Your first Gundam experience

[mcruz1014]

Gundam Wing on Toonami like a lot of people. I thought it was the greatest thing since to happen to the earth since ice cream back then, and spent a pretty penny on those model kits. Lo and behold, I saw how much better the UC era series were. Wing has a special place in my heart, although I think that the best is 08th MS Team. Im looking forward to Gundam 00, hopefully it can atone for Destiny...... ugh

[DragoonKain3]

As with a lot of North Americans, my first foray into Gundam was Gundam Wing. From there, I saw SEED, Destiny, Turn A, After War X, in that order. Needless to say, Turn A was above and beyond the rest.

Won't bother with G Gundam though, as its premise sounds boring. And unless a gun-ota decides to lend me DVDs of all the uc timeline gundams, with subtitles no less, I won't be touching the earlier ones.

[Hanbok]

Originally Posted by DragoonKain3

As with a lot of North Americans, my first foray into Gundam was Gundam Wing. From there, I saw SEED, Destiny, Turn A, After War X, in that order. Needless to say, Turn A was above and beyond the rest.

Won't bother with G Gundam though, as its premise sounds boring. And unless a gun-ota decides to lend me DVDs of all the uc timeline gundams, with subtitles no less, I won't be touching the earlier ones.

G-Gundam was alright. Yes, I would even put G-Gundam above Seed and Destiny.

[White Rice]

When I was younger I worked at a shop with videogames and toys.

I used to build models for sale, and eventually I borrowed a few of the cheap copy VHS tapes and started watching.

Then I got hooked, like not even funny, I'm studying to become and engineer so I can build these things one day.

[Sailor Enlil]

Mine is unusual - the Gundam Century MOD for Starcraft. Been hooked on it since shortly after Starcraft itself became a hit.

[Coolrush]

Like a lot of people, my first Gundam series was Gundam Wing. I remember loving the Epyon when I first saw it. Then SEED came along and Ive never looked back.

[RavenHawk]

Well my first Gundam experience was with Gundam Wing, when I was in the fifth grade. I remember the episode I started with was with Heero piloting the Heavyarms. Since then, I continued watching it after school. I love all of the Gundams, especially Deathscythe-H and Epyon. At first I didn't like Heavyarms because it was too bulky, but after reading through its specs, man it was a killer!
Since then, I enjoy Wing stuff, heck I bought Altron and Heavyarms back then. I just wish I could have collected all of the Gundams there.

To this day I still love Gundam Wing. I didn't like the story in Endless Waltz much; I loved the new Gundam designs, man one of my favorites Deathscythe-H got even cooler! I also sing one of my favorite GW songs, "Rhythm Emotion" to this day.

[Demongod86]

Frankly I loved the Wing Zero vs. Epyon duels...IMO they were the height of epic duels of all of gundam history...two supergundams just duking it out melee style with two godlike pilots in them...

SEED might have done the trick had the original Justice been seized by Raw Le Creuset, but we may never know now. Frankly, Zero vs. Epyon's set of duels really defined...and still defines gundam dueling for me.

My only problem with EW was why Heero didn't simply exterminate Wufei, but instead chose to damage the most beautiful robot in history of any show. Close second are the Freedom suits when they're emanating full Lacus Dust.

[Paininator]

My first, was the original, Mobile Suit Gundam. After that, 0083, which i loved. After that, i just picked up whatever. I never really liked Gundam Wing- the plot, and the horrible Cliché. But, i am not here to rant about it :P. I really like most of the Universal Timeline gundam shows.

[symbiotes_021]

I got hooked up when Gundam Wing aired internationally and not aired in my country. Bought a Gundam Wing Zero Custom 1/144 HG after that.

[Xuru-kun]

TV series Gundam Wing in tv program "Hyper" year? hmm 2000? meby... ahh! no! i see frist movie of Gundam 0079.

[DHos]

I think I saw the original MS Gundam back as a SatAM cartoon

[aolas]

gundam wing was my first gundam that i ever watch. i still remember (although is not so clear) when heero destroy a colony using ...ehh... wing or wing zero, ahhh i forgot because it's too old and i dont have gundam wing dvd

[LionsMane]

Yeah for me it was Gundam Wing when it was on CN...oh wait you've already heard the story.

I then just started watching all the other Gundam series that used to air on CN as well. I enjoyed GW but not my favorite Gundam series---I really had a thing for Endless Waltz though.

[King Lycan]

I Saw Almost All Gundam series{not seed} but the frist one i saw was Mobile Suit Gundam Wing

[Cehack]

I was always a big fan of robots and the like when I was younger. I grew up watching shows like Voltron and Transformers and collecting a bunch of giant robot toys. So one day in the mid-90s (probably in 1995 or early 1996--it was before I moved) I was at the library looking for books in the withdrawn section. I was a fan of sci-fi novels at the time (Isaac Asimov, Philip K. Dick, Orson Scott Card, etc.) so I was looking for something in that genre. I saw these three novels with a cool mech on them and thought they looked pretty good so I picked them up, read them and loved them. These were the Mobile Suit Gundam novelization trilogy -- Awakening, Escalation and Confrontation -- by Yoshiyuki Tomino. I had no idea what they were at the time though, so it was just neat to be reading novels about giant robots. This was my first direct Gundam experience, though I didn't really have any idea what it was at the time.

Shortly after this I started to get into anime and began reading Animerica, and every so often they'd discuss new mecha movies and series being released in North America. I started to purchase and rent some of them, and soon enough I had an impressive VHS collection of Japanese mecha stuff. One thing I noticed when reading the magazine was that they kept mentioning Gundam, and how it and Mazinger Z were like the gods of the mecha genre, so it was always kind of in the back of my mind. By this time I had pretty much forgotten all about the novels, but the name sounded familiar. It wasn't until one day when I was cleaning and found the novels again that I realised they were one and the same.

In 1998 (or 1999 -- I can't remember which), the subtitled Mobile Suit Gundam movies were brought over to North America on VHS for the first time so I decided to check them out. At the time I thought the series was actually an adaptation of the novels I had read a few years before, so I did my share of bitching about the "changes" and how things seemed less intense in the anime -- the typical stuff you do when you've read a novel and see the adaptation. It wasn't for a few years that I found out that I had the whole thing backwards, and that the anime and the novel were written by the exact same person anyway. I feel kind of stupid about that now. Anyway, I ended up falling in love with it regardless. I spent a lot of my time trying to draw the characters and mobile suits from the movies, rewatching them, and hoping I might stumble across some other piece of Gundam merchandise somewhere.

By this time I had stopped reading Animerica and didn't have the internet yet, so there was pretty much a Gundam blackout in my life. In fact, I didn't even know if there was anything other than the novels and the movie trilogy for quite a while. Then, I think it was spring of 1999, I ran across the most awesome thing ever: the local comic store had a boxset of Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket and Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory on VHS. I saved up and bought it as soon as I could, and was amazed. The stories were obviously set in the same universe but were also extremely diverse; 0080 being dramatic and heartbreaking and 0083 being a little more on the gritty side of things. I loved them a lot and was extremely happy to know there was more to the Gundam name.

About a year later Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz aired on YTV. The commercials got me pretty hyped, though when I watched it there seemed to be something missing. As it turns out, YTV aired the "epilogue" movie before the actual series, so I was pretty confused. Nevertheless, I personally thought it was awesome at the time, and I started watching the series religiously from there on. I progressively found it to be extremely mediocre as it went on, but I stuck around for the whole thing. I didn't like it all that much by the time it ended, but I did like all the merchandise in stores and the attention the Gundam franchise received.

Actually, I'd say the only thing I really liked about Gundam Wing was the fact that it ended up getting popular, allowing me to learn more about franchise. When it was airing I picked up a magazine with information on everything: every entry into the Universal Century part of the franchise, as well as the "alternate universe" installments. What excited me the most, though, was finding out that not only did the movie trilogy I had come before the novels, but that the movies themselves were a condensed version of a 40-episode TV series. Also, the fact that there were a bunch of continuations was pretty awesome as well.

So that pretty much began my interest in the Gundam franchise. I finally got the internet in 2001 and was able to learn even more about it from there. One thing that pissed me off the most was that a bunch of series aired in the States over the next few years, yet Canada didn't get any of them. This resulted in me becoming a hardcore DVD collector, and a downloader of fansubbed series and movies that hadn't been localized here yet.

And that brings us here. Those novels basically turned me into the Gundam nerd I am today.

[faustianideals]

I remember watching a Gundam series aired in the USA back around 1992-95. I can't remember the name though and it now seems unlikely that the show was even a Gundam show since Gundam Wing was the first to be dubbed in 2000. So yeah, I guess I'll go with Gundam Wing being the first. Woo Deathscythe!

[Sean Connery]

I first Saw Gundam Wing in 1999 on Toonami, then Gundam 08th MS Team, 0080,0083 CCA, Seed and Zeta

[Cereldi]

i first experienced gundam when i bought this "funny looking" toy in the store. i was pissed cus i actually had to build the damn thing, but it was pretty awesome.
however, the instructions were in japanese so i had to ask my mom to translate (even though there were pictures).
it turned out to be Zero from gundam wing endless walts....the wings were a bitch

[AGX-17]

The Blue Destiny manga, though I had no idea about the franchise at the time.