This weekend a new era of one of the most iconic anime franchises around kicks off, when Gundam returns to TV with the arrival of The Witch From Mercury. A new story, a new timeline, and new characters means, also: a new generation of mechs to covet as potential model kits. But from what we’ve seen so far, what’s at the top of the pile and what can wait on the to-build list?
12) Gundam Pharact
Sure, they call it a Gundam, and it’s got Gundam-y elements. The big gun is nice too. It just feels a little too “someone needed to make an evil Gundam and they let a teenager going through their emo phase design it.” Which, I mean, they probably did — Gundam loves a child soldier.
11) Zowort
If the Zowort were in literally any other mecha show right now, it’d be a pretty great design — with that big lurching backpack and the little “face” buried under the horned faceplate, it’s got good militaristic grunt suit aesthetics down. It’s just unfortunately next to all the other really good suits in Witch From Mercury.
10) Demi-Trainer
Adorable tiny baby, despite being like, 5.49 m tall. Looks like the GM from the original Gundam stole the head of a Kapool from Turn A Gundam and made the cutest war machine imaginable. Which is why it’s really messed up that these are presumably the training suits our main cast use at their pilot school.
9) Gundam Lfrith Pre-Production Model
Seen in Witch From Mercury’s excellent prologue episode, these prototypes may not stand out with a snazzy colour scheme, but they’re basically the Lfrith in darker colours and no head antennae to evoke the classic Gundam V-fin. That makes them most of an already good design. The massive boosters on the back that house the suit’s swarm mine weapons do look neat though.
8) Heingra
Prologue’s grunt suits existed pretty much to get war-crimed on, but at least they looked good doing it. There’s a very knight-like armoured look to this suit, like a robot actually wearing armour over itself, which looks really nice.
7) Dilanza
Witch From Mercury’s answer to the classic Zaku aesthetic that almost every Gundam series has to evoke in at least one vaguely sinister faction is fantastic. The big legs and shoulders, the horn, the shoulder armour plate, even the sea green, they’re all evocative of the hallmarks of Zeon design — but just different enough that it still feels fresh and new.
6) Guel’s Dilanza
It’s kind of cheating to put a pilot’s custom suit on here as a separate entry, but Guel Jeturk’s Dilanza stands out. Not just because it’s hot pink, but the man’s apparently enough of an arrogant jerk to give himself a Dilanza with even more armour, a giant beam-spear weapon, and a crested helmet. Now that’s fancy.
5) Beguir-Beu
The primary antagonist suit of the Prologue is almost unlike anything seen in Gundam. The strange head, the colours, and shapes — it’s almost insectoid in a way. Combined with its ability to disrupt enemy suit functions with its detachable ball-like weapons and those nasty hand-blades, it’s a surprisingly fearsome suit despite not looking intimidating.
4) Heindree
The Heindree looks like it’s going to be the upgrade to the Heingra in the years between the Prologue and the main Witch From Mercury series, and it’s a great take on an updated version of the suit. The knight vibes get amplified even further in the helmet, and the interesting idea of two shields — one attached to what looks like a massive spear, to boot — makes this seem almost more like a close-combat mecha.
3) Michaelis
The Michaelis is built by the same tech company, Grassley Defence Systems, as the Heindree and the Heingra, so it makes sense that it’s almost a “heroic” version of those two designs. The helmet pushes the knight aesthetic even more, while the design in the hips and the colour scheme draw connections to the Beguir-Beu’s aesthetic too. Plus, who doesn’t love a big purple gun?
2) Gundam Lfrith
The Lfrith is excellent as a prototype Gundam. It’s got everything you want to evoke a Gundam’s form — the head antennae taking the place of a V-Fin, the glowing red frame sections of its chest evoking the vents on a classic gundam, the stark white. But it’s all adjacent, right down to not having the classic colour scheme. Even the traditional shield feels new being part of the suit’s remote-controlled drone system. Plus, the hot pink accents? Mwah. Gorgeous.
1) Gundam Aerial
It’s the Lfrith, but it’s in the classic Gundam colour scheme and they gave it the V-Fin. Need I say more?
I mean, if you need me to explain, it’s just a really fun, sleek design. It’s both evocative of the iconic Gundam form, but also surprisingly different in detailing. Rounded and sharply angular where Gundams are usually bulky and blocky, the tiny waist and larger thighs also blend in some of the design hallmarks of the classic Zeon suits too in some very subtle ways. It’s feminine but not overtly so, an unsurprising move for the franchise’s first mainline female protagonist, but it’s also just a really cool, futuristic mecha design with a Gundam twist. I will take every model kit of it in every scale imaginable, please and thank you.