The appeal and reviews of "Mobile Suit SD Gundam": A thorough explanation of its compact world view and its fun

The appeal and reviews of "Mobile Suit SD Gundam": A thorough explanation of its compact world view and its fun

Mobile Suit SD Gundam: The charm of the deformed world and its history

■Overview of the work

Mobile Suit SD Gundam was released as an OVA on May 25, 1988, produced by Sunrise and published by Bandai Visual. The 17-episode series is made up of 30-minute short stories and was written by Hajime Yatate and Yoshiyuki Tomino. The copyright is held by Sotsu and Sunrise.

■ Story

■ Story

●Mobile Suit SD Gundam Part 1: Fierce Battle Can Gundam Stand on Earth?
Three Zaku units invade Side 7. Due to their short, deformed appearance, they are unable to reach the knob to open and close the colony entrance, and slapstick gags unfold from the start. This is a parody short that recreates famous scenes from Mobile Suit Gundam, such as Char's Zaku, the battle with the Dom of the Black Tri-Stars, the Big Zam and Elmeth of the space fortress Solomon, and the showdown with the Zeong, using SD characters.

●Mobile Suit SD Gundam Part 2 Holiday Edition The threat of the Zeon Hotel? An order to destroy the Gundam Pension!!
The Gundam Pension run by Amuro, Kamille and Judau is bustling with guests today as usual. But then Char from the Zeon Hotel starts a fight, claiming that they've "lost a customer." Char and his friends are causing trouble with their mobile suits, but the three mobile suits Gundam, Z Gundam and ZZ Gundam also show up to fight back, causing chaos at the pension.

●Mobile Suit SD Gundam Part 3: The Final Battle SD Olympics! Stadium - Filled with laughter The SD Olympics, where SD characters gather together to compete for the honor of the SD Gundam world, is finally being held. Both the Federal and Zeon forces have sent their best athletes. However, these are SD Gundam characters. There will be a lot of chaos in the 100-meter sprint, shot put, marathon, and other events.

Mobile Suit SD Gundam MARK-II Episode 1: The Rolling Colony Incident In the colony "Shuraku," a dance show featuring female ghosts is extremely popular. However, the audience, excited by the charms of the dancers, causes a commotion inside the colony. This causes the colony to start rotating on its own.

Mobile Suit SD Gundam MARK-II Episode 2: The princess of the Zeta Kingdom is kidnapped by Char, who has powered up to become the legendary Demon King Ganjabu (Gundam). King Dekin asks three brave warriors, Amuro, Kamille, and Judau, to rescue the princess. The three charge into Mount Zeon, where the princess is being held captive, and finally confront Char.

●Mobile Suit SD Gundam MARK-II Bonus: The Original Gundam Mystery Scenes Collection Each character will perform a one-liner joke or a pun on the theme of the show subtitles that were memorable to fans from the three works "Mobile Suit Gundam", "Mobile Suit Z Gundam", and "Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ". A total of 13 lame jokes that aim for "coldness" and "absurdity" are piled on.

Mobile Suit SD Gundam MARK-III: Space Mystery Mission Char is an illegal collector who plans to take the mysteries and treasures of the universe for himself, and is engaged in a fierce battle with Amuro and the Space Rangers who are pursuing him to stop him. In the midst of this, Char discovers one of the mysteries, the Qubeley swallowtail butterfly, and tries to capture it, but is interrupted by the Space Rangers' spaceship, the Argama.

●Mobile Suit SD Gundam MARK-III SD Sengokuden Volume of Heaven / Volume of Earth / Volume of Truth / Volume of Reason It is the Sengoku period. The battle between the two forces of the Gundam Corps and the Dark Corps continues without end. The five warriors of the Gundam Corps challenge Zakuto and the three Zaku brothers of the Dark Corps, who are trying to take over the world.

●Mobile Suit SD Gundam MARK-III SD Sengokuden: Ninja Battle at Zumushi Mansion A challenge has been sent to the Gundam Corps to sneak into the impeccably defended Zumushi Mansion, the residence of the Dark Shogun. Sho Gundam sends out his secret agent, Onmitsu Gundam, to discover the Dark Shogun's secret.

Mobile Suit SD Gundam MARK-IV Dream of Maron Company: Space Travel With the advance of a rival company, Dream of Maron Company, a small travel agency, has lost all customers. One of its employees, Acguy, somehow manages to gather customers and depart for a space tour, but the group gets lost in a mysterious space along with their spaceship, Gabthley.

●Mobile Suit SD Gundam MARK-IV SD Gundam Fierce Race
A race was held between characters from the SD world. The characters were divided into teams, and they all started off at the same time in unique race cars that were adaptations of familiar mobile suits.

Mobile Suit SD Gundam MARK-V The Miracle of the Courier Li-Gazi Li-Gazi was given the job of transporting the world's most expensive Psycho-Two Kannon statue to the stingy Hyakushiki Minister's residence. Li-Gazi loaded the Kannon statue onto his beloved Asshimar truck and set off, but was soon surrounded by a group of thieves who were after it. However, without panicking or making a fuss, Li-Gazi coolly slipped through the crisis.

●Mobile Suit SD Gundam MARK-V SD Sengokuden: The Gundam Five's Extermination of a MonsterA monster has appeared in the town of Jaburou. Hyakushiki and his brother Hyakkimaru head there to confirm the rumor, but communication is lost. The generals then order the Musha Gundam Five to exterminate the monster. The Five immediately head to Jaburou, but what they see there is a fake monster created by the Dark Army. The showdown between the Five and the Dark Army begins.

●Mobile Suit SD Gundam MARK-V SD Gundam Genesis Pikiriientapoles Genesis unfolds with the Haniwa Gundam, a mysterious creature that looks somewhat like a Gundam or Zaku. The Haniwa Gundams are digging up something like a horn sticking out of the ground. As they investigate, they discover that it appears to be a part of a gigantic T-Ranno Zaku. They continue to struggle to dig it all out.

■Explanation

■Explanation

A comical short series featuring two- to three-headed deformed characters of the Mobile Suit Gundam series and mecha and characters. "SD" stands for "Super Deformed," and it started as a toy project that was developed from illustrations and parody manga published in magazines, and was expanded into Gashapon dolls and trading cards. This work was the first video work to be released in response to its popularity, and a total of 14 shorts were produced and released as an OVA. The first two titles were released in advance as simultaneous screenings with the movie Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack.

■Cast

■Cast

・Amuro/Toru Furuya・Char/Shūichi Ikeda・Kamille/Nobuo Tobita・Judau/Kazuki Yao・Bright/Hiroko Suzuoki・Lalah/Keiko Han・Sayla/Haruka Inoue・Mirai/Fuyumi Shiraishi・Haman/Ryōko Sakakibara・Four/Saeko Shimazu・Elpeo Ple/Chieko Honda・Scirocco/Bin Shimada・Chris/Megumi Hayashibara・Haro/Mayumi Zhuo・Char's Zaku/Shozō Iizuka・Narrator, Zabi/Ichirō Nagai

●SD Sengokuden: The Heavenly Scroll, the Earthly Scroll, the Principles Scroll, the Ninja Battle at the Atamushi House, Musha Gundam, Toru Furuya, Onmitsu Gundam, Shuichi Ikeda, Mayakutsu, Takashi Hyakushi, Hirotaka Suzuoki, Seita, Hyakkimaru, Nobuo Tobita, Seita Damairu, Kazuki Yao, Niu, Hiroshi Hashimoto, Sakutou, Shozo Iizuka, Shogundam, Ichiro Nagai, Narrator, Koichi Chiba

●Dream Maron Company, Space Journey, Acguy/Ikeda Shuichi, New Gundam/Furuya Toru, Old Zaku/Nagai Ichiro, Qubeley/Katsuo Masako

●SD Gundam Race Bright/Hiroshi Suzuoki Knight Gundam/Yasunori Matsumoto Child Amuro/Yumi Touma Child Char/Omi Minami Yazan/Kouji Toya Live Broadcast/Bin Shimada

●The Miracle of the Courier Re-Gazi・Re-Gazi/Hiroshi Suzuoki・Agguguy/Nobuo Tobita・Minister Hyakushiki/Junpei Takiguchi・Gym/Toru Furuya・DJ/Rio Natsuki

●SD Sengokuden: The Five Gundam Warriors Defeat Monsters - Musha/Toru Furuya/Shogun/Takehito Koyasu/Shogun Gundam/Ichiro Nagai/Takashi Hyakushi/Hiroko Suzuoki

●SD Gundam Genesis Pikiriientapores, Toru Furuya, Hirotaka Suzuoki, Nobuo Tobita, Kiyoyuki Yanada, Nozomu Sasaki

■ Main staff

■ Main staff

・Planning by Sunrise ・Original story by Hajime Yatate and Yoshiyuki Tomino ・SD Sengokuden character concept by Koji Yokoi (Layup)
・Sound engineer/Kouichi Chiba

●Part 1: Fierce Battle, Part 2: Holiday, Part 3: Final Battle ・Screenplay: Hiroyuki Hoshiyama ・Character design and mechanical design: Gen Sato ・Director: Kiyoshi Egami ・Producer: Hironori Nakagawa

Rolling Colony Incident, Legend of Ganjabu ・Character design and animation director: Gen Sato ・Director and scriptwriter: Tetsuro Amino ・Producers: Hironori Nakagawa, Kenji Uchida, Minoru Takanashi

● Original Gundam Mystery Scenes, Mysteries of the Universe, Mission Defeat, Character design and animation director: Gen Sato, Director and scriptwriter: Tetsuro Amino, Producer: Kenji Uchida (Sunrise), Atsushi Sugita (Bandai)
・Ending Theme "Tokyo Boogie Night" Sung by Honda Chieko and Hayashibara Megumi

SD Sengokuden: Chapter of Heaven, Chapter of Earth, Chapter of Reason, Ninja Battle at the Head Mushi House, Character design and animation director: Akitoshi Yokoyama "SD Sengokuden: Ninja Battle at the Head Mushi House"
・Director: Shinji Takamatsu "SD Sengokuden: Chapter of Heaven/Chapter of Earth/Chapter of Reason"
・Director and scriptwriter: Amino Tetsuro "SD Sengokuden: Ninja Battle at the Head Bug House"
Producers: Kenji Uchida (Sunrise), Atsushi Sugita (Bandai)

●Dream Maron Company・Space Journey・Character design and animation director: Yasuhiro Oshima・Director and scriptwriter: Tetsuro Amino・Producers: Kenji Uchida (Sunrise), Atsushi Sugita (Bandai)
・Ending Theme "Bundarika of the Sixteenth Night" Sung by Yuko Mizutani

SD Gundam Race: Character design and animation director: Akiyoshi Yokoyama; Director and scriptwriter: Shinji Takamatsu; Producers: Kenji Uchida (Sunrise), Atsushi Sugita (Bandai)

●The Miracle of the Courier Re-GZ ・Character design and animation director: Yasuhiro Oshima ・Director and scriptwriter: Tetsuro Amino ・Producers: Kenji Uchida (Sunrise), Atsushi Sugita (Bandai)

SD Sengokuden: The Gundam Five's Monster Extermination Character design and animation director: Akiyoshi Yokoyama Director and scriptwriter: Shinji Takamatsu Producers: Kenji Uchida (Sunrise), Atsushi Sugita (Bandai)
・Ending Theme "Summer Swell" Sung by: Satoko Shimizu

SD Gundam Genesis Pikirientapoles Character design Key animator: Yoshinobu Inano Director: Tetsuro Amino Producer: Kenji Uchida (Sunrise), Atsushi Sugita (Bandai)

■ Evaluation and recommendation

Mobile Suit SD Gundam has a special place in the hearts of Gundam fans. By recreating famous scenes from the original Mobile Suit Gundam series with deformed characters, it offered fans the opportunity to enjoy the series from a new perspective. In contrast to the heavy storylines of the Gundam series, the worldview of SD Gundam emphasizes comical and humorous elements, making it popular with a wide range of age groups.

In particular, the first part, "Fierce Battle," starts with a gag where a Zaku cannot reach the knob to open and close the colony entrance, and is impressive for its parodies of original scenes, such as the battle with Char's Zaku and the Black Tri-Stars. In the second part, "Holiday," viewers were entertained by the unique setting of the conflict between the Gundam Pension and the Zeon Hotel. In the third part, "Decisive Battle," the setting is the SD Olympics, further highlighting the individuality of each character.

The MARK-II series featured more story-driven episodes such as "The Rolling Colony Incident" and "The Legend of Ganjabu," and added fantasy elements that created a new appeal. In "The Original Gundam Mysterious Scenes Collection," scenes that fans remember fondly were recreated as gags, providing laughs.

In the MARK-III series, the "Space Mystery Mission" and "SD Sengokuden" series introduced the Space Rangers and the setting of the Warring States period, achieving a wider range of storytelling. "The Ninja Battle at the Atamushi House" added a new theme of a ninja battle, which captured the interest of viewers.

The MARK-IV series, such as "Maron Company's Dream Space Journey" and "SD Gundam Fierce Race", dealt with everyday themes such as travel and racing, providing viewers with familiar content. In "The Miracle of the Courier Li-Gazi", an episode was developed that highlighted the cool character of the Li-Gazi, presenting viewers with a new image of a hero.

The MARK-V series, such as "SD Sengokuden: Gundam Five's Monster Extermination" and "SD Gundam Genesis: Pikirientapores", incorporated the grand themes of battles and the genesis of the Warring States period, deeply moving viewers.

In terms of the cast, the fact that voice actors from the original series, such as Toru Furuya and Shuichi Ikeda, are still participating is a big attraction for fans. Also, different staff members participate in each episode, and this diversity enhances the quality of the work.

The recommended points are as follows:

  • Fans of the Gundam series will be able to enjoy the original scenes from a new perspective.
  • The comical elements are emphasized, making it appealing to a wide range of age groups.
  • Each episode incorporates a different theme and setting, so you'll never get bored.
  • The voice actors from the original series are involved, which brings out the charm of the characters.
  • A diverse range of staff members are involved, ensuring that the quality of the work is kept high.

"Mobile Suit SD Gundam" is a work that can be recommended not only to fans of the Gundam series, but to all people who love anime and comedy. The deformed characters and humorous story will bring smiles and emotions to viewers.

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