GundamInfo Releases Gundam Beginners Guide, Free Anime

In a surprising move, Sunrise will be releasing a veritable trove of Gundam media on the official GundamInfo YouTube channel for a limited time, in celebration of nearing 2 million subscribers. Starting February 23rd, the media will be released in waves, starting with original Mobile Suit Gundam movies, which condense the 43-episode series. These will only be up for three days at a time, starting at 9 p.m. JST on Feb 2nd, 2022. Below is the full list, with direct links to the GundamInfo streams. Notably absent are the legendary Char’s Counterattack, the incredible The 08th MS Team, and the most recent Hathaway.

Another item of particular note is GundamInfo releasing a “Gundam from Zero” video, an informative 15-minute crash course on the Universal Century timeline, embedded above. There are spoilers, but it goes through them so fast that it is closer to reading a single paragraph Wiki synopsis, rather than a real deep dive into the stories. I’m definitely wondering if they’ll continue this type of video for the non-UC series. At the very least, the Gundam Build series would be the second-best place to start, as it’s very newbie-friendly and way less serious. These are also available on the GundamInfo channel (with several dubbed as well). I recommend Gundam Build Fighters, solely on the basis of #1 anime mom, Rinko Iori.

Build Fighters Rinko — Rinko Iori, the Iori Hobby Shop manager.

This is definitely a move to capitalize on the recent explosion of Gunpla’s popularity, hoping to reel in those who have been introduced to the franchise through the hobby but don’t have much familiarity with the lore through any particular series. It’s really nice to see Bandai and now Sunrise realize there’s still a big market outside of Japan and make moves to try and tap into those in the form of games, movies, and models, and now the use of the GundamInfo channel. I hope to see it continue, so we can finally put the days of Japan-exclusive Gundam games behind us.