Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin
Volume one cover of Mobile Suit Gundam The Origin manga
機動戦士ガンダム THE ORIGIN (Kidō Senshi Gandamu The Origin)
Genre	Space Opera, Military science fiction, Mecha, Drama
Manga
Written by	Yoshikazu Yasuhiko
Published by	Kadokawa Shoten
English publisher	NA Viz Media (former) Vertical Inc (current)
Demographic	Shōnen
Magazine	Gundam Ace
Original run	June 2001 – June 2011
Volumes	23
Original video animation
Directed by	Yoshikazu Yasuhiko Takashi Imanishi
Produced by	Osamu Taniguchi
Written by	Katsuyuki Sumisawa
Music by	Takayuki Hattori
Studio	Sunrise
Released	February 28, 2015 – present
Runtime	60 minutes each
Episodes	4

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin (機動戦士ガンダム THE ORIGIN, Kidō Senshi Gandamu The Origin) is a manga written and illustrated by Yoshikazu Yasuhiko. It is a retelling of the story from the 1979 anime television series Mobile Suit Gundam, of which Yasuhiko was the original character designer.

An anime adaptation of the manga, focusing on the stories of Casval Rem Deikun (more famously known as Char Aznable) and his sister Artesia (aka Sayla Mass), produced by Sunrise began releasing in 2015. Yasuhiko is the chief director of the adaptation, with Sunrise veteran Takashi Imanishi as director, and Katsuyuki Sumisawa as the scriptwriter.

Plot

See also: Mobile Suit Gundam § Plot

The plot of the manga follows somewhat closely the plot of the original series. It is the year Universal Century 0079, and the eighth month of a vicious war between the Earth Federation and a breakaway nation of space colonists, the Principality of Zeon. The story follows the crew of the ship White Base, as they fight to ferry the experimental RX-78 Gundam mobile suit to the Federation base at Jaburo.

Although for the most part faithful to the original series' plot (all of the major events unfold in mostly the same manner as the TV series, though often in different locales), Yasuhiko has taken the liberty of changing certain elements in the series universe, giving a different character to the series and the struggle that unfolds. Primary among these is the presence of mobile suits in both sides well before the conflict begins—in fact, in the flashback sequences, both the Earth Federation Forces and Zeon use Guntanks in 0068, and they and the Guncannon mobile suit are described as "obsolete" and fit for target practice in the first volume (in the TV series proper, both units were as new as the Gundam itself, designed to serve as long and mid-range fire support units).

Other differences concern the breadth of the Gundam's journey to Jaburo. Where it's implied that the White Base's journey to Jaburo in the series was pretty much a circumnavigation of the globe unconnected to many real-world locations, Yasuhiko's journey places the White Base's landfall near Los Angeles, the headquarters of Garma Zabi (in the series, Garma was based out of a generic "New York"—Origin in fact states the Zeon occupation HQ as Los Angeles City Hall, with Garma residing in Hollywood/Beverly Hills) and moves the craft steadily to the southeast, and down the South American coast—past Caracas, Venezuela and through Macchu Picchu and into Brazil, where Jaburo, the headquarters of the Earth Federation, is located. This retelling cuts out some of the more trivial encounters seen in the original series, while keeping and expanding on important characters like Garma, Ramba Ral, and the Black Tri-Stars. As a direct result the events of Operation Odessa which takes place around the Ukrainian city of the same name, occur after the events of Jaburo, as opposed to the anime where they occur before.

Yasuhiko further finally tells the entire back story of the Gundam universe in the manga. After the successful defense of Jaburo, the story diverts into a very in-depth flashback, told primarily from the viewpoints of Sayla and Char (with a secondary thread being told from Amuro's POV) recounting the downfall of Zeon Zum Deikun, the rise of the Zabi family, the construction of Side 7 and the research into Mobile Suits, and leading up through a decade until the launching of the One Year War. It also goes into detail answering many previously unanswered questions such as the appearance of heretofore unseen Zeon mobile suits prior to the MS-05 Zaku I, how Dozle Zabi received his trademark scars and even the origin of Casval Deikun/Edward Mass' "Char Aznable" identity. Volume fourteen, deals with the Battle of Loum at the beginning of the One Year War, and is the last piece of the in-depth flashback.

The story shifted back on track to the original anime's storyline, featuring the White Base's involvement in the Federation's Operation Odessa, as well as including Kai Shiden's encounter with Miharu. Afterwards, the manga deals with the end of the Odessa campaign and (in another departure from the series) takes M'Quve and his Gyan out of the picture before he has a chance to confront the Gundam.

Media

Manga

The series was first serialized in the magazine Gundam Ace in Japan beginning in 2002 and has since been collected in 23 tankōbon volumes. Both are published by Kadokawa Shoten under their Kadokawa Comics A imprint. Viz Comics attempted to translate the series and publish it in America in a quarterly, perfect-bound magazine-sized format, although low sales very quickly ended the American run.

Although Viz released 12 volumes of its English translation, they do not correspond with the Japanese volumes. The English volumes, with an average length between 100-130 pages were about half of that of the equivalent Japanese tankōbon, which ran anywhere between 200-270. The length varied as some contained just four chapters, some contained an additional "special" shorter side story, and others contained a full five chapters. The reason for this could be that the Japanese serialization focused on keeping distinct chapters. As a result, the English serialization ended up having a higher price point than its Japanese equivalent with only roughly half of the content. The Viz release stopped near the end of volume six in the Japanese version.

The popularity of the manga in Japan has led to the release of aizōban or Collector's Edition versions. Each collector's edition combines two tankōbon volumes (combining the beginning and end sections into one), creating large, leather bound, hardback editions with dozens of pages printed in full color, as opposed to about 5 pages per tankōbon.

At Otakon 2012, North American publisher Vertical announced that it will publish an English language adaptation of the series in hardcover format similar to the Aizoban editions. The first volume was released on the 28th of March 2013.

Anime

Sunrise announced in June 2011 that an anime adaptation of Gundam The Origin was in production. In March 2014, it was announced it will be a four-episode OVA series with event screenings at Japanese theaters, in celebration of the 35th anniversary of Gundam, and centering on the stories of Casval Deikun and his sister Artesia. The first episode, titled The Blue-Eyed Casval (青い瞳のキャスバル, Aoi Hitomi no Kyasubaru), premiered in limited Japanese theaters on February 28, 2015. Sunrise will produce an English dub to be recorded at NYAV Post for the first time since Bandai retired their Gundam license.

Episode list

No.	Title	Release date
1	"I: Blue Eyed Casval" "I Aoi Hitomi no Kyasubaru" (I 青い瞳のキャスバル)	February 28, 2015
Episode 1's theme song is "Hoshikuzu no Sunadokei" by Takayuki Hattori Featuring Yu-yu.
2	"II: Artesia's Sorrow" "II Kanashimi no Aruteishia" (II 哀しみのアルテイシア)	October 31, 2015
Episode 2's theme song is "Kaze yo 0074" by Takayuki Hattori ft. Takumi Ishida
3	"III: Dawn of Rebellion" "III Akatsuki no Hōki" (III 暁の蜂起)	2016

External links

• Official Gundam The Origin website (Japanese)
• Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin (manga) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia
• Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin (anime) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia

Preceded by Gundam Build Fighters Try	Gundam metaseries (production order) 2015	Succeeded by Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans
Preceded by none	Gundam Universal Century timeline U.C. 0068 – 0079	Succeeded by Mobile Suit Gundam MS IGLOO