Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Accidental Innuendo: When it comes with Mobile Suits:
    • The front armor support stand on the Guncannon Detector's artillery form's crotch.
    • The crotch sensor on the Barzam units.
  • Alternate Character Interpretation: Quite a few.
    • Char/Quattro: complete jerk ass who is ready to lie and try to bed Reccoa... maybe just for fun, or is he a perfectly human character that can be charismatic to many people but is useless one-on-one when it comes to stuff aside from combat?
    • Jerid: an anti-Char: blonde hair, likes red, and instead of becoming the big bad/main antagonist of the show is killed rather quickly in the penultimate episode after appearing less frequently. Or was he supposed to be a joke-rival from the start, who just scored a few lucky wins early on? Though he did ascend rather quickly, even working right next to Jamitov, and though he failed to kill Kamille, he did survive numerous fights with him for a long time... You can't promote pilots who die, can you?
    • Reccoa: did she go to the Titans because of Scirocco pulling some kind of Newtype power on her (Scirocco demonstrates in the finale that he can mind rape people)? Or is she really a "combat junkie" who felt spurned by not getting more combat missions, and went to the Titans to handle her addiction instead (she did admitt to Kamille the "combat junkie" bit)? Or was that bit of both? One time, she flew for an enemy ship looking for Scirocco, and she acted like she was on drugs and confused. Up to the watcher.
    • Scirocco: is he manipulating women and seizing power for his own profit, or is he acting out of more Dark Messiah motives? His speech in the final episode hints heavily at the latter... but as numerous characters comment, Scirocco can't really be predicted at all, and even twenty years later, his motives are still shrouded in mystery.
      • He's also a compulsive liar. And, you know, EVIL.
      • Does his stated desire to create a world ruled by a woman stem from a belief that they're less warlike? Or did he actually have a desire to be The Man Behind The Woman, considering the fact that he's a glorified pickup artist who finds them easy to manipulate and does manipulate emotionally-unstable ladies like Sarah and Reccoa to be insanely devoted to him?
    • Even Jamitov Hymem of all people gets some of this: was he a power-hungry Earth-Supremist who wishes to hinder human evolution into newtypes and kill and oppress all Spacenoids, or a visionary who wants to overthrow the corrupt Federation elite and move the population to space on his own terms, or both?
      • Supplementary materials says it's the latter and that he purposely filled the Titans with abusive powerhungry assholes so that their actions would eventually cause war. Doesn't really forgive what he did though.
    • And then there's the (somewhat) joking interpretation of Haman where the reason she's so angry at Char is because he never slept with her in the time they were together.
  • Anvilicious: Can be seen this way, particularly about how Newtypes are the future, and how our 'souls are bound by gravity' and that we need to move into space to both evolve ourselves as well as give the exhausted Earth some breathing room. It's just the show really shoves it in your face, but then again, some might argue that Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped.
    • Of course, the exact opposite is argued in other Gundam series, such as Crossbones.
  • Base Breaking Character: Kamille, big time. There are some who find him to be a good replacement to Amuro, whereas others find him annoying for his high angst and tantrums. His detractors even believe that he doesn't deserve his Fix Fic from the movies.
  • Complete Monster: Yazan Gable and Bask Om.
  • Creepy Awesome: Paptimus Scirocco. He's a sexual predator and mind rapist, and yet despite that (or because of it), he's one of the most effective, well-liked villains in the franchise.
  • Cry for the Devil: Jerid's an absolute asshole, yeah, but the few times he gets to Pet the Dog... ouch.
  • Die for Our Ship: Fa has been bashed often and for a REALLY long time by Kamille x Four fans.
  • Draco in Leather Pants: Scirocco and Four are both really prone to this.
  • Ensemble Darkhorse Apolly, to an extent. He had by far the most character of the minor cast, and he almost made it to the end despite being a Mook Rick Dias pilot, only dying because he was protecting Fa. Almost everyone who watched the show likes him, but it really didn't come apparent until him and the other minor Z Gundam pilots were removed in the Super Robot Wars games to make room for the Gundam ZZ pilots. Thankfully, him and Roberto help represent Zeta Gundam in Super Robot Wars Z and Super Robot Wars 64 as well.
    • Also Emma and Henken are still extremely popular characters in the fandom. It might have something to with the fact that the two are likable, (mostly) rational adults that don't wangst or annoy the cast and watchers, and are overall healthy mentally and emotionally. Also fans found the fact that Gentle Giant Henkin having a crush on Action Girl Emma was adorable.
    • Haman Karn for being seen as awesome, piloting a cool suit, sexy, her bitchiness, being a good pilot or all of the above. She's especially popular on 4chan's mecha board where she's hailed as the Queen of /m/.
    • Also Four seems to have her fans considering she gets saved and joins the heroes in many Super Robot Wars games. She even won Animage's Anime Grand Prix Award in 1985 in the category of favorite female anime character of the year, and there's a novel that tells her origin story.
    • In terms of Mobile Suits despite its relatively short appearance on-screen and being piloted by an extremely minor character, the Barzam has a rather sizable following, so much so that it was able to get its first HG Gunpla kit in 2017... almost 32 years after its debut.
  • Even Better Sequel: As well-liked as the original Mobile Suit Gundam may be, most fans feel that Zeta Gundam is a significant improvement with better writing, action and animation. To many fans, Zeta Gundam can be compared to other, better sequel installments like The Empire Strikes Back and Star Trek: The Next Generation.
    • On top of that, it's considered more memorable and influential given how the series is frequently referenced in other anime works and has the best-selling line of model kits.
  • Family-Unfriendly Aesop: Peace is a nice ideal, but you have to be willing to fight because the world is full of bad people who delight in tormenting others. Indeed, the Grand Finale basically has Kamille getting over his earlier "Why do we have to keep fighting?!" attitude and killing the Big Bad.
  • Fanon Discontinuity: The movies for the several changes.
  • Foe Yay: Between Haman and Char.
  • Jerkass Woobie: Kamille Bidan. Four Murasame is one as well: no matter how sorry you feel for her, she's still a selfish teenage witch who burns down Hong Kong while laughing about it in her first appearance.
    • Also, Jerid. He may have the personality of a 1980's Jerk Jock and killed Kamille's mom and Four, but he also lost all the people he genuinely cared for throughout the series because of Kamille.
  • Love to Hate: Yazan Gable and Paptimus Scirocco.
  • Magnificent Bastard: Paptimus Scirocco and Haman Khan go back and forth on this one.
  • Memetic Mutation: "Lieutenant Quattro - He Is ACHAR".
  • Memetic Molester: Yazan "I'M GONNA VIOLATE YOU" Gable. There's also the early episode where he checked how "excited" rookie pilot Adol was about their mission. With his hand.
  • Moe: Four and Rosamia for some.
  • Moral Event Horizon:
    • Basque crosses this in the third episode by tricking Jerid into executing Kamille's mother Hilda and somehow only gets worse further on. Reccoa has hers when she gasses a civilian colony and Jerid arguably has one when he kills a defenseless Apolly for no reason.
      • Apolly wasn't defenseless, he protected Fa when Jerid was about to shoot her. Still, it doesn't change how completely evil Jerid is.
    • Jamaican get's his own when he orders a Colony Drop on Granada out of anger when he and his soldiers are forced out of the city.
    • Kamille's dad Franklin was a HUGE Jerkass, and he showed it via slapping his wife Hilda when she calls him out on his shit and regarding her death very coldly, but it really shines when he tries to kill Kamille in battle despite Kamille pleading with him to not fight. It's a relief when Quattro decides to kill Franklin with his own mecha.
  • Narm: At the end of the episode "Half Moon Love", Kamille's contorting and tortured face, after realizing Sarah had escaped, makes him look like a stoner.
  • Never Live It Down: Kamille calling himself an autistic child and having a girl's name.
  • Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Beltorchika in her second appearance. Not only she's more mature and humble than she used to be, but actually earns a Crowning Moment of Awesome via becoming a Hot Scoop and recording the brutal mecha battle whose footage Char uses in his speech.
  • The Scrappy: Katz Kobayashi. Some people cheered when he crashed into an asteroid during the finale.
    • Reccoa becomes one of these in record time following her Face Heel Turn and the reasoning for it.
    • Beltochika as well, but she gets Rescued from the Scrappy Heap in hear second appearance as noted above.
    • Wong Lee, huge cheers when Judau punches him in the sequel.
  • Tastes Like Diabetes: The ending of the A New Translation trilogy for some.
  • They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: The movie receives this criticism for removing the Downer Ending, changing the roles of several characters which resulted in the impossibility of the Double Zeta story.
    • Four, Beltorchika and Katz are all prone to obnoxious bouts of self-pity too. Then again, two of them are teenagers (and one's very mindscrewed) and the other is extremely naive in regards to war.
  • True Art Is Angsty: Aside for the many deaths and dark themes, it has also one of the saddest endings in the franchise and many love the series because of it.
  • Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Like Kamille, Jerid tragically loses many loved ones over the course of the story, but he never changes from being a power-hungry fascist.
  • Wangst: Kamille, especially. It's not even a girl's name, you know.
    • Four, Beltorchika and Katz are all prone to obnoxious bouts of self-pity too.