Once upon a time, I ran an information site at gundam.anime.net devoted to the Japanese animated sci-fi series Mobile Suit Gundam. I closed it in early 2002 to focus on the official English-language site, gundamofficial.com, which in turn shut down at the end of 2012.
Despite this legacy of defunct websites, I still get the impulse to delve into Gundam arcana every now and then. Here you'll find some random musings on aspects of the Gundam saga, updated whenever I feel like it.
In the main Data Evolution article, I've attempted to track the development of Gundam's Universal Century world setting as it was gradually fleshed out from 1978 onwards. This includes full or partial translations of some original source material, including the following items:
I've also begun putting together features on the development of individual Gundam series. These currently include a general process glossary, plus notes on the development of the original Mobile Suit Gundam and the sequels Z Gundam and Gundam F91.
And here's some supplemental production history reference. This includes a variety of creator interviews and essays, behind-the-scenes accounts of the production of Gundam F91, and notes on the first draft of Akinori Endo's Gundam ZZ Finale.
While I slowly work through the production history in chronological order, some other folks have been doing excellent documentation on more recent Gundam works. Here are a couple that you might want to check out, focusing on Turn A Gundam and Reconguista in G.
A historical survey of the various technical specifications for the original Mobile Suit Gundam series, and its MSV and MS-X spinoffs, that have been published over the years.
The following items are older essays from 2005~2006, preserved here for historical purposes. They haven't been updated to reflect new information and I'd probably have entirely different theories now.
Formerly an interactive timeline of the Universal Century. I haven't maintained this, because the official timeline is frankly a bit of a mess at this point. When time permits, I'll build something new from scratch.
How many Zakus can you cram into the teensy tiny hangar deck of the stalwart Musai-class space cruiser? Okay, now how many of those hefty Doms? And can they stand upright, or what? The answers may shock and surprise you! Hey, you never know.
Was Zeon Deikun a narcissistic carpetbagger? Did Degwin Zabi make his fortune toting bales of moonrock? Join us for some scandal-mongering speculation about the founding figures of the Principality of Zeon.
Everything you ever wanted to know, plus lots more, about the nitty-gritty details of mobile suit power generation and energy distribution. Why is the Gundam so mighty? What's with all those cables? Read and learn!
Mobile Suit Gundam is copyright © Sotsu • Sunrise. Everything else on this site, and all original text and pictures, are copyright Mark Simmons.