Gundam AGE – The Gundam Files

Every generation has a Gundam to call their own. Whether they went back and watched UC from the beginning or followed an expanded universe title weekly, we all have a series that made us fall in love with this franchise. For me and many Zoomers it was The Witch from Mercury. For kids in 2011 it would be Gundam AGE, a series that directly took on a generational narrative in its own singular expanded universe run. The thing is, there is no AGE generation of Gundam fans. If they exist there must not be many of them and they’re very quiet, like they know their series isn’t one to hoot and holler about. Wing fans could learn a thing or two from them I’d even say. So I just had to see for myself what AGE was, why’d it fall into the dustbin of history and whether it had been given a fair shake by a fandom that isn’t exactly known for its fairness to any non Tomino title or timeline. This is the Gundam AGE Files.

First thing’s first we have to establish the original sin because AGE is fundamentally different to every Gundam series prior to it’s birth, it’s beginnings as a video game. Akihiro Hino, president of Level-5, was given the opportunity to make a Gundam video game. His studios fairly well known for their franchise’s Professor Layton and Inazuma Eleven but those also make him a interesting choice for a Gundam series since they lean young, like babies second video game young. The idea must’ve been that in the wake of the darker 00 the franchise built off of war and heavy politics could use a break to snap up a younger audience, a babies first Gundam you could say. Hino’s pitch to Sunrise ended up being successful enough to birth an anime based off it which would quickly become the central work with video game dev Hino still in the main writers seat. Fellow Level-5 member Takuzo Nagano would provide the original character designs before more experienced Sunrise staff would fill in the important anime craft roles, led by director Susumu Yamaguchi known for Sgt. Frog flicks mainly. From the original artists to the story they would tackle Gundam AGE was born with great ambitions. Not that you’d know early on.

“3 destinies will form history” is AGE’s tagline but they’re not the 3 generations of the Asuno Family we’ll meet in the course of this work. The first destiny was that of Gundam ‘79 because the first arc of AGE is a tried and true rip-off, a homage if you’re being nice. Sure references to the mother text that is Tomino’s UC is inevitable in a franchise like this since they’re all born of it but this one is too literal in it’s execution whilst removing maybe every single ounce of depth and intrigue. AGE starts out bad man, managing to have an unlikeable protagonist who fights a foe called the Unknown Enemy because they themselves have no character whilst juggling familiar material with both rushed and poor pacing. Flit Asuno is introduced Eren Yeager style, his mother trapped beneath the flames of his childhood home as monstrous mechas from outer space burn his colony to the ground in an unprovoked attack. His is the lineage of the Gundam Makers and so he will be the one to eventually rebuild and lead humanity from the cockpit of that unequalled mobile suit. For now though he’ll have to escape a colony under attack, follow in the footsteps of a captain on a revenge mission against the UE and eventually discover the truth about his foe all while hitting alot of ‘79 beats. He will eventually become one of those 3 destinies but for now this story is completely out of his control.

Gundam AGE feels like it was written for children. The shallowness of this first act is terminal and makes it’s by the books following of ‘79’s plot beats feel downright insulting. Whereas that work was built by its conflicting perspectives from the unwilling combatant Amuro to the enigmatic Char there was no black and white in the central emotional conflict between those two, just the fog of war and the shattering of ideals. Flit though, 100% he is a willing combatant and since the enemy are quite literally unknown, possibly alien(I initially thought the UE suits were autonomous) there is no central conflict on an emotional level, just kill the bad guy’s better each episode. The beginning struggles with a whole 3 episodes solving the exploding colony question when it should’ve been 2 max and the pacing never really improves, stuff just keeps happening. Flit himself doesn’t make things easy to enjoy either, his VA Toshiyuki Toyonaga being utterly insufferable to listen to. The only bright spots as we go through the faux Jaburo to Solomon arcs is Woolf, the haughty badass of the team and Yurin L’Ciel for being voiced by Saori Hayami and if you thought that last point was shallow than yeah, that’s the straws I’m reaching for enjoyment wise. Everything is simply too flat and unemotive, characters don’t have complexity, the conflict is black and white and the plot is familiar to a fault. Only in it’s bodycount does it shock because for how juvenile this is its still taking names, bloodily in episode 3’s example. In fact we pull a Lalah in this and with how young the characters literally are mixed with the very childlike designs it came as a huge shock… except offing Hayamin after only using her for like two episodes hurts in an unintentional manner.

With the revelation that the UE were really just the abandoned and scorned colony of Mars, called Vagans, we end the first generation of AGE and welcome the second in, led by Flit’s son Asemu. Asemu Asuno is easily the most likeable of the 3 protagonists and one who offers the most storytelling potential thanks to his bond with Vagan wunderkid Zeheart Galette whose this series token Char clone. They spent a school year/semester it’s hard to tell together and become brothers in arms before Zeheart returned to the Vagan forces, becoming their de facto military commander under Supreme Leader Ezelcant. This bond is the first positive connection between the Earth Federation and the Vagan and given how this story plays out you’d think that would be important, nay even the catalyst for everything. Unfortunately both Asemu and Zeheart are victims of this stories poor writing and actually end up flanderized by the third generation, the handling of their dynamic so underutilized the series had to rewrite and remake history with twin compilation OVA’s that use new footage to try and make them something in execution the main series never pulled off. In my opinion Asemu Asuno doesn’t become one of the destinies that form history, instead it will be his father Flit who actually comes into his own in this second generations material.

If the first destiny was the ghost of Gundam ‘79 basically defining the first gen than it’s Flit’s maturation in the second gen that would push this series into a new, more original direction. So basically Flit Asuno is Eren Yeager right, like obviously he came first but that’s basically what he becomes. Flit starts out as an annoying kid whose been through it and doesn’t have any trouble getting in that Gundam but like we’ve followed him since he was a child, cutesy Level-5 style design and all. As the first protagonist you’d expect him to become the model for every generation to follow, a wizened old master in the making but that is not who Flit Asuno is because Flit Asuno cannot forgive or forget the hand Vagan dealt him. He wants to lead a war of total extermination against the Vagan, learning of their plight and their inherent humanity doesn’t dull his pure rage towards them and so he becomes not a role model but a monster in the making. While Asemu fights primarily to protect those he loves whilst bemoaning war as a whole Flit is charging headlong into the most grandiose act of vengeance ever committed in this world’s modern history, giving us a protagonist with actual shades of grey and actions that must always be questioned. Don’t get me wrong, Flit is more conceptually interesting than his execution lets him be since nuanced writing isn’t really a thing this staff ever pulls off but going from by the books ‘79 plotting to hey we’ve got a Eren Yeager wannabe on our hands is exactly what this series needed to regain my drifting attentions.

The second generation ends with a epic setpiece battle that has Asemu and Zeheart team up in the end to save Earth from a falling warship(and seeding it with Vagan forces) before a timeskip gives us a slice of political intrigue as Flit and Asuno subvert a conspiracy between the Fed’s PM and Vagan and if you think that matters than no it really doesn’t, this series is less about politicking than even Wing so all of this is basically filler. The third generation starts with those seeds sprouting as Vagan forces overrun Earth… and yeah that’s never really addressed again the Vagans just won right? Anyway the third and final destiny takes the shape and name of Kio Asuno, Asemu’s son and the boy who will bridge the gap between the Feds and the Vagan nations, bringing peace to the solar system. How does he do it you ask, does he also have a inside connection like Asemu or heck was Asemu’s own experiences taught to him. No, Asemu went to get milk and just stayed away for 13 whole years becoming Captain Harlock for reasons(that suck) and good boy Kio is just so pure that he’ll save the world because he’s just the goodest kid who ever was. Heck he was raised by old dog Flit and still never gained any semblance of prejudice or hate, he is without a shadow of a doubt the worst Gundam protagonist I’ve yet seen and that competition has the likes of Heero Yuy and the Gquaxamole chicks nobody remembers. Kio is so unabashedly shallow it hurts to think that he leads the largest section of this work(technically its two whole arcs but like, is the Three Generations Arc a thing in practice?).

Zeheart was the human on the Vagan side, the one figure there that seemed to be key to ending this war on peaceful grounds so naturally the third generation makes him the unmovable antagonist, in fact it’s his life that needs to end before any peace can be achieved. He drank the koolaid and became trapped in his own destiny, capable of doing acts that go against his very humanity for the sake of ideals he doesn’t even believe in. I like him because he’s Hiroshi Kamiya and I could never hate that man’s voice but his descent into darkness felt weightless and forced, his true destiny decided by the hand of writers with minimal capabilities. Kio and the gang ditch the Earth that the Vagan conquered(?) and while he gets an impromptu visit to the Vagan mothership of Second Moon to give some semblance of reality to his strictly anti war sensibilities his old grandpa Flit returns to service and starts pushing the genocidal war even harder. This series follows in ‘79’s spirit a final time when its run was cut short and the final war becomes just 2 setpiece battles before ending with Flit, finally confronted by both his son and grandson becomes the catalyst himself for the wars end, bringing his interesting arc to a close while also highlighting the power of family to escape from a sort of generational trauma.

Talking about the non Asuno members of the cast is an even rougher deal, if you’d even believe me. Every single side character is written cynically into two corners, the ones that exist and the ones that die. The ones that exist are easy to summarise because they don’t get any screentime whatsoever. Millais and Vargas are two who exist across 2 generations which is kinda cool but they never factor into the plot or main characters arcs and in gen 3 we get Captain Einus… her name is pronounced exactly as you think it does and that’s wild. For the side pieces who get to steal screentime from the MC’s and seem capable of emotion the story sees fit to only and always torment, I’m thinking how Yurin got Lalah’d or the groan inducing tragic romance between Obright and Remi, like man they did not even try there. The only side characters who kinda stand up to are the gen 1 characters like Woolf and Grodek who are very much just as doomed as everyone else but actually get to leave a mark on the protagonists who they easily overshadow. Also final note don’t be a women in AGE because those two rules apply even harder to them, this is a story where Asemu’s love interest Romary goes from active participant to wife who thought her husband was dead for 13 years as she raised their son alone only for him to return with a sorry I was being a pirate and all she ever did was tearfully hug him at reunion before effectively exiting the story. 13 years this man was gone getting war groceries and his wife isn’t even allowed a word, romance is dead kids.

On all storytelling fronts Gundam AGE is a shallow by the books entry into the Gundam canon, one whose very central conceit kneecaps every single character and plotline outside of Flit Asuno from building any sense of individual depth before they’re discarded for the new toys. It’s writing isn’t as offensively self serious as my golden standard of garbage that is Wing but where that series had edge this has the vacuum of space, there is nothing here that will stick with me which is crazy given it’s 49 episode run with the 2 flicks that I watched for posterity(and you don’t have to). Unlike Wing though I didn’t fully have a bad time with AGE, in fact smiles came easier the longer it ran. That’s because I am a simple man who like’s mecha action and this production mostly delivers a very enjoyable product on that front, heck it’s video game roots even factor in positively too. Gundam AGE is a very robust Sunrise anime that fully leverages their own veteran artists to make sure the mobile suit action is consistent and pretty, maintaining a frankly immaculate balance of mobile, fast paced action and sturdy, incredibly detailed mecha drawings. Lead by designers Junya Ishigaki, Kanetake Ebikawa, and Kenji Teraoka the mobile suits are split between the quaint and underpowered Federation suits and the much more intimidating, downright saurid designs of the Vagan’s. Their animalistic forms and general superiority against the Feds make their initially unknown origin really work in their favour as unknown mechanical monsters. Ken Otsuka served as the Mecha CAD and while I’m not one to know anything I’m assuming we can thank him lots for the absurd quality of some of these drawings, like just look at em!

The titular Gundam is a fairly standard super mobile suit in design but it’s built different, literally. Paired with the legendary suit itself is the AGE system, a device that basically acts like a video game skill tree because when you use a Gundam with it on it learns from those combat experiences and starts popping out new tech from it’s associated building device which is literally just an egg. This is stupid in the most delightful of ways, Level-5 cheekily bringing some gamer energy to the actual story and using it as a deux ex machina every few episodes, when the boy’s are in a pinch all they need is an upgrade and some of those upgrades get crazy. Your mileage may vary on how ridiculous this devices premise can be but I found it good fun from the jump so I’m certainly a fan. The other completely positive for me note about this production and maybe the one that best utilized the material is Kei Yoshikawa‘s musical score. To be straight, this is not the most memorable Gundam score I’ve heard, it doesn’t have memorable compositions or themes or anything but what it does do is live and breath alongside the generations. In the beginning its a stock standard heroic orchestra, enjoyable but not really attention grabbing but than the second generation hits and we’re getting electronic in their, the soundscape has noticeably evolved. Finally for the grand final stretch we get a choir that adds a more haunting epic flavour to things and once all 3 styles coalesce the body of the score starts to really make this anime sing, it’s a simple trick but building the soundscape up like this worked a treat on my ears and really sets the intended tone better than the writing.