New Gundam Anime Incoming

Having received its own "Gundam department" as part of Bandai Visual's restructured business earlier this month, it's only fitting that the ultra-popular mecha franchise should continue with a new Gundam anime. And, sure enough, it will - just in time for the series' 30th anniversary this year. The Monthly Gundam Ace manga magazine that is said to carry the official announcement will hit newsstands tomorrow, but already there are plenty of details about it to go around.



For starters, this new (so far unnamed) Gundam anime will be set in Universal Calendar year 0081, and for the first time it will feature the RX-78-7 mobile suit, one of the last models in the RX-78 line that began with the original 1979 anime. This "new" RX-78-7 mecha was designed by series veteran Hajime Katoki (Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory, Mobile Suit Victory Gundam, Mobile Suit Gundam MS IGLOO: The Hidden One Year War), and you can see how it looks in a couple of early scans - here and here - picked up via THAT Animeblog.

You can read more about the characters and such over on ANN, if you're into this whole Gundam thing, but I'll only reproduce the general story outline below.

"The story is set in 0081 of the Universal Calendar, one year after end of the One Year War. While peace and order are being restored to the world, small-scale battles still crop up here and there due to Zeon remnants continuing to offer resistance. A veteran Earth Federation officer assigned to mopping up the remaining Zeon forces, and a young officer executing a top secret operation to revive the Zeons, cross paths on this new battlefield."

The title, format and release date of this new Gundam anime are still unknown, for now.

In other recent Gundam news, Bandai Entertainment announced at this month's New York Comic Con that they acquired all three manga series based on the anime series Mobile Suit Gundam 00 for North American release, the first of which will be released starting from August 2009.

And while on the topic of mecha stuff, a new Mazinger TV anime remake is also coming our way. Or, rather, your way, since I couldn't even care enough to warrant it a separate news post.