Mobile Fighter G Gundam
Early in the show's North American run, Bandai reported that "G Gundam" had the top ratings of any anime show for the period. The company considered the show to be a "hit" at the time. However, officials for Toonami recounted in 2006 that no "Gundam" series earned significant viewer ratings after the first North American airing of "Gundam Wing" in 2000. "G Gundam" received an overall positive critical reception amid its mainstream exposure in the United States. Nonetheless, views on "G Gundam"s plot remain largely mixed. Negative reactions to the plot mostly stem from its stark contrast to preceding "Gundam" entries that have traditionally focused on deep political and social issues in the midst of war. AnimeNation writer John Oppliger considered "G Gundam" to be "the plague of the "Gundam" franchise" and "one of the biggest mis-steps in anime history" due to its elimination of such serious subtext. Both Bamboo Dong of the Anime News Network and Duncan Scott of "Protoculture Addicts" were also initially disappointed for the same reason, with the latter writer feeling that the series features "Gundam" in its title purely for marketing reasons. Derrick L. Tucker of T.H.E.M. Anime Reviews called the series' episodic storyline its "most profound weakness", whereby "the narrative exists to move the viewer from fight to fight". Tucker also found that the potential for its more dramatic themes, such as tension between Domon and Master Asia or Domon's romantic relationship with Rain, is "overshadowed from start to finale by the show's domineering, if repetitive action sets".
Mobile Fighter G Gundam
Commemorating the 15th anniversary of the "Gundam" brand, "G Gundam" was produced to reboot the waning popularity of the long-running franchise. It is the first "Gundam" series with a self-contained plot set in an alternate calendar era from the original "Universal Century" timeline. Additionally, the show casts aside many of the conventions set by its predecessors and takes many new steps for its franchise, such as a focus on martial arts and decisive, personal duels as opposed to large-scale military conflicts. "G Gundam" was directed by Yasuhiro Imagawa, with its settings and characters significantly influenced by the director's interest in world cinema. The anime's real world locales were drawn from numerous foreign films and were planned using location scouting. "G Gundam" ran for 49 episodes on Japan's TV Asahi from April 1, 1994 to March 31, 1995. An English-language version produced by Bandai Entertainment aired in the United States on Cartoon Network's Toonami block beginning on August 5, 2002. Since its original broadcast, "G Gundam" has spawned manga, audio albums, video games, guide books, and several lines of scale models.