Cultural Significance
Although Amuro is not as popular a character as his rival Char Aznable, he is just as well-known and is synonymous with Gundam as a whole in many ways. Amuro's exploits between the One Year War and the Gryps conflict are largely a mystery, as are his general exploits during the Gryps Conflict and first Neo Zeon movement while going on many missions for the Karaba behind the scenes of Zeta Gundam and ZZ Gundam.
Although Amuro had no role in the OVA series 0080: War in the Pocket, the mobile suit RX-78 Gundam NT-1 was designed to replace his increasingly inefficient RX-78-2.
His exploits during these times, similarly to Char's unknown exploits, are enthusiastically explored by fans and artists alike. The 2001 CGI short Green Divers, shows that Amuro fought in his own Zeta Gundam, marked by his signature "A" logo and painted in pure white with patches of bluish purple (arguably his signature custom colors akin to Char's red and pink) during the later stages of the Gryps Conflict and presumably during the first Neo Zeon movement.
Amuro also is said to have piloted an MSZ-006A1, the prototype in the Z Plus series mobile suits, but this was supposedly a marketing scheme by Anaheim Electronics to push sales of the MS line. Amuro piloting his own Zeta Gundam (especially in Episode 9 of Gundam Evolve) helps prove this, although one never knows. It is possible that he may have piloted a Z Plus during the first Neo Zeon movement, as it is never officially stated where he was or what he did during that particular time. This is an example of Amuro's very strong presence in the Gundam mythos, as equally present an entity as his rival Char.
An EFSF military outfit was once used on a poster to encourage Japanese people to vote, and News articles refer it as the Amuro style election poster, since the actor used is a stunt actor used in place of the voice actor of Amuro Ray.
Amuro Ray, was recognized as a culturally significant subject by the nation of Japan on October 23, 2000, with the inclusion of the suit and of the main pilot on two stamps in the 20th Century Stamp Series.
Amuro, along with five other notable mecha and pilots from the various Gundam series, were recognized in the second set of "Anime Heroes and Heroines" stamps, released in Japan in 2005.
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Famous quotes containing the words cultural and/or significance:
“The sickly cultural pathos which the whole of France indulges in, that fetishism of the cultural heritage.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)
“The hypothesis I wish to advance is that ... the language of morality is in ... grave disorder.... What we possess, if this is true, are the fragments of a conceptual scheme, parts of which now lack those contexts from which their significance derived. We possess indeed simulacra of morality, we continue to use many of the key expressions. But we have—very largely if not entirely—lost our comprehension, both theoretical and practical, of morality.”
—Alasdair Chalmers MacIntyre (b. 1929)