Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam

And then, yeah, just, just going back through even like the spring of 2026, like summer was just so incredibly packed.

And then I'm also watching Zeta Gundam on top of all of that.

So got a lot of juggling, a lot of things at the moment.

Yeah, I watched Demons of the Shadow Realm with my roommates and they were a little thrown off because it's pacing is kind of weird where it's like the first two episodes are like super like, oh, you know, everyone's getting killed, you know, big actions happening, mysteries are setting up and then it gets a little slow and then the action just picks up and it's a little sporadic.

Yeah, it might be that, because Sunrise did pretty typically do these two compilation OVAs for almost all of their mecha shows from the mid-80s.

I just always find it interesting looking back that Zeta Gundam and Double Zeta never got that treatment.

It's kind of like an interesting...

Another kind of what if of what would it have looked like if they had moved to OVAs for Gundam earlier.

So let's shift over to discuss all that.

So early in the process of creating Heisei Gundam, Sunrise decided to make the project a reunion of the original Gundam creators.

Mechanical designer Okawara Kunio agreed to return early on, as he had several times in various forms, but character designer Yasuhiko Yoshikazu was a tougher git, both because of negative experiences working with Tomino, or as it were, not really getting to work with Tomino on Zeta Gundam, and because his own animation experiences at the end of the 80s, including the poor reception to his film Venus Wars in 1989, had made him feel like he just wanted to abandon animation entirely in favor of his manga work, which is largely what he did through the rest of his career.

But the team eventually convinced Yasuhiko to join, an experience he recounted for the Gundam F91 4K remaster box.

It's really fucking dark.

Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam.

I'll shout that one out.

You've really ruined your life.

The original plans for that series had included the return of Sharaz Napal, who would step into the series as its final villain, killing Haman Karn himself and then becoming an enemy of Judo Ashta.

Tomino also considered featuring Amuro Rei and Beltorchika Irma, who was his girlfriend in Zeta Gundam, in the story in his early planning documents.

However, once Sunrise had decided we're gonna produce a movie for Gundam after Double Zeta, those elements were all removed, in which Char and Amuro do not appear at all in the finished series of Gundam Double Zeta, although there is this conversation with Sayla, indicating that Char is still out there somewhere, biding his time.

While there were varying ideas within Sunrise for what a new Gundam movie should be, with producer Uchida Kenji hoping for something that would widen the audience to a potentially younger demographic, Tomio himself was insistent that the film should depict, quote, the final showdown between Amuro and Char.

Thus, everything related to that concept was taken out of Double Zeta, saved for the film, and we go on from there.

Now, the history of Char's Counterattack as a story is remarkably some, maybe the person who wrote this notes document might say maddeningly complex.

The title itself had been bouncing around Tomino's mind since the planning stages of Zeta Gundam, where as we discussed in that episode, he originally planned to call the sequel series Zeta Gundam colon Char's Counterattack.

That proposal also included elements like Char's eventual scorched earth plan that were moved out of the main series.

And so the show really caught on.

And then they did Zeta Gundam.

That was the first really high production of Gundam.

And Zeta Gundam is like through the moon.

It sent everything skyrocketing off.

Yeah, I got really hyped watching this shit.

We're talking about life here, man.

We are talking today all about Mobile Suit Gundam Double Zeta, the wonderful sequel to Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam.

I wonder if we go back to the Double Zeta episode of Weekly Suit Gundam, how similar the intro you just did is.

It-

That would come to the fore due to requests from Bandai.

Kawaguchi Katsumi of Bandai's Hobby Products Department later explained the reasoning.

Nowadays, Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam is highly regarded as a work, and the merchandise is also popular, but during the broadcast we started seeing a merchandising decline around Autumn.

Nonetheless, it had been decided that Zeta Gundam would run for four cores, and to Bandai, and to Bandai the Gundam brand was too valuable to abandon.

Do you wanna remind people that Japanimation Station season six part two is now underway, Toninathon part two: The Tears of Time.

We've had two episodes out so far, which is our opening two-parter on Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam, uh, which is, you know, one of our favorite shows ever.

We'd already reviewed it once, and we, it's the show so nice we reviewed it twice-

Yeah

...

in full, uh, 'cause this is a big two-parter.

It's longer than our original review of Zeta Gundam, and I think it's very good.

Uh, it's the, the premiere episode at least was our highest rated premiere ever on YouTube.

And we are here once again to peer into the delightfully deranged mind of Tomino Yoshiyuki with our Tomino-thon.

This week on the show, we are bringing you the climax to our action-packed two-part opening to the second half of our Tomino-thon, where we are reaching all the way back through the tiers of time and doing a total redux of our Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam podcast.

Last time, we covered all the in-depth production history of Zeta Gundam and the first half of the show, episodes one to 23.

And here today, we will finish our Zeta Gundam conversation, going through the second half of the show, episodes 24 to 50, and picking up some little notes along the way.

But Jonathan, this is a momentous occasion, 'cause you have now finally been able to completely re-watch Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam.

So I'm curious, how are you feeling?

I mean, it's not like I could have held Zeta Gundam in much higher regard than I already did, because I already-

Actually, Yao Kazuki voices three separate, um-