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The secrets and mysteries of the four televised Gundam sagas from 1979. The book guides the reader through a maze of character bios, Gundam technologies, truths and legends that continue to perplex and mesmerize viewers all over the world.
Read a Review
With the publication of The Gundam Explorer, Cocoro Books has begun a series of guides to some of the most popular anime titles around. ... More

The secrets and mysteries of the four televised Gundam sagas from 1979. The book guides the reader through a maze of character bios, Gundam technologies, truths and legends that continue to perplex and mesmerize viewers all over the world.
Read a Review
With the publication of The Gundam Explorer, Cocoro Books has begun a series of guides to some of the most popular anime titles around. It makes sense that a book on Gundam should be the title that anchors this series - Gundam is to anime fandom what Star Trek is to US science fiction fandom. It is one of the bedrock titles of anime, and has continued to pop up in various incarnations since its television debut in the late 1970s.

The Gundam Explorer is also the first small paperback guide I've seen from Cocoro Books. I've previously reviewed two of their earlier titles, both full-color glossy works with great printing. With this kind of pedigree, I was a little disappointed by The Gundam Explorer. The print quality remains high, but it's missing some of the visual oomph I was expecting in terms of graphics and layout. Part of this is due to the fact that no stills from any of the Gundam anime series are used in the book. (I suspect this has something to do with the disclaimers on both the front and the back of the book stating "Not authorized by Bandai Co. Ltd. or Sunrise, Inc.) Instead, the authors use many photographs of Gundam models and the occasional movie poster to enliven the book. Although the mecha of Gundam have been very influential to anime in general, the thing that made Gundam so unique was the show's human element - it was always more than just a show about giant robots. It would have been nice if we could have seen some images or sketches of some of the characters. One last little nitpick about the printing is the size of the book itself. It is just a little smaller than the paperback size that has come to be standard for US manga releases and thus almost-but not quite-fits on a shelf with the rest of the manga (although it does work alongside the slightly smaller Dark Horse versions of Megatokyo.)

But what about the content of the book? After all, the name of this series of books is "Mysteries and Secrets Revealed!" which means that there has to be some exclusive information here, right? For the most part, the information in The Gundam Explorer is nothing that couldn't be gleaned from a careful watching of the Gundam shows. There are a few interesting side notes detailing such ephemera as Gundam jeans, bottle caps and (in a move close to my own heart) a course called "The Creation of Gundam" offered at Kanazawa Technical University in April 2003. I would have liked to have seen a heavier emphasis on such extra-textual aspects as well as more information on the creation of the series.

In short, The Gundam Explorer is a concise and detailed introduction to the world of Gundam as depicted in the original series, Mobile Fighter G Gundam, Gundam Wing, and Gundam Seed. (The other series and timelines are mentioned only briefly.) For such a short book, I was pleasantly surprised to find it has a helpful glossary and keyword index at the back. Although the book comes up short in the "mysteries and secrets" department and misses some of the nuances of the franchise, it should certainly be recommended reading for any Gundam neophyte.
(Aneme Research.com)

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