10 Mobile Suit Gundam Memes Only Longtime Fans Will Get

The classic anime franchise Mobile Suit Gundam features weapons of mass destruction being used against civilians, basically every war crime in the books, and characters who tragically succumb to the psychological toll of unceasing warfare.

But as horrible as this all is, most Gundam fans think that it is all the height of comedy. Everything is a laughing matter in the world of Gundam memes, but there is one thing that’s off the table — calling a mobile suit a “Transformer” is a bridge too far.

10 Operation British Is No Laughing Matter

Source: iFunny

Operation British was the most important salvo undertaken during the first weeks of the One Year War, wherein Side 2 (a titanic space colony) was dropped directly on top of Sydney at terminal velocity.

Of course, in the Gundam universe, a space object being dropped on Earth, killing billions in the process, seems to happen basically every other week. The array of objects waiting to be dropped on Earth are impressive as well. Why drop a nuke when there’s a perfectly good colony waiting right there? Going further, why drop a colony when there’s an asteroid waiting to be nuked, then dropped? Space is full of opportunity.

9 Trust Me I Know What I’m Doing

Source: Reddit

Gundam creator and director of the first entry in the long Gundam watch order, Yoshiyuki Tomino, takes great joy in creating stories where basically everyone is an incompetent buffoon who can’t stop making things worse. Char Aznable, the franchise’s cool, brooding, and mysterious antagonist, is in fact little more than a guy with pretty intense mommy issues, and a penchant for dropping rocks on Earth.

His eternal enemy, Amuro, is on the other hand much more forthcoming about having no idea what he’s doing. The tragic rivalry between these two goofballs is what gives Gundam its emotional core, and as this meme illustrates, they only really differ in aesthetics.

8 The White Doll Rises

Source: KnowYourMeme

The titular Gundam of Turn A Gundam is one of the most powerful Gundam mobile suits in the franchise. It combines awesome destructive power with operational versatility, befitting its legendary status. It’s also commonly cited as one of the silliest looking suits in the franchise, largely on account of its enormous, luxurious mustache.

That’s a mustache that this guy is a fan of, clearly, and he’s right to do so. Those who belittle the Turn A’s spectacular arrangement of facial hair simply have their souls weighed down by gravity, and do not have the breadth of consciousness necessary to take humanity’s next evolutionary step. Embrace the mustache, or be left behind!

7 Never Leave Family Behind

Source: KnowYourMeme

The official record won’t show this, but those with contacts in Federation intelligence are familiar with reports of an unknown individual piloting a never-before-seen mobile suit during the closing hours of the Second Neo Zeon War. This machine has been tentatively code-named the “FF-F7 Dodge” by EFSF analysts, with its pilot responding to the callsign “Toretto.”

While it was previously theorized that the so-called “Axis Shock” was caused by resonating Psycho-Frames between mobile suits, experts now suggest that the event was triggered by a previously undetected force in the Earth Sphere — Family.

6 It’s Not A Stable Relationship

Source: Funnyjunk

Char and Haman can’t ever seem to get along. That’s sort of understandable, though, because they both come with a lot of baggage. For her part, Haman is a genocidal pretender to the throne of Zeon, a false idol more interested in personal aggrandizement than true Spacenoid liberation. Char, on the other hand, is a deeply traumatized princeling who can’t put aside his lust for revenge for even five measly minutes.

Doesn’t that sound like a great setup for a sitcom? Put these two in a show together, and when they’re not trying to kill each other the jokes practically write themselves.

5 You Had Me At War Crimes

Source: Twitter

The Earth Federation and its military wing, the Earth Federation Space Force, is a righteous, democratic organization that would never field child soldiers, and would most definitely never ever make said child soldiers do war crimes.

Purely hypothetically, though, if civilians were to be killed in an operation that the Federation definitely isn’t deploying child soldiers in, then that would just be the acceptable cost of spreading democracy to the unruly Spacenoids, no?

4 It Didn’t Actually Need Legs

Source: Reddit

Of all the mobile suits that Char Aznable has piloted, it’s the Sazabi, the Hyaku Shiki, and the iconic crimson Zaku II that stand out in the minds of Gundam fans. The Zeong, despite its instrumental role in Mobile Suit Gundam‘s climactic battle, doesn’t command quite the same level of respect that the aforementioned legendary machines do.

Perhaps that’s because it didn’t have any legs. In a revealing moment of dialogue towards the end of Gundam, a soldier divulges to Char that the Zeong doesn’t really need legs, they would just be stuck on there to make the robot look more impressive to the higher-ups.

3 Insult To Injury

Source: Reddit

Believe it or not, having a painstakingly-assembled Gundam model deep-fried is not the most painful thing about this image. As any Gundam devotee will explain, it would be easier to sit through the deep frying of 20 Gundams than to have someone refer to such an iconic machine as a “Transformer.”

This, specifically, is the RX-78-2 Gundam: the most important machine in the history of the franchise. To call it “Optimus Prime” is to blaspheme against all that is holy in the church of Gundam. Repent, sinner, or better yet — watch a robot show that isn’t Transformers!

2 No! Anything But That!

Source: Reddit

There is perhaps no more important schism in the Gundam fanbase than that over whether or not Gundam Seed and its sequel, Destiny, are tolerable. It’s one of the highest-ranked Gundam alternate universes on MyAnimeList, much to the chagrin of a good chunk of fans. But to its critics, Seed Destiny is a trite soap opera that brings shame to Gundam‘s good name. Seed fans counter by arguing that everyone else is a joyless anime boomer who can’t let go of the ’70s.

Can there be no peace among Gundam fans? Perhaps if the old guard could be brought to see Seed‘s merits, cooler heads would prevail. Befitting Gundam‘s grim tone, though, it seems as though conflict is inevitable. After all, we do all have to deal with Destiny.

1 Please Take It Seriously

Source: Reddit

The MSM-10 Zock is a fearsome machine, and arguably one with the heaviest armaments of any amphibious mobile suit fielded during the One Year War. A bulky suit, it was equipped for both long and close-range combat, boasting not only an array of deadly particle cannons but fearsome claws that could punch through a GM’s armor in a melee engagement.

It’s also easily one of the funniest mobile suits in the franchise. One can only speculate as to what was happening in Zeon’s engineering department during Earth-based operations, because the array of goofy aquatic suits they pumped out is staggering, to say the least.

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