ANDI'S GUNDAM SKIPLIST
"There's like 500 hours of Gundam. What should I actually watch?"

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"I want to watch only one thing"

* G Gundam (49 eps)

"I want to see a piece of children's television from the seventies and be shocked that a piece of average-budget children's television is this good"

* Gundam 1979 (43 eps) (UC)

"I don't have a lot of time-- can I watch something short?"

* War in the Pocket (6 eps, can stand alone) (UC)

"I don't care about any of this. All I care about is lesbians"

* Witch from Mercury (24 eps)
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"Okay, I'll sit down and watch a hundred-ish hours of television over the next year"

WATCH THESE SERIES IN THIS ORDER

1. Gundam 1979 (43 eps) (UC)

2. Gundam Zeta (50 eps) (UC) (DON'T GET ANGRY WHEN IT GETS MESSY. JUST REVEL IN IT.)

3. G Gundam (FEEL FREE TO INSERT BEFORE #1 INSTEAD)

4. Witch from Mercury (24 eps)

5. War in the Pocket (6 eps) (UC)

6. Char's Counterattack (movie) (UC) (ONLY WATCH IF WATCHED ZETA)

7. Turn A Gundam (50 eps) (UC???)

8. Gundam GQuuuuuuX (12 eps) (UC???)

NOTES

- #1 gains an additional humorous layer if you think about it in terms of the creative team constantly having to negotiate between their artistic goals and what the toy company who sponsored the anime wanted.
- #1 is set in 0079 and released in 1979. #2 is set in 0087 and released in 1985-- in other words, the beloved, canceled mech show that revolutionized anime is returning *with the same amount of time passing for the characters as passed for the audience in the real world*
- If you insert "After War Gundam X" before Turn A, you will probably be pleasantly surprised.
- Turn A was Tomino, the director of Gundam 1979, after his initially-canceled project blew up in to a massive multi-continuity franchise and he worked a lot of his personal stuff out, coming back and really thinking about the franchise he created.
- GQuuuuuuX is, in part, Hideaki Anno, the director of Evangelion which is in many ways a reframing of ideas from Gundam, getting to come in and write "a take" on Gundam.
- Christine Love was given an opportunity to comment on this list before posting. Her only suggestions were that I should actually *remove* Witch from Mercury from the list of 8 above; and that I (Andi, writing this list) really ought to watch After War Gundam X.
- It's not Gundam, but if you finish your life without trying to watch "Legend of the Galactic Heroes", you are missing out.