Gundam’s New Movie Scores Big at The Box Office

Mobile Suit Gundam as a franchise has been continuing to tell stories focusing on mechs since the initial anime arrived in the 1970s. While the original universe is often revisited in new anime projects, the mech franchise hasn’t been shy about venturing into new realities to weave new stories. Mobile Suit Gundam Seed Freedom has arrived in Japanese theaters, and it has pulled in a considerable haul in a short amount of time.

Mobile Suit Gundam Seed Freedom arrived in theaters in Japan on Friday, January 26th. In its first day, the anime movie rocketed to the number one spot, netting 400 million Yen (the equivalent of around $2.7 million USD), overtaking Spy x Family CODE: White. Unfortunately, a North American release has yet to be confirmed, though considering the popularity of the Gundam franchise, it might only be a matter of time before Western anime fans see the Seed sequel.

Gundam Seed Returns

Director Mitsuo Fukuda commented at a recent screening of the Gundam animated movie about the difficulties in capturing the spirit of the original series in the sequel film, “When the production staff showed me the presentation footage, I kept coming back and saying, “It doesn’t look like SEED.” I have had some disagreements with Mr. Hirai and Mr. Shigeta, but I have always been very particular about not fitting into a conventional model so that people don’t think, “This is SEED.” Many of the production staff members, including myself, had watched the SEED series during their school days, and to be honest, we were stuck in the SEED-like mold. Including that, “It took about a year to establish communication to get what the director was looking for.” 

If you haven’t caught up on the original Mobile Suit Gundam Seed series, it is currently available to stream on Crunchyroll. Here’s how the streaming service describes the mech series, “In Cosmic Era (C.E.) 70… The tensions mounted between the Earth Alliance and the ZAFT Forces caused by the ‘Bloody Valentine’ tragedy have erupted into an all-out war. The Earth Alliance’s mobile armor forces and tanks launch…mobile suits are destroyed one after another…It seemed a foregone conclusion that the Earth Alliance, with its superior numbers, would be victorious. But this initial assessment proved to be false. Almost 11 months have passed since the conflict began, with no end in sight…”

Via Gundam.Info