Mobile Suit Gundam - Legacy

Legacy

Despite being released in 1979, the original Gundam series is still remembered and recognized within the anime fan community. The series revolutionized mecha anime, introducing the new Real Robot genre, and over the years became synonymous with the entire genre for many. As a result, for example, parodies of mecha genre commonly feature homages to Mobile Suit Gundam, thanks to its immediate recognizability. As part of the 30th Anniversary of the Gundam series, the company officially announced a project on March 11, 2009 called Real-G, a plan to build a 1:1 real size scale Gundam in Japan. It was completed in July 2009 and taken down later. The 18 meter tall statue was reconstructed in Shizuoka Prefecture and was taken down in March 2011.

John Oppliger observes that the characters of Amuro Ray, to whom the young Japanese of that time could easily relate, and Char Aznable, who was "simply fascinating", made a major contribution to the series' popularity. He also concludes that "in many respects First Gundam stands for the nostalgic identifying values of everything that anime itself represents".

Mecha anime creator Shoji Kawamori attended Keio University in the same years as Macross screenwriter Hiroshi Ōnogi and character designer Haruhiko Mikimoto, where they had a Mobile Suit Gundam fan club called "Gunsight One", a name they would use years later as the call sign of the bridge of the SDF-1 spaceship from their first Macross anime TV series. In fact, The Super Dimension Fortress Macross mecha anime series was inspired by Gundam in several aspects during its early development.

American musician Richie Kotzen former Guitarist from Poison and MR.BIG released an album called Ai Senshi ZxR in 2006 in Japan. The Album Consist of covered music from the Gundam Series and original songs.

American musician Andrew W.K. also released an album called Gundam Rock on September 9, 2009 in Japan. The album consists of covered music from the Gundam series to celebrate its 30th Anniversary.