How Gundam 00 destroyed its genre

[leahandillyana]

In the 00s mecha was seen as THE genre. A manga and anime fan was seeing series featuring giant robots everywhere, in combination with every genre from science fiction through alternative history through fantasy to romance. By the end of the decade, the genre disappeared almost completely and for over a decade robot anime has been surprisingly rare. This is the story of an overconfidence that killed the genre.

 

In early 00s Sunrise, the anime studio holding the license rights to Gundam franchise, has been very successful with their mecha properties. Gundam Seed, the 2002 era-adjusted reboot of the Universal Century timeline of the original Gundam series, was a smashing success, for the first time being an alternate universe popular enough to justify making sequel anime season. Two very different properties utilizing mecha as a concept, Gao Gai Gar and Code Geass, also were doing very well financially. Reasonably seeing an easy source of income, the studio decided to go all-out. Gundam 00 was series that had all prepared for it – some of the best animation in the industry, intense rock soundtracks, character designs prepared by famous mangaka (Yun Kouga, similarly to CLAMP’s designs for Code Geass), a somewhat novel setting incorporating current world issues. Why then did it fail so hard?

Before I answer this question, first let’s see what Gundam 00 was about. I’ll borrow the description of the setting from Wikipedia, as it’s summarized better than I would have written it, and honestly, the world of Gundam 00 is simply cool: „The series is set in 2307 AD.As a result of the depletion of fossil fuels, humanity had to search for a new source of power. The power was found in the form of multiple Dyson rings (massive arrays of solar power collectors) orbiting Earth, and supported by three orbital elevators, each one serving one of the three "power blocs" on the planet, namely the Union (Union of Solar Energy and Free Nations), controlling the Americas, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan; the Human Reform League (chin. rénlèi géxīn liánméng), controlling nearly all of mainland Asia besides the Middle East along with most of Oceania; and the AEU (Advanced European Union), which controls mainland Europe as well as many islands in the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans. With this nearly inexhaustible source of energy benefiting only the major powers and their allies, constant warfare erupts around the globe among minor countries for fuels and energy. Countries that once economically relied on the sale of fossil fuels have plunged into poverty. Some even believe that solar energy threatened the "promised land of God", resulting in the 20-year Solar Wars. This chaos led to the formation of a private military organization, called Celestial Being, dedicated to eradicating war and uniting humanity through the use of four advanced machines called Gundams. Mobile Suit Gundam 00 follows four mobile suit pilots termed Gundam Meisters, sided with Celestial Being. The main protagonist is 16-year-old Setsuna F. Seiei, a taciturn Gundam pilot who grew up in the war-torn Middle Eastern Republic of Krugis (which seems to be based on the territory of Kurdistan).”

So we have it. Energy crisis, check. War in West Asia, check. Terrorism of all political options, check. Dark and edgy antihero protagonists? Check yeah! As you can see, the very premise of the series was flawed. It’s simply not realistic to expect for modern problems to remain problems 300 years into the future. Are we, humans of 2023, living in fear of Swedish military might? Furthermore, a lot the story depends on Japan-specific misunderstanding of the Abrahamic religions, simply not „getting” how a religious Christian or Muslim thinks and acts, which would be „transparent” to Japanese viewers but is painfully clear to foreign ones. The sympathetic characters act in a very secular manner despite the setting being established as prone to religious fanaticism, and even the fanaticism as portrayed in the series has secular reasoning at its base. Finally, trying to end all wars by, let me check, starting conflicts left and right with only four machines against whole armies, is ridiculously ineffective but also ethically suspect. In short, Gundam 00 suffered from problems that could have been resolved if somebody thought on the plot for five minutes before submitting.

In spite of all of this, the series initially works, even if not in the way it was intended. Its strongest advantage are definitely the characters, pretty well rounded and simply pretty (though busts and fashion senses of female characters tend to be distracting). The series is by no means psychological, but the characters are written well enough for audience to be invested in what happens to them next more than in the robot battles. In fact, I find other pieces of the world’s technology to be more interesting than the mechas. I specifically wish more series used the concept of a space elevator. What’s more, the first season ends with a massive „fuck around and find out” moment for both the Celestial Being and its main adversary, highlighting the pointlessness of their mission. Unfortunately, second season reimagines the surviving members of the group as freedom fighters against the united regime, and while even this flawed premise could have been made into a decent story by a good writer, instead the quality of writing takes a drastic turn downwards around 30th episode. If you at some point think the story cannot get worse, you are mistaken. It will until the very end. And given that the series was at least initially watched by most of the anime audience in Japan, by the time it ended in 2009 the audience was sick and tired of giant robots as such. Seriously, the writing was so bad that the writers attempted to create a love triangle in the second season, but did it so poorly that many audience members did not realize that Setsuna was supposed to be involved with anyone at all!!!

Of course, Gundam 00 had manga. In fact, it had about a dosen manga series, but most of them followed adventures of other characters in the setting, and given that people who stayed with Gundam 00 stayed with it for the characters, the manga series were ill-advised and not very successful. The most interesting Gundam 00 manga were short stories providing more insight into anime characters:

-Blue Memories by Taro Shiguma is a single volume manga detailing the four protagonists’ childhood experiences.

-In Those Days by Yun Kouga is a single volume manga with stories detailing what happened to various characters in the fallout of the first season of the anime. Some art from this manga is reproduced below, featuring cute girls made cuter in the mangaka’s trademark sugar sweet style.

-Blue Bonds is another single volume story collection written by Taro Shiguma, focusing on relationships between certain pairs of characters during the second season of the anime.

-One interesting series that followed original characters was Gundam 00I, featuring a cast of artifical clone characters (a very interesting concept that was awfully utilized in the anime itself). It was written by Tomohiro Chiba, drawn by Taraku Oun, and ran for 3 volumes. It runs alongside the second anime season and has some truly riddiculous names.

None of these manga were ever released outside Japan and they probably will never been licensed anywhere, due to bad aftertaste the original series left in its wake.

Comments

[dianakingston]

It’s simply not realistic to expect for modern problems to remain problems 300 years into the future.

Not the "muh realism" argument in a show about giant robots.

Also, LOL at "destroying the genre" when there's a brand new Gundam show every damn season

[windleopard2]

Also, LOL at "destroying the genre" when there's a brand new Gundam show every damn season

Yeah, this is comparable to all the complaints about "superhero fatigue" despite several superhero movies and tv shows still making money.

[leahandillyana]

Most Gundam shows those days are not of mecha genre, and there were barely any non-Gundam mecha anime in last 15 years.

[windleopard2]

Most Gundam shows those days are not of mecha genre

How do you mean?

and there were barely any non-Gundam mecha anime in last 15 years.

Fair point but as someone else pointed out, mecha anime was more at its peak in the 90s rather than the 2000s.

[leahandillyana]

Out of the 14 Gundam series released after 00, 6 were military science fiction shows, 4 were Gunpla series (hobby anime about miniature robot tournaments with varying degrees of scifiness), 3 were chibi series featuring sentient robot as characters, and 1 was a biographical anime detailing the creation of Gundam 079.

[leahandillyana]

Rude.

[coldfury]

If Seed Destiny didn't destroy Mechs, I doubt 00 did.

Also, I find this argument flawed, at least on the surface, since the series did well enough to make a movie from. And there's been at least a half dozen Gundam series, more if you count the various 'Build' series since then.

Assuming your initial premise is rooted in reality, which I'm not really equipped to evaluate at the moment, and Mecha was a strong genre in Anime circles until the time of Gundam 00's airing, and has faded since, I would suspect that it's more to do with the fashion of seasonal anime changing with the winds.

Things get popular, play out, and then recede like the tides. Some may never return, others may be right back on a regular schedule. Right now we're in high tide for Otome Isekai series it seems like, to pluck one example, I'm sure it will fall out of fashion at some point. I doubt it will be a single series that kills it, but a general lack of interest and/or ideas.

[leahandillyana]

Seed Destiny was pretty solid as far as mecha shows go.
Regarding the film, I believe it was greenlit together with the series, as at least on paper the tv anime's plot makes more sense in context of the movie story. It's a grand finale for the setting rather than a sequel like Seed Destiny was.
The disappearance of mecha anime from air in late 00s was too sharp and noticable for it to be a typcal case of a fad, in my opinion. You mentioned otome isekai subgrene, but a comparable change in the anime landscape would be if every set-in-another-world fantasy anime disappeared within a year.
Of course, I may also be wrong and 00 simply happened to air during the time the public turned away from the genre for different reasons.

[wizardru]

I've never even heard of this series, and given that the Gundam franchise is still releasing shows, movies, manga and toys, I think it's doing just fine. I would argue that Mecha was THE genre in the 80s, but in the 2000s? Straight Shonen stuff like One Piece, Bleach, Naruto and others clearly ruled the roost, IMHO.

"It’s simply not realistic to expect for modern problems to remain problems 300 years into the future. Are we, humans of 2023, living in fear of Swedish military might?"

300 years ago, the first court battle establishing Freedom of the Press in the US occurred in New York. Foreign powers annexed territory from each other, beginning short colonial wars. A great fear arose as new technology kicked off a change in technology, society and culture, embraced by big companies, controlled by legislation and concerning the general population. Coups were attempted and governments overthrown or protected. Kings were crowned, nations clashed. Great works of art were created and pirated.

I'm not really sure why you think that 300 years will change mankind so much. Much of the colonial period boiled down to securing resources for a nations growth and economy, by force if necessary, by diplomacy or economics if possible. The technology and players are different, but just because Ukraine is worried about Russia rather than the Golden Horde doesn't mean that the problems are really that different, IMHO.

[coldfury]

The 300 year old problem thing is a really odd argument in general, I mean, the crusades were a thing and look at where we are now.

[leahandillyana]

My issue is not with fictional future having similar problems, but said fictional future having excatly the problems specific to our world around the time of the airing of the anime. In Gundam 00, IRA still exists and still commits terrorist attacks, European Union still exists and UK is part of it, West Asia is still in the state of constant war with poverty, terrorism and child soldiers being common, and even though the energy crisis was supposedly solved, the main bid various countries/regions have for power is them having natural resources (in particular, 24th century Venezuela is politically important due to being an oil exporter). Those topical references horribly age the story. Ironically, more vague and metaphorical politics of Seed make it more universally adaptable.

[blueprintstyles]

I really liked Blood Iron Orphans but it was misogynistic in the weirdest and most blatant ways

[mastermahan]

Yeah, I mostly enjoyed that one, but my giant robot shows can have 100% less polygamy and child brides, thanks.

[arilou_skiff]

The interesting thing is that the series composition was done by Mari Okada, famous for her melodrama stuff (Anohana, Hanasaku Iroha, and the absolutely fantastic O Maidens in your Savage Season)

[morallyambiguousscience]

Its weird to say 00 killed the genre and the series when Witch from Mercury is currently breaking all sorts of records and is hugely popular.

Also as others have said SEED Destiny was way more destructive to Gundam's reputation.

[leahandillyana]

The Witch from Mercury was cancelled and the second season was the creator wraping all loose ends in 25 episodes rather than 50 episodes intended, though. Still, I'm seeing late 10s/ new 20s as a sort of start of a mecha renaissance after a decade of drought.

[arilou_skiff]

Even Destiny wasn't as destructive as AGE was.

[leahandillyana]

That's a VERY fair point.

[arilou_skiff]

I've heard a somewhat better argument that was killed mecha anime as the flagship was idol shows.

[leahandillyana]

Oooh, please do tell, I'm all ears.