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Gundam is a franchise that features deep philosophical and ideological themes about the nature of war and humanity's capacity for understanding one another.
Also, it has giant robots hitting each other in pretty animation and that's what this list is about! The philosophical and ideological stuff is merely a bonus that elevate certain choices here, but these are the fights across various iterations of the franchise that have steadfastly stuck with me.
First off, an honorable mention!
HONORABLE MENTION- Garrod Ran VS Demar Griffe
(Gundam X episode 26- "Don't Say Anything")
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| Garrod Can (Not) Advance |
Gundam X isn’t a series known for its epic battles, but I wanted to represent it somehow and this is a skirmish that stood out to me. The villainous Frost Brothers recruit a number of ace pilots to attack main character Garrod Ran and his Gundam Double X one at a time, and the first among these is the deranged Demar Griffe. Given the EXTREMELY light-weight Correl mobile suit to do so, Demar manages to run circles around the Double X using the Correl’s high agility.
Armed with only a beam knife, the Correl cuts off the Double X’s left arm, slashes up its chest, and stabs the Gundam’s backpack. Garrod is nearly killed until he manages to block a final stab at his cockpit with his beam rifle, which explodes and knocks Demar and the Correl on their asses.
Never one to pass up a cheap win, Garrod then utterly shreds the Correl (and Demar) with the Double X’s vulcan and machine guns. The Correl is so under-armored that it buckles completely under this barrage, making it one of, if not the ONLY non-grunt mobile suits to die from what are traditionally considered a Gundam’s weakest weapons.
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| A Vulcan Salute |
The Correl’s a cool-looking suit and its swift movements are well-captured by the animation. A more amusing reason I like this fight is a bit meta. Gundam X is infamous for being crushed in the ratings when it originally aired on television in Japan by the then newly-popular Evangelion. Perhaps even more embarrassing is the fact that Evangelion had already wrapped-up its run by the time Gundam X started airing, so it was losing to Evangelion REPEATS.
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| The Frost Brothers were like "Get in the robot, Griffey" |
The Correl, with its slim, lanky design and use of a knife as its main melee weapon, certainly reminds one of an Eva Unit, doesn’t it? I doubt it was intentional, but at least Garrod was exacting some kind of proxy payback on Evangelion by destroying the Correl so viciously.
