Japanimation Station Season 6 - TOMINO-THON!

Weekly Suit Gundam continues into the bold new world of the 21st century with Mobile Suit Gundam SEED, the first Gundam of the 2000s and one of the most broadly popular entries in the history of the franchise. It’s also a hell of a series – even if it took one of us a while to start enjoying it! – and builds to one of the best runs of episodes we’ve had the pleasure of discussing so far. It makes...

Our OVA-a-thon concludes with one of the most universally beloved and undeniably entertaining series in the Gundam pantheon, The 08th MS Team.  Taking a ‘boots on the ground’ approach with no newtypes or ace pilots as heroes, the OVA follows a mobile suit team in a Vietnam-esque setting during the One-Year War, and provides some of the best action, animation, and mobile suit designs in the series....

After an unplanned two-month hiatus, we’re finally back to continue exploring the wide and wonderful world of Gundam, continuing our OVA-a-thon with Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory, the 1991 OVA chronicling the adventures of Ensign Kou Uraki and his encounter with Zeon loyalist Anavel Gato. It’s a series that provides some of the highest highs but also many of the lowest lows in the entire Gundam fra...

Before continuing on to 21st-century Gundam, we’re doubling back for deep dives with the OVA series we’ve mentioned in passing but never reviewed in depth, starting with Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket. Released in six installments in 1989, War in the Pocket marked the first time creator Yoshiyuki Tomino wasn’t involved in a Gundam production, and is widely regarded as one of the franch...

To close out our anniversary month celebrations, we’ve got a surprise review of a (rightfully) forgotten piece of the Gundam universe: G-Saviour, the live-action Canadian TV movie from 2000 that brought Gundam to live-action for its 20th anniversary, in spectacularly awful fashion. Boasting awful production values, bargain bin acting, a script straight of the Hallmark channel recycling bin, and al...

With one year of Gundam podcasts under our belt, we thought now would be a good time to take a look back at everything we’ve discussed so far. We’ve reviewed 11 Gundam shows or movies to date – Gundam 79, Zeta, ZZ, Char’s Counterattack, Unicorn, F91, Victory, G Gundam, Gundam Wing, After War, and Turn A – and on today’s anniversary celebration episode, we rank the best Songs, Musical Scores, Mobil...

It’s been one year to the day since we started our podcast journey through the wide, wonderful world of Gundam, and to celebrate our one-year anniversary milestone, we’re diving deep into one of the single greatest works the franchise has ever produced: Turn A Gundam, Yoshiyuki Tomino’s return to, and revolution of, the series he created. Set on a pre-industrial Earth in the very distant future, T...

After War Gundam X is one of the least known and most underrated corners of the Gundam universe, running for only 39 episodes, with its shortened run marking the end of four continuous years of the franchise holding the same time slot on Japanese television. But it’s also a special, woefully underappreciated show, a smart and soulful return to and commentary on the major tropes and archetypes of Y...

It’s a big moment for our journey through the world of Gundam, as we finally reach New Mobile Report Gundam Wing – aka Mobile Suit Gundam Wing, or just Gundam Wing – the 1995 anime that finally brought Gundam to the mainstream in the West when it premiered on Cartoon Network’s Toonami block in 2000. At once a throwback to many iconic pieces of Yoshiyuki Tomino’s original Gundam formula and a bold...

The time has finally come for us to dive into the wacky and wonderful world of Alternate Universe Gundam, and to start this new phase in the life of the podcast, we’re going back to where AU Gundam began with 1994’s bizarre Shonen soap-opera classic Mobile Fighter G Gundam, one of the strangest, coolest, and most endearingly heartfelt entries in the entire Gundam franchise. With an awesome cast of...

On the second part of our special Neon Genesis Evangelion detour, we dive deep with The End of Evangelion, the influential 1997 film that redoes…well, the end of Evangelion. Replacing the famously under-budgeted episodes 25 and 26 of the original TV series, The End of Evangelion is an epic production with incredible direction and animation, and it may be the purest expression of what Evangelion is...

On this special episode, we’re taking a brief detour from Mobile Suit Gundam to talk about another of the most infamous, influential mecha anime of all time: Hideaki Anno’s Neon Genesis Evangelion, the mid-90s sensation that helped to revitalize the anime industry and became a major worldwide sensation. It’s a significant work in the history of anime, and a really interesting point of comparison t...

In this very special episode, we take a break from talking about Mobile Suit Gundam itself to talk all about the place where Gundam is made: Japan! Jonathan just spent three weeks travelling in the land of the rising sun, and has tons of great stories to share – more than a few of them Gundam related, including visiting the life-size Unicorn Gundam in Odaiba, getting a drink at the Gundam Café, an...

Our first year of Weekly Suit Gundam comes to a close as we reach the end of the Universal Century with 1993’s Mobile Suit Victory Gundam, the final full series set in the Universal Century and the last before creator Yoshiyuki Tomino took a break from the franchise and Sunrise branched out into Alternate Universe stories. Victory Gundam is famously one of the darkest installments in the series, w...

Our journey through Universal Century Gundam continues with one of the strangest and most rewarding corners of the franchise, the 1991 theatrical feature Mobile Suit Gundam F91. Written and Directed by Yoshiyuki Tomino and reuniting him with Gundam’s original character designer, Yoshikazu Yasuhiko, and original mecha designer, Kunio Okawara, Gundam F91 was the first attempt to move beyond the orig...

Released in seven parts from 2010 to 2014, Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn is an extravagant OVA sequel to the original saga of Universal Century Gundam, set three years after Char’s Counterattack and engaging in a direct, deeply thoughtful dialogue with the major themes and ideas of the franchise’s 70s and 80s output. It’s also a spectacular production, with movie-caliber animation, an all-time great...

The original saga of Mobile Suit Gundam reaches its spectacular climax with Char’s Counterattack, the 1988 theatrical film that reunites Char Aznable and Amuro Ray for one final conflict, and sees Yoshiyuki Tomino and company bringing these characters, their story, and the major themes of the series up to now home with astonishing aplomb. As the first original movie in the franchise’s history, Cha...

After the abject darkness that was the ending of Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam, we come out on the other side to review and discuss its immediate successor, Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ, a show that appears lighter at first glance…but is it? ZZ has a bad reputation among Western fans, but we’d argue it’s a deeply misunderstood and underappreciated gem, an essential follow-up to Zeta Gundam that masterfully shi...

In this episode, Weekly Suit Gundam goes beyond its original missive of reviewing the original 1979 Mobile Suit Gundam by jumping ahead for a deep dive with the second series in the Gundam franchise, and one of the most beloved: Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam, the sequel set in 0087 that sees new protagonist Kamille Bidan joining forces with the AEUG – and several familiar faces, including the mysterious...

Our first ‘season’ of Weekly Suit Gundam comes to a close with a big, fun, celebratory ‘wrap-up’ episode. For our main topic, we discuss the series of theatrical films, released between 1981 and 1982, that compiled and reworked the original Mobile Suit Gundam into a surprisingly effective film trilogy that saved the series from its initial lack of popularity and helped launch the franchise into th...

It’s the final stretch of Mobile Suit Gundam – episodes 39 through 43 – and if you thought a mere five episodes wouldn’t be enough to fill a full installment of this podcast, you clearly haven’t seen the absurdly jam-packed final push of this incredible show. With the strange, metaphysical concept of ‘Newtypes’ taking center stage, Gundam’s closing episodes are both its most action-packed and its...

The end is near for Mobile Suit Gundam , as this set of episodes – #26-38 – find the crew of the White Base becoming fully integrated into the Federation’s forces, visiting the military’s biggest base of operations, and returning to space for an assault on the Zeon stronghold of Solomon and, finally, a duel…in Texas! It’s another sterling set of episodes, this bunch more action-packed than ever, b...

As we hit the middle stretch of Mobile Suit Gundam and discuss episodes 14 through 25, the show gets increasingly dark, with the challenges faced by the crew of the White Base growing ever more perilous. We’re introduced to new foes like M’quve and Kycilia Zabi, alongside the inimitable Ramba Ral and his companion Hamon, enemies who present Amuro and Bright their fiercest opponents yet, but are al...

After giving an overview of the Mecha genre and talking about the first two episodes last time, we dive deep into the meat of Mobile Suit Gundam on this week’s episode, discussing Episodes three through thirteen, a stretch which sees Amuro struggling with the surmounting stress of piloting the Gundam, Bright navigating his unexpected leadership, and Char deliciously manipulating supposed friend Ga...

In the 40 years since its 1979 debut in Japan, Mobile Suit Gundam has grown into one of the most pervasive and beloved franchises in anime history – and this summer, we’re taking a look back at the series that started it all, by watching, reviewing, and discussing in depth all 43 episodes of the original Mobile Suit Gundam (aka Gundam 0079). Sean has been a big Gundam fan for years, but Jonathan’s...