Finally, after well over 20 years, the original Mobile Suit Gundam has been released in the United States. The first DVD carries 5 episodes of the series and actually serves as the first story arc of the show. Overall, it’s a great purchase.

The story begins in April of Universal Century 0079, and the conflict that will become known as the One Year War is already well underway. The space colonies furthest away from the Earth have declared independence - known throughout the series as the Zeon forces, they have developed the first combat mobile suits and have deployed them against the Earth’s Federation forces. Within the first few months of the war, nearly half the human population has been wiped out (several billion people), and the Federation is struggling against the Zion.

Enter the Gundam, the Federation’s mobile suit prototype. It, along with two other mobile suits, are being tested on the colony known as Side 7. Not to ruin the story too much, after discovery by the Zeon, a battle unfolds inside the colony leaving the Federation forces stationed there nearly decimated and the Gundam in the hands of young Amuro Ray. In order to escape and protect the civilians caught up in the battle, a group of primarily civilians begin running the Federations newest battleship, the White Base. This first DVD covers the White Base’s flight from Side 7 first to the Federation base of Luna 2, and on towards Earth.

While the animation is dated, the battles still manage to be suspenseful thanks to quality storytelling.	Unlike Gundam Wing, there is only one real bishounen for this series: Char, Zechs' thematic predecessor.

The show holds up surprisingly well after 20-odd years. While the first episodes are obviously setting the scene, the characters are already beginning their development. The place where the show’s age becomes most apparent is in the opening and closing songs - painful sounds to say the least. Let me describe the closing - think of a Japanese William Shatner that doesn’t sing as well as William Shatner. In any case, while technology has come a long way in making battle scenes more exciting, some recent shows could take some lessons from creating more suspenseful battles through storytelling; Gundam excels at this.

The video is amazingly clean for its age, showing bright colors and almost no grain. There are sometimes small nicks and bits of dust, but on the whole, I was truly amazed at the transfer. After watching how good the video is on a 1979 show, you have to wonder what went wrong with the new Robotech releases.

The sound is clear and the voice acting is generally good, except for some of the typical American overacting. A majority of this comes from the actor playing Bright Noah, which is odd since a certain portion of the time he hits his marks just right. Hopefully, everyone will settle into their roles as the show progresses, much like in English dub of Tenchi Muyo.

However, the show must take a certain review hit for including only the English dub on the DVD. That’s right, in a true rarity, we’re getting a dub-only DVD. Hopefully this is not a sign of where things are going with Bandai. Supposedly, Bandai USA was unable to get the Japanese language rights from their parent company. Go figure.

The DVD doesn’t come with many extras. The so-called Gundam Encyclopedia has pictures of three mobile suits. It has no real descriptions or history, though, so it’s not really an encyclopedia. You get some trailers, an OK cover, and a sticker. Why a sticker, I dunno. It’s a really big sticker, so I’m not really sure where I can stick it. I expect that it will remain in the DVD case. The menus are a mixed bag - they are somewhat attractive, very responsive, and quick loading but have no animation to them whatever. Compare this to the 08th DVD that had nice animation and design with horrible load times.

While I highly recommend this show, it will appeal to those most interested in war dramas and science fiction. It doesn’t have the attractive pilots (other than Char, which I told has quite a female fan base) and the flashy animation of Gundam Wing. If you do like the giant robot genre, then purchasing this series is a no-brainer. Before this, every giant robot show had the robots posing and calling out attack names. Hopefully the series will continue to build on its impressive debut.

Distributor: Bandai
Creator: Sunrise
Released: 1979

Video Quality: B+
Audio Quality: B-
Presentation: B-
Content: B+
Overall: B+