Anime / Mobile Suit Gundam AGE

Three destinies will make history.

"It is the space age, hundreds of years after people began to emigrate to space colonies. The wars that were once fought for control of the Earth Sphere had ended, and it seemed that an era of peace had arrived. But this fleeting peace collapsed. A colony was destroyed by a mysterious enemy that suddenly appeared. The curtain was rising on a new battle that would continue over 100 years."

— Opening Narration

Mobile Suit Gundam AGE is another part of the Gundam franchise, which began airing in October 2011 as part of Sunrise's Fall 2011 lineup. This one revolves around three generations of pilots, namely Flit Asuno, his son Asemu, and the latter's son, Kio. A manga, several models, a card game, and a video game are among the merchandise for this incarnation.

The sudden appearance of a hostile force known only as the UE (Unknown Enemy) prompted the Federation to hire Flit Asuno to build the ultimate weapon to beat back the UE: The Gundam AGE-1. As the Hundred Year War rages on between Earth and the UE, Flit, Asemu, and Kio must use the Gundam to defend the Earth.

The first generation begins with Flit, who was allowed to pilot the Gundam when its intended pilot was injured during a UE attack. The destruction of his second home colony lands him on the Diva, piloted by a rogue captain who is determined to battle the UE in defiance of the Federation's sluggish response to the threat. Flit uses the Gundam to protect colonies from the UE and in general to be a savior for humanity. It ends in tragedy and a dark revelation about the true nature of The Federation, and Flit embarks on a lifelong path of vengeance.

The second generation starts twenty-five years later and follows Flit's son, Asemu. He is given the Gundam as a sort of coming-of-age present by Flit on his seventeenth birthday, befriends Zeheart Galette in his last year of school, and is devastated when Zeheart turns out to be a Vagan agent. Although he is kind-hearted by nature, Asemu joins the military to follow and impress his father. Their relationship becomes increasingly strained as their viewpoints on war diverge and Asemu struggles with his continued friendly feelings towards Zeheart.

The third generation follows Kio, Asemu's son and Flit's grandson, who is only thirteen when he inherits the Gundam. The Vagan reveal their Earth-based sleeper agents on the anniversary of their first attack on the Federation and quickly turn Earth into a battlefield. Flit unveils the AGE-3 and puts Kio into it, having secretly trained him with flight simulators, and the Diva is brought out of mothballs to fight the new threat on Earth before returning to space.

Two manga side spin-offs were also made: Mobile Suit Gundam AGE: Treasure Star (Set during the Flit Arc) and Mobile Suit Gundam AGE: Memories of Sid (Set after the Asemu Arc but before the Kio Arc). An OVA entitled Memory of Eden was made after the completion of the show, expanding the story of the Second Generation.

A bit of trivia: Akihiro Hino, the writer of Gundam AGE, is actually the head of the video game company Level-5. Originally, Level-5 was hired by Sunrise to created a Gundam Licensed Game. Hino, who wanted to work with the franchise, wrote a plot summary for what would eventually be approved as this anime. The Level-5 game then became an adaptation of the anime and it was released August 30th in Japan (meaning that it was released before the anime finished). It is an Action RPG for the PSP that comes in two versions. Universe Accel features cameos and Mobile Suits from Universal Century Gundam series in its sidequests, and Cosmic Drive features cameos and Mobile Suits from Cosmic Era and Anno Domini Gundam series. The game follows the same plot as the anime, but also features more content for the series's history and world through optional quests using an original player avatar. It additionally features many more Wears for the AGE suits other than the ones that have appeared in the anime.

There is a character sheet with more details. Please put character-specific tropes there instead of adding them here.

Also notable in AGE is the sheer volume of references and homages to other Gundam timelines, requiring the series to have a separate page for its Mythology Gags. If you are going to add an Expy or Shout-Out of a mobile suit or character that looks like the RX-78-2 or a Char, check there first. It's almost certain to have been added already.

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Mobile Suit Gundam AGE comes with the tropes of:

• The Ace: Woolf "The White Wolf" Enneacle.
• Ace Custom:
  • Woolf's Genoace Custom & G-Exes in Generation 1 and the G-Bouncer in Generation 2.
  • Largan Drace's Genoace count as well after it received some upgrades (better armor, Beam Rifle).
  • Obright's Genoace O-Custom and Abis's Clanche Custom in Generation 3.
• Action Dad: Flit and Asemu eventually.
• Adaptation Distillation: Memory of Eden. Rather than focusing on the overall war, it instead is centered around the relationship between Zeheart and Asemu. It skips around the story quite quickly at times, but it also cuts out a lot of the unnecessary fluff that dragged the series down, and explores Zeheart's character in much greater detail, making his actions at the end of the series much more understandable. It also gave him and Asemu a proper final showdown, rather than the embarrassingly short "fight" they had in the series. The end result is a film that ignores the overall war, treating it as more of a backdrop, in favor of more character-driven drama, and it works.
• The AGE System Is Useless: While some the technology the AGE System produces is eventually mass produced, such as the beam rifles and Adele and Clanche mobile suits, some other technologies it produces as far back as Generation 1 are never disseminated beyond the Diva. The most blatant example would be the Photon Blaster, which is never installed on any other Federation ship despite the fact that it can annihilate entire enemy fleets. This is averted after the war when the AGE System and EXA-DB technologies are employed in something more useful than mass destruction.
  • In the defense of the lack of Photon Blaster mass production, the weapon appears to require connecting to the AGE Builder to employ, which may be a factor into the decision to not mass produce the weapon.
• All There in the Manual: If you expect the Memory Of Eden change the route from the characters, they didn't.
• Alternate Calendar: Years are given in A.G., for Advanced Generation.
• Animal Mecha: The Gafrans can turn into dragons and the Danazine has a dragon design as well.
• The Anime of the Game: Kind of, see the bit of trivia above. Given that the video game adaptation was released before the anime was finished, it arguably became this trope for the last few episodes. A common criticism of the series is that it did a lot of things that would be more acceptable in the video game medium but not in the anime medium.
• Anyone Can Die: Oh yeah. Check Killed Off for Real below for the list.
• Artistic License – Biology: The basic premise of evolution, either natural or induced, is that those who have desirable traits are statistically more likely to survive long enough to pass those traits to the next generation than those who do not. As such, Ezelcant's plan to evolve humanity to be less violent through war makes little sense. Especially given that his side regularly massacres non-combatants - the people who possess the desired trait of not wanting to fight, and therefore should be the people he should be keeping alive to pass that trait on.
• Artistic License – Engineering: The AGE System uses evolutionary design techniques to make the perfect weapon for any situation. While evolutionary design can be used in engineering IRL, it generally isn't for a reason - the whole principle of evolution is to try a bunch of random stuff, see what approaches the desired effect, and then use the best solution as the start point for another round of random experimentation, and so on until a solution is found. The net result of such a design is generally a Black Box that is virtually impossible to understand, let alone repair or maintain. Yet the results of the AGE System are generally streamlined perfected systems instead of kludged together designs that somehow work but no human would ever build that way on purpose.
• Artistic License – Geography: One of the first battles of the third arc takes place in a desert while the Diva is moving to rendezvous with the main fleet at Rostroulan base. Supplementary footage◊ after the next episode preview show the ship's flight path as being currently over northern Canada, while the Gundam AGE Mechanics and World book shows that the battle actually takes place somewhere around the modern-day Arizona/New Mexico.
• Artistic License – Gun Safety: The second attempt to arrest Grodek involves waiting for the Diva to leave port and then ordering him to stand down or else be blown away by three other battleships. This despite the fact that given the geometry, any missed shots will hit a neutral space colony. Nobody calls out the Federation official as being insane for setting up a shot without checking his backstop.
• Artistic License – Space: In the show, the Mars colonization project failed due to the dangers from Mars's magnetic field. Mars does not have a magnetic field, which is the actual danger involved in potential exploration and colonization; the magnetic field around Earth is why life hasn't been scoured away by radiation from the Sun and other cosmic sources.
• Art-Style Dissonance: This series is notorious within the Gundam fandom for pairing a cartoony art style with a rather cynical and mature story.
• Badass Bookworm: Flit Asuno, his son Asem & grandson Kio all of them being skilled MS pilots & engineers. Especially Flit, with him being the original creator of the AGE Gundam, and later proving himself a skilled tactician.
• Badass Family: The Asunos.
• Badass Normal: Woolf Enneacle. No psychic powers, not an X-Rounder, no Gundam to pilot. Just skill & talent when it comes to kicking ass & taking names in an MS.
  • Even more obvious example would be Largan Drace. This so-called Red Shirt manages to hold off a Baqto with just a plain-vanilla Genoace for awhile before he was overwhelmed. Cue Flit's Big Damn Heroes moment in the AGE Gundam Titus.
  • Asemu also ascends into one when angered by Woolf's death, kills Desil in a duel despite his inability to use X-Rounder powers.
• Bash Brothers: After some initial friction, Woolf and Flit start heading towards this. By the time the former gets his hands on the G-Exes, they're a downright terrifying team.
  • Desil and Zeheart are a villainous variant easily double teaming the AGE-2 and G-Bouncer. Subverted in that they do not get along that well — Zeheart even let Desil die.
• Betty and Veronica: Averted in the first generation, since both Yurin (Shrinking Violet) and Emily (Girl Next Door) are both Betties.
  • Gender Flipped in the Second Generation: Asemu is the Betty, while Zeheart is the Veronica.
• BFG: Mukured's Mobile Suit has one.
  • The AGE-2 Double Bullet has two, mounted to/stored in its shoulder-mounted shields. They can also be handheld.
  • The AGE-3 has one called the SigMaxiss Rifle.
  • And the AGE-3 Fortress has FOUR.
• BFS: When the AGE-2 Double Bullet's shoulder cannons are removed and handheld, its shields can generate giant beam sabers similar to the V2 Gundam's Wings of Light.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • Woolf arriving in the G-Exes and pwning a UE suit with just one sword slash!
  • And then again in Episode 13, when Madorna and his friends showed up to stop a piece of the Fa Bose from ramming the Diva—and stop Ract from performing a Heroic Sacrifice.
  • Flit returns to the battlefield in episode 22 to to save Asemu and Woolf from Desil and Zeheart in the good ol AGE-1 Normal.
• Bittersweet Ending: The end of the Second Generation. Loads of characters die on both sides and the Earth suffered its first Vagan invasion. Flit disposes of numerous traitors within the Federation government—because they were trying to negotiate a peace and Flit wants to exterminate all of Vagan. But Asemu finds resolution to the issues he had and marries Romary.
• Black-and-White Insanity: Both Flit and Lord Ezelcant have extremely polarized viewpoints—Flit wants the death of all Vagans and doesn't care why they've become the enemy. Ezelcant has an insane true plan.
• Blade Below the Shoulder: The Gundam AGE-3's beam sabers are mounted in its wrists.
• Blessed with Suck: The X-Rounder, the series' version of the franchise's "Super-Soldier with physic powers" works by literally dumbing down the brain to be more aggressive in combat in exchange for the rationality to make proper decisions. In short, it literally gives you the Idiot Ball.
• Bloodless Carnage: Played straight in the first two episodes, but averted for the rest of the series, starting with Bruzar in Episode 3. Instead....
• Blood from the Mouth: The deaths of major characters almost always include this (or a bleeding scalp wound, for variety) along with large globules of blood floating around them in the cockpit of their crippled mobile suit.
• Butt-Monkey: Desil Galette in season 2.
• Call-Back: In Episode 28, the flight schedules in the background list flights to Fardain, Minsry, and Nora.
• Calling Your Attacks: Done only once with the Gundam AGE-1 Titus. BEAM LARIAT!!
  • Done several times more with the G-Exes, though this is likely because Woolf is something of a Ham.
• The Cavalry: Mukured and his Shaldoll forces who destroy a damaged UE warship attempting to ram the Diva.
• Cheerful Child: Riria. Emily even says so using the exact same wording.
• Cheshire Cat Grin: Grodek can't help but do this when his forces are about to attack the UE in Episode 13.
• Childhood Friend Romance: Flit and Emily.
• Child Soldier: Flit. It's perfectly clear he is turning himself into one; the first hint of that is the sight of the fiery battlefield right after his first kill that saddens him immediately in Episode 1. Understandably, Emily is not taking it well.
  • He also trains his grandson, Kio, into one, with bad consequences for Kio's emotional state.
• Colony Drop:
  • Threatened in episode 27. Zeheart and Asemu avert it in time.
  • The Bisidians threaten Vagan this way in Episode 39, except that the asteroids the pirates use are fake.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Just in case anyone has noticed, the Earth Federation units are painted with bright colors, making them look like the "good" side, while the UE (Vagan) ones are generally darkly colored as the "evil" side.
• Combat Pragmatist: In Episode 22, rather than fight Desil one on one, Flit brings a squad of Federation mooks along with him to guarantee a win.
  This is war! I'll defeat you any way I can!
  • The UE seems to be this, at least in the first episode. One Gafran camps outside the hatch to a hangar, firing at the sortieing Genoace before it has a chance to get out. When the Gundam takes down one Gafran, rather than fight it, the rest retreat and start bombing the colony from outside, after destroying the one that Flit managed to down to prevent it from being analyzed.
  • And in the second episode, when Vargas sends the new Beam Rifle to the Gundam in a capsule, the Gafran immediately tries to shoot it down rather than wait and see what was in it.
  • In Episode 4, we get to see a huge mothership and dozens of purple Gafran, as they show up during a mock-battle between Flit and Woolf. They waited for the right time and launched an excessive force to deal with the Gundam and Genoace Custom, when they only carried non-lethal weapons.
  • In Episode 19, after losing soldiers to the Gundam AGE-2, the Vagan take a soldier hostage to prevent the Gundam from shooting them. Additionally, the Vagan positioned themselves so that the Gundam would hit the Diva if he shot at them.
  • In Episode 30, when Kio receives an upgrade to his SigMaxiss Rifle, Zeheart immediately recognizes the danger and orders all of his mobile suits to concentrate on the Gundam before the rifle can charge. One episode later, the Three Phantoms also try to prevent the AGE-3 from receiving its Fortress wear. In both cases, the Federation pilots are equally savvy and successfully protect the Gundam.
• Combining Mecha: The Gundam AGE-3 heralds the return of the Core Block System.
• Comes Great Responsibility: Part of Bruzar's Final Speech to Flit.
• Coming of Age Story: Age-related pun aside, the first two generations follow this, with the third possibly following suit. However, Flit and Asemu have vastly different character developments.
• Crapsaccharine World: Fardain. In Episode 5, we see the world inside the colony as a shiny, lavish, and seemingly peaceful commercial center. In Episode 6, however, we see the ugly truth behind the mask: there is a war inside this colony that has raged on since the past history in spite of the peace treaty that apparently ended the slaughtering between the two sides, cue Universal Century, and there are also a mass of people living in poverty in an underground ghetto while enduring the rich people who keep being fooled by ideologies or even don't give a damn about the warfare, cue Gundam 00.
• Crapsack World: Yark Dole reveals the entire story to belong to this trope, with its darkness competing with that of the Universal Century timeline all of a sudden.
• Crazy-Prepared: Flit made a battle simulation program for Kio to play, giving him adequate skills for his first sortie in the Gundam!
• Credits Running Sequence: The second ending have Asemu running to a tunnel towards the AGE-2 throughout the sequence. In a more subtle example, Flit, Emily and Dique are briefly shown running in the first opening.
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • The first battle involving the G-Exes and Gundam AGE-1 Titus. Both of them curb-stomp a so-far invulnerable Gafran.
  • Happens again in Episode 10. When Gundam AGE-1 receives the Spallow upgrade, it has very little difficulty in tearing the Zedas limb from limb.
  • Again in Episode 14 after Desil kills Yurin. Flit Flash Steps in the Spallow and curbstomps Desil in just a few moves despite it having lost an arm and a leg.
  • Once again in Episode 26. The victim is the same as the one immediately above, only this time it's Flit's son serving out the curb stomping. And he does what his father couldn't: kill the bastard.
  • Episode 47: After Zanald kills Deen, Kio accesses FX Mode and completely owns him with minimal effort.
  • Episode 48: Asemu and Zeheart's final battle can barely be described as such. Since Zeheart has lost his sanity at this point, he's far less effective and despite being in the Gundam Legilis, Asemu owns him in the AGE-2 Gundam Darkhound despite it being 30 year old tech at that point.
• Cycle of Revenge: The Central Theme of the show is that vengeance begets vengeance.
• Darker and Edgier:
  • After episode 15. The series veers right into UC-style tragedy and gets grimmer from there.
  • The Novelization of the first generation. See here and here for details.
• The Dead Have Names: Zeheart makes it a point to remember the name of every pilot under his command, especially the ones that are killed in action
• Dead Person Conversation: Zeheart in Memory of Eden talk with Desil, Magicians Eight, Yark Dore and see many other Vagans dead;
  • Flit in final episode with Yurin, Woolf, Grodek with X-Rounder power of Kio.
• Despair Event Horizon:
  • Flit suffers a painful one when Yurin dies. This makes him reject the Vagans' humanity and swear revenge.
  • The citizens of Vagan have to endure this as a way of living. The trauma of the poverty, sicknesses, and deaths these citizens go through could put many entries on the Despair Event Horizon page to shame. A space colony without any natural life, those living in Vagan have to live with scarce resources and high crime. Anyone, rich or poor, can be struck with the terminal Mars Rays disease. As children get older, they tend to shut down their emotions because loving unreservedly is too painful. Because of the hopeless nature of their lives back at home, it's no wonder why so many Vagans resent the Earth Federation.
• Disappeared Dad: Asemu.
• The Disease That Shall Not Be Named: There is a risk of disease associated with Mars exploration, and that would be cancer. The planet's lack of a magnetic field means it has no shielding from solar radiation. The show fudges the science and treats it as a fictional ailment, but like real cancer it strikes indiscriminately and is extremely hard to treat.
• Distant Finale: The final scene is set on the centennial of The Day Angel Fell. Gundam AGE-1 is now part of a museum exhibit, and Asemu and Kio, now 78 and 50 years old respectively, are paying a visit to a statue of Flit erected in his honor.
• Doomed Hometown: Flit's birth colony as well as his current home colony.
  • Averted in the second generation. Although Asemu's hometown takes significant damage in a UE attack, neither it nor the colony is destroyed.
  • Played nearly straight in the third generation. Kio's hometown isn't totally destroyed, but it is subjected to a brutal attack on its civilian quarters.
• Downer Ending:
  • The final episode of the First Generation. Despite destroying the Space Fortress Ambat, Grodek gets sentenced to twenty-five years for committing mutiny and the Earth Federation covers up the evidence of the crew's findings about Vagan. Millais, Woolf, and Adams are all shell-shocked from finding out that the UE were people all along while the Earth Federation reveals genocidal motivations by renaming the first battles against Vagan as the War of Bat Extermination, and also showing they haven't learned a damned thing since the year they abandoned the Mars colonists. Moreover, Yurin's death instills an everlasting hatred for the Vagans in Flit while Emily overhears him grieving over his inability to save anyone. Most importantly, however, Sir Ezelcant's forces are alive and well as they prepare for the next step of the war against Earth Federation.
  • In Memory of Eden If you consider Zeheart as a Villain Protagonist from this OVA and they didn't get the Eden, except the tombstone is on Earth with the name from Fram Nara.
• Dual Wielding: Asem's fighting style when he first deploys in the Gundam.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: Despite being a goddamn hero and the former commander in chief of the Federation, Flit is not taken seriously by the Federation commander stationed in Olivernotes.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: The ultimate ending of the series. Flit is finally able to let go of his lifelong hatred, the long war is brought to an end, and the Vagans return to the Earth Sphere where a cure for their disease is eventually found.
• Enemy Mine: Zeheart and Asemu work together to stop the Colony Drop in Episode 27.
  • In the final episode: everyone teams up to stop La Gramis' self-destruct from taking Second Moon down with it, and then both Vagan and Federation suits help Kio fight the berserk SID Gear.
• Evolving Credits:
  • OP 1: The silhouette of AGE-1 Normal is replaced by Titus and Spallow after respective forms appeared. Eventually the Diva is replaced by the silhouetted Gundam AGE-2 Normal in G-Strider mode starting in Episode 12.
  • ED 2: The Gundam AGE-2 Normal is replaced by the Double Bullet starting in Episode 24.
  • OP 3: The Dark Hound is not shadowed and Captain Ash is added starting in Episode 34. Legilis throws away its silhouette by Episode 39.
  • ED 3: Captain Ash appears starting in Episode 34.
• Faceless Mooks: Zigzagged through the generations, which influences the Asuno pilots and the way they see the Vagan.
  • Flit's arc mainly has the UE as machines that show up out of nowhere, trash everything, and then leave. Between that and his first encounter with a Vagan soldier being an Ax-Crazy Child Soldier who kidnaps his love interest, turns her into a war machine component, and gets her killed for giggles, and he is unable to see the Vagan as people.
  • Asemu knew his primary rival personally and had considered him a close friend for years before learning he was Vagan. As such, while he considers them the enemy, he can still see them as people.
  • Kio ends up living a week in Vagan territory, getting to know Vagans living as Vagans rather than pretending to be Earthers, and as a result sees them as people first and foremost and tries to end the war.
• Fake Longevity: The PSP games. To wit:
  • There are innumerable parts that can drop during battle. These parts are necessary for producing blueprints (which in turn let you build the items), producing the items themselves, and also upgrading mobile suit components. Depending on part rarity, this can mean extensively repeating fights over and over again just to get one last part necessary.
  • Weapon proficiency only goes up if you land the fatal hit on an enemy with that particular weapon. Upgrading proficiency thus takes a long time even in the event your wingmen don't killsteal.
  • Crossplay missions eventually require extremely high point levels to be opened up.
• Falling into the Cockpit: Surprisingly averted in a Gundam series. Even though Flit wasn't intended to be the pilot of the Gundam AGE-1, he built the suit and knows how to use it. In the second generation, Flit gives Asemu the AGE device for his birthday and Vargas leads him right to the Gundam when he needs it. He'd also been a hobbyist pilot of lesser mobile suits for years at that point. Likewise, in the third generation, the first thing Kio thinks of to repel the Vagan is to the find the Gundam (which Flit had been secretly training him to pilot for years through a simulator game), and Flit brings it straight to him.
• Fanservice: A controversially cartoonish art style doesn't stop this series from featuring this. Episode 18, for example, shows a photo of Romary in her swimwear.◊
• Filler / Side Story: Two of them.
  • Treasure Star sets during the Flit Arc and tells the story about Daiki Ryuuzaki and the Space Caravan Group Treasure Star on which they were searching for the "Grand Wings", while fighting against the Vagan. Turns out that the Grand Wings Is a Time Machine and Daiki's Father is from the Third Generation, just got thrown to the past. Of course, this one is questioned if it set in the same universe.
  • Memories of Sid explains more about Bisidian and Asemu's disappearance in his last and final mission. And explains more about the EXA-DB and Sid.
• Fire-Forged Friends: Flit and Woolf.
• Flash Step: What the Spallow can do.
• Foregone Conclusion:
  • It's pretty much a given that neither Flit nor Asemu will be able to end the war with the UE.
  • From the physical appearances of Flit's son and grandson, it's pretty obvious who the Official Couples are going to be.
• Foreshadowing: Desil Galette was first introduced in Episode 5 named "The Demon Boy." Guess what Desil turned out to be.
  • And one more featuring the same character in the second generation. Episode 22's Gundampedia noted that the Khronos (Desil's personal mobile suit) was rumored to have the ability of controlling allied mobile suits. He uses this ability in Episode 26 to pin Asemu down.
• Forever War: The war against Vagan lasts seventy years and three generations. That said, it's implied that the intensity of the war fluctuates considerably, with the three generation arcs being when the severity of the war spikes.
• Freudian Trio: Flit (id), Asemu (ego), Kio (superego).
• Gambit Roulette: Aaron Simmons predicted Reina Spriggan's reaction to having her boyfriend killed during a deliberate testing "accident" and a cover-up with surprising accuracy, which sure is handy when her defection and hatred of the Feddies was a key part of his plan to turn Luna Base over to Vagan.
• Generational Saga: The format of the series. In addition to the Asunos, the Gunhales have had a representative in each generation, and supporting characters from the generation previous often return.
• Generation Xerox:
  • The three protagonists. Specifically, Asemu and Kio are male xeroxes of their mothers.
  • Also, Dique and Wootbit Gunhale. The latter looks exactly like the former did at the same age, only with blond hair, and both fill the same role. Wootbit's just not as friendly to his Asuno counterpart.
• Gratuitous English: "Supah Pairotto!" Thanks for that, Woolf.
• Grey-and-Gray Morality:
  • The Federation versus Vagan. The Federation set the stage for war by abandoning their failed Mars colony. Several generations of corruption and editing of history in their favor have now been replaced with Flit's unflinching anti-Vagan sentiments. Vagan, while having a sympathetic cause, began the war without warning, targets civilian colonies, and refuses Federation efforts to negotiate peace.
  • On a smaller scale, Euba vs. Zalam in Fardain have a miniature Cycle of Revenge continuing from generations ago. Flit gets them to knock it off.
• Grievous Harm with a Body: Asemu in Gundam AGE-1 used a Dorado's severed arm with its beam saber still active to destroyed another Dorado.
• Hair Color Spoiler: See Foregone Conclusion above.
• Happily Married: Flit and Emily in the twenty-five year timeskip between Generations 1 and 2. Asemu and Romary are married in Episode 28.
• Heroic Sacrifice:
  • Bruzar sacrifices himself to get Nora's colony core free when it collapses.
  • Woolf dies taking the blow from Desil Galette meant for Asemu, saddening all his wingmen and enraging Asemu.
  • Remi dies shortly after putting her workloader between Mink's Zedas M and the Diva's bridge.
  • Shanalua Mullen's Clanche is crushed when she destroys a Wrozzo that would probably have taken out the Gundam, due to Kio's Heroic BSoD.
• He Who Fights Monsters: Flit tumbles into this at the tender age of fourteen.
• Hidden Agenda Villain:
  • Who are the UE? What do they want? No one is quite sure. Grodek seems to figure it out midway through Generation 1, but the audience doesn't get to share. Episode 15 has The Reveal: 150 years before the start of the series, the Earth Federation abandoned support for the human colonies in Mars after an outbreak of a disease. Those who survived felt double-crossed by the Federation and formed the nation of Vagan. YMMV on whether or not their plight is sympathetic enough to warrant their atrocities.
• History Repeats: Near the end of Flit's arc, Yurin is stabbed and killed by Desil, causing Flit to enter an Unstoppable Rage, and slices Desil's suit to pieces, but sparing him. 26 years later, Desil kills Woolf in a similar manner, followed by Asemu going berserk and slashing Desil's suit apart limb by limb and finishing the job by blasting the remains into molten space dust.
  • In Episode 34, Kio is held by two enemy suits the exact same way that Asemu was by Desil. Asemu shoves him out of the way in the exact same way that Woolf saved him... only he turns around and guts Glat before he can get stabbed in the back. Woolf would be proud.
• Hope Is Scary: According to Ezelcant, children are the only ones in Vagan who let themselves freely feel emotion. They learn to be stoic and jaded as they grow up, because loving unreservedly is too painful when those people are likely to die of disease and/or poverty.
• Human All Along: The Unknown Enemy, also known as Vagan.
• Humongous Mecha: Gundam series. Duh.
• The Hundred Years War: Just like the real one, it was waged for much less time, 64 years exactly. But at least they spent the remaining 36 years rebuilding.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: Zeheart is jealous of Asemu's chance at getting to fall in love, marry, and have children.
• I Let Gwen Stacy Die: Flit will never get over the fact that he was unable to stop Desil from killing Yurin.
• Idiot Ball: Gets passed around quite a bit, but it's almost an Asuno family heirloom.
• Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: The guards who attack Woolf in the factory in Episode 23.
• Improbable Age:
  • Despite stiff competition from other series, Flit, the fourteen-year-old weapons designer on the military's payroll, may win the all-time achievement record for Gundam protagonists when it comes to this trope.
  • Flit is out done in his own series by the seven year old Desil who not only jacks the AGE-1 for a joyride, but is also the pilot of the UE MS Zedas and commands their forces in one battle. (By generation 2, however, his capricious attitude is too self-destructive for Vagan and he lacks any real authority.)
  • Zeheart gets this, too. At age 18, he's put in command of the Earth Occupation Forces. He even outranks his older brother!
• Instant Expert: The AGE system may be able to make the perfect weapon/suit mod for any scenario, but no explanation is given for how the pilots are able to come up with a piloting style to effectively use something they'd never seen before on the spot, or even figure out what all the features they use in said style are. The weapons don't exactly come with a manual, and they generally are first deployed in situations where there wouldn't be time to read one anyway.
• Intergenerational Friendship: Flit and Woolf, Asemu and Woolf, Kio and Seric.
• Irony: As the Third Generation rolls in, it's pretty clear that Vagan boasts a technologically advanced military. And then Episode 37 shows life within the actual capital city... which is a primitive, impoverished desert city that shares quite a few similarities to Cappadocia. To call the difference between civilian life and military within Vagan jarring would be an understatement.
  • Also at the beginning of the Third Generation, when Flit asks for the launch of the Diva (which is at that point in time an antique and Flit has also left the military, only holding merit as the former commander-in-chief of the Federation), another high-ranking officer puts together a ragtag crew of half-dead pilots and rookies, even giving a complete amateur Nice Girl the position of captain, for it out of pure spite. Series veterans should know that the Diva's new crew will likely wind up turning the tide in the war.
• I Was Quite a Looker: As of Generation 2, Flit has long since kissed his cute boy days goodbye.
• It's Personal: Flit and Desil. Twenty-five years later, the grudge is still going strong.
• Jumping Off the Slippery Slope:
  • Yurin's death caused Flit to do this. From age fourteen well into his sixties, his hatred for the Vagan is so strong that his main goal in life is to exterminate all of them. His words.
  • The UE/Vagan did this circa A.G. 108, when they started wiping out colonies full of civilians in their campaign to retake Earth.
• Just Eat Gilligan: If the Vagan had simply returned to Earth on Second Moon immediately instead of being terrorists by destroying civilian colonies, there wouldn't be much of a war with their superior technology, Earth lacking their Gundam technology and the element of surprise.
• Killed Off for Real: With all the homages AGE pays to previous entries of the franchise, it's only natural that it would be just as eager to kill off its cast.
  • Generation 1: Marina Asuno^note Flit's mom, Commander Hendrick Bruzar, Don Boyage, Yurin L'Ciel, Yark Dole.
  • Generation 2: Grodek Ainoa, Woolf Enneacle, Desil Galette, Remi Ruth, Daz Roden, The Magicians 8, Froi Olfenoa, Medel Zant.
  • Generation 3: Deymon Large, Shanalua Mullen, Glat Otto, Lu Anon, Girard Spriggan, Godom Tyneham, Seric Abis, Deen Anon, Fram Nara, Zanald Beihart, Zeheart Galette, Obright Lorain, all of the Diva's Mauve Shirt pilots and some Bisidian Red Shirts.
• Kill the Cutie: Because, again, Gundam.
  • Generation 1: While stopping Desil from killing Flit, Yurin's UE mobile suit gets Impaled with Extreme Prejudice and explodes in front of Flit.
  • Generation 2: Mink kills Remi Ruth by attacking her unarmed repair unit in episode 27.
• Lensman Arms Race:
  • Thanks to the AGE Builder, the Diva is pretty much a one-ship Lensman Arms Race, developing massively powerful new weapons after receiving only a single battle's worth of combat data.
  • Likewise, the Vagan seem to be able to produce newer and more powerful mobile suits at a faster pace than the regular Federation forces.
  • Implied to have been taken to an even farther extent in the previous wars, where a pilot could control hundreds of mobile suits at once, and it's been mentioned that a single mobile suit from that era could probably outclass every currently existing armed force in both the Earth and Mars spheres.
• Lightning Bruiser:
  • The G-Exes. Fast and maneuverable, can take it and dish it out pretty good thanks to good armor, a strong shield and two hideously powerful beam-sabers.
  • The bad guys have the Zedas, piloted by psycho-child Desil Galette which is as fast & strong as the AGE-1 Spallow.
  • Generation 2's Vagan has the Zeydra, specifically designed to keep up with Zeheart's X-Rounder abilities.
  • The Gundam AGE-2 Normal can be considered one due to being fast & strong. But the one that takes the prize would be the Mid-Season Upgrade of AGE-2, the Double Bullet.
  • The Gundam AGE-3 in its entirety is this. Despite being the physically largest of the three regular Gundams, it has surprising agility and maneuverability (able to glide around melee strikes on a city street) and excellent speed thanks to its massive thrusters, and is also armed with a miniaturized version of the Diva's Photon Blaster Cannon. The Fortress equipment gives it hovering abilities for gliding across the ground at high speeds, and is armed with four SigMaxiss Cannons. The Orbital equipment is the fastest yet, matching the Ghirarga for speed and armed with a rifle that fires homing sword beams.
  • The Gundam AGE-FX, full stop. It is specifically mentioned to have been built to be as fast as possible and armed with a multitude of extremely quick C-Funnels. It's also armed with the Stangle Rifle, which has two firing modes and the weakest of which is on par with the Gundam AGE-3's SigMaxiss Rifle. Not to mention Gundam AGE-FX is extremely durable. FX Burst Mode managed to reflect Xamdrag cannon.
  • SID. The Mobile Armor has more firepower than a warship and moves so fast that even the Gundam Legilis and AGE-2's Strider mode can barely keep up with it.
• Lighter and Softer: Averted. The "kiddy" art style doesn't stop the show from featuring its fair share of deaths or depict the Federation as still a corrupt organization. The scenes of large-scale battles throughout the series are no more sanitized than those in other Gundam shows either.
• Love at First Sight: Flit and Yurin.
• Love Hurts:
  • First Generation: Flit and Yurin, and Good God does it hurt.
  • Second Generation: Obright and Remi, AND HOW.
  • Third Generation: Kio and Lu. OH MAN, Kio and Lu.
• Love Triangle:
  • Flit with Emily and Yurin. Emily wins. Though it's doubtful she'd revel in the victory... I mean, is it really winning when your love rival—the one Flit seemed to have more romantic feelings for—is killed? And considering the scene with Flit and Yurin's pink ribbon, the girl's very aware of it, and not exactly happy? Something of a Pyrrhic Victory, really.
  • For the Second Generation, Romary with Asemu and Zeheart. Romary wavers a lot but eventually chooses Asemu and they marry in episode 28.
• Lost Technology/Omniscient Database: EXA-DB. It contains information on every weapon used prior to the Silver Chalice Treaty. Vagan's mobile suit and warship technology comes from a fragment that Ezelcant found decades ago.
• Mauve Shirt: The Diva mobile suit squadron of Generation 3. Rather than the oddball trio of G1 or the New Meat squad of G2, they are simply competent, experienced pilots and come off as generic thanks to their lack of screentime (usually, at least). They're all dead by the penultimate episode.
• Meet Cute: Yurin for Flit. Romary for Asemu. Lu for Kio.
• Mid-Season Upgrade:
  • Woolf replaces his nearly out-dated Genoace Custom during the middle arc of the first generation with the G-Exes.
  • Asemu gets an example of this, too, when he switches from the Gundam AGE-1 to the AGE-2, then to the Double Bullet.
  • And on the villains' side, Zeheart upgrades from the Zedas R to the Zeydra.
  • Kio then upgrades from the AGE-3 to the AGE-FX.
  • The fourth opening shows that the AGE-1 is going to get a "Full Armor" type upgrade so Flit can keep up with the younger members of the Asuno family.
  • In Episode 44, Zeheart inherits Lord Ezelecant's Gundam Legilis.
• Mighty Glacier: The AGE-1 Titus is right out of the textbook: hits like a brick wall with fists in ground combat, easily outmaneuvered by nimbler units in space battle.
• Militaries Are Useless:
  • The Federation Navy is so ineffective in the First Generation that Grodek has to literally pirate the Diva to get them to even attempt to save the population of a colony that is in imminent danger of being lost with all hands, and then takes the crew on a long-term mutiny so he can actively prosecute the war. They improve in later generations, as the main characters are officially connected to them now.
  • Given how easily the Vagans can smuggle sleeper agents and their mobile suits into Earth territory - to the point of sneaking an entire batallion of suits into Olivernotes at the start of Generation 3 - Federation Military Intelligence is pretty much useless across the board.
• The Mole: Over the course of the war, the Vagan have infiltrated countless moles and sleeper agents into the Federation. Zeheart initially started as one, and Shanalua Mullen turns out to be a Federation native working as one.
• Multiform Balance: The Gundam AGE-1's Normal, Titus and Spallow modes.
• My Greatest Failure: See I Let Gwen Stacy Die.
• Narrator All Along: Flit.
• Ninja: The Gundam AGE-1 Spallow.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Ezelcant delivered not one, but two major ones to Kio in Episode 39 with his new Gundam Legilis.
• No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup: Despite the AGE System being the only real tech advantage the Federation has against the Vagan, in seventy years of fighting, they only have one AGE Builder, which can only take in combat data from one source at a time, which stays permanently parked on a warship that gets progressively more obsolete as the series goes on.
• Not Worth Killing: Despite the Zedas outpacing Gundam Titus, Desil gets bored and orders the UE to retreat.
  • The same thing happens in Episode 20 when Zeheart defeats Asemu.
• Older Hero vs. Younger Villain:
  • Probably the most twisted example ever with Flit versus Desil. The former is a maturing fourteen-year-old kid aware of his own limits; the latter is an arrogant and selfish 7-year-old Ax-Crazy Blood Knight.
  • Averted with Asemu and Zeheart in the Second Generation. They are exactly the same age. until they put Zeheart on cold sleep and they follow the trope in the Third Generation
  • Inverted with Kio vs. Zeheart. Also inverted with Kio vs. Ezelcant.
• Our Dragons Are Different: The UE's Mobile Suits can transform into dragon-like flight mode, and among them, the Danazine is a straight-out bi-pedal mechnical dragon.
• Ominous Latin Chanting: In the opening crawl for the Third Generation.
• "On the Next Episode of..." Catch-Phrase: "Three destinies will form history..."
• Perspective Flip: Asemu in first part and Zeheart in second part from Memories of Eden.
• Psychic Powers: The X-Rounders, which at first seem to be a fairly basic and near identical Newtype equivalent. And then people start talking about it being a regression in humanity, rather than the next step in their evolution.
• Punny Name: The Adeles have the ability to use the AGE-1's add-ons. Unless you're one of those people who thinks they're named after a famous singer.
• Puppy Love: Overlapping with Star-Crossed Lovers. Kio Asuno (Earth) and Lu Anon (Vagan) from the Third Generation, both of whom are only 13 years old when they meet. Sadly, it doesn't make them exempt from Gundam's Love Hurts tradition, as seen by Lu's heartbreaking death in Episode 38.
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: The Third Generation Diva crew.
• Ramming Always Works:
  • Zigzagged with Don Boyage's Heroic Sacrifice. It fails to do any damage to the enemy ship, but the sheer badassery he displays in his final charge succeeds in rallying troops that were on the verge of routing.
  • Narrowly averted. Madorna's Shaldolls destroy the fragment of Fa Bose left, stopping it from ramming the Diva.
  • Also averted for Ract, who was actually going to ram his own Mobile Suit into the fragment's engine, to stop it so it wouldn't hit the Diva.
• Rescue Romance:
  • Flit's and Yurin's meeting leads to this.
  • This is played with in the Second Generation, as Romary is saved by both Asemu and Zeheart at different times. Asemu rescues Romary when she's injured during a Vagan attack, and Zeheart rescues Romary from getting hit by a wrench. She distinctly blushes at the latter.
• Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: Aaron Simmons suffers a Karmic Death at the hands of Fram after she finds out he murdered two Vagan guards to escape the Federation assault on Luna Base.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Seems to run through the Asuno bloodline, specifically:
  • Flit tearing into Desil after he kills Yurin. Though he spares him rather than strike a finishing blow.
  • Asemu, also against Desil, this time after he kills Woolf. No mercy is shown to him this time.
  • Kio unleashes FX Burst on Zanald after he kills Deen. Like his grandfather, Kio spared his enemy at the last second.
  • Zeheart goes on one in episode 48, after he sees the Gundams had survived the attack he sacrificed a good deal of his forces, including his closest Lieutenants, to pull off. Unfortunately for him, his does not go nearly as well as any of the Asunos'.
• Rule of Three
• Satellite Love Interest:
  • Emily, and to a lesser extent, Romary. Emily's only concern seems to be Flit, and she barely even interacts with her grandfather. Romary has more screentime, but her role is overshadowed by the rivalry between Asemu and Zeheart. Their absence in subsequent generations makes it painfully obvious that they were only included for their ovaries.
  • Wendy is the presumed love interest for Kio, but only through various love interest signal flags shared with her predecessors (her appearance in the ED and prior friendship with Kio) and not any kind of actual romantic expression. Or screentime. However, her role is somewhat expanded in the -UNKNOWN SOLDIERS- side story. She is now providing support by controlling Gundam AGE-FX A-Funnel Equipment Type's eponymous weapons and working on improving their AI system.
• Secret-Keeper: Romary to Asemu.
• Senseless Sacrifice: Fram's sacrifice in order to lure the Gundams into the La Gramis' Wave-Motion Gun fails utterly when they manage to escape the trap anyways. Zeheart does not take this well.
• Serial Escalation: What will be the next evolution of AGE System?
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: Grodek, Flit as of Episode 14, Woolf in Generation 2, Obright and Shanalua in Generation 3.
  • Kio shows some pretty major signs of PTSD as the war comes to a close, including staring numbly at the devastation left behind by the Photon Blaster during the final battle, culminating in finally breaking down and crying after his fight with Deen.
• Shoulders of Doom: The Gundam AGE-1 Titus has those. Notice the 4 holes in each of its shoulder-pads? Those are actually Beam Spikes stored in the shoulders, placed ideally for tackling the enemy.
• Shout-Out:
  • In Episode 13, Woolf quotes Kamina.
    Largan: "Woolf, do you...Do you have a girlfriend?"
    Woolf: "A girlfriend? Of course I do. She's a pure white princess (probably referring to his G-Exes here)."
    Largan: "Then, make sure she won't get hurt."
    Woolf: "Who the hell do you think I am?"
  • The revelation of the UE actually being people fighting for Vagan is strikingly similar to the big reveal in Martian Successor Nadesico.
  • Flit's Second Generation portrayal is already being compared to Gendo Ikari.
  • It's not hard to find yourself comparing Romary to Mary-Jane Watson.
  • In Episode 20, Zeheart uses an Inazuma kick.
    • Some have also compared it to a Rider Kick.
    • And still others would have called it a RED HOT KICK either way nice.
  • In the First Generation, Flit wanting revenge on the UE/Vagan for the death of his mother is very similar to Tetsuro Hoshino wanting revenge on Count Mecha for the death of his own mother.
  • In Episode 26, the Diva uses a weapon system called the "Photon Ring Ray", which is a large ring used to amplify the beam fired by the Diva's Photon Blaster Cannon. It is basically a lower-tech version of the Double Shooting Warship Takehaya's Reflector Cannons.
    • Another: In Episode 29, Kio is told to push the G-Button to combine the Core Fighter with the G-Ceptor, and does it exactly like Utsugi Mikoto would do it; by hitting it as hard as possible.
  • The Ghirarga's bits look a bit too much like Axel Shooter to be a coincidence.
  • There seem to be a number of references to Space Runaway Ideon:
    • Guavaran's eating habits are the same as those of Hannibal Gen, a Buff Clan General Of The Week.
    • Obright and Remi's talk of a family aboard the Diva is similar to conversation between Moera and Rapoh on the Solo Ship. Their stories end more or less the same way.
    • Girard's almost-last words are the same as Bridge Bunny Hatari's.
  • The Diva, when transformed into Assault Mode, looks very similar to White Base from the original series.
• Signature Style: There are numerous parallels one can find between AGE and Hino's previous game Jeanne d'Arc. For starters, the fact the conflict is called the Hundred Years War.
• Sliding Scale of Silliness vs. Seriousness: The first parts of Generations 1 and 2 seem geared more towards silliness, with lots of comic relief and hijinks interspersed between battles. The end of those arcs turns firmly into Serious. Generation 3 has some initial silliness with the Diva's ragtag crew, but is mostly serious.
• Space Pirates: Bisidian.
• Spectacular Spinning: The AGE-1's DODS Rifle fires a beam that spins, increasing its penetrating power.
• Spell My Name With An S: Depending on who you ask, the protagonist's name is either Frite or Flit (the official translation seems to be the latter).
  • Also, fans are having trouble deciding if the antagonists' nation is named Vagan, Veigan, or Vegan.
  • The Second Generation's protagonist has conflicting spelling as well. Some say it's Asem, others say it's Asemu.
  • Adeles/Adders.
  • Sparrow/Spallow.
  • Farsia/Farseer.
  • Visidian/Bisidian.
  • Legilis/Regulus Gundam.
  • Wendy's last name is either Hearts or Hertz, depending on who you ask.
  • Sid/Shido/Cid. Oddly, Gundam Info uses Sid while the subs use Shido.
• Stealth Pun: All that talk about aliens in the series. Well turns out the UE really are Martians.
• Stock Sound Effects
  • The Gundam AGE-1's Beam Spread Gun uses the laser-firing sound effect from Star Wars.
  • The Gafrans wield beam vulcans that fire with the same sound as the plasma pistols in Halo.
  • For once, Sunrise actually didn't reuse the same few sound effects from the original series.
  • The Photon Blaster Cannon makes the exact same noise as GENESIS.
    • This should come as no surprise though, since AGE uses the same sound effect set^note (Everything from Beam weapons, gatling guns, vernier thrusters and explosions) as those used in SEED and the later.
• They Call Him "Sword": In Memory of Eden we have Asemu piloting Gundam AGE-1 Swordia.
• Suicide Mission: Fram is given one to lure the Gundams into the La Gramis' Wave-Motion Gun, a mission that would get her in the way of the cannon's fire. She does so, all so she could get Zeheart to change back to the kind man she knew. It doesn't work.
• Super Mode: The AGE-FX has one: FX Burst Mode. The machine glows blue and beam sabers erupt out of every conceivable point on its frame. It gains a tremendous speed boost and near immunity to beam attacks, as the numerous beam sabers apparently generate some kind of interference field. The problem is that it cannot be activated for very long, and that its destructive potential is too great: Kio doesn't want to use it because it's too difficult to disable the enemy without destroying them while it's active.
• Super Prototype: The Gundams, of course, as well as Woolf's G-Exes.
• Taking You with Me: Daz attempts to do this to Flit in Episode 27 after having his mobile suit split in two. He almost succeeded. On the other hand, Godom and Fram had more success with this on Seric and Olbright.
• Teen Genius: Flit Asuno.
• There Are No Therapists: Young Flit, Asemu, and Romary (among others) seem in desperate need of one. Too bad this is Gundam.
• This Is Unforgivable!: Flit declares that he will never forgive the UE for using and killing Yurin.
• Time Skip: There are twenty-five years between each generation, but there's also a three-month timeskip between the end of episode 39 and episode 40.
• Three Successful Generations: Flit as The Patriarch, Asemu as the Self-Made Man and Kio as the promising rookie.
• Throwing Your Sword Always Works: Asemu throws a beam saber to distract a Dorado before finishing the said Vagan mobile suit with his other beam saber.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Flit gets nastier and more obsessed with crushing the Vagan with every Generation.
• Tragic One-Shot Character: Lu in the end of 3rd arc.
• Trailers Always Lie: At the end of Episode 8, we are shown a new UE model hiding in the factory that builds customized mobile suits including G-Exes, leading the audience to suspect that it has been working for the UE all along. In the next episode, however, it is revealed that the crew has been UNKNOWINGLY working for the UE until they realize something is dead wrong in the combat record of the UE model. They get better after this.
• Transforming Mecha: The Gafrans.
  • The Gundam AGE-2 as well.
  • The Gundam AGE-3 too, sort of. It doesn't transform as much as the AGE-2, rather the arms and legs fold up into a flight-mode, stretching out to become the body which the Core Fighter then transforms into the Head and Cockpit for.
  • The Federation's new Clanche is a straighter example, being developed directly from the AGE-2.
• Transformation Is a Free Action: In Episode 31 "Tremble In Fear - Ghosts of the Desert", this trope is averted as while Kio performs the mid-air conversion with the G-Hopper, the bad guys attempt to shoot them down while they're doing it. However, Flit intervenes and the conversion is successfully executed.
• The Purge: The second generation ends with one of Vagan collaborators within the Federation as part of a coup.
• The Uriah Gambit: When Desil disobeys orders during the battle at Nortrom and engages the Gundam, Zeheart deliberately withholds reinforcements, which leads to Desil's defeat and death. His subordinates then accuse him of invoking this trope in order to conveniently get rid of him, but he points out that they probably would have ended up as Canon Fodder if he'd allowed them to assist.
  • In Episode 30, the Olivernotes commander deliberately assigns the worst crew he can find to the Diva, as well as promoting an inexperienced lieutenant into captaincy long before she is ready for such responsibility. He seems to this all for the purpose of spiting Flit.
  • In Episode 48, Zeheart fires La Gramis' cannon, knowing that Zanald, who has proved himself to be a traitorous bastard, would be caught in the blast.
• The Usual Adversaries: The UE.
• Unstoppable Rage: Each protagonist does this once, in each case on the enemy who just killed someone important—Flit to Desil, Asemu to Desil, and Kio to Zanald. Kio, however, subverts it with Stoppable Rage and doesn't deliver a death blow.
• Villainous Breakdown:
  • Desil Galette does not take losing well at all. Just look at the mess he made in his room after losing to the Gundam Spallow in Episode 10!
  • Even worse after Desil killed Yurin; he brings out Flit's full potential in the Spallow. Meaning he gets curbstomped. Especially worth noting because he's an Ax-Crazy Blood Knight, and Flit's counterattack reduces him to a sobbing mess.
  • Aaron Simmons, who when it looks like the Federation has even breached the base, hands control of the base to subordinate claiming he will return, then proceeds to kill two guards to escape the base all while ranting how he doesn't want to die after his successful Gambit Roulette.
  • Zeheart, after failing to kill the Gundams with his final La Gramis blast that annihilates all in its path, friend and foe alike, snaps and tries to take out the Gundams with Legilis and meets his own demise.
• Voodoo Shark: A major one surfaces in Generation 3. Halfway through the planning period for the show, the writers seem to have noticed that Lord Ezelcant's two stated objectives (reclaiming the Earth for Vagan and testing the worthiness of the Federation's citizens) didn't exactly gel. Consequently, they had him reveal his real plan, which was even more nonsensical and self-contradictory (evolving humanity into a peaceful, utopian master race by killing most of them off).
• The War of Earthly Aggression: Once the Gundam became the Diva's ace-in-the-hole, the Earth Federation rebranded their war against the UE (aka Vagan) as the War of Bat Extermination and went into open warfare.
• Was It All a Lie?: Asem demands this of Zeheart, who wishes they could have remained friends.
• Wave-Motion Gun: The Diva's Photon Blaster Cannon is definitely one.
  • Big Ring's Photon Ring Ray is a Wave-Motion Gun powered by the Photon Blaster Cannon.
  • The AGE-3's SigMaxiss Rifle is a smaller, MS-mounted version of the Photon Blaster Cannon.
    • And then the AGE-3 Fortress tops it by combining all four of its SigMaxiss Cannons to form a shot similar to the Satellite Cannon.
    • And because that just wasn't enough, it gets a one-shot upgrade into an even bigger gun to kill a Vagan battleship.
  • Vagan reveal one of their own in Episode 29, which decloaks and vaporizes the Big Ring in about two seconds to kick off their invasion of Earth.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Both Flit and Ezelcant can be considered these. Ezelcant is willing to do anything to take Earth for the Vagan, while Flit is certain the only way to protect Earth is the complete extermination of all Vagan.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Asemu enters mobile suit contests and excels in school so he could attract his father's attention. When he joins the Federation, he focuses on being just as good of a mobile suit as his father in order to impress him. Woolf tries to teach Asemu to be his own man and not to be confined by his father's accomplishments.
• Wham Episode:
  • Episode 8's last scene of a UE being built in a facility was but an appetizer to how big episode 9 would be. A UE Zedas outclasses the Titus, making a new Gundam obsolete in record time. Moreover, the episode reveals that Desil's calling the shots for the UE and, most importantly, Grodek convinces his crew to break off from the Federation's forces. Talk about a dramatic buildup!
  • After much tension of the first part of the battle, Episode 13 gives the audience one more sudden shock by revealing Yurin as a manipulated X-Rounder soldier by the UE at the end. (Unless you've seen enough Gundam shows to know what happens to the newtype-y love interest. Then it's more of a Foregone Conclusion.)
  • Two words: Episode 15. We finally realize that the UE are actually people belonging to the nation of Vagan, but also learn the reasons why they are fighting against the Earth Federation. After watching this episode, you may find yourself sympathizing with those from Vagan.
  • Episode 29. First, Big Ring is destroyed. This signals the Vagan forces sent to Earth in Episode 27 finally reveal themselves, rapidly turning Earth from a peaceful paradise into a battleground.
  • Episodes 37 and 38. We finally get to see what life within Vagan is like. Prepare yourself for the series' most sobering episodes yet.
  • Episode 39. The truth behind Ezelcant's Project Eden is revealed. Gundam Legilis is also introduced, giving the AGE-3 not one, but two No-Holds-Barred Beatdowns.
  • Episode 48. To whit, Zeheart fires La Gramis' cannon again to destroy the Gundams, but also taking out a significant portion of his own forces who are in the way, ordering Fram and Leil to keep the Gundams from fleeing, even though this means their deaths as well. The Federation is forced to abandon the Diva so it can be used as bait to draw the cannon's fire. Obright makes a Heroic Sacrifice that ends up killing Fram as well, and the three Gundams work together to escape the laser blast (which incidentally also takes out Zanald). When Zeheart realizes he's just sacrificed the bulk of his forces-including his two loyal subordinates-for nothing, he snaps, and enters the battle in Gundam Legilis, where he is quickly and swiftly defeated by Asemu, reconciles with his friend, and then dies as Legilis explodes.
• Wham Line: Zeheart at the end of episode 43:
  Zeheart: We're heading back. Second Moon has reached the Earth Sphere.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Some characters seem to have been completely forgotten about after every generation change, such as Largan...unless you read Memories of Sid.
  • Speaking of Memories of Sid, we have Wivik in the 3rd Generation. Now, just where the hell is he?
  • In Generation 3, Laraparly Madorna seems to be running the business without Murkured, so some fans have hypothesized that he died of old age between generations.
• What Measure Is a Mook?:
  • Episode 15 has a heartbreaking example when Woolf runs into a dying Vagan soldier. Learning the truth about his people and befriending him, Woolf is given a Vagan necklace just before the soldier dies in his arms. Sorry, I got something in my eye...
  • In Generation 3, Zeheart makes a point of knowing the names of soldiers who die under his command, just like Treize Khushrenada.
• What the Hell, Hero?: The three Asunos lash this out against one another in the fourth arc, with Flit despising Asemu for turning into a pirate, and Asemu and Kio questioning Flit's Messiah work by exterminating all the Vagans.
• Worf Effect: While Asemu is perfectly capable of handling Vagan mooks, the early Second Generation episodes show him continually getting curbstomped by Zeheart.
  • A lot of Federation mobile suits that aren't the Gundam or piloted by Woolf fall victim to this too. They're somewhat less hopeless in Generation 2 and more on the level in 3, most likely due to the Federation being caught off-guard by the Unknown Enemy in the first place.
  • The "Magicians' Eight", a squadron of elite Vagan X-Rounders, spend most of the episodes they show up in getting continually and rather easily picked off and killed by the protagonists.
  • By the point of the Third Generation, the Defurse, which was able to give the Gundam AGE-1 a tough fight, is easily one shotted by the AGE-3.
  • Big Ring, which is the lynchpin of Earth's final line of defense, easily holds off a massive Vagan offensive in the 2nd Generation. However, come the Third Generation, the station is quickly destroyed in the opening minutes of Episode 29.
• World Half Full: Subverted like whoa from Episode 15 onwards.
• Wrestler in All of Us: The Gundam AGE-1 Titus's weapons loadout is specifically built around giving wrestling moves that little extra kick, making it perhaps the only Humongous Mecha in existence to utilise the 'beam lariat'.
• Yes-Man: Don Boyage is always accompanied by two guys whose primary duty appears to be shouting "Yes! The Don is Right!" in unison whenever he makes a pronouncement.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Arabel's fate. Shortly after he stabs Grodek he is shot by unknown people as part of their cover-up of something within the Federation. The one that shoots him tells him they don't need him anymore.
• You Killed My Family:
  • Flit's (initial) hatred of the UE comes from watching his mother die during an attack on their colony.
  • Grodek's wife and daughter were killed in the very first UE attack, and he has no other purpose in life but to avenge them.
  • Arabel's attitude towards Grodek. Grodek knows that Arabel will ruin his own life in order to pursue revenge, which he eventually does in Episode 24.

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