Universal Century is not only where theMobile Suit Gundamfranchise began. It’s where it keeps returning. Visionary creator Yoshiyuki Tomino struck gold with the original series' bold tale of the scars of war taking their gradual toll on a young crew caught in a terrible war, and subsequent stories have delved deeper and deeper into not just this initial wide-scale conflict, but its sadly inevitable follow-ups.
While many shows have been set entirely in alternate universes, UC is the mainstay, the bastion of interconnectivity that continues to chart a course across the franchise at-large. It’s had some amazing productions. It’s had some downright bad ones. We’re here to rank them all.
Two things we won’t be including: Mobile Suit Gundam: Reconguista in G and Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX. The former is set so far into the distant future as to be an altogether separate entity, and the latter - which, as of this writing, is midway through its 12-episode run - is an alternate universe within UC itself. Oh, and uh, we aren’t going to talk about G-Saviour because it’s been all but expelled from the canon. And it’s really, really bad.
17Mobile Suit Gundam: Twilight Axis
Originally released as five three-minute episodes followed by a six-minute finale, and later revamped into a single 26-minute “movie”, Mobile Suit Gundam: Twilight Axis’ biggest problem has already been addressed in this sentence. It is far too short for its story and characters to leave any kind of lasting impression.
Twilight Axis is an original video animation adaptation of a light novel series by the same name. If you want to get anythingrealout of this plot, we recommend giving it a read. Author Kojiro Nakamura didn’t exactly deliver our favourite section of the Universal Century timeline when these were written between 2016 and 2017, but you won’t feel blindsided by the breakneck pace that prevents the show from connecting on an emotional level.
Even with the handful of added scenes in Twilight Axis: Red Trace - the movie upgrade - what we’re left with is a confusing mess of an adaptation of a perfectly fine, if by no means great, piece of literature.
16Mobile Suit Gundam: Requiem For Vengeance
Mobile Suit Gundam: Requiem for Vengeance can be praised for its creative decision to follow Zeon Soldiers during the One Year War, rather than the Federation. That’s the nicest thing that we can say about it.
This 2024 Netflix series, which eschews 2D animation for an entirely CG approach that mostly misses the mark, is a hodgepodge array of weak character moments strewn across a rather awkward production. We can’t even tell you to read a light novel instead, because there isn’t one, and we’re pretty sure it wouldn’t be much better.
15Mobile Suit Gundam MS-IGLOO
The MS-IGLOO series can be praised for its creative decision to follow Zeon soldiers during the One Year War, rather than the Federation. Yes, our repetition is intentional. MS-IGLOO did this, straight down to the dicey CG, two full decades before Requiem for Vengeance. Unfortunately, we don’t think it did a significantly better job, but it was still OK enough to surpass the only two downright bad entries on our list.
MS-IGLOO totals nine episodes, with its third and final trio of them swapping our perspective over to the Earth Federation, instead. The story’s a bit weaker here, but the high-definition upgrade does the visuals a good deal more justice. Either way, the characterization is hardly Gundam’s most compelling. MS-IGLOO is a conduit through which to geek out for a little bit about the franchise’s quality mecha designs, but not much beyond that.
14Mobile Suit Gundam Narrative
Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn’s light novel series concluded in 2009… until it returned for an eleventh installment in 2016. This new final volume, titled Phoenix Hunting, was adapted into a feature film two years later, and behold: Mobile Suit Gundam Narrative.
Narrative’s big issue is that it’s got too muchnarrative, and nowhere near enough character development to properly accommodate it. While we enjoy this year-later continuation of Unicorn’s events, which showcases how things have changed by the unveiling of Laplace’s Box at the conclusion of that story - or rather, howlittlethey’ve changed overall - it’s difficult to connect with Narrative’s protagonist, Jona Basta, with a 90-minute runtime that tries so desperately to tackle so much stuff.
The movie’s twin highlights are its nifty designs for both the golden-hued RX-0 Unicorn Gundam Phenex and the silvery MSN-06S-2 Sinanju Stein. The titular Gundam Narrative itself doesn’t quite compare.
13Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory
This is the first ranking that we reckon may rankle some folks, but so it goes. Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory serves as something of an in-between for the stories of the original series and its Zeta Gundam successor (and not just because its placement in the timeline bluntly places it as such).
Featuring fun action sequences and a stellar soundtrack, there’s plenty to enjoy in Stardust Memory, but its limp conclusion and dreadful love story hurt its quality considerably, and most of its supporting cast has the potential to be more interesting than its protagonist, Kou - but never get the chance to prove it.
It’s a frustrating 13-episode OVA to rate, because it sports some excellent Mobile Suit combat and a broadly interesting premise, but it’s just so weighed-down by its unlikable elements.
12Mobile Suit Gundam F91
Mobile Suit Gundam F91 compressed the story of a canceled prospective TV series into a single film, and it’s a crying shame that we never got that full show, because its fresh take on Universal Century’s timeline a full 30 years past Char’s Counterattack could have made for a brilliant show.
As a movie, it’s merely OK. The first half moves at a normal enough pace, with some exceptions. It’s the back half that makes a mess of things; condensing so many ideas into only 45 or so minutes has the predictable effect of a pacing blitz that robs the story of its potential impact.
We can thank F91’s existence for the coolest long-running manga in Gundam, however; Mobile Suit Crossbone Gundam, a continuation of this era, has delivered several fun interconnected adventures that have made the most of an otherwise-abandoned concept. More recent portions have even branched out past Victory Gundam. Speaking of which…
11Mobile Suit Victory Gundam
It’s worth researching the mental state that Gundam creator Yoshiyuki Tomino states he was in during the production of Mobile Suit Victory Gundam. In the interests of keeping this article’s word count relatively short, we’ll shorthand it all: he was in a bad way.
The depths of Tomino-san’s depression are on full display in Victory Gundam, a darker-than-usual depiction of war’s scars. 13-year-old Uso Ewin is put through the ringer, and the body count by show’s end is astronomical.
Uso, as well as his friend Shakti, are both solid characters worth rooting for. The expanded cast doesn’t do much for us, however, which makes their glacial arcs rather trite. Moreover, Victory Gundam is a weird,weird, show. It tries to make impactful statements about gender equality - we guess? - but fumbles the ball. It has some of the most memorable deaths in the franchise, but they’re frequently memorable for being unintentionally (?) funny. There’s, uh, a “Bikini Squad”. It’s a lot.
If you can get into its oddball groove, Victory Gundam’s a fun enough time. Just bring a comfort pillow for all those nihilistic moments.
10Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ
This one’s probably taking home the prize for the most divisive show in the Universal Century canon. Even among those who detest it, there’s usually an acknowledgement that Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ is at least superior to stuff like Twilight Axis, but there are plenty of valid reasons to critique ZZ. We just happen to think it’s all ultimately overblown.
Gundam ZZ starts out so lighthearted as to welcome the not-so-fine art of slapstick into its storytelling on a routine basis. It tries to be funny, and unless the jokes all land for you, it’s going to be a cringe-inducing time. But there are glimmers of strength here from the outset. The hero, Judau Ashta, is a more go-get-’em sort of lad than his predecessors, with an upbeat vibe. His fellow scavenger teenager friends present an interesting dynamic, as we see this separate side of the Earth Sphere react to the broad strokes of political tension.
Then again, there’s not exactly much “tension” to be found for a very long time. It’s only around the second half of Gundam ZZ that things kick into high gear, eschewing most of the slapstick in favour of a more recognizable follow-up to Mobile Suit Gundam Zeta. It’s a good thing that Gundam ZZ finally finds its footing, because those Zeta-introduced plot threads revolving around Haman Karn and Axis sorely needed a real continuation.
Mad props to the ZZ Gundam itself, by the way. A powerhouse with one of the most striking designs in the franchise. It even manages to keep going all the way up to UC 0153, as we see it (and a much older Judau!) in a side story set during Victory Gundam!
9Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team
Ask ten North American Gundam fans what their favourite iteration is, and there’s a fair chance that at least three will tell you it’s The 08th MS Team. The 12-episode OVA made a sizable impact on a generation of overseas fans when it found its way to Toonami in 2001. Its grounded One Year War warfare is more visceral than the Newtype-centric fare found elsewhere; there’s a grit here that’s undeniably enticing.
Lieutenant Shiro Amada makes for a fine protagonist, although we were never fully sold on his romantic moments with Aina Sahalin. The ragtag vibes of Shiro’s squad contribute to the show’s unique aura and aesthetic, and a certain late-in-the-series one-on-one fight is masterfully animated.
Even so, we’re not quite as high on The 08th MS Team as some. Its story is a bit mediocre, its finale is somewhat awkward, and its characterization doesn’t always land.
8Mobile Suit Gundam: Hathaway
The first part in a trilogy of movies adapting the excellent Hathaway’s Flash novels by Yoshiyuki Tomino, Hathaway is, sadly, theonlyinstallment released thus far. It debuted in 2021, and we’re still waiting on those sequels, but as avid readers of the source material, we can promise it’ll be worth the wait. Just prepare for some dark turns.
In any case, Mobile Suit Gundam: Hathaway is a pretty good flick, with ace-tier animation, a strong soundtrack, and a delightfully conflicted antihero in Hathaway Noa himself. Or maybe “antihero” is underselling it a bit. If you’ve not seen the movie, or read the novels, well, you’ll see what we mean when we get there.
It’s hard to go too far into this one for fear of spoilers, as it’s an ongoing work. But Hathaway is a fascinatingly complex fellow, and as he navigates the shock of his loss in Char’s Counterattack while charting a course for the future of the human race, his first movie doesn’t quite soar, but it’s still a fairly worthy entry.
