The Deep, Dark, Weird Corners of the Gundam Universe
So I’m something of a Gundam aficionado, particularly when it comes to the “weird stuff” in the annals of the Gundam franchise. I’ve plumbed the depths of just about all the main series, watched OVAs a-plenty, and even still my favorite things branded “Gundam” are the weird outliers. The obscure manga about ninja, the early 2000s Canadian scifi live action movie, and more. Come with me on this journey as I share with you some of the weirdest things that exist in the Gundam universe (and a few adjacent things).
Cyber Newtype Story: MAD WANG 1160
Ok so this legitimately is the weirdest thing on this list in terms of content. MAD WANG (try not to laugh at that name) is a sequel to a Zeta Gundam side story manga but the characters are hurled to the future year of UC 1160. For context, Victory Gundam (the further along canonically except for G-Saviour) is set in the year UC 0223! I love this manga because it goes hard on the fantastical far-future stuff; basically everyone is a stable cyber newtype (a synthetic psychic who normally goes crazy) and can freely interact with machines via thoughts. The mecha in this series aren’t really “mobile suits” but “armed materials” because everything is actually created out of nanomachines and they kind of “break off” from ships or buildings to form themselves into mecha…
