Mobile Suit Gundam (Movie)

きどうせんしがんだむ げきじょうばん

Aired: 1981

A theatrical anime produced by Nippon Sunrise, the first installment of the Mobile Suit Gundam film trilogy distributed by Shochiku, re-edited by series director Yoshiyuki Tomino from the first 14 episodes (through roughly the front half) of the groundbreaking 1979-80 TV anime 'Mobile Suit Gundam,' with new cuts and freshly recorded audio. The film covers the outbreak of the One Year War, Amuro Ray's fateful encounter with the RX-78 Gundam at Side 7, and his early battles as a member of the White Base task force fighting alongside the Earth Federation Forces. Powered by an unprecedented late-blooming fan movement among young viewers, the picture became a social phenomenon, drawing a distribution revenue of 937 million yen and lifting the entire 'real robot' genre from the small screen into mainstream theatrical culture. Its impact reshaped the Gundam franchise and Japanese mecha anime as a whole.