One of Gundam’s Most Popular Anime is Not That Deep (But Is Still Worth Watching)

How sophisticated or deep a specific piece of media is may be determined by who is consuming it. While the messages shared on Bluey may seem obvious to adults, they may be profound to a younger audience. It could be argued that none of Gundam is inherently deep. The franchise is always upfront with its anti-war themes, and there are hardly any subtleties in how it conveys its message. So, depending on who you are, you can say that all of Gundam isn’t that deep. You can boil down the series into “War is Bad” and get a general idea of what the shows are about.

Nevertheless, several Gundam animes go beyond the “War is Bad” motif and use the war setting to dive into what compels humanity into conflict. When a Gundam anime is good, it typically has a compelling viewpoint on humanity and conflict that runs further than its anti-war message. Mobile Suit Gundam 00 is one of the more popular shows in the franchise, with many lauding it for choosing to cover contemporary issues. Gundam 00 certainly prides itself on being intellectual, yet it doesn’t have an enthralling answer to the questions it asks. Even though the themes in Gundam 00 are nearly identical to those of the original Mobile Suit Gundam anime, the messaging lacks the profundity of the OG series because Gundam 00 devolved into more black-and-white morals and became preachy. Gundam 00 is still worth watching for its amazing fight choreography, interesting world-building, and bravery to touch on heady topics like the Middle East.

What Mobile Suit Gundam 00 Gets Right

Mobile Suit Gundam 00 aired in 2007, amid the United States’ wars in the Middle East. Because of the inherent complexities and moral ambiguity of the topic, stories and media often chose to sidestep the issue altogether. Oftentimes, fictional stories would create made-up countries to serve as metaphors for the conflicts of the Middle East. This is what Gundam 00 did, creating fictional countries like Krugis Republic to serve as proxies.

Given the futuristic nature of Gundam 00, it didn’t matter if the show got all the details about the Middle East right because it could be explained by the time forward into the future. However, the show still covered topics that hit close to home, especially at the time. Terrorist attacks are common throughout the world, with the war for religion playing a huge role in the Krugis Republic and the backstory for the lead protagonist, Setsuna F. Seiei. The series also touches on world governments openly working with warmongers to push their agendas further. The series also touches on people’s privilege in first-world countries, showing people’s complicity in random acts of violence throughout the world. Characters like Saji and Louise had blissfully ignorant lives before being pulled into the harsh realities of conflict and suffering.

Gundam 00 doesn’t offer many answers to its topics, but the point is to make viewers more aware of the world. The show was more concerned with making audiences think rather than providing solutions. Celestial Beings’ goal is to end all war by force, having the technology and weaponry to accomplish it. The point of Celestial Beings is to give fans an outlet to express their frustration towards modern-day war and conflict. While the goal to end all war seems farfetched, Gundam 00 offers some interesting thought exercises on how that can be completed. The show touches on the geopolitical nightmare of ending war, and why governments would favor, or be against, the end of all conflict.

Where Does Gundam 00 Go Wrong?

Gundam 00 covers so many topics that it doesn’t remain focused or cater to a centralized theme. Other Gundam shows also feature multiple topics but every subject stems back to the overarching theme of the narrative. While the original Mobile Suit Gundam show had issues like child soldiers, PTSD, parental neglect, and so forth, it all served the purpose of conveying the anime’s anti-war message. The Witch from Mercury similarly featured multiple topics, including corporate corruption and societal divides, yet everything tied back to the themes of family and love in that show.

Gundam 00’s primary theme is the evil of war, with the main purpose of the protagonists being to end all conflict in the world by force. However, the series also touches on other concerns in the world, like poverty, religious warfare, terrorism, first-world complicity, ignorance, child experimentation, geopolitics, human empathy, school romance, and aliens. The show comes across less like an anti-war anime and more as an “everything in the world sucks.” Gundam 00’s overall message is about how human empathy is the way to the future, a commonly recurring Gundam pathos. But to convey that message, the series wanted to show the audience how bad the world could be, pushing viewers to feel reactionary and desire change. Yet, because the series chooses to showcase the many facets of the world, it feels more confused about what it is trying to say.

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In fairness to the series, it simply wanted to make audiences more conscious of the world around them rather than offer any specific answers. Nonetheless, it feels more surface-level because it doesn’t take a strong stance on anything. It wants viewers to feel sorry for those who suffer yet is more concerned about moving on to the next topic than giving an interesting perspective or argument. The show purposely doesn’t offer a clear solution to all the world’s problems, wanting to highlight life’s complexity, but it makes the show feel more neutral and less profound than the previous entries in Gundam.

The final battle also feels contradictory to the show’s “no easy solution” theme when Setsuna unlocks the Trans-Am Burst System, releasing GN particles on the battlefield to allow people to feel and hear the thoughts of everyone around them. When everyone has a direct understanding of everyone’s motivation, most characters stop fighting each other. While the series was building up to that moment, it was an easy workaround to the climax. It’s also a simplistic view of human nature, not covering people’s contradictory thoughts and feelings at a given moment.

The series’ villains, specifically in the second half, are the typical arrogant antagonists with little depth. They serve as appropriate bad guys for the protagonists to go against and have a clear moral high ground. The villains are nothing more than something for the characters to shoot at and for audiences to feel better about themselves. While Gundam 00 does judge characters like Saji for their complicity and ignorance of the world’s problems, as long as audiences are aware they will never be as bad as the villains, that message falls flat. The antagonists are actively making the world a worse place, making first-world complicity feel less sinful. As long as the villains have transparent evil intentions, anime watchers will not question their morals as long as they know they are morally better than the bad guys.

What the Original Mobile Suit Gundam Gets Right With the Same Themes

Newtype is a term established in the original Mobile Suit Gundam to define the next step of human evolution. People with Newtype powers have unnatural reflexes, a keen sixth sense, and mild telepathy. Gundam 00 has a similar concept called Innovation, which is when someone evolves into an Innovator. These unknown powers are explained as being an advanced version of empathy, allowing a person to feel and hear the thoughts of those around them. Both Gundam 00 and Mobile Suit Gundam are not subtle about their message about empathy, with both series clearly stating how empathy is the only way for mankind to move forward. The main difference is that the original Gundam has a stronger take on its theme than Gundam 00.

The original Gundam shows came from the mind of Yoshiyuki Tomino, who had explicit opinions about the military, war, politics, fascism, and human nature. The classic series was critical of the military hierarchy and the pointlessness of war, yet humanity will always be drawn to it. Tomino had a cynical worldview, making the original series depressing at points. Most importantly, while the original shows cover why war is bad beyond a superficial understanding of the world, it’s more significant than that. The classic series dared to humanize its antagonists, making them feel more developed, and was not afraid to make the protagonists seem unlikeable. These extra flourishes make classic Gundam feel more nuanced than Gundam 00.

Despite everything, Gundam 00 is a show worth watching. The anime doesn’t offer a particularly strong perspective on war, but it remains provocative. The series provides a sympathetic viewpoint on the Middle East, presenting the audience with a more complicated look at an underrepresented part of the world. The animation and fight scenes are still some of the best in the franchise, making it worth watching Mobile Suit Gundam 00 for that alone. The series behaves as if it’s a more cerebral affair, but, in reality, it’s just another simplistic action mecha series with amazing animation. Maybe that is what all Gundam is, even though that doesn’t matter in the end. What matters is what we, the audiences, take away from the series, and any art, no matter how superficial it can be, has the potential to be profound to someone.