Gundam 101: Anime Crash Course – 2020 Edition: 1979-1999
Back in 2009, I was approached by the original founder of our local anime club, Scenic City Anime & More (at the time known as Boogie BAM Anime Jam Club when we met weekly at Books-a-Million), wanting to know more of the Gundam franchise and to share with other members, especially to watch in the order that I have watched them, to make sense of the 40 year-old franchise. This eventually led to sharing my love of the franchise in the form of panels at Anime Blast Chattanooga and Connooga. Enter: Gundam 101: Anime Crash Course series.
Working on the presentation, I discovered that there were too many series and movies to explain in one day (the meetings ran for roughly an hour and a half), so I had to split them up into 3 weeks of content. The first week focused on the TV anime series made between 1979 to 1999. The second week covered TV series made between 2000 to 2009. And the third and final week concluded the presentation series with a guide to the Gundam movies and OVAs (Original Video Animation).
In the time since I published the series, Bandai Entertainment discontinued home video releases of all their anime titles, including the Gundam franchise. It wasn’t until a few years later, with the release of the Gundam Unicorn OVA series, Right Stuf stepped in and rescued every Gundam series released by Bandai, even a few that was skipped over due to fan “demand”, such as ZZ Gundam. As we enter 2020, nearly every Gundam series has been released for purchase in North America on DVD and Blu-ray thanks to the efforts of Right Stuf!
To those curious about Gundam, and/or missed the previous presentations from back in the day, as well as the original series on the original CEN.TAKU.ME blog, this is a reboot of the very same series I worked on, originally clocking in at about 10 pages! It will be explained in the same order as in the meetings–and in the original article series–along with any extra information I might have forgotten, including the latest TV anime, movies, and OVAs that have surfaced in the years since. Following the conclusion of the republication, there will be an additiona post in this series of essential TV anime, movies, and OVAs released in the 2010s.
