The Gundam Series of shows is confusing and messy. Not all shows exist in the same world. There are multiple timelines and spinoffs but they are all considered Gundam properties sharing themes, style, and the titular mecha. First and foremost is the Universal Century timeline (or UC for short). This is the timeline the events of the original Mobile Suit Gundam anime take place. All other shows are designated as other universes. Gundam Wing for example is the After Colony (AC) timeline, meanwhile Gundam SEED is the Cosmic Era (CE). What this means is that you don’t have to have watched every season of Gundam to catch everything. You can just pick up with whatever series looks cool or sounds interesting and it should be self contained.

Some common themes of Gundam are: War as it pertains to civilians and organizations, heroism and responsibility, weapons of mass destruction, and friendship or camaraderie.

Below is a rundown of some of the most popular series, ranked in my order of quality. It is not an exhaustive list.

10 - Amazing! Must Watch series.

At the top of the list is Gundam 08th MS Team, a charming war story that takes place during the events of the One Year War - the big story arc of the original Mobile Suit Gundam series. 08th MS Team follows a small military unit throughout the Zeon Federation war in Southeast Asia. The hand drawn animation looks gorgeous and reminds us why CGI still has a long way to go. This is a good place to start in the Gundam universe because it’s a bit more realistic and only consists of 13 OVA episodes. All episodes also have a decent English dub. 08th MS team contains what many Gundam fans consider to be one of the greatest mecha fights in the entire franchise.

In terms of movies, Gundam Char’s Counterattack is the undisputed king. CCA is considered an animated movie masterpiece that existed in a time when anime wasn’t subservient to selling merchandise. CCA was developed and produced when the TV series of Gundam did very poorly in ratings and viewership. Studio Sunrise went all out to tell a story of finality and grace to end the series once and for all. This completeness in some ways worked against the film, as we are introduced to characters we are supposed to be familiar with right away.

Today, anime movies that culminate a series typically do double duty to reintroduce all the characters so as not to dissuade potential new viewers. So it’s a little shocking to meet our protagonist Amuro Ray and see him perform incredibly proficiently not knowing all he went through in the series to become who he is in the film. He is an ace pilot and you just have to trust that. In my opinion this is a refreshing aspect to a genre overly concerned with giving heroes obstacles to fail and climb over. And once again, the animation and audio in CCA is absolutely astounding. Must watch.

The last of the must watch series is the series that started it all Mobile Suit Gundam. But note- the original Gundam series was a budget cartoon for kids. It is 43 episodes of inconsistent animation and story telling. So why so high? Lucky for us, the entire series was remade and recut into a trilogy of movies known as the Mobile Suit Gundam Movie Trilogy. It is essentially the entire story of the influential Mobile Suit Gundam. Aside from the iconic mech the RX-78-2, for which the series is named, Gundam is perhaps most popular for the invention of the anti-hero, Char Aznable. He is easily one of the most popular villains in all of Japanese animation and one who serves as a template for many who followed him. He is charming, enigmatic, and morally righteous. So famous is this character in fact, that many years later he would be the focus of his own Gundam series (see below.)

9 - Outstanding

Gundam The Origin is a modern retelling of the original Mobile Suit Gundam story but with a heavy focus on Char Aznable - the series antagonist and his… origins! The series takes a lot of liberty with ret-conning quite a few aspects of the original, keeping it from being a Must Watch series; however, the storytelling and animation are top notch. Origin is a decent way to get into Gundam from where it all started. Series creator Yoshiyuki Tomino is notorious for rewriting his own history, so The Origin may as well become the new source material for the One Year War.

Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket is known for being one of the first series OVA that had little to no input from Tomino. And it shows. War in the Pocket follows a young child who lives in a Neutral zone between the two warring armies of The One Year War. This makes 0080, the second of two side stories to the One Year War, proving I’m a sucker for side stories. Taking place in December during the holidays, 0080 is a bit melancholy for a mecha series, but Mecha shows have always striven to normalize the idea of giant humanoid tanks and War in the Pocket still ranks as one of the best at this.

Gundam Zeta and Gundam Double Zeta continue the Universal Century story lines where Mobile Suit Gundam left off. It is a direct sequel with references to Amuro and Char. Zeta tries very hard to be taken seriously. As a result the Zeta series leans more towards grand sci-fi opera, no doubt influenced by another hugely popular mecha series that aired around the same time, Macross. All of Zeta is truly great with a more fleshed out main character and important side characters. It has my favorite side character and arguably some of the best mecha designs in all of Gundam. Fun fact: the opening song to Gundam Zeta is literally called “Not an anime”.

Miller’s Report is the movie sequel to 08th MS team. Good stuff. If you liked 08th MS team, this is a nice little follow up.

Iron Blooded Orphans. It has seemed that as the Universal Century series continued, the Gundam franchise got dangerously close to the “Super Robot” territory, and straying from it’s “Real Robot” roots. Super Robots were the domain of Mazinger Z and Getter Robo— mecha that did ridiculous, improbable super hero stuff. Gundam was supposed to be realistic! And after two failed Gundam series in Gundam Reconguista in G and Gundam AGE, Sunrise finally returned to form in Iron Blooded Orphans. IBO signaled the resurgence of Gundam as the premier real robot franchise with brutal mecha combat and realistic depictions of war and mercenaries.

In many ways IBO is like the modern era of Gundam. The one unfavorable aspect of IBO was the need for it to sell model kits. Nowhere is this more evident than the endless introduction of new characters with shiny new mobile suits that last for literal minutes but are enshrined as buildable model kits for the low price of 2000 yen a pop. Even the main character received no less than 8 suit upgrades across both seasons. Being a fan of Gundam is truly hard on the wallet.

Still IBO successfully revitalized the slowing franchise giant and is the most recent original Gundam TV series. Absolutely worth watching.

8 - Awesome

Gundam Wing and its movie Endless Waltz are no doubt responsible for Gundam’s popularity in the west. Gundam Wing aired in the US on Toonami and even had Gundams designed specifically to appeal to western audiences. It worked. To this day, Gundam Wing remains the most popular and highest grossing Gundam series in the US for merch. But how much of that is nostalgia? Look, Gundam Wing is awesome, but it is so very 90s. Characters have unprecedented levels of angst and edginess. We also start to see the emergence of Super Robot themes as the main character’s Mecha are basically robotic super heroes. Conceptually Gundam Wing doesn’t hold much water, but just watching the spiffy animation and listening to those bangers of music tracks and you can’t help but love it.

Gundam 00 was popular enough to get a stage show in Japan. Owing much of its success to the characters rather than the mecha, Gundam 00 is a good show, I just don’t know if its a good Gundam Show. It’s better than Gundam SEED though.

Gundam Stargazer is a side story to Gundam Astray, which itself is a side story to Gundam SEED. It is a short OVA that follows a scientist and soldier as they discover some corruption. I just think the Stargazer Gundam is really cool. All Gundam SEED animation is kind of love or hate it.

7 - Great

Gundam Unicorn - Probably the best modern animation in Gundam and some of the best in anime in general. Gundam Unicorn takes place in the Universal Century but it’s a little too much like its predecessors. It features a reluctant lone boy who becomes the pilot of a game-changing war machine in the midst of a war between two interrelated factions. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. As an OVA, the pacing is a lot better than a TV series at least. Now where things go wrong: In the Gundam universe, you have what’s called a Newtype. These are rare and gifted individuals who can pilot a Gundam with unnatural dexterity. Newtypes are like Jedi or Wizards or Witchers, Spectres, what-have-you. Amuro was a Newtype. It’s a bit of a story trope and Gundam Unicorn uses it to explain away quite a few oddities in Gundam Unicorn. Same goes for Gundam NT.

Gundam 0083 following the events of The One Year War, we have a new protagonist in a much more realistic series. Might be run a little long, but if you want more UC, this is what comes next after Zeta.

Okay so the elephant in the room with Gundam is that it’s just a series made to sell toys and model kits. You really can’t argue with that, as Gunpla (a portmanteau of Gundam Plastic Models kits) and Gundam related merchandise has put Bandai among the most profitable toy companies on the planet second only to LEGO. Gundam Build Fighters Try is a tribute to Gunpla. But where other anime might obscure their toys in the character stills and promos, Build Fighters is an outright celebration of Gunpla. The show takes place in our modern world and the main characters literally build actual kits and battle them like Pokemon using Virtual Reality. There’s tons of awesome references to the series’ 40 years of shows, and the animation is surprisingly good. The “Build” series of spinoffs has been so successful that it spawned its own series and now runs in tandem with mainline Gundam series.

Of note: the Build Fighters series spawned the now infamous phrase “Gundam is Freedom!” which espouses the virtue of interacting with Gundam however you want, whether it’s just watching the anime, or building the kits without ever seeing a single episode. It also means you can make ugly Gunpla and no one can criticize you because GUNDAM IS FREEDOM. Make. Bad. Gunpla.

6 - Good

This stuff and below is really for the diehard fans who haven’t got enough Gundam as it is. None of this is really necessary or expected of fans. Let’s make this quick:

Thunderbolt - You must love jazz music.

Turn A Gundam - Super weird, super bizarre. The Gundam looks like it has a mustache. There are cows in it. Super good series that was overlooked during it’s time. Would be a 8 or 9 as an anime by any other name.

MG Igloo - See Thunderbolt.

Build Fighters - Only watch Build Fighters if you liked Build Fighters Try. Then Build Divers. Then Build Divers Re:Rise. In that Order.

Gundam Sangokuden - An honestly good retelling of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms using personified Mecha backcatalog as the generals. The CGI heavy animation is a letdown. Was this show for kids because…

5 - Flawed but Good

Everything Else

A NOTE ON BUILDING GUNPLA

When it comes to building Gunpla, just build whatever you think looks cool. It obviously helps for a kit to be attached to a series you like, but Gundam SEED was awful yet the ZGMF-X10A Freedom Gundam is god tier in design. Yes the Gundam Wing designs are outlandish, but they are unforgettable.

My personal top 10 mobile suits irrespective of series are:

1. RX-93 Nu Gundam - from Char’s Counterattack

2. RX-80PR Pale Rider - from Gundam Side Stories video game

3. Heavy Arms Custom EW ver. - from Gundam Wing Endless Waltz

4. EX-S - from Gundam Sentinel manga

5. RX-79 Ez-8 - from Gundam 08th MS Team

6. GSX-401FW Stargazer Gundam - from Gundam Stargazer

7. Exia Repair / 00 Raiser - from Gundam 00 Season 2

8. XXXG-01S2 Altron EW ver. - from Gundam Wing Endless Waltz

9. RGM-79SP GM Sniper II - from Gundam 0080 War in the Pocket

10. Blue Destiny Exam 1 - from Gundam Blue Destiny Manga