by I often see foreigners getting tattoos of kanji. Kanji has a unique coolness, not only for those of us who understand their meanings but also for those who don’t. Although it’s not a tattoo, mobile suits in the Gundam series have kanji painted on their bodies.
This time, we will be introducing mobile suits with kanji designs that appeared in the Gundam series. Let’s look at its mesmerizing design and its role in the work.
The character “Hyaku” on the golden body is “Hyaku Shiki.”
When you think of the kanji for mobile suits, the first thing that comes to mind is probably “hyaku-shiki.” This golden mobile suit appeared in the anime “Mobile Suit Z Gundam” and “Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ.” The model number MSN-00100 gives it the name “Hyaku-Shiki.” The name also reflects the wish of the development director, Dr. M. Nagano, to create a mobile suit that can be used for 100 years, and the kanji for “100” is designed on both shoulder armor.
This is the first mobile suit in the Gundam series to have a “design with kanji.” His most fantastic role in the series is probably the deadly battle over Gryps 2’s colony laser in the final episode of Mobile Suit Z Gundam, “Running Through Space.”
The Hyaku-shiki, piloted by Quattro Bagina (Char Aznable), will simultaneously face two of the most formidable enemies in the series: Paptemus Scirocco’s The-O and Haman Karn’s Cybele. As expected, he was unlucky and lost his right arm and right leg (it’s fantastic that he escaped with so much damage), but Z Gundam and Metas joined the fight and defeated both machines. Immediately after that, he had a rematch with Qubeley, and although he was defeated in the end, he was once able to evade all of Qubeley’s countless funnel beam shots.
In addition, Hyakushiki’s activities outside of the play are also fantastic. In the mobile suit category of NHK’s 40th All Gundam Grand Vote, held to commemorate the 40th anniversary, it ranked 6th out of all the mobile suits, the highest except for the main character Gundam.
“Bow” painted on the vermilion fuselage.
Next, I would like to introduce “Bau”. The Bow is a detachable mobile suit of Neo Zeon (Axis) that appeared in “Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ.” The vermilion prototype machine (model number AMX-107) that appeared in episode 15 “Phantom Colony (Later)” has the kanji characters “Ryu” and “Hi” written vertically on the left front armor of the waist. There is.
This is pronounced “bau” in Japanese phonetic reading. Aboard this Bow was Gremmy Toto, a young officer. By the way, the green and gray mass-produced machines that appeared after that did not have the word “Bow” on them, so it may have been a playful feature that only appeared on the prototypes. Bow’s biggest highlight was episode 16, “Hand-to-Hand Combat in the Argama.” It was used during the Argama surprise attack by the Endora squad led by Gotten Go and showed off its separate transformation.
Furthermore, when he left the Argama, he was shown to be forcefully joined by Gotton. Bow’s modified combination has a hero-like coolness even though it is an enemy aircraft. That’s no wonder since Bow was created with the image of the “Mono-Eye Z Gundam” in mind from the very beginning. Furthermore, I think the scarlet color and design with the numbing kanji “Bau” make it a very sexy aircraft.
