My Life in Fandom: "Gundam: The Origin V" Comes Soon

I've been a fan of the Mobile Suit Gundam franchise since I first saw a bootleg of the first episode of 0083: Stardust Memory without English translation at all in 1993. In particular, I love the original continuity--the Universal Century--and as such a fan I've been quite happy as of late.

The official Gundam YouTube channel uploaded the entirety of Zeta Gundam in translation, and is now doing the same for ZZ Gundam (That said as "Double Zeta", by the way, since we have some new readers.) Some of the other-continuity shows are also up there, subtitled and dubbed, as I have said previously. But the big wins for me have been the recent (within the last few years) production of new Universal Century shows.

Of the bunch, I've adored Gundam Unicorn, but the anime adaptation of "Gundam: The Origin" has been nothing less than stellar. Its first four parts have been a great revenge drama telling the origin story for the One Year War of the original series, focusing on Char Aznable as our protagonist (as this story is very much about him; Amuro Rey just showed up, and he's barely a relevant character).

Well, Episode 5 of "Origin" is ready for release and there's an 11 minute preview available at the aforementioned channel. I'm putting the English dub below, but there is a subtitled version available. The high levels of production quality remain, and so does the depiction of the insane brutality of the events leading into the One Year War- as well as the Zabi family's embrace (sans baby brother Garma) of whole genocide to get their way. (The parallels to World War 2 are not accidental or subtle.) See for yourself.

And, wholly unexpected, they've put Episode IV up in its entirety. Might as well put in that one also.

Along with the continued releases of Thunderbolt and the upcoming Twilight Axis, it's been a good time to be a Gundam fan this year. I hope that, as with Unicorn, these get broadcast on Toonami at some point. (Either as a special event night, or as a schedule swap for when another series completes its run; Outlaw Star returns this weekend, so it can happen.

And you can never have enough Bright Slaps.

Everything is better without gravity