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".
History of anime
In the United States, the popularity of "Star Wars" had a similar, though much smaller, effect on the development of anime. "Gatchaman" was reworked and edited into "Battle of the Planets" in 1978 and again as "G-Force" in 1986. "Space Battleship Yamato" was reworked and edited into "Star Blazers" in 1979. The "Macross" series began with "The Super Dimension Fortress Macross" (1982), which was adapted into English as the first arc of "Robotech" (1985), which was created from three separate anime titles: "The Super Dimension Fortress Macross", "Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross" and "Genesis Climber Mospeada". The sequel to "Mobile Suit Gundam", "Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam" (1985), became the most successful real robot space opera in Japan, where it managed an average television rating of 6.6% and a peak of 11.7%.