G Gundam Primer

I’ve gone from having exactly zero model kits from Mobile Fighter G Gundam to having two of them in short order:

I figured it would be a lot easier to write about them if I did a little primer about how mobile suits work in this particular show. Note that this is not a primer on the show in its entirety. I tried doing that in my first draft, and it got real messy real fast.

The Dry Facts

G Gundam was the very first Gundam TV show to take place in an alternate universe, completely separate and distinct from the Universal Century setting that the franchise leaned on for fifteen years. Perhaps in an effort to truly differentiate the show from what came before it, the production staff went out of their way to make its mobile suits unique.

For example:

• Previously, any given show would have one, maybe two Gundams present at once. But in G Gundam, there are lots of Gundam-type mobile suits. As in, "all but a handful of mobile suits in the show are technically Gundams"
• The reason why the show is called Mobile Fighter G Gundam is because the show's primary mobile suits are not your traditional weapons of war.

  In G Gundam, the nations of the world eschew war in favor of holding a planetwide fighting tournament, in which a champion from each nation squares off against other champions in a special mobile suit designed for one-on-one combat. The winning nation then gets to control the Earthsphere for the next four years.

  As a result of this peculiar premise, the Mobile Fighters of G Gundam are built differently than the mobile suits seen throughout the Universal Century. They are still extremely powerful, and thus potentially deadly, but they're not military weapons. They aren't explicitly designed to be deadly, they don't have a ton of long range weapons, and they don't specialize in the types of roles you'd see in military units. Instead, most of them specialize in close range combat - martial arts, grappling, melee weapons, etc.

• In G Gundam, mobile fighters use an interesting variation on the Universal Century's Core Block System. Each one has something called a Core Lander, which is basically a little hover car to help the pilot get around when not fighting: When it comes time to battle, the Core Lander docks with the mobile suit and becomes its backpack.

  It's not a big deal at all in the show - in fact, if I recall correctly, we only really see one of the Core Landers frequently, and I think the docking sequence only shows up in Episode 2. But it's definitely a thing in the setting, and it's also a thing in these two model kits.

• The mobile fighters also have a unique piloting system - the Mobile Trace System. In short, the pilot stands in a large chamber where the cockpit would normally be, and wears the equivalent of a motion capture suit. The mobile fighter will perform any move the pilot performs while wearing the suit; on the flip side, if the mobile fighter receives damage to a certain body part, the system transmits an equivalent amount of pain to the corresponding limb on the pilot.

  It sounds weird, but it's basically a way to allow two human fighters to beat the snot out of each other using giant robots.

• Because these mobile fighters represent their respective nations, their visual design is often flashy rather than practical. At least, that's the nice way of putting it. The other way of putting it is that they're ... um ... based on lots of cheesy, if not downright offensive, ethnic stereotypes. Here's a partial list of some of the Gundams from various countries:

  Granted, not every MS is a potentially racist stereotype. For example, the Nobel Gundam looks the way it does simply because it's pilot is the only woman in the competition, so of course it's designed to look like a sailor suited girl.

The Shuffle Alliance

G Gundam is as much a classic Shonen Tournament Anime as it is a Mecha Anime. That means it does the thing where the main character meets a bunch of rivals who then become good friends and allies. It then goes so far as to make them a full on team who have to join together to defeat the show’s ulitmate Big Bad.

The team is called the Shuffle Alliance, and they’re a pretty big deal. Teams of friendly rivals might be common in tournament anime, but they usually play second fiddle to the story’s true protagonist. That’s kind of true in G Gundam, but perhaps less so than usual. By the end of the show, the strength the Alliance’s bro-itude is so deep that the characters start shedding manly tears for each other.

As a result, fans of G Gundam tend to be big fans of the entire Shuffle Alliance. This is an important thing to keep in mind when it comes to the Gunpla.

Speaking of which …

G Gundam Gunpla (and the Premium Bandai Connection)

This Reddit thread catalogs most of the Gunpla that have come out of G Gundam, and after reading through the list I have a few notable observations:

• A relatively small number of Mobile Fighters from the show have been made into Gunpla
• There is a heavy emphasis on the Shuffle Alliance (which makes sense given their popularity with the fandom).
• The God Gundam in particular gets the most attention by far.
• While it’s not obvious from just looking at the thread, I’m pretty sure most of the kits listed were released in the 90’s. In terms of new Gunpla releases, G Gundam has to be one of the most ignored shows over the last 20+ years.

But all that is beginning to change. Kind of.

In 2022, Bandai put out a Real Grade model of the God Gundam:

This was followed by a brand new, High Grade version of the Gundam Rose in 2023 (sold as a Premium Bandai exclusive):

Followed a few months later by a brand new, High Grade version of the Gundam Maxter (also sold by Premium Bandai):

While nothing is certain, there’s a very good chance that we’ll see new models for the last two members of the Shuffle Alliance, and that they too will be P-Bandai exclusives.

The scuttlebutt online is that these new High Grades were originally meant to be standard retail releases, but that Bandai got spooked and changed their mind after the Real Grade God Gundam sold worse than expected.

I’m not sure I buy that. The God Gundam is the one Mobile Fighter that Bandai doesn’t ignore. I think they probably would have made that Real Grade regardless of whatever plans they may or may not have had for new High Grade kits.

Furthermore, the relative lack of love given to the show’s mobile suits is proof that Bandai knows just how (un)popular the show and its kits are. And it doesn’t make sense that they would change course and assume that somehow this time it would be different, and that these new High Grades would fly off the shelves. Quite the contrary, I think it would make more sense if these new High Grades were always intended to be P-Bandai releases.

What we have here, I think, is a classic example of people who are terminally online forgetting that Internet popularity is not the same as real life popularity¹.

In any case, all this means is that it if we get more G Gundam High Grades, it is going to be harder than usual to get them, but hell if I’m not going to at least try.