I’ve played armored core 6 and I’m in absolute love with mecha , my favorite movie (together with Logan and endgame) is pacific rim, I rlly want to get more into mecha genre, and I thought gundam was a no brainer pic, how can I get into it and more mecha related stuff? Like some games or lore info , not only for gundam but mecha as a hole

so im trying to get into the main gundam series but im confused with the 08th MS Team. There is:

Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team: 1996-1999 (12 episodes)

Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team - Miller's Report: 1998 (movie)

Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team - A Battle with the Third Dimension: 2013 (special)

I'm not really into the franchise at all, I just think the concept is really cool. I loved Iron Blooded Orphans and I know that's way into the future of the timeline so idk how similar the rest of the franchise is to that. But I was really underwhelmed by RFV and I wanted to know if I was missing some things. Tons of spoilers btw

When the Gundam finally arrives on the battlefield, >! it's an unstoppable monster. Agile af, small arms fire (well, the mobile suit equivalent to small arms fire) seemed to have no effect, and it ATE a high explosive rocket with no visible damage whatsoever. It took on 4 mibile suits (Zakar? Something like that) and effortlessly neutralized all of them. !< But a few episodes later, there are more Gundams and >! they're getting their asses handed to them from 2 mobile suits literally built out of scraps? What? Is this kid pilot some kind of God amongst men? Why did his suit tank a rocket blast one episode and get floored by what I assume was a weaker rocket later on? Why were the other Gundum so weak compared to the first one? !<

And as far as sympathizing with the Zeon soldiers goes. >! Idk how bad the Federation is to the colonies but I didn't care if these soldiers lived or died because they're literally invading earth and, I think, the aggressors of the conflict? They're taking bases in Europe when the gundams start curbstomping them and then suddenly the narrative is "oh we're just retreating and we promise to never attack again, so please stop killing all of our armed soldiers and destroying our military hardware!" !<

And the story ends >! with the main character saying how terrible the war is because it has pulled in child soldiers, but she joined a contingent of zeon soldiers who are continuing the war in Africa??? What?? She explicitly says she's gonna keep fighting to end the war, but she's actively participating in keeping the war going!? Just surrender, girl wtf! !< so idk is this just poorly written or something? Am I missing some huge things that would make some of this more sensible?

Im gonna start this by saying I’m completely new to Gundam, I’m currently starting with the original series from 79’. And to be fair I’m also only on episode 13 but so far they have made the Zeon look SO much more appealing than the Federation. I get they’re supposed to be Nazi inspired bad guys and I hear later stuff does a better job at showing the horrible things they’ve done. And I also get the point of the show is “War bad, both sides did bad” But again, so far at episode 13 I can only think “Maybe the Federation deserves to be overthrown”.

90% of the interactions we see between Federation members are them being verbally abusive towards one another, meanwhile the Zeon have far more tender interactions and treat one another with more respect. Meanwhile the White Base crew have straight up abused Aumuro, demasculating him and beating him for being exhausted after days of endless fighting, then doing the same thing when he gets traumatized after watching a woman kill herself because of the lover he killed. And in episode 13 he gets beaten by Federation soldiers for standing up for a civilian THEY were abusing, then later in that same episode when Zeon soldiers show up and actually get hit by a child all they do is say “That’s not very nice” with no beatings involved (let’s also not forget Aumuro’s own mother shames him for self defense later in that same episode)

The only time we see Zeon soldiers do stuff that are openly despicable, they are threatened for reprimand and punishment by their own commanders.

Again, I understand that the Zeon have genuinely done worse stuff than the Federation, but oh my god the original show makes them look like saints on an individual basis when compared to the Feds