Bandai Visual has started streaming not one, but two new promotional videos for the upcoming first part to the latest title in the Gundam franchise, Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt. They released both a long version and a short version for the new anime.

Long version

Short version

Both videos give us a preview of the Full Armor Gundam, a variation to Amuro Ray’s RX-78-2 Gundam. The video also explains why the mobile suits in Gundam Thunderbolt have a lot of shields, and that is to protect themselves from all those dangerous space debris, which makes the Thunderbolt Sector, the area where the anime takes place, one of the most hazardous settings in the Gundam franchise, and that is saying a lot!

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The core of the two new PVs however, focus on the rivalry between the Earth Federation’s Io Fleming and the Principality of Zeon’s Daryl Lorentz, who are both headed to a destined collision course with one another.

Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt is actually a side story which happens during the One Year War, the same conflict which the original 1979 anime is centered upon. Based on  Yasuo Ohtagaki’s popular mecha manga, the story takes place in the Thunderbolt sector, an area filled with wrecks of old colonies and wrecked spaceships and was formerly known as Side 4, or Mua. It follows two ace pilots from the two opposing factions, the Principality of Zeon and the Earth Federation as they battle to take control of the sector.

The manga also inspired a line of HG 1/144 scale GunPla by Bandai, which are currently on sale these days. You can check out the anime’s cast through this link: http://www.afachan.asia/2015/11/anime-yuichi-nakamura-ryohei-kimura-lead-gundam-thunderbolt-cast/