re-selling of related models.

Earlier, on February 22, 1981, on the eve of the original theatrical release, Shinjuku gathered more than 15,000 Gundam fans to hold a celebration that would be the prelude to a new century animation for the younger generation, and called on society to think about the meaning of animation for young people and the repositioning of animation through the success of this event. Tomino himself even stood up and issued the famous "Animation New Century Declaration", announcing this landmark event in the history of animation.

From this moment on, the name Gundam was given more meaning and became a cultural phenomenon recognized by the general public.

Thirty-five years later, back to square one

The ending of 0079 ended with the end of a year of war, but in and out of the play, the story of Gundam has just begun, and in the years after the theatrical version was released, Gundam continued to heat up with the promotion of peripheral goods, so that the Sunrise Society, which had not performed well in several consecutive works during this period, was determined to continue to launch a sequel to Gundam, and in 1985, it was officially renamed Tomino Yuki and brought a new batch of people to officially bring "Mobile Suit Z Gundam", with the popularity base accumulated in the previous five years, Coupled with a more mature production level, the Z Gundam still looks like a first-class work in every way, and it also makes the executives believe that the series has more potential to be explored—even if Tomino himself doesn't really want his name to be associated with Gundam all the time, he can only release a sequel to Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ after the 50th episode of Z Gundam is over, and in 1988, the theatrical version of Char temporarily put an end to the history of the One-Year War.

From Bandai to Sunrise, the higher-ups decided that the name of the Gundam itself was a guarantee of popularity, even if there was no supervision from Tomino himself, and if the UC worldview was not continued, and even models could be sold as long as the body was connected with the Gundam name, such as the V Gundam in 1993, the G Gundam in 1994, the W Gundam in 1995, and the 1996 Mobile New Century Gundam X. Viewers have watched almost 200 episodes of Gundam for four consecutive years, and to a large extent, the final cut of X Gundam has something to do with this fatigue...... In addition, the three OVAs with different styles during this period, 0080, 0083, and 08MS also interpreted their respective interpretations of Gundam, or the war stage, from different perspectives. As the last memorial of the last century, Sunrise still found Tomino in 1999 and let him go to make the "black history" inverted A Gundam that buried everything.

In the 21st century, the legend of Gundam continues, and the commercial success of the SEED series once made people think that this would be the development direction of the new generation of Gundam, but many problems of its own still led to the end of the series for two generations, and since then, Sunrise seems to have fallen into a myth, constantly trying to find a new round of selling points, from 00 to AGE, and then to Gundam BF, which is clearly selling models, and even invited Tomino to perform his own genre of "Gundam G Restoration Movement" again, At the end of the day, the foundation that underpinned the Gundam series for decades is still the original UC Cosmic Century.

On the occasion of the 30th anniversary of Gundam's birth, Sunrise prepared the "Mobile Suit Gundam UC" under the name UC, and from the setting to the script, the Unicorn Gundam was clearly intended to evoke memories of die-hard devotees. Like all works that often try to return to the original point after reaching the limit, Gundam has never been able to leave the shroud of 0079, and the remake of the original Gundam has always been the voice of all sides, but as a magic weapon to press the bottom of the box, of course, it is impossible for the Sunrise Society to turn over the final bet until the end, and Yasuhiko Yoshikazu also admitted: The only one who has this qualification to decide is Tomino himself.

From 1979 to 2009, and then to the past 2014, the 35th anniversary of the 30th anniversary, Gundam, as a specific ranking in Japanese anime and even culture, has carried more and more content, and different people interpret things completely differently, love, peace, organism, new humanity, military warfare, political ideas, or you can simply think that its essence has always been to sell toys promotional films, there is no need to make any complicated meanings.

On February 28, 2015, the first volume of Gundam ORIGIN's OVA "Blue Pupil's Casbal" was first released, and the story opened before the start of the TV animation of 0079, Prime Minister Daiken had just died, the Zabi family began to take control of power, the war between Jean and the Federation had not yet begun, and the future Char was just a child named Casbal at the moment, and even the name Gundam itself was far from the time when it appeared on the stage of history.

We still don't know if this story will be the beginning of the Gundam series, but it certainly won't be the end of the Gundam series.