Part 1, #1 (of 8)
Story by Yadate Hajime & Tomino Yoshiyuki Tomino
Art by Kondo Kazuhisa
Copyright © Sotsu Agency / Sunrise, © 1994 Kazuhisa Kondo

GUNDAM has been very popular with the fan community of North America for a while, famous for its large mech robots and truly epic space battles. Only recently has this holy grail started to become available commercially here. With Animevillage.com's release of GUNDAM 0080, 0083 (still a personal favorite), and the original movies, it comes as no surprise to find Viz publishing manga adaptations of the original TV series.
Now, Viz is domestically releasing MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM 0079, the manga adaptation of the original television series. (We reviewed the original back in issue 3.1). Artist Kondo Kazuhisa attempted to match the art style, and from my shaky memory of the series, I believe he suceeded. The character designs are rather simple, but the mechs themselves come out quite detailed at times.
Without giving away too much in this first issue, the story starts out with a brief look at the war between the "Duchy of Zeon" and the Earth Federation. Then as battle breaks out on a space colony, a young boy named Amuro (who's father is a military commander responsible for a new prototype weapon) boards a strange mobile suit in the ensuing chaos.
My only complaint about the printing quality is that the previously colorized section from the first four pages did not turn out well in a black and white format. And the fifth page suffered from an ink bleed from the overly inked fourth page. The translation and lettering are of good quality although the "sound effects" look slightly out of place.
Looking at this introductory issue, some of the plot points are rather cliche even in its time, but overall the stage is a deep one to develop the story on. In order to truly get into the story, I would need to read into further installments of the book, but some of the good points of the Gundam world already come out in this first issue.
Gundam fans have probably already decided to grab this comic, but for newcomers by all means take a look at this classic series and see why Gundam is such a defining icon for anime in general.

(English version) Published by Viz Comics
Black/white, 32 pages
$2.95 US / $4.50 Can per issue
Available now in North America
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