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Franchise / Gundam

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The brand of robot warfare that launched a thousand spin-offs since 1979!

"It's a Gundam!"
— The Last Words of many a Mook in the franchise, as demonstrated here.

Gundam is a long running franchise of Humongous Mecha Anime started by Yoshiyuki Tomino in 1979, Trope Maker for the Real Robot genre, and basically the Japanese equivalent of Star Wars. Gundam is a Cash-Cow Franchise and a veritable merchandising empire, encompassing not just televised anime, but also theatrical releases, manga, OVAs, video games, plastic models, toys, theme park rides, and a racing team sponsorship.

Timelines

The Gundam anime franchise is split amongst many different continuities and timelines. The oldest and largest timeline is the Universal Century, of which there are still animated works being made to this day.

Alternate timelines (referred to by Japanese fans as "Another Gundam") have their own distinct settings and histories. As the popularity of Gundam declined in the 1990s, these standalone settings were first conceived as a way to draw new viewers to the franchise without the need of navigating an already long and dense storyline. Although these timelines generally follow the Universal Century's Military Science Fiction roots and premise of The War of Earthly Aggression, they are also a way for Sunrise to be more experimental with their stories than what the U.C. setting would allow.

Gundam Build series

A sub-series of the franchise whose installments all take place in similar settings; a near-future version of Earth where Gundam exists as a media franchise, just like in the real world. Advanced technology allows anyone to simulate mobile suit battles via Gundam plastic models, better known as Gunpla. This sport, called Gunpla Battle, is incredibly popular worldwide.

Other media

Gundam works are generally stories about contrasting the power human understanding and connection with larger societal failures that seek to instead tear people apart. These are usually in the context of conflicts between different groups of people forced into fighting World War Whatever over ideology, resources, and other familiar real world issues — as opposed to fighting an Alien Invasion, Robot War, or other external threat — and often takes the form of an established One World Order Earth government fighting against people living in the enormous space colonies in orbit in a downplayed form of The War of Earthly Aggression (though it's a toss up whether Earth or the colonies are actually the aggressors in any given series).

The plot of a Gundam series usually falls into one of two archetypes. The original version was an Ordinary High-School Student getting drawn into the ongoing war against his will when The Empire attacks their Doomed Hometown; they end up Falling into the Cockpit of the latest Super Prototype Gundam in order to save themselves and/or their friends, and gradually grow into an Ace Pilot in their own right. A variation of this arose as the franchise expanded, where the protagonist is a Child Soldier and already an Ace Pilot at the beginning of the story, sent on an important mission to use their powerful Gundam to strike a devastating blow against their enemy. Either way, the series is usually a Coming of Age story, where the protagonist suffers trauma and loss during the course of the conflict, but grows as a person in the process of examining their motivations and their place in the world and eventually deciding how to best live up to their ideals and fight for what they believe in.

Lore-wise, the Gundam series (particularly the original Universal Century timeline) are notable for the remarkably consistent fictional technology; in UC, this is based on the original Minovsky Particle. Also notable is the presence of Newtypes, sci-fi metaphors for the power of human understanding and connection the franchise so often explores, who are essentially psychics akin to "Jedi in giant robots". Newtypes, or some Suspiciously Similar Substitute, appear in most Gundam shows.

Kunio Okawara created many of the iconic Humongous Mecha designs, including the RX-78 Gundam. However, the franchise has also had mecha designs by Hajime Katoki, Kazumi Fujita, Junya Ishigaki, Mamoru Nagano, Syd Mead and several others.

The Gundam franchise is the Trope Namer for:

The Gundam franchise provides examples of the following tropes:

  • Absent Aliens: One of the hallmarks of the show is that there are no signs of extraterrestrial life, which originally made the show stand out from the pack. The only exceptions so far are Gundam SEED mentioning a winged Space Whale fossil found on Jupiter in passing, Mobile Suit Crossbone Gundam with the microbial "Angel's Call", Gundam 00, which includes Starfish Aliens in the movie, and Gundam Build Divers Re:RISE, where the inhabitants of Eldora turn out to be extraterrestrials rather than NPCs.
  • Ace Custom: Generally fielded by The Lancer or The Rival while The Hero himself usually has a Super Prototype.
  • Aerith and Bob: There are some very strangely named characters in Gundam, there are also a scattering of people with completely mundane names. If we listed every bizarre name in every series, well... we'd be here all day.
  • An Aesop: Almost every Gundam work has heavy themes of War Is Hell.
  • Airborne Aircraft Carrier: Most of the Cool Starships in the series qualify as these. Particularly if you count flight-capable Humongous Mecha as 'aircraft'.
  • All There in the Manual: There are loads of supplements like side-stories and model kit manuals. You won't miss vital information by ignoring them... usually.
  • Aloof Dark-Haired Girl: There's at least two in a series. She's always an important female character, usually the main character's (possible or Canon) Love Interest, The Baroness or the Team Mom.
  • Alternate Continuity: TV series, movie trilogies, manga, video games, and novels all retell the same stories... and all slightly differently.
  • Alternate Universe:
  • Alternative Calendar: Used for every series but Gundam 00, largely to avoid having to set a definitive "X years in the future" setting. Amusingly, the first few series (from Mobile Suit Gundam to Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack) simply filed the serial numbers off by setting them in the year "UC 00XX", where XX was the year in the 20th century that the show was released. Mobile Suit Gundam, for example, was released in 1979 and set in UC 0079.
    • Not helping things was the fact that Mobile Suit Gundam and Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam had scenes identifying the date as 20XX (as in, 2079 for the original show); these were quietly Retconned out of later releases. In response, fans attempted to pin down a specific year as UC 0001 (in-universe, the year that space colonization started), using a couple of concrete datesnote  from Gundam 0080 (January 14 falls on a Monday) and Gundam ZZ (0088 is a leap year, and by extension so is 0080 and all other UC years that are multiples of 4); the general consensus is that it's 2047note .
  • Ambiguous Time Period: The series takes place in the future, but due to the excessive use of alternate calendars how far in the future is usually impossible to pinpoint.
  • A Mech by Any Other Name: The series' signature Humongous Mecha, Mobile Suits.
  • Anyone Can Die: The series was, after all, created by a man who was nicknamed Kill 'Em All.
  • Armored Coffins: Effective ejection systems are the exception rather than the rule in the franchise; in most instances, the pilot's best chance to survive is to pop the cockpit hatch and try to escape on foot — which is rarely an option while your mecha is exploding.
  • Attack Drone: A staple of the franchise are attack drones controlled by a pilot's psychic abilities, rather than onboard AI. Some shows have non-psychic versions available, but that just means they're manually remote-controlled instead.
  • The Battlestar: Most warships have impressive firepower in addition to their mobile suit payload... which would be nice if they ever hit anything other than mooks.
  • Bell-Bottom-Limbed Bots: The Classic Gundam is a good example. Its lower legs are notably larger and more complex than the upper legs, it's less noticeable but still there with the arms. Some of the robots were designed to be more bottom-heavy, i.e to shift their gravity center lower.
  • Bittersweet Ending: By far the most common sort of ending to a Gundam series. Only a handful have unambigiously happy (Gundam X, Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz) or downer (Zeta Gundam) endings.
  • Broken Faceplate: A pilot's helmet visor being cracked or outright shattered is a good indication that they're in a lot of trouble, though it's not usually an immediate death sentence since their cockpit is also pressurized. (It does usually mean they are about to die, but it can also be a signal that they're going to have a major epiphany and perhaps turn up later using a different identity.)
  • Canon: Gundam has an unusual take on this, partly because the Western definition of "canon" in regards to fiction doesn't exist in Japan. All animated works are considered "official", while everything else is "non-official". This means that the various contradictory Alternate Continuity works (namely, the TV shows and their Compilation Movie remakes) are equally "canon", while some non-animated works like Crossbone Gundam are "non-canon" despite being praised for their quality and attention to not mucking up the timeline. This makes it completely impossible to come up with any kind of "one true version" of events: see Continuity Snarl below.
  • Central Theme: War and its effects are Gundam's over-arching theme.
    • Mobile Suit Gundam: Warfare
    • Zeta: Idealism
    • Double Zeta: Growth
    • Victory: Tragedy
    • G: Human potential, Love
    • Wing: Peace, and fighting for it
    • X: Change, and how to handle it
    • Turn-A: History, and how to learn from mistakes
    • SEED: Friendship
    • SEED Destiny: Destiny
    • 00: Understanding
    • AGE: Revenge
    • G-Reco: Viewpoints
    • Iron-Blooded Orphans: Loyalty
    • Witch From Mercury: Family
  • Centrifugal Gravity: Seen in everything from individual ships (many of which come equipped with rotating "gravity block" sections) all the way up to the kilometers-long space colonies themselves (whose entire structures spin along one axis), because Gundam's tech level generally isn't advanced enough to support Artificial Gravity.
  • Char Clone: Being the Trope Namer and Trope Maker, of course. Char was especially unique at the time for being an enemy soldier but having his own agenda that barely involved the main characters. In the UC timeline Char himself allies with the heroes in Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam only to become the villain again in Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack after disappearing in Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ. This sort of uncertain loyalty tends to define the character type along with the mask, from Zechs in Wing to Harry Ord from Turn A to Rau Le Creuset in Seed.
  • Child Soldiers: A majority of the characters across the franchise, protagonist and antagonist, were teenagers when they started their careers as MS pilots.
  • The Coconut Effect: Consciously averted. When Tomino wrote the original series, he decided to use particle-based weapons rather than lasers specifically because lasers would be invisible, instant-hit weapons and would kill a lot of the drama of battle.
  • Collateral Angst: When a protagonist's love interest dies (and they do), the writing focuses mainly on how the protagonist feels rather than the tragedy of said love interest's life being cut short.
  • Colony Drop: The Trope Namer; Gundam series are extremely fond of dropping large objects onto targets from orbit.
  • Combining Mecha: Comes and goes in phases. The original Gundam had the ability to separate and recombine; this was downplayed later. The CE timeline has this in spades, as the titular mecha combine with "packs" that seem expressly designed to ship more plastic models of the mecha.
  • Companion Cube: Many pilots either start or come to view their mobile suits this way. Relatively minor examples will do things like ask their mecha for more power when they're going all-out, while the most extreme cases will do things like asking for advice and then behaving as though the mobile suit has given it.note 
  • Compilation Movie: Gundam loves these. The television series generally get compilation movie trilogies, and even some of the OAVs have gotten compilation movies of their own.
  • Conservation of Ninjutsu: A single enemy in a new mobile suit is usually far more dangerous than a swarm of them attacking at once — even if it's the exact same model.
  • Continuity Snarl: By Sunrise's policy, only animated works are truly "official". However, that still makes it impossible to determine a single "real" version of events, given that the franchise's full-length TV series are usually turned into movie triologies, which are Alternate Continuity to a greater (Zeta's movie trilogy makes the events of ZZ near-impossible to happen) or lesser (the Mobile Suit Gundam movie trilogy just removes some of the wackier Super Robot influences and replaces shoddy animation with higher quality work) extent... and yet, they're all equally canon in Sunrise's eyes.
  • Convection, Schmonvection: Generally averted — the bigger Wave Motion Guns can ruin your day with even a near-miss.
  • Cool Helmet: Sort of; the Gundams' iconic V crest attached to their heads.
  • Cool Ship: The main character usually has a ship to haul his Cool Mecha around.
  • Corporal Punishment: The main character usually ends up on the wrong end of a punitive beatdown at least once, and that's not even counting the therapeutic beatdowns he's also likely to receive.
  • Cosmetically-Advanced Prequel: New works set in early time periods (like Thunderbolt and The Origin, both set in the same period as the original Mobile Suit Gundam but made decades later) tend to include more modern-looking technology (like touchscreen interface controls) than the original shows set in that era. Bare minimum the Art Evolution is able to show off stronger mecha animation (moving panels, shifting gears, opening vents) rather than the rubbery feel in the original show.
  • Crapsack World: The various Gundam settings are usually not pleasant places to live, often involving mass murder on the scale of millions or billions of people at a time, and the risk of humanity driving itself entirely to extinction. The only good news is that the protagonists are usually able to prevent complete disaster.
  • Curb-Stomp Battle: Gundams tend to be an instigator of many of these. They're made from a stronger material than other mobile suits, and their pilots are exceptionally skilled, so they often mop the floor on the battlefield.
  • Cyber Cyclops: The "bad guy" mobile suits tend to have a single, glowing camera; they're typically referred to as "mono-eyes".
  • Dark and Troubled Past: Usually the main character, when they're the Overt Agent type that start out as an experienced Ace Pilot already. The Ordinary High School Students tend to have dark and troubled presents instead.
  • Death Flag: The chances of a named character dying within an episode increase exponentially the moment they decide to tell someone else their backstory. That character usually has ten minutes of the episode to live till they die. It happens so much in many series of the franchise that fans are ready to expect the worst once flashbacks ensue.
  • Deconstruction: This series is one of the earliest known examples of removing the "super" from the Super Robot genre, transforming the Humongous Mecha into a glorified tank.
  • Doomed Hometown: The main character's hometown, frequently a space colony, is usually wrecked early in the series. Sometimes directly leads to Falling into the Cockpit.
  • Downer Ending: Less common than the Bittersweet Ending, but more common than the Happy Ending. See Zeta Gundam and Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory.
  • Dual Wielding: Ever since the original series, the classic melee loadout for a Gundam has been a pair of beam sabers, and if there's a variation from this formula, it's usually because the suit in question is fitted with even more blades as well.
  • Dub Pronunciation Change: The Italian dubs call the franchise "Goon-dumb" rather than "Gun-dumb".
  • Evil Is Bigger: The hero's mobile suit is almost always dwarfed by their foes, as non-humanoid mobile armors are generally exclusively used by antagonists. Even when the hero and primary antagonist both use mobile suits, the villainous mobile suit is generally larger and bulkier (e.g. the Nu Gundam vs. the Sazabi or the the GP-01 vs. the GP-02.
  • Evolutionary Levels: Used, subverted, and played with. Newtypes from the UC timeline are initially presented as this, but they ultimately don't seem to have much effect on the world beyond a handful of ridiculously skilled Ace Pilots. Gundam X has an ending that explicitly states Newtypes are nothing of the sort, though since it's an alternate universe it's still an open question for the UC timeline. The CE timeline's Coordinators are a mixed bag — some of them consider themselves this, but many do not. Gundam 00's Innovators are the concept played completely straight. The X-Rounders of Mobile Suit Gundam AGE are still on the fence; on the one hand, both sides are trying to cultivate them, but one of the series' most powerful considers them to be an evolutionary throwback rather than advancement.
  • Expanded Universe: Sunrise's policy divides non-animate works in two categories. If the work doesn't contradict with official animated "white" works, then it's "gray", somewhat acceptable add-on to the timeline (just don't expect Sunrise to reference the events). Whatever contradicts official works is "black", outright non-canon. Note that the "gray" status isn't permanent, new animated work may push the work to "black" by adding new events that contradict it, or make it "light gray" by having some elements of it cameo in animation (the story is still gray, but whatever appear on screen is "white"), or even make it "white" by adapting it (but usually with changes).
  • Expy: To say the franchise is addicted to this trope is an understatement. There's a Char in every single series.
  • Falling into the Cockpit: The most common way to select new crack Gundam pilots, ever since the first show and Amuro Ray lucked into the RX-78, its massacred support crew, and the operations manual that one of the members had with him. There are some notable subversions and aversions, most notably in some of the OVAs and AUs where the pilot may at least have basic training, but the majority of main series have the pilot be young, inexperienced, a noncombatant seeing battle for the first time or otherwise not intended to be its operator. They are usually allowed to continue because now they are the only one WITH experience, although sometimes it turns into a Grand Theft Prototype that helps tips the balance in the conflict.
  • The Federation: The Earth government is usually one. No less than four separate timelines (UC, AW, AD, AGE) feature a government known as the "Earth Federation". Though they all use the same name in Japanese (地球連邦/Chikyu Renpo), the localizations of Gundam X and Gundam 00 attempt to differentiate by calling it the 'United Nations Earth' and the 'Earth Sphere Federation', respectively.
  • Fighter-Launching Sequence: Pretty much everyone announces their name and which mecha they're using before launching from the Cool Ship.
  • First-Name Basis: A recurring element of the Universal Century is that soldiers and military officials are referred to by their given name and not their surname, which is very unusual by real world standards. The Mobile Suit Gundam novels explain that this is simply the culture of the era.
  • The Force Is Strong with This One: Newtypes and such can often sense each other.
  • Fragile Flyer: While flight-capable Mobile Suits appear throughout the franchise, there are times when this is played straight.
    • Some flight-capable MS are noted to be fragile in the "it's difficult to maintain and keep in working order" sense. For example, the Gouf Flight Type (famously seen in Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team) needed specialised spare parts for its various flight-related systems like stabilizers. In addition, the thermonuclear jet engines built into the legs that granted the Gouf Flight Type its flying ability could be jammed by debris, causing them to malfunction.
    • Transformable flight-capable MS are noted to be quite fragile thanks to their transformation systems. The most famous of these MS, the Zeta Gundam, was at its most effective at the hands of its original pilot and designer Kamille Bidan, who was able to use his Newtype reflexes and skills to turn it into a Lightning Bruiser. In comparison the Double Zeta was so fragile around its various combination/ transformation parts that the Full Armour upgrade was introduced to remove those weaknesses but also removed its ability to transform.
    • Mobile Suit Gundam Wing: The Aries are the aerial counterpart to the Leos, acting as the primary airborne Mooks of the series. Unlike the Leos, which can be equipped with either solid ammunition weapons like machine guns and bazookas or beam weapons like beam rifles in addition to a basic beam saber mounted in their shields, the Aries are armed with nothing more than a chaingun and missiles. In order to keep weight low, they also have less armour than the Leos. Notably, when Zechs Merquise leads a team to intercept the Wing Gundam as it enters Earth's atmosphere, Zech opts to pilot a Leo rather than an Aries despite the confrontation happening at high altitude.
    • The titular Gundam and its upgrade of Mobile Suit Victory Gundam, a highly mobile areal mobile suit using the Minvosky Craft System that abandons the more bulky preceeding design language is notable among protagonist mobile suits in that how easily its various parts get trashed on a regular basis in stark contrast to how durable the Gundams are usually portrayed as.
  • Frozen Face: Mobile suits, being mecha, don't really have any means for showing expressions. That said, the shows usually manages to convey emotions through them regardless, with visual tricks like camera angles and lighting, plus creative use of the one feature that does change: their Glowing Mechanical Eyes.
  • Gameplay and Story Segregation: Gundam video games at times take creative liberties with the source material for the benefit of the gameplay experience.
    • In the anime, the Guntank cannot rotate its torso at all. In games it can, as this would obviously be very frustrating to control otherwise.
    • After being sent out, the Nu Gundam's Fin Funnels cannot be recharged and are thus discarded. In games, they return to the mobile suit like most other funnels and as such can be used again and again.
    • The Unicorn Gundam's NT-D lasts for 5 minutes. This is a bit too long for most action/fighting games, so the duration is usually shortened to around 30 seconds.
  • Gatling Good: The head gatlings, another iconic weapon for Gundam-type suits. Mostly used for dealing with small, fast threats like planes and missiles. A few other Gundams have large Gatling guns as their primary weapon; the most iconic of these are the Heavyarms and the Leopard.
  • Generational Trauma:
    • From the Universal Century that began with Mobile Suit Gundam:
      • Most famously the effects of the devastating One Year War reverberate throughout the decades. Part of this is due to the sheer loss of life (5.8 billion people lost their lives, over half the entire population of the entire Earth Sphere), part of this is due to the horrific destruction unleashed (many of the destroyed colonies and Sides are simply left as haunted ruins, with little interest and attempts at rebuilding and recolonising them), and partly due to the Lensman Arms Race begun by the creation of the titular Gundam as well as the development of Psyco (Psychic Communication) technology. There are still stubborn Zeon remnants from the One Year War active as late as 0094, almost 20 years after the war ended. Worse, many of these remnants have raised families and their children have inherited their hatred of the Earth Federation, despite not even being born when the War took place.
      • The ideas (and assassination) of Zeon Zum Deikun likewise haunt the Universal Century for decades. Zeon developed the ideas of Ere-ism (i.e. Earth is sacred as the origin of mankind, and mankind ought to leave it to recover and take to the stars) and Side-ism (i.e. the space colonies have the right to be independent of the Earth Federation rather than be second class citizens), and also put forth the theory of Newtypes (i.e. by expanding into space, humanity would evolve into a "new type" of mankind). His ideas continue to be utilised by various factions as justification for all sorts of atrocities, such as the Titans accusing anyone sympathetic to his ideas as rebels to be killed on sight, to numerous Spacenoid organisations invoking his name, to his own son Casval Rem Deikun (aka Red Comet Char Aznable) attempting to drop the asteroid Axis on Earth to cause a nuclear winter and force humanity to leave Earth for good. Even as late as UC0149, almost 70 years after Zeon's death, the Zanscare Empire adopt part of his ideals during their own brutal grab for power.
      • The Zabi Family, who ruled Side 3 and the Principality of Zeon during the One Year War era, likewise cast a long shadow. Several antagonist factions continued to fight on in their name note . Sole Survivor Mineva Lao Zabi, daughter of Dozle Zabi, is painfully aware of the power of her family name, as she was propped up as the figurehead of Axis Zeon during both the Gryps and First Neo Zeon Wars. When she becomes involved in the Laplace Box incident, simply the fact she was being held aboard a Federation ship was enough to cause the Zeon loyalists to retreat rather than risk her being harmed. She eventually resolves to use her family name to actually do some good but also laments that she would've much rather been allowed to be a normal girl.
    • Mobile Fighter G Gundam: The wars that left Earth devastated and prompted the development of the various space colonies left their legacy in the form of the Gundam Fight: instead of full-fledged wars that would wind up destroying the very planet they want to rule, the Space Colonies instead send representatives to fight in a tournament with the victor's colony becoming ruler of Earth until the next Gundam Fight. However, Master Asia's Face–Heel Turn is triggered by his realisation that the Gundam Fight is generally just as destructive as a full war since the Gundam Fighters representing their colonies are cutting edge with all sorts of powerful weapons and techniques, meaning any fights can wind up devastating the surrounding area. Likewise, Gundam Fighters are generally feared and hated by inhabitants of Earth who get caught up in their Fights.
  • Get a Hold of Yourself, Man!: Bright Noa, the Team Dad of the UC timeline, is the king of this trope. So much so that it was originally called the Bright Slap. Used in several other timelines as well.
  • Glowing Mechanical Eyes: Mobile suit cameras (positioned in their heads like eyes, naturally) always glow when activated.
  • Grand Theft Prototype: Previous Trope Namer. Highly advanced Gundams featuring experimental technology and extremely high combat performance get stolen with alarming regularity in the franchise.
  • Gratuitous Princess: Gundam X and Mobile Suit Gundam AGE are the only TV series that are totally devoid of a princess (or a princess-in-exile, or the daughter of an important official, be it government or a scientist) in a major and/or supporting role. And it's not uncommon for said character to be the love interest for a major character, eithernote .
  • Grey-and-Gray Morality: Gundam is notable for rarely portraying either side of a conflict as faceless, mindless evildoers — there are good people and bad people on all sides of a conflict. That said, the protagonists' faction will usually be A Lighter Shade of Grey.
  • Head Blast: Many mechas in Gundam have head-integrated vulcan guns, usually used as anti-personnel weapons.
  • Heroes Prefer Swords: Whilst their enemies and allies often get more exotic melee weapons, the hero's primary unit (generally in the traditional Gundam colors) generally has a sword of some sort as its primary melee weapon, ranging from the Gundam's simple Beam Saber to the Gundam 00's more exotic GN Swords.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: From both throwaway and major characters; a side effect of Anyone Can Die.
  • Hover Skates: Mecha can often move this way, even if they can't out-and-out fly with their thrusters. Some mecha are explicitly designed for it, most notably the Dom from various Universal Century works.
  • Humongous Mecha: Obviously.
    • A Mech by Any Other Name: They're called "mobile suits" in general, though different timelines have variations like "mobile fighters", "mobile dolls", and "mobile bits". Non-humanoid versions are usually called "mobile armors".
  • Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Not individual episodes, but almost all of the Gundam TV series produced before 2014 (as well as Mobile Suit Gundam F91, which was intended as a TV series) are named after one of the protagonist's mobile suits. The only exception is Gundam SEED, which is instead named for the series Super Mode. Beginning in 2014, the series names started to move away from this: Gundam: Reconguista in G is named for the Towasanga faction's plan to conquer Earth by forcenote , while Iron-Blooded Orphans, the Build Fighters / Build Divers line, and The Witch from Mercury are named for the protagonists, rather than any of their mecha.
  • Idiosyncratic Mecha Storage: Because they generally operate in 0-G, the Zeon space colonists do not store their mobile suits standing upright on racks like their Earth-based Federation rivals and instead have them lying down, back-to-back, or strewn about all over the hanger because there is less of a concept of "up" without gravity.
  • Inconsistent Dub: The Universal Century timeline spans across multiple entries and have been dubbed by multiple studios across North America. As such, there are some mobile suit names that get interpreted differently.
    • The GM line of mobile suits is supposed to be pronounced as "Jim", and is in the original Ocean Studios dub of Mobile Suit Gundam. Future installments would see the line being pronounced as "Gee-Em".
    • The Gouf: Whether it is pronounced as "Goof" or "Guff" in the original Mobile Suit Gundam depended on the actor reading the line. It's "Guff" more often than not.
  • Inconsistent Spelling: Whoo boy. Too many examples to list, but common to a greater or lesser extent in basically every series. The most infamous examples are probably the Principality (Duchy/Archduchy/Grand Duchy) of Zeon (Zion/Jion) and Mu (Muu/Mwu — though thankfully no Moo) la (ra) Flaga (Fllaga/Fraga). And then there is Quattro Bajeena, whose name has on at least one occasion been translated as "Quattro Vagina", due to the katakana used in his name. (And given Jamitov "Hyman"note , it's very possible it is... uh, meant to, be spelled with a "V"...) None of this is helped by the fact that Sunrise is, at this point, absolutely infamous for coming up with names that are meant to sound "foreign" and "sci-fi future" to Japanese audiences, but are often absolute nonsense that aren't informed by the zeitgeists or cultural memetics of any real-life civilization. For the Spacenoids, this can sort of work since they're meant to be very different and their own thing anyway (who says some dude born in space can't be named "Zeon Zum Deikun"?) but when Earth folks are meant to be named things like "South Burning", "Milliardo Peacecraft" and "Lady Une" (with Lady as a ''first name''), and when the kana interpretations for what the creators wanted the names to be end up all over the place, the result is a ton of confusion.
  • Inconsistent Translation: The GundamInfo YouTube channel, when posting older titles, typically just takes whatever subtitle track was on previous home video releases and uses those. Other times, however, they'll re-translate it, for some reason, and it will be very clearly done with someone who doesn't have English as their first language. The original movie trilogy had a lot of strange romanized names ("Ranba" instead of "Ramba" and "Kishiria" instead of "Kycilia") while G Gundam had the video titles absolutely full of Engrish, most notably by translating "Domon" as, somehow, "Trueman."
    • Similarly, the summaries on Funimation's video player offer up different translations for character names, even if the official name is used elsewhere. For example, the summaries for Mobile Suit Gundam SEED use "Flay," "Fllay," AND "Fray" at various points.
  • Instant Expert: Given the franchise codifying the Falling into the Cockpit trope, this is often justified via an Unusual User Interface. The original show talked of the Gundam having an advanced AI learning computer filling in the massive gaps of Amuro's learning curve, although they say having him manage basic movement of the machine is still an accomplishment. As the Psychic Powers of Newtypes took center stage in the storyline, so did the Psychoframe system designed to utilize those abilities.
  • Info Dump: Happens in some spots, e.g. the introduction of the Specials in Mobile Suit Gundam Wing.
  • Latex Space Suit: For use by both males and females, though only pilots; other crew get bulkier, more conventional space suits. Also downplayed in that pilot suits more closely resemble advanced flight suits rather than being skin-tight.
  • Lensman Arms Race: It's guaranteed that the first few episodes of a series will show the Gundam going up against basic mook units and slaughter them by the dozens. The enemy will then start fielding new and more advanced units in an effort to catch up. Via the Mid-Season Upgrade, the heroes will then have to adapt their technology to compensate as well. In the Universal Century timeline, after a while it starts evoking Clark's Third Law with how advanced and powerful the tech level gets.
  • A Lighter Shade of Gray: While Gundam usually goes out of its way to show that both sides of the conflict have good and bad people, it's generally still the case that one side has the moral high ground.
    • On occasion it's not the ostensible protagonists. There are moments early in 00 where the protagonists (who are committing terrorist acts against military targets to bring about world peace) occupy a sort of middle ground between antagonists who are actually pretty evil (but psychologically conflicted) and antagonists who are nice, morally sound people who happen to be fighting against the mysterious pseudo-terrorist group that just showed up. Later on, many of this latter group end up on the same side as or working with the protagonists, and then it becomes more clear-cut.
  • Long Runner: The first series premiered in 1979 and the franchise has been going strong since. The 90's alone had a series or OAV every year. Fandom VIP Burke Rukes once pointed out on his old website that if one were to watch all of Gundam from MSG to Turn A, it would take about a week, and that was without counting work, sleep, and bathroom/meal breaks. And mind you, this was after the Gundam's 20th anniversary in 1999 — the franchise has expanded considerably since then.
  • Love Across Battlelines: A staple of the series, as part of the standard Love Hurts Aesop. Psychic Powers leading to characters to bond instantly helps (or rather, hurts).
  • Love Hurts: Very, very rarely does a romance with a Gundam pilot work out for anyone.
  • Love Triangle: A love triangle, often as a callback or Mythology Gag to Amuro/Lalah/Char's love triangle where two men on different sides seek out the same girl, is a common recurring plot element.
  • Made of Indestructium:
    • Gundams are typically made of this; in UC it's named "Gundarium" in honor of the Gundam which was the first to use itnote ; in AC it's called "Gundanium" and the Gundams are named after it; and in AD the Gundams use "GN Composite Armor", which is just normal armor reinforced with Applied Phlebotinum.
    • The CE series put their own spin on the trope by introducing Phase-Shift Armor, which requires a constant supply of electrical power to function, placing it halfway between this and Deflector Shields. This is significant since the CE suits initially run on batteries with a very limited capacity.
  • Made of Explodium: Frequently what mook mecha are made out of. Given an actual explanation in the UC works (a Minovsky reactor breached by beam weaponry will likely go nuclear), but other series use it as well. Mobile Suit Gundam Wing (and its classic Mecha Mook the Leo) is most infamous for it.
  • Magitek: Newtype technology, designed to augment and be augmented by a pilot's Psychic Powers.
  • Mask Power: The Rival and/or Char Clone usually wear a mask (as they generally are hiding their identity), and tend to be among the most dangerous pilots.
  • Mecha-Enabling Phlebotinum: Minovsky particles in most installments.
  • MegaCorp: Anaheim Electronics from the UC Timeline is a quintessential example.
  • Mega Crossover: The Gundam Fighter Flash game, with over 80 Gundam characters from various shows.
  • Mêlée à Trois: First introduced in Zeta Gundam and used repeatedly since. It usually takes the form of two major players each battling it out for their own interests, with the smaller protagonist faction fighting in support of loftier ideals.
  • Merchandise-Driven: Much, much more money is made on Gundam modeling kits than the anime itself.
  • Mid-Season Upgrade: In most series there is a switch to an entirely new Gundam, offering two hero Gundams piloted by the main character after the previous one is damaged, obsolete or not keeping up with their piloting abilities. A few shows do maintain the same Gundam throughout, but include an elaborate modification if not a Mecha Expansion Pack with a Meaningful Rename. Sometimes the series is named after the second Gundam, making it a delayed Title Drop. Almost consistently, though, is that the first Gundam will have a basic head crest with two spikes while the upgraded version will have four spikes on it.
  • Militaries Are Useless: In numerous Gundam series, the military units are composed of weaker "grunt" mobile suits that are largely ineffective and are destroyed in large numbers by the much more powerful Gundams and other "hero mechs", which are always piloted by the main characters (protagonists and antagonists) of the narrative. The "grunt" mobile suits are always piloted by characters who don't have major narrative roles, assuming they are ever seen at all.
  • Military Brat: Numerous series have characters that are children of military personnel, though usually in a non-combat capability, like researchers or engineers.
  • Mindlink Mates: In the UC continuity, powerful Newtypes of the opposite sex, particularly teenagers, tend to instinctively gravitate toward each other and form psychic and romantic bonds. Unlike most portrayals of lovers with psychic bonds, however, it often ends badly.
  • Mini-Mecha: While Humongous Mecha take all spotlight, several series do include small mecha, usually doing labor work in the background. The first that appear in anime is Junior Mobile Suit from Zeta Gundam, unless you count Ball from first series as one.
  • Minovsky Physics: Yet another Trope Namer, in the UC timeline, but implemented in every timeline to a greater or lesser extent.
  • Moe Anthropomorphism: MS Girls, cute girls based on the franchise's various mobile suit designs, is originator of the Mecha Musume and has been a appearing in Gundam Ace since the 80s.
  • Moral Myopia: Common among the both heroic and villainous factions, though the protagonists will usually at least try to overcome this sort of thinking.
  • Mook Mobile: Dozens of variants in the franchise, usually limited to two or three examples per series. The bad guys usually have one that's influenced by the original Zaku II from Mobile Suit Gundam, with the "gas mask" face and its iconic mono-eye. In fact, the word "Zaku" is even derived from "zako" which means "mook" in Japanese.
  • Motile Vehicular Components: The Hand Wave for why Gundams were built in a humanoid form is that it's so they can maneuver in such a way that they can reserve all their delta-V for actual forward motion, like how a properly-trained astronaut can reorient themself by using the momentum of their limbs. A nice side-effect of this is that they can be used as either Space Fighters or Humongous Mecha, depending on whether they're deployed in orbit or on the ground. Adding hands to their forelimbs allowed tactical flexibility by quickly changing weapons.
  • Mythology Gag:
    • While there are often indirect references to the original series in any given show, they often take this a step further by using the sound effects of the original series; this can range from the White Base's alert klaxon, to various booster/vernier sounds, to the classic "Pfeeew!" of the original Gundam's beam rifle.
    • The intention for the original RX-78 Gundam was to be predominantly white, but for Merchandise-Driven reasons was given a more colorful design scheme. This remained in the script as characters call it "white devil" despite being more red and blue. Red and blue does persist in most Gundam designs, but a few have been depicted as mostly white in a deviation from the norm. The Unicorn Gundam, other than the Tron Lines in combat, is primarily white.
  • Name-Meaning Change: All the different continuities have mobile suits called called "Gundam", but what the name refers to varies, when it even has a specific meaning. These include the material the suits are made of to the software involved in their operation.
  • Neutral in Name Only: In the Universal Century, the Jupiter Fleet is supposed to be a neutral organisation that focuses on refining and transporting the precious Helium-3 isotopes needed to power the Minovsky reactors that make Mobile Suits viable. Its transport fleets are protected by treaty acknowledged by all sides of any given conflict, since the Jupiter Fleet has a total monopoly on Helium-3. That said, their sympathies tend to lie more with the Spacenoid side than with the Earth Federation, with some individuals like Paptimus Sirocco even going so far as to take up arms.
  • Non-Standard Character Design:
    • Most notable when it comes to the Universal Century OAV's, as different character designers were deviating from an established style, which also resulted in slightly different versions of the same character. Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory is most notable in that regard. But Bright Noah's role in Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn also stands out because being faithful to his long standing design made him feel quite simplistic compared to the more detailed and expressive designs of the newer characters.
    • The main mobile suit from ∀ Gundam and a number of others were famously very esoteric, looking more Ray Gun Gothic. This was partially because they had brought in the American Syd Mead as a mech designer, which added to the unconventional look to the entire show.
  • Novelization: All of the anime series except Gundam X has at least one. Beltochika's Children is rather amusing case; it was originally Tomino's rejected plot of Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack which, in turn, is adapted from Tomino's novel Hi-Streamer. In other word, it's novelization of The Film of the Book, with all three by same author!
  • Nuclear Option: Notable for averting the Nuclear Weapons Taboo. The UC and CE timelines, in particular, are fond of throwing nukes around. UC generally treats them as dangerous and powerful weapons but not necessarily evil incarnate (the good guys use illegally obtained nuclear missiles on at least one occasion), while CE is rather less forgiving.
  • Officially Shortened Title: Works within the Gundam universe are typically given a long-form title Mobile Suit Gundam [Title], which is shortened to simply, Gundam [Title] in most usage; eg, Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam is called Zeta Gundam, and Mobile Suit Gundam SEED is called Gundam Seed. They occasionally mix things up a bit (eg, G Gundam's full title is Mobile Fighter G Gundam, since the Motion-Capture Mecha used by the heroes in that series are called mobile fighters as opposed to conventionally-piloted mobile suits), and works with especially long titles may have more than just "Mobile Suit" cut from the short version (eg, Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack is usually rendered as just Char's Counterattack).
  • Phlebotinum Girl: Ubiquitous. In fact, the proposed name for the trope was "Newtype Girl".
  • Phlebotinum-Handling Requirements: Various types of Mobile Suits can only be piloted by Newtypes.
  • Pink Girl, Blue Boy: Oftentimes The Federation has uniforms for each gender with these matching colors.
  • Pink Means Feminine: Which is why so many female pilots, from Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam all the way through to Mobile Suit Gundam AGE, have pink mobile suits and/or pilot suits (or, at least, suits with pink highlights).
  • Point Defenseless: Is it a hero ship? If not, a whole armada's flak screen might as well be made of fireworks.
  • Poor Communication Kills: Both used straight and subverted. Characters frequently end up fighting and killing each other unnecessarily because they aren't able to communicate well enough to realize neither side actually wants to fight. But just as often, they will establish that communication (thanks to handy Psychic Powers) and end up fighting and killing each other anyway because even though they don't want to fight, they still have incompatible ideals and neither side is willing to back down.
  • Power Creep, Power Seep: In many video game crossovers, established mobile suit performance is pretty much thrown out the window. In fact, the RX-78 from the original series is usually not just keeping up with other units, but a powerful one due to Popularity Power.
  • Powers Do the Fighting: A minor staple in the franchise. If a mobile suit has Attack Drones, expect them to do this once in a while.
  • Protagonist Title: Mostly it's the main protagonist who pilots the eponymous mecha. The few exceptions are Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack (referring to the Big Bad's Evil Plan) and the Cosmic Era shows (SEED refers to a Super Mode possessed not only by the main protagonist. And while Destiny also refers to the Villain Protagonist's Mid-Season Upgrade, it also refers to the Evil Plan of the Final Boss).
  • Psychic Children: About half the Gundam universes prominently feature youngsters with psychic powers of one kind or another, most of whom end up getting turned into as Child Soldiers because of them.
  • Psychic Powers: Newtypes and their various Expies from most of the franchise's timelines.
  • Radar Is Useless: Enforced, as the Minovsky Particle (and similar super-science in other-universe works like the GN Particle in Gundam 00) diffuses radar and radio waves - which is of course a justification for why Humongous Mecha have a practical military application.
    • Although, a sudden spike in Minovsky Particle activity often acts as a warning in its own right, especially in areas where there shouldn't be any. This is why the Shoal Zones (i.e. debris fields left over from battlefields and destroyed space colonies) are such popular hiding spots: there so much residual Minovsky interference (e.g. from wrecked ships still emitting Minovsky Particles) that it's easy to hide in them.
  • Real Robot: It invented the genre, though it's always been stuck somewhere between the Real Robot and Super Robot styles.
  • Recurring Element: The visual style of the Gundam — especially the iconic "face" — is pretty consistent throughout the franchise. The setting in each AU also includes an "Earth vs space" aspect in almost every case. A recurring theme includes the question of when — and if — violence is an acceptable way to resolve your differences. Haro, the cute ball-shaped Robot Buddy, is a partial example, having shown up in UC, CE, 00, AG, and AS, but none of the other settings.
  • Red Baron: It's usually the enemy Ace Pilots that get awesome nicknames (starting with Char as the Red Comet), but occasionally allies do as well (such as Mu la Flaga from Gundam Seed, known as both "the Hawk of Endymion" and more informally as "the man who makes the impossible possible"). Oddly, the main character rarely gets this treatment.
  • Red Shirt:
    • The original series introduces the RGM-79 GM, a simplified, low-budget mass-produced version of the Gundam (with a paint job that resembles a red T-shirt, no less) that mainly exists to fill the screen in major battle sequences and explode whenever an enemy Ace Pilot shows up. Like its Evil Counterpart, the Zaku II, it's a Fountain of Expies, and there'll usually be a similar-looking machine in any given Gundam show with the same basic narrative purpose.
    • Unnamed characters in tanks, aircraft, and light spacecraft fare even worse than unnamed characters in mass-produced mobile suits. Their life expectancy in battle sequences will usually be measured in seconds at best.
  • Red Shirt Army: Gundam is military sci-fi depicting conflicts on a grand scale, including the use of massive, terrifyingly destructive superweapons. If things aren't going well for the good guys, expect the screen to be lit up as hundreds of ships, vehicles, and/or mass-produced suits explode at once.
  • The Remnant: Exaggerated in the Universal Century continuity. The Principality of Zeon is defeated in the One Year War, but the various Neo Zeon factions continue to be the standard villain for most of the later UC series, with their last holdouts only falling in 0123; Unicorn's adversaries get bonus points for being The Remnant of another Remnant.
  • Retcon: Between all the Alternate Continuity versions and OVAs, they're inevitable. They're usually not too bad, but exceptions (such as Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory's Colony Drop) do occur.
  • Ringworld Planet: Helped popularize the "O'Neill cylinder" design. Ring-world shaped colonies exists in Gundam Wing and in the in the case of Universal Century, in the beginning of Gundam Unicorn.
  • Sanity Has Advantages: The main difference that the Cyber-Newtypes in the After-War timeline have from their Universal Century counterparts is that whilst not as powerful, none of them went insane because of the transformation and as a result were more effective in the long term as well as generally not meeting terrible ends.
  • Sensor Suspense: Tends to do this by having stuff suddenly appear immediately before they come under attack. The Bridge Bunnies suddenly yelling "Heat source detected!" out of the blue usually means bad things are about to happen.
  • Series Franchise
  • Series Mascot: Aside from the Gundams themselves, there are the Haros.
  • Sci-Fi Flyby: Present in this series:
    • Mobile Suit Gundam SEED. Vivian or Kazuma's "Moment" (2nd OP) ends with a kind of 360 flyby as the Archangel cruises first in the water, and then rising out of the water (as the camera rotates behind and to the right). You then get a flyby of the X05-Aile Strike as it launches from the Archangel
    • Gundam Seed Destiny. T.M. Revolution's "Ignite" (1st OP) ends with a fly-by of the Minerva as it's skirting the bottom of one of the PLAN Ts, then it sharply going into a vertical climb, accompanied by the four mobiles suits assigned to it, all leaving engine streaks.
    • Gundam 00. The last shot of the Ptolemaios in the 1st OP is a high speed flyby away from the camera.
    • "Mobile Suit Gundam AGE": The opening of the last phrase has a lovely ventral flyby of the "Diva", which transitions into Flit Asuno running.
  • Sliding Scale of Gender Inequality: Most tend to hover between "Know Your Place, Woman!" and "Men are More Equal". Female combatants are usually around, but they're less common than male ones, and tend to be less skilled and/or stuck with less powerful mecha than their male counterparts. And pretty much the only woman capable of keeping up with the (invariably male) series protagonist in terms of both piloting ability and mecha strength — Haman Karn of Zeta and ZZ — is a villain. That said, this trope tends to be absent in the Build subseries as well as the most recent entry, The Witch from Mercury, which has a female protagonist.
  • Slow Laser: Beam weapons, while fast, are frequently dodged when they are fired (in one of the first episodes of the original series, Char Aznable stated very clearly that he dodges where the gun points before it's fired, not the beam itself once it is). This is also because the beam weapons aren't laser beams, but are made up of particles with a considerable amount of mass, called a "Mega-particle", and thus are much slower than the speed of light. See below, and also see Minovsky Physics (the Wave-Motion Gun-grade weapons like the Solar Ray and Solar system are portrayed as traveling at the speed of light; fortunately, Newtypes sense the shots before they fire in Gundam).
    • Gundam creator Yoshiyuki Tomino has commented, in later years, that he chose to use particle beam weapons over more realistic lasers for dramatic purposes, feeling that the invisibility and unerring accuracy of lasers would make for boring combat sequences.
    • Actual laser weapons are briefly seen in Mobile Suit Gundam Wing, which otherwise uses the franchise-standard particle beams. They are depicted as hitting instantaneously and melting armor on contact, and go right through the Planet Defensor barriers of Mobile Dolls. They're not more common because the laser rifles used overheat very quickly when used, even if for a few minutes. This is displayed when they are equipped on Taurus mobile dolls. Several of them end up getting destroyed by their own weapons.
    • In the Universal Century, aka the original Gundam continuity, actual laser weapons short of apocalyptic superweapons have been rendered obsolete by ablative anti-laser coating and Minovsky particle dispersion. It's also stated that beam weapons were found to be more efficient than their laser-based counterparts.
  • So Last Season: The Mid-Season Upgrade has been a staple since Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam, and even Mobile Suit Gundam had a limited version of it.
  • Space Opera: A Downplayed example, with the action usually restricting itself to Earth and Earth orbit, and never expanding past the solar system. With the single exception of Gundam 00: A Wakening of the Trailblazer, it sticks to Absent Aliens, as well.
  • Spiritual Antithesis: In the 1970s, Yoshiyuki Tomino read The High Frontier: Human Colonies in Space by Gerard K. O'Neill, that talked about creating cylindrical space colonies at the Lagrange points and how this would lead humanity into a future Utopia. Tomino meanwhile thought they would be Dystopian hellscapes that only compounded existing issues of Urban Segregation and class inequality, causing ever greater war, suffering and death as a result, and decided to make a story based around just that. Thus the Gundam franchise would come to use the setting of the The High Frontier (and even have Shout Outs like the O'Neill cylinder colonies) for the settings of multiple series about Forever Wars and Dystopias rather than the Utopia O'Neill envisioned.
  • Spiritual Successor: Happens fairly often with AU series. To wit:
    • Wing to G (Multinational Team in five garish, Super Robot-style Gundams), and the last story arc to Char's Counterattack (Char Clone tries to blow up the Earth).
    • X to the original series, sort of, being an alternate Bad Future to the One Year War.
    • Turn A to X (post-apocalyptic stories set mostly in America and on the Moon whose title Gundams are equipped with terrifyingly powerful and exotic weapons).
    • SEED to the original Gundam (first major Earth/Colonies war) and Destiny to Zeta (a follow up series featuring a new cast, but where characters for the original show are still around and active).
    • 00 Season 1 to Wing and Season 2 to Zeta.
    • AGE to the entire Universal Century from the original through to Crossbone.
    • Gundam Build Fighters to early G (Gundam vs Gundam Fighting Series), and to the Gunpla Builders OVA series, which itself is to an obscure manga called Plamo Kyo Shiro.
    • Reconguista in G is this to Turn-A due to the setting, the director, being set after the Universal Century, and the Gundams being non-standard in design (the Turn-A's V-fin serves as a mustache, those of the G-Self are swept forward).
    • Iron Blooded Orphans is a send-up to X, Wing, and 00, with the violence and deconstruction of the genre taken up a notch.
  • Standard Sci-Fi History:
    • Many series features Stage 1: Exploration and Colonization of Space. And then jump right into Stage 2: World War changing the world.
    • The Universal Century subverts the standard progression. The rather idealistic founders of The Federation definitely thought they would bypass Stage 2 into something akin to Star Trek. Instead, the timeline is marked by multiple Stage 2 scenarios that by the time Victory takes place, it's just barely functional.
  • State Sec: The franchise seems to have something of a love affair with this trope. Some notable examples include:
    • The Titans, the main antagonists of Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam. They eventually take over the regular Federation Forces and become a de facto military dictatorship. They manage to be even more Nazi-like then their predecessors, the Principality of Zeon from Mobile Suit Gundam (ironically, their original stated purpose was to eliminate Zeon remnant groups).
      • The Titans are replaced following the First Neo-Zeon War with Londo Bell, which, since it is run by Bright Noa, is a far more moral example that doesn't abuse its authority. That said, it is still an autonomous military force outside the regular chain of command, with its official mission statement being to hunt down Zeon upstarts. The fact a Second Neo-Zeon War starts invites accusations of them not doing their job.
      • This also explains why by the time Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn takes place, the Feddies are revealed to have established another Titans replacement called the ECOAS "Manhunter" unit. But while its job more or less is to do the sort of wetworks that Londo Bell would never do, a sense of duty, professionalism and a grounded awareness of being Necessarily Evil keep it from becoming just like the Titans.
    • The A-Laws (Autonomous Peace-Keeping Force) from Mobile Suit Gundam 00, who are obvious expies of the Titans. They're autonomous from the regular military, with access to secret police, and under the direct command of Ribbons. Interestingly enough, the organization had different levels of trust: Those who have no idea what the A-Laws are really doing, the ruthless top brass who knew what the A-laws were doing but remained mere pawns, and the Innovades who really knew really what was going on.
    • The Organization of the Zodiac in Mobile Suit Gundam Wing is an interesting case, zig-zagging as the series went on. While officially part of the Alliance military as a elite force, it was secretly the Romefeller Foundation's military wing. After eliminating the Alliance, OZ becomes the regular army for the Romefeller government.
    • Phantom Pain in Mobile Suit Gundam Seed Destiny is a downplayed version - it's a special forces group used to support the radical Blue Cosmos faction. They get to use advanced (but illegal) technology, has skilled personnel, and are autonomous from the regular chain of command. But despite being used to expand Blue Cosmos' and LOGOS's agendas, the group mostly uses standard Alliance uniforms and don't seem to be ideologically charged as other examples.
  • Stealth Pun: Fandom VIP Mark Simmons observed that SNRI, the rival to Anaheim Electronics, was created shortly after Sunrise bought the rights to Gundam.
  • Stock Footage: And plenty of it. More of a problem for some series than others (the CE timeline was particularly infamous for indulging in it), and generally less of an issues in the movies and OVAs. Mobile Suit Victory Gundam, ∀ Gundam, and Gundam 00 are also notable for largely avoiding it. There are some scenes reused (as in, you could count them on one hand), but much of the time it's a two-second clip that's only reused once, or it's just a split-second explosion to change scenes.
  • Stranded Invader: Over the many Universal Century entries in the series, many "Zeon remnants" are revealed to be still stuck on Earth several decades after their failed invasion during the One Year War.
    • Some games set during the One Year War era (e.g. Mobile Suit Gundam Side Story Rise From The Ashes, Mobile Suit Gundam Zeonic Front) have plot points about Zeon forces trapped on Earth when the bulk of their forces retreat into space. In Zeonic Front, the player characters are one such unit, with the final level being them deciding to make a Final Stand against attacking Federal Forces until both sides hear that a ceasefire has been signed and lay down their arms.
    • Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory: a Zeon remnant unit provides valuable support to Anavel Gato's team when they successfully steal the GP 02 A Gundam, fighting to the last man as they hold off the pursuing Albion Mobile Suit team and buy Gato time to escape into space aboard their only remaining HLV.
    • Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ: A Zeon remnant unit led by "Desert" Rommel (stranded on Earth since the OYW) allies with Haman's Axis forces when they launch an invasion of Earth.
    • Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn: Yet another Zeon remnant unit (armed with obsolete OYW machines) joins forces with the Sleeves. They famously attack Torrington Base (which coincidentally was mostly defended by similarly obsolete Federation MS).
  • The Smurfette Principle: Downplayed. Every series has female pilots, but they're almost always outnumbered by male ones, and until Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury , they were never the main character in an anime (on the manga side of things, there was Tiel's Impulse and Ecole Du Ciel, and there's the video game Mobile Suit Gundam Battle Operation Code Fairy). Well, it is Shōnen, after all...
  • Super Prototype: Just about anything with the word "Gundam" in its name, and a lot without it.
  • Superweapon Surprise: In the UC timeline, and the CE that mirrors it, mobile suits are these, with the subversion that they're used to attack instead of defend. The first Gundams in both universes are this again, in that they're Bigger Stick mobile suits that catch the other side by surprise too! More typical examples also appear in most timelines, as well.
  • Sword and Gun: The standard mobile suit loadout across the franchise. Humongous Mecha with specialised targeting systems and built-in recoil compensation don't have the usual problems with Firing One-Handed, and there's usually some Applied Phlebotinum justification in the setting for combatants frequently needing to close to melee range to do serious, reliable damage to each other.
  • Sword Fight: Only with Humongous Mecha and Laser Blades!
  • Tactical Superweapon Unit: Thanks to being such a long-running franchise, there are a lot of these, far too many to list here. A few generalisations are possible:
    • Gundams nearly always fall under these, thanks to often being Super Prototype machines. The original RX-78-2 Gundam, for example, was a game-changer in-universe. Its Luna Titanium armour (later renamed Gundarium in its honour) made it impervious to the 120mm ammo used by the mainline battle Mobile Suit the Zaku II, it could function easily in space, on Earth or underwater (and even had systems that allowed it to survive atmospheric reentry), and had thrusters powerful enough it could fly up and attack aircraft in melee. Its beam rifle gave it the equivalent power of a battleship, and the beam saber could cut through just about any armour. It also came with a learning computer that stored the pilot's combat data, allowing the Gundam to adapt itself to the pilot's style. In addition, it could also purge the upper and lower torso thanks to the Core Block system, allowing the pilot and precious combat data to escape. Naturally, all of these features made mass-producing the Gundam unfeasible, and so nearly all of them were cut when developing the much more economical GM (most notably, they only used regular titanium for armour, with only their shields made of Luna Titanium).
      • That said, not every Gundam is one of these even in-universe. There were several Gundams-in-name-only machines that were deliberately designed to resemble the RX-78-2 to take advantage of its fearsome reputation (e.g. Aqua Gundam was merely a slightly more powerful Aqua GM with a Gundam-style head, the Ground Combat Gundams were likewise slightly improved Ground Combat GMs with Gundam-style heads). Even protagonist machines like the Zeta Gundam aren't necessarily Super Units: while powerful and advanced, the Zeta's contemporary machines were fully capable of keeping up with it (compared to how the original Gundam was a quantum leap in MS development). In fact, in Zeta Gundam it was actually a plot point that the Gundam Mark-II was only a slight improvement over the original Gundam, despite a 7 year difference in-universe.
    • Gundam Wing: The five titular Gundams (Wing Gundam, Gundam Deathscythe, Shenlong Gundam, Gundam Sandrock and Gundam Heavyarms) are all but unbeatable in the early half of the series thanks to their armour making them practically indestructible to most forms of ammo. In addition, their equipment (e.g. Wing's Buster Rifle, Deathscythe's stealth systems, Heavyarms' armament) meant they could overwhelm their enemies with almost contemptuous ease. They were deliberately overpowered, their designers believing that one super unit would be more effective than a squad of less powerful ones. That's why each of the five Gundams could operate pretty much independently, though as the series went on and technology advanced they lost their tech advantage. The undisputed Super Units of the series are the Wing Gundam Zero and the Gundam Epyon, both fully capable of destroying entire space colonies solo.
    • Mobile Armours are designed to be force multipliers, and generally a Super Prototype will be deployed in a series. Sometimes, they'll also get mass-produced. In the original Gundam, several M As were faced by the Gundam (e.g. the Zakurello, the Brau Bro), but the Ur-Example is probably the Byg Zam. Thanks to its i-field, it was completely immune to beam weaponry (such as the ones equipped on warships), and its multiple beam cannons (along with the main mega particle cannons) meant that it could fly into a fleet, unleash its firepower, and then move on after leaving said fleet nothing but wreckage. Dozle Zabi hoped to mass-produce it, boasting that such a feat would guarantee Zeon's victory, but it had several flaws that caused Zeon to drop the idea (chief among them was the fact that the i-field generators and all the other specialised equipment generated so much heat the Byg Zam could only fight for about 20 minutes before having to retreat to cool down).
    • Occasionally, giant Mobile Suits that can transform into Mobile Armours appear. The first of these was the Psyco Gundam note , which could transform from a Mobile Fortress mode that allowed it to fly into a 40 meter tall Mobile Suit armed with beam cannons built into its fingers, chest and head. Likewise, the Destroy Gundam was a 38 meter tall Mobile Suit that could convert into a Mobile Armour mode that granted it the ability to hover at low altitude (thus improving mobility). Its sole purpose is to destroy, with enough firepower to level a city like Berlin in a matter of minutes. These types of machines are explicitly Super Units even in-universe: their primary function is to overwhelm their enemies with superior firepower, but the cost involved in building them means that if they're damaged to the point repairs aren't possible (or worse, if they're outright destroyed), then it's often a huge setback to the faction fielding them. note 
  • Tank-Tread Mecha: The franchise have provided many examples of tank tread mechas.
    • In the Universal Century timeline we have the RX-75-4 Guntank from Mobile Suit Gundam, one of the earliest examples within the franchise. It proved to be an effective artillery platform that subsequent successor models and variants were developed ever since. Most notably the RTX-440 Ground Assault Type Guntank, the RMV-1 Guntank II, the D-50C Loto and the F-50D Guntank R-44
    • During the One Year War the Principality of Zeon recycled their growing number of wrecked Zaku mobile suits and Magella main battle tanks to build the MS-06V Zaku Tank. They proved to be useful in construction work as well as fighting vehicles.
    • Aside from the Zaku Tanks there's the YMT-05 Hildolfr "mobile tank" from Mobile Suit Gundam MS IGLOO. It's a Transforming Mecha that can switch between tank mode and tank tread mecha modes. Despite its size it proved to be quite maneuverable in combat at close range (though it might be because of the pilot's skills) and managed to take on a squad of Federation piloted Zakus on its own despite the fact that its loadout's geared towards long range artillery support.
    • In alternate timelines we have the DT-6800 Daughtress Tank, ZuOOT and GaZuOOT.
  • Telepathic Spacemen: Newtypes from the Universal Century and their various equivalents.
  • Trailers Always Spoil: A number of episode trailers (and sometimes the titles) center around an event that happens in the last couple minutes of the episode.
  • Transforming Mecha: Varies between series, with some series chock-full of such mecha, and others devoid of them. Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam springs to mind as the Gundam series with the most Transforming Mecha, which includes the title mech.
  • Translation Convention: In Japan, the Army and Navy use the exact same ranking system, which has caused a good deal of confusion over what to use in the US dubs — for example, is Kou Uraki an Ensign or 2nd Lieutenant? Typically, this is handled by treating the Space Forces as a Navy, and the rare few series that focus on ground combat forces (like Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team) use Army ranks.
  • Vehicle Title: The eponymous Gundam is a Humongous Mecha, after all. The only exceptions are Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack (Colony Drop) and Mobile Suit Gundam SEED (Super Mode).
  • Villainous Legacy: Many aspects of Zeonism live on in the cultural beliefs of the Spacenoids after Zeon's history.
  • Villainous Valour: It's not uncommon to see highly courageous behaviour from Gundam adversaries, whether ordinary mooks or major villains.
  • War Is Hell: A recurring theme.
  • The War of Earthly Aggression: The most recurring theme in the series, and the one that generates most conflict overall.
  • Warrior Therapist: The Rival tends to be one, resulting in philosophical debates during running mecha battles.
  • Wave-Motion Gun: There's always at least one, whether mounted on a suit, a ship, or a space station.
  • Weapon Title: The eponymous Gundams are Humongous Mechas designed for warfare. Some works not named after the eponymous Gundams also count, such as Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack (Colony Drop), and Mobile Suit Gundam SEED (the characters' Super Mode).
  • With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Most cyber newtypes and their alternate universe expies are not known for rationality or mental stability.
  • Won the War, Lost the Peace: Happens repeatedly, where despite the antagonists being defeated, war erupts again in a few years anyway — usually to justify a sequel. The Universal Century, with the most sequels, suffers this the worst, amounting to about 20 years of more-or-less constant fighting spread out over five or six distinct conflicts (depending on how you count them). However, it also happens with Gundam Wing (and its sequel Endless Waltz), Gundam Seed (and its sequel Gundam Seed Destiny), Gundam 00 (and its sequel A Wakening of the Trailblazer) and Iron-Blooded Orphans (where the season one finale leads to a brief period of peace and a mid-series Time Skip, both of which end with the beginning of season two).
  • A World Half Full: Virtually all Gundam shows take this attitude — thought the world may be in serious trouble, the protagonists can and will fight to make it a better place than it was when they started.

 
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I'll Kill You

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I'll Kill You

Heero whispers this to Relena after he refuses the invitation to her birthday party.

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5 (18 votes)

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I'll Kill You

Gilla's Despair

Crown's Death

Familiar with A...

Operation British

"Char, you crav...