Mobile Suit Gundam (TV)

The show was original titled "Freedom Fighter Gunboy" because the title robot was armed with a gun and the target demographic was young boys. In the early stages of production there were various references to freedom; the White Base was called the Freedom Fortress, the Core Fighter was called the Freedom Wing and the Gunperry was called the Freedom Cruiser. The Yatate team combined the English word "Gun" with the end of Freedom, "Dom" and got Gundom. Tomino then changed the name to Gundam, suggesting that the Gundam was a power that wields a gun and is strong enough to hold back enemies, like a dam holds back water.

Episode 15 "Cucuruz Doan's Island" was excluded from international releases of the series at director Tomino's request. Tomino never explained his decision to omit the episode, but various theories focus on the animation quality and production issues.

Winner of the Animage Anime Grand Prix Prize in 1979 and the first half of 1980.

The name of the character played by Shuuichi Ikeda, Char Aznable, strongly refers to a famous French singer born in Armenia, Charles Aznavour.

The space colonies in the Universal Century are based on the O'Neill cylinder, a space settlement design by American physicist Gerard K. O'Neill from his 1976 book The High Frontier: Human Colonies in Space.

In 2009, Bandai commissioned a 1/1 scale statue of the RX-78-2 Gundam to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the series. The statue was on display in Odaiba and Shizuoka before making its residence at Diver City Tokyo mall in Odaiba in 2012. It was dismantled in 2017 to make room for the Life-Sized Unicorn Gundam Statue.

The RX-78-2 Gundam makes a cameo appearance in the 2018 Steven Spielberg film Ready Player One.

In episode 12 "Threat of Zeon", when the Gundam lands after it’s first launched, its crown is red for a few shots.

Also in episode 12, there is a continuity error. The Gundam is launched with its bazooka, but for one shot it has its beam rifle. It even fires it. After that, it has its bazooka back.

In episode 15, Cucuruz Doan's Island, the Gundam launches with a beam rifle but in the next clip has a bazooka, and then ends up having a beam rifle for all the later clips. This occurs 19 minutes into the episode near the end.

Also in episode 15, Cucuruz Doan's Island, at the 21 minute mark Doan's Zaku had its right shield shot of but in the scene where the enemy zaku is falling off the cliff you can tell that Doan's zaku has a shield. It appear that all the damage the suit had taken dissapeared.

In episode 26, the GM that tries to attack Char is equipped with RX-78-2's Beam rifle. However, when Char pierces through it, it is equipped by a standard GM beam-spray gun. This is also in the 2nd compilation movie.