For western audiences, Nineties Gundam can largely be outlined by one collection: Gundam Wing, the sixth main entry within the franchise, and the one that might set the stage for the mecha series’ rise within the west by its landmark broadcast run on Cartoon Community in 2000. However only a 12 months after Wing aired in Japan, Gundam returned with an entire new collection—one that usually flies below the radar as one of many collection’ most intriguing additions.
After Struggle Gundam X first broadcast in Japan in 1996, and is now, outdoors of Blu-ray releases just a few years in the past, lastly making its worldwide streaming debut for free on Tubi this month. Set in what was on the time Gundam‘s third alternate timeline—i.e, not being a part of the “Common Century” continuity that the primary 4 Gundam collection have been all a part of—after Wing and its predecessor G Gundam, Gundam X picks up a decade and a half after a lethal interstellar struggle has ravaged the Earth and its house colonies. Following a younger scavenger named Garrod Ran, one in all many survivors eking a residing by scavenging and repairing remnant mobile suits from the struggle’s aftermath, Garrod discovers the titular Gundam X and crosses paths with the crew of the battleship Freeden and wrapped up of their goals to safeguard a handful of Newtypes, developed people who’ve developed enhanced notion from residing in house, from being exploited by varied emergent factions trying to thrust the Earth Sphere into interstellar battle as soon as extra.
Whereas Gundam‘s prior alternate universes in Wing and G Gundam solely carried free parallels to the framework of the worldbuilding of the Common Century—largely within the type of battle between Earth and house colonies, and, in fact, large mecha—Gundam X was the primary of the alternate universes to actually explicitly grapple with one in all Gundam‘s most fascinating concepts within the type of Newtypes, each in taking the literal identify (different AU Gundam reveals have explored the idea by completely different lenses and names, in fact) for these enhanced people and likewise in inspecting their place on the earth past their exploitation as belongings of struggle. Though on the time Gundam X had combined reception—it ran for simply 39 episodes, truncated from a deliberate 49, and was in the end overshadowed within the west fully by the success of Gundam Wing, by no means receiving an English-language dub—in years because it’s been re-examined and appreciated for its place in the wider oeuvre of Gundam‘s alternate timelines.
Of the trifecta of ’90s Gundam AUs (placing apart X‘s direct successor, 1999’s anniversary collection Flip A Gundam, a collection that, whereas in its personal continuity, largely performs with concepts connecting itself to the unique timeline and the broader Gundam franchise), it’s the one which’s arguably probably the most in dialog with the unique Cellular Swimsuit Gundam and its own direct successors in Zeta and Double Zeta. It’s effectively price trying out, particularly as Tubi’s free—and hopefully an indication that, even when a number of Gundam‘s massive hitters are all at the moment touchdown on different streaming houses, we might see just a few extra entries from the franchise get a highlight on Tubi too (the aforementioned Flip A, a franchise spotlight, is in determined want of a streaming house!).
You possibly can take a look at After Struggle Gundam X on Tubi here.
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