Mobile Fighter G Gundam
"Mobile Fighter G Gundam" was produced by Sunrise in association with advertising agencies Sotsu and Dentsu, and toy company Bandai. The series was created to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the "Gundam" franchise, created by Yoshiyuki Tomino in 1979. "G Gundam" was directed by Yasuhiro Imagawa, known for his work on the "Giant Robo" and "Getter Robo Armageddon" original video animations (OVAs). "G Gundam" was chiefly written and supervised by Fuyunori Gobu, a veteran screenwriter for various Sunrise properties such as "Shippū! Iron Leaguer" and "The King of Braves GaoGaiGar". Many of the principal production crew members for "G Gundam" were carried over the previous season's "Mobile Suit Victory Gundam", including character designer Hiroshi Ōsaka and mechanical designers Kunio Okawara and Hajime Katoki. Manga artist Kazuhiko Shimamoto collaborated on the show's character designs. Kimitoshi Yamane acted as a back-up mechanical designer and has since worked on Sunrise's acclaimed series "Cowboy Bebop" and "The Vision of Escaflowne". Hirotoshi Sano, previously credited for "Tekkaman Blade", was responsible for directing the mechanical animation in "G Gundam", but also produced much of show's promotional artwork seen on home media covers. The musical score for "G Gundam" was composed by Kohei Tanaka. The opening theme song "Flying in the Sky" performed by Hitofumi Ushima and the closing theme by Etsuko Sai are played for the first 25 episodes of the series. The opening theme "Trust You Forever" by Ushima and the closing theme by Takehide Inoue are played for the remaining episodes.
Gundam Universal Century technology
Although fictional technologies seems to carry no real-life significance, these technologies are referred to in almost all of the series of Universal Century. They became a normal reference of the serial story and attracted publishers to publish books on them. These technological settings have also since influenced a lot of anime and manga to have their own technological background to a certain degree. Although it could be viewed as following the "Star Wars" trend, nothing similar has started before the 1981 publishing of Gundam Century. Bandai (with its branch Sunrise) noticed the tradition and has hired writers to write articles for other Gundam series too. In the Cosmic Era time line, one of the authors of Gundam Century articles (while still a high school student at that time), Shigeru Morita, who had become a regular employee of Bandai, was assigned to write these kinds of technological articles, possibly a method used by the company to attract Universal Century techno fans to watch the new series. The series' technology is now serving as the inspiration for academic research in different fields, which could include moon settlements and mega-particle cannon.