[Powerman293]

I read almost all of the chapters from Gundam Thunderbolt that were unofficially translated into English, just to see what it was about and give you guys a heads up on what to expect from the Thunderbolt anime. Mind, you I was sort of reading faster then I normally do, but here's my impressions.


I like Thunderbolt. From the first fight it has an interesting setup and creates an interesting parallel between the two sides. Just from that both Io and Darryl listen to jazz, to that they both have love interests on their ships that knew them since childhood, and have scarred pasts. This also continues with how each side loses, with a sort of equivalent loss for each side in the big end battle of the 1st Arc. While some people may be annoyed there's not a definitive winner as of currently, I think some may like it.

I tend to be more interested in Io as his story actually kinda expands the lore of U.C. a bit with the story about Side 4 and the Mua Brotherhood and kind of their reputation and why they get the Full Armor Gundam in the first place. While from how far the English translation has gone isn't too much, it does at least gives some characters to a previously unexplored area in the Earth Sphere. Darryl and his constituents kinda just go "Oh look! We're doing secret military experiments for Zeon!" Yeah, get back in line Living Dead Division, right after the Flanagan Institute from 0079 and whatever the hell Aina's brother was working on in 8th MS team.

The MSes in Thunderbolt are sort of interesting too. They all have backpacks that would make Cosmic Era Mobile suits ashamed of themselves. They all have these sort of robot arms that help them grab/hold other stuff such as beam sabers, extra shields, guns, e.t.c. Like imagine the little shitty arms from a Ball and that's what they look like. The Full Armor Gundam itself is just a massively armed monster for no reason other then show. This fucking thing gives Full Armor Unicorn a run for its money in terms of ridiculous fire power. I hope in the anime they give a good reason why everyone is so heavily armored in this area whereas everyone else in the One Year War is going bare.

Now there is something you all should know about Thunderbolt is that it sort of goes past the One Year Year in terms of its story. I mean, you see Aboa Qu fall and you read that the agreement was reached, but the manga says that half of the Zeon forces haven't given up yet. So it may or may not be in alternate continuity? All depends on if the anime gets to that point and what they decide to do with it. I wouldn't put it past them as the opening for Zeta says any major war hasn't happened since 0079 but 0083 still had shit go down. But I hope they use sort of Thunderbolt section as sort of a self contained story, at the very least.