New Gundam: Requiem For Vengeance Trailer Turns Mobile Suits Into The Villains
Netflix just released another trailer for Gundam: Requiem for Vengeance animated original net animation (ONA) series that’s scheduled for an October release date. This is a rather interesting release; not only is it completely animated using Valve’s Unreal Engine 5—the closest we got to photorealism—it also adds another chapter to the storied franchise. This is the one chapter where mobile suits are the villains.
Gundam: Requiem for Vengeance premieres on October 17.
The newest trailer was revealed during a panel at San Diego Comic-Con 2024, showing off battles between GMs, Zakus, and, of course, the legendary Gundam itself. The series is apparently set in the Universal Century 0079 in the Gundam timeline, the height of the One Year War on the European front, and it’s told from the perspective of Zeon’s Red World Squadron.
Since the Gundam: Requiem for Vengeance is told from Zeon’s perspective, it only stands to reason that the Gundam unit has been turned into a villain for storytelling purposes.
Since one man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist, this makes the hero of the original Mobile Suit Gundam anime into Gundam: Requiem for Vengeance’s villain.
Besides showing us some awesome mecha battles, the Gundam: Requiem for Vengeance trailer also disclosed the upcoming series’ release date, which is supposed to arrive on Netflix on October.
The series narrative is placed in the 11th month of the One Year War, which is a whole three months after Mobile Suit Gundam protagonist, Amuro Ray, uses the prototype RX-78 Gundam to beat back the Zeon forces that have attacked the White Base.
For those who aren’t familiar with the Gundam franchise, the Principality of Zeon are basically the bad guys of the original anime who have launched a war of independence against the Earth Federation.
While the series retains much of the look and feel of the original Gundam, the fact that it’s completely done in Unreal Engine 5 distinguishes it from previous Gundam releases of the past two decades.
Zeon, though smaller, was technologically superior and had the upper hand through most of the conflict thanks to a new type of humanoid weapon called mobile suits. The Gundam unit was Earth Federation’s response to Zeon’s technological superiority and mobile suits, and it eventually played a pivotal role in resolving the war.
Since the Gundam: Requiem for Vengeance is told from Zeon’s perspective, it only stands to reason that the Gundam unit has been turned into a villain for storytelling purposes.
While the series retains much of the look and feel of the original Gundam, the fact that it’s completely done in Unreal Engine 5 distinguishes it from previous Gundam releases of the past two decades. Besides the release date, we know that the series is scheduled for a single six-episode season leading up to the Mobile Suit Gundam events.
Gundam: Requiem for Vengeance is yet another attempt to bring the franchise to Western audiences, which it has struggled to connect to multiple times. While mecha battles are great, they’re far more popular in Japan than they are in the West.
Other attempts to popularize the Gundam franchise include upcoming gaming collaborations with Call of Duty and the king of all crossovers, Fortnite. As previously mentioned, Gundam: Requiem for Vengeance is scheduled to release on October 17, when it will join all other Gundam releases, including the original trilogy, as well as all subsequent releases.
