This show looks great although I worry the animation is bare bones. Can you tell me where I should start watching? I’ve never looked into the gundam genre because I found it too confusing.
The early Gundam shows, based in the Universal Century, are really good, especially the second series Gundam Z (Gundam ZZ not so much to say the least), I had to skip this article when I saw it spoils the whole of L-Gaim, one of only two series created by Tomino that I have yet to watch.
The shows are sorted by date of release (not in-universe chronological order) so the first Gundam from 1979 is the starting point, if you don't want to watch the whole series watch the three compilation movies instead (yes I realize you were asking about L-Gaim but you're missing out if you don't watch Gundam, at least the Universal Century saga IMO).
It seems that you watch the TV series first then the OVA, the first two OVA are just a recap of the show according to the reviews. You can find it on Nyaa.
L-Gaim isn't part of the Gundam universe btw, it's another unrelated show entirely, they just share the same creator, Yoshiyuki Tomino.
You can watch more recent Gundam shows that are not part of the Universal Century without starting with the 1979 series or compilation movies if you don't like the older animation, each Universe in Gundam is separated and it's own thing, the two Gundam Seed series from the early 00's are kind of a modernization of the original 1979 series, well the first Gundam Seed is anyway, it's kind of a vague remake, but not really, the plot is just quite similar but also very different, it's pretty good IMO but the character design is lame and very gay IMO.
Gundam 00 is quite good too, it started in 2007 and the Earth is separated in three major blocs in that timeline, it's quite New World Order in its themes, but the Universal Century is the most interesting Gundam universe by far, you just have to tolerate the old animation style of the first show, I actually like it a lot but to each his own I guess.
It's a Space Opera with heavy emphasis on war (space battles mainly), politics, intrigue and even a bit of economics, no relation to Gundam whatsoever, it's an OVA plus two movies and a second set of OVA that takes place before the main series, not as good as the main show but still quite good, it should be watched last anyway. The Wikipedia article is fine when it comes to know the optimal watching order, it's not very confusing.
It's the best anime in existence IMO, of course I haven't watched every anime in existence since I mainly focus on mecha and have stop watching new shows almost entirely, I don't even consider it an anime really, it's a TV show made for adults that happens to be animated in 80's and 90's anime style.
The only issue I have with it is that the modern version available have parts of the original animation replaced with cheap and horrible new animation in the first quarter or so of the show, I don't know what happened, I guess the original reels must have been damaged beyond recognition and they hired some cheap ass studio, you have to find the Laserdisc version online it's the only one that doesn't have those segments, but it's not worth it IMO, it does spoil an entire episode that is VERY important though.
Even though I dreaded interest in the show (and had considered explicitly telling people not to watch it).
You have good reason to believe "the animation is bare bones". The opening title that I linked to is nice, but it's far better done than most of the show itself. With a few exceptions like parts of the final episode where the staff clearly gave their all, the animation is very low budget and crude. All done by hand, of course - it's forty years old. What I've seen of anime from this century is so much slicker and smoother. If you didn't grow up with this stuff like I did, it may be painful to watch.
And not just because of the look. I can't think of any good starting point for L.Gaim. The show is super complex. The beginning is very slow, and I find it and a lot of the show to be boring - full of dubious 'comedy' and subplots that don't add much to the conspiracy at its core.
The first two straight-to-video releases are a two-part compilation of the entire series that do cut out much of the fluff. Unfortunately, they still make no sense (well, maybe they would after reading my article). They cram way too much in too little time, and they seem to have been edited by someone who didn't care: e.g., the second video has a character die and then reappear beause the editor reversed the order of the clips.
And unfortunately almost all of that "much" - in the compilation and in the series as a whole - is awful, at least to me. My article focuses on the conspiracy aspect of the show, something I have never seen anyone write about before in Japanese or English. I'm not sure it's even in the novels or manga which I haven't read.
The TV version of L.Gaim was popular enough to have a solid year run and even a month's extension, but not popular enough to have a sequel (not counting the continuity insert third straight-to-video release) or a remake. The main attraction of the show for fans was apparently the love triangle that I did not mention at all in my post - hate it - followed by the heavy metal (giant robot) designs - LOVE them! L.Gaim's legacy is its aesthetic which was carried over into the unrelated series Zeta Gundam from the same studio.
The "gundam genre" as you call it is called "real robot" in Japan to distinguish it from "super robot" shows of the Voltron type. Painting with a very broad brush - super robot shows are simplistic and juvenile with clear-cut good and bad guys, whereas real robot shows are complex, even convoluted, and more mature with lots of gray - and death. (That dichotomy is false, but for the purposes of a short note, let's run with it.)
The real robot genre was my favorite growing up in the eighties. It was a joy to follow it in real time. Every year, the studio Nippon Sunrise would come up with one or two new real robot shows generally set in its own standalone universe complete with vast lore and an epic story building up to a real conclusion. All series were meticulously planned in advance. I have never seen this quantity and quality of creativity on TV anywhere else. Unfortunately almost all that is in Japanese and is mostly unknown in the West.
The Gundam multiverse series are the best known real robot shows in the West, but they're just the tip of the iceberg. L.Gaim is one of the least known shows - it only had a brief official streaming release in English on the defunct Daisuki service. My all-time favorite, Layzner, turns forty this year. That show has an official English Blu-ray release, and it's easy to get into from the very beginning. Alas, it has hardly any conspiracy elements.
Sorry I took so long to answer. I hope I made up for my tardiness with some depth. Anime is one of my favorite topics, and in another world I'd be writing about it and not this other ugly stuff. Many years ago I considered coauthoring a book on Japanese robots and superheroes with another hardcore fan, but that never happened, and we would have never made money. Consider my post to be a glimpse of what the book might have been.
Have you ever played some of the Super Robot Taisen games ? I really liked those I played on SNES/Super Famicom, PS1 and PS2, the one on Gamecube was in cheap ugly 3D but was really fun and full of UC Gundam mechas , I've never played any of them after the PS2 era so I don't know if they kept the same level of quality after that.
I've never watched Layzner but I see that the director of the show is the creator of Votoms and Blue Gender so it sounds like I might really like it, I decided to start watching L-Gaim, it's not great so far, not horrible either, I hope it improves as the show progress.
I just watched some clips of Super Robot Taisen GC and the 3D isn't nearly as bad as I remember, I guess I was just disappointed at the time that it wasn't in 2D sprites and that stuck in my mind, there's apparently a fan translation patch available for it too.
This show looks great although I worry the animation is bare bones. Can you tell me where I should start watching? I’ve never looked into the gundam genre because I found it too confusing.
The early Gundam shows, based in the Universal Century, are really good, especially the second series Gundam Z (Gundam ZZ not so much to say the least), I had to skip this article when I saw it spoils the whole of L-Gaim, one of only two series created by Tomino that I have yet to watch.
https://www.mahq.net/gundammain/
The shows are sorted by date of release (not in-universe chronological order) so the first Gundam from 1979 is the starting point, if you don't want to watch the whole series watch the three compilation movies instead (yes I realize you were asking about L-Gaim but you're missing out if you don't watch Gundam, at least the Universal Century saga IMO).
https://www.mahq.net/lgaimmain/
It seems that you watch the TV series first then the OVA, the first two OVA are just a recap of the show according to the reviews. You can find it on Nyaa.
L-Gaim isn't part of the Gundam universe btw, it's another unrelated show entirely, they just share the same creator, Yoshiyuki Tomino.
You can watch more recent Gundam shows that are not part of the Universal Century without starting with the 1979 series or compilation movies if you don't like the older animation, each Universe in Gundam is separated and it's own thing, the two Gundam Seed series from the early 00's are kind of a modernization of the original 1979 series, well the first Gundam Seed is anyway, it's kind of a vague remake, but not really, the plot is just quite similar but also very different, it's pretty good IMO but the character design is lame and very gay IMO.
Gundam 00 is quite good too, it started in 2007 and the Earth is separated in three major blocs in that timeline, it's quite New World Order in its themes, but the Universal Century is the most interesting Gundam universe by far, you just have to tolerate the old animation style of the first show, I actually like it a lot but to each his own I guess.
Where does legends of galactic heroes fit into this
It's a Space Opera with heavy emphasis on war (space battles mainly), politics, intrigue and even a bit of economics, no relation to Gundam whatsoever, it's an OVA plus two movies and a second set of OVA that takes place before the main series, not as good as the main show but still quite good, it should be watched last anyway. The Wikipedia article is fine when it comes to know the optimal watching order, it's not very confusing.
It's the best anime in existence IMO, of course I haven't watched every anime in existence since I mainly focus on mecha and have stop watching new shows almost entirely, I don't even consider it an anime really, it's a TV show made for adults that happens to be animated in 80's and 90's anime style.
The only issue I have with it is that the modern version available have parts of the original animation replaced with cheap and horrible new animation in the first quarter or so of the show, I don't know what happened, I guess the original reels must have been damaged beyond recognition and they hired some cheap ass studio, you have to find the Laserdisc version online it's the only one that doesn't have those segments, but it's not worth it IMO, it does spoil an entire episode that is VERY important though.
They made (still making I think) a remake starting in 2018, I haven't watched and don't intend to so I don't know if it's any good.
I'm honored that my favorite writer asked!
Even though I dreaded interest in the show (and had considered explicitly telling people not to watch it).
You have good reason to believe "the animation is bare bones". The opening title that I linked to is nice, but it's far better done than most of the show itself. With a few exceptions like parts of the final episode where the staff clearly gave their all, the animation is very low budget and crude. All done by hand, of course - it's forty years old. What I've seen of anime from this century is so much slicker and smoother. If you didn't grow up with this stuff like I did, it may be painful to watch.
And not just because of the look. I can't think of any good starting point for L.Gaim. The show is super complex. The beginning is very slow, and I find it and a lot of the show to be boring - full of dubious 'comedy' and subplots that don't add much to the conspiracy at its core.
The first two straight-to-video releases are a two-part compilation of the entire series that do cut out much of the fluff. Unfortunately, they still make no sense (well, maybe they would after reading my article). They cram way too much in too little time, and they seem to have been edited by someone who didn't care: e.g., the second video has a character die and then reappear beause the editor reversed the order of the clips.
And unfortunately almost all of that "much" - in the compilation and in the series as a whole - is awful, at least to me. My article focuses on the conspiracy aspect of the show, something I have never seen anyone write about before in Japanese or English. I'm not sure it's even in the novels or manga which I haven't read.
The TV version of L.Gaim was popular enough to have a solid year run and even a month's extension, but not popular enough to have a sequel (not counting the continuity insert third straight-to-video release) or a remake. The main attraction of the show for fans was apparently the love triangle that I did not mention at all in my post - hate it - followed by the heavy metal (giant robot) designs - LOVE them! L.Gaim's legacy is its aesthetic which was carried over into the unrelated series Zeta Gundam from the same studio.
The "gundam genre" as you call it is called "real robot" in Japan to distinguish it from "super robot" shows of the Voltron type. Painting with a very broad brush - super robot shows are simplistic and juvenile with clear-cut good and bad guys, whereas real robot shows are complex, even convoluted, and more mature with lots of gray - and death. (That dichotomy is false, but for the purposes of a short note, let's run with it.)
The real robot genre was my favorite growing up in the eighties. It was a joy to follow it in real time. Every year, the studio Nippon Sunrise would come up with one or two new real robot shows generally set in its own standalone universe complete with vast lore and an epic story building up to a real conclusion. All series were meticulously planned in advance. I have never seen this quantity and quality of creativity on TV anywhere else. Unfortunately almost all that is in Japanese and is mostly unknown in the West.
The Gundam multiverse series are the best known real robot shows in the West, but they're just the tip of the iceberg. L.Gaim is one of the least known shows - it only had a brief official streaming release in English on the defunct Daisuki service. My all-time favorite, Layzner, turns forty this year. That show has an official English Blu-ray release, and it's easy to get into from the very beginning. Alas, it has hardly any conspiracy elements.
Sorry I took so long to answer. I hope I made up for my tardiness with some depth. Anime is one of my favorite topics, and in another world I'd be writing about it and not this other ugly stuff. Many years ago I considered coauthoring a book on Japanese robots and superheroes with another hardcore fan, but that never happened, and we would have never made money. Consider my post to be a glimpse of what the book might have been.
Have you ever played some of the Super Robot Taisen games ? I really liked those I played on SNES/Super Famicom, PS1 and PS2, the one on Gamecube was in cheap ugly 3D but was really fun and full of UC Gundam mechas , I've never played any of them after the PS2 era so I don't know if they kept the same level of quality after that.
I've never watched Layzner but I see that the director of the show is the creator of Votoms and Blue Gender so it sounds like I might really like it, I decided to start watching L-Gaim, it's not great so far, not horrible either, I hope it improves as the show progress.
I just watched some clips of Super Robot Taisen GC and the 3D isn't nearly as bad as I remember, I guess I was just disappointed at the time that it wasn't in 2D sprites and that stuck in my mind, there's apparently a fan translation patch available for it too.