Kidou Senshi Gundam Unicorn

All shows featured in Super Robot Wars V
Not included:
Gundam Crossbone (manga)
Full Metal Panic (post-anime Light Novels)

Mobile Suit Gundam is probably the most influential anime franchise ever, and contrary to common opinion, it is no a meathead action kids' show full of repetitive robot fights. Gundam is a very flawed but very meaningful work of art, full of thought provoking sociopolitical commentary on war as well as interesting supernatural conceptualization.

The Universal Century Timeline is the original Gundam "universe" conceived by Yoshiyuki Tomino, as well as the best Gundam timeline, but sadly it has a bad reputation for being extremely inaccesible due to the myriads of installments it has and the watch order that tends to confuse many with many remakes, alternative versions and branching spin-offs. The series is however easy to watch if you just have a clear order, and this interest stack is an attempt at offering a concise and simple list of the of the most important and best installments so you can watch the best stuff without having to plow through the admittedly abundant trash.

I will include all essential works and add a few ones that are not essential but still highly recommended for either high quality or thematic significance, but I'll make it clear when an installment is not *really* essential and just recommended. My criteria for essential is most of the time being crucial to the timeline or simply so high in quality that it makes no sense to skip it.

If you want a COMPLETE watch order including every installment and go deep down the rabbit hole I recommend the interest stack called "Mobile Suit Gundam: Universal Century Timeline Watchorder" by user giffica, as I found it to be a very thorough and well put together list.

Real robots are a subgenre of the mecha genre, in which the mechas are depicted as realistic warmachines as opposed to the superheroistic depiction of the super robot subgenre. It was started in 1979 by Mobile Suit Gundam.

Debuted in SRW Z2.1-SRW BX

Shows/Movies of all kinds that are either meant for or can be enjoyed by an older audience. A treasure trove of excellence covering a wide range. Story-driven thrillers, well researched historical shows, brilliant world-constructions, poetic narrations, gripping thrillers, dark comedies, complex future visions, tightly packed action, avant-garde art, solid entertainment, tear-jerking dramas to light-hearted slices of lives.
No big-boob dumdums, high-pitched VAs, fan-/lip-service or plot-around-the-holes-type shows. Teenage angst and school-settings are rarities in these two lists.

Series that been represented in Super Robot Wars in the Decade the Series Debuted In.

1970's: https://myanimelist.net/stacks/4725
1980's Part 1: https://myanimelist.net/stacks/4731
1980's Part 2: https://myanimelist.net/stacks/4734
1990's Part 1: https://myanimelist.net/stacks/4737
1990's Part 2: https://myanimelist.net/stacks/46112
2000's Part 1: https://myanimelist.net/stacks/4758
2000's Part 2: https://myanimelist.net/stacks/4780
2010's and 2020's Part 2: https://myanimelist.net/stacks/4856

Anime with great soundtrack (OP and ED not considered) from my watchlist.

Will keep adding more in future. Contains only those which I have completed.

I have mostly added the first season of each series.

This is a canonical watch order that is geared towards a first time viewer of Gundam. I myself experienced the series in this order, which preserves the canonical order, but mends it slightly to preserve watching experience and prevent burnout. Included will be double-ups of series, which means the TV and Compilation movie versions and/or OVAs. Most of those "rewatches" will come after a period of time, slid into the timeline in a way that prevents serious burn-out. Realistically you can swap around any of them for their relative compilation, but first will always come the "preferred" version.

There is nothing in this list I would call spoilers, but I do give some slight generalized opinions which may lead, or alter your own experiences. If you want to go in blind, just look at the show. The blurbs are there to decide if you aren't sure when you want to watch something, not to give you anything before you watch.

I will also be forced to keep a side list since the max number of items in a single list is 50. Until more Gundam content is released, it mostly has small 5-10 minute things that don't really add to the canon in anyway. However, Gundam is approaching a point where if 2-3 more series release this list will get tight. Here is a link to that list: https://myanimelist.net/stacks/12271

I want to clarify that I am not some super Gundam fan, and I began making this list from the beginning of my watching experience. It thus offers a glimpse into what watching Gundam in 2022 should be like for the open-minded, anime history inclined weeb. If you know nothing (or very little) about Gundam this is the perfect place to start in order to grind out the main Universal Century timeline.

If you have any questions (or suggestions to improve since I'm not a hardcore Gundam fan) please feel free to message me.

Getting started with Gundam can be tough because of the multiple timelines and the varying amount of time a viewer must invest to watch the show(s) depending on which timeline they choose to go with. Things are not as simple as picking which one is best; some fans will argue that a certain series is the greatest Gundam show, while other fans will argue for that same show being the worst of the franchise. Knowing how the shows interact with each other is the first step to figuring out what you want to watch, and this stack will help to guide you through that process.

These are the anime that appear in Super Robot Wars Z3: Jigoku-hen for PlayStation 3 and Vita.

These are the anime that appear in Super Robot Wars Z3: Tengoku-hen for PlayStation 3 and Vita.

These are the anime that appear in Super Robot Wars BX for 3DS, which, as of writing, is the most recent Super Robot Wars game I played.
(It's also one of the best!)

These are the anime that appear in Super Robot Wars X-Ω, a mobile phone game that is now defunct.
It's being split into multiple parts because there are so many.

These are the anime that appear in Super Robot Wars V for PlayStation 4, Vita, Switch, and Windows computers.

These are the anime that appear in Super Robot Wars DD for mobile phones.
This stack is now part one of two, due to how many anime feature in this game.

A compilation of anime that began airing during the month of March.

March is most notable for airing the entire original run of Sailor Moon tv series, Digimon Adventures as well as for the conclusion of the Rebuild of Evangelion Movies with Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice upon a time.


See Also:

January: https://myanimelist.net/stacks/15005
February: https://myanimelist.net/stacks/15006
April: https://myanimelist.net/stacks/15029
May: https://myanimelist.net/stacks/15033
June: https://myanimelist.net/stacks/15041
July: https://myanimelist.net/stacks/15044
August: ttps://myanimelist.net/stacks/15051
September: https://myanimelist.net/stacks/15053
October: https://myanimelist.net/stacks/15101
November: https://myanimelist.net/stacks/15102
December: https://myanimelist.net/stacks/15104

The OVA market dried up as straight to video releases became a thing of the past, which is unfortunate because a lot of interesting and unique anime were released in this format. The point of the list is to feature worthwhile OVAs that are more than just fanservice or shoddy extras for TV series. Sigh, due to the explicit content warning feature, I've excluded Mezzo Forte, but it would be on here otherwise. I should also probably make room for Yukikaze at some point. I think there are too few titles to make a followup list, so I'll just link to any additional titles below:

https://myanimelist.net/anime/9608/Yuri_Seijin_Naoko-san
https://myanimelist.net/anime/6181/Highway_Jenny