Ever looked at the 40-year-old entertainment juggernaut that is Mobile Suit Gundam and wondered, "Where the h*ck do I begin?" Well, here's one answer.

The original three anime series and Char's Counterattack constitute a series of wars between the Earth and orbital colonies during the first century of space colonization, the Universal Century, or UC. In addition, there are a handful of OVAs (miniseries basically) and movies that tell various side stories during this same period.

This timeline is the core of Gundam, and I can't think of a better place to start than with that original trilogy and movie. Once you've got those done, you can just keep going down the line or hop around a bit if you'd like. It's your life.

(I wanted to make this list as unintimidating as I possibly could, so forgive me for the omissions I made: F91 and Victory are part of the Late UC period, which is somewhat separate from Early UC, so I left them off; I left off the compilation movies; I only have the first episode of the Origin instead of all six separately; and I just noted Narrative as a sequel movie to Unicorn in that entry's description.)

Other Gundam series are on completely separate timelines (well, mostly), and they can basically be watched however ya like.

When it comes to actually watching Gundam, well, good luck once you get past the original series. Streaming services have a few things here and there, but it can be tough to find the older series. The Blu-rays are all great, though, if not cheap. 😅

Lemme know if I forgot anything!