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FEATURED BOOK
 The
Gundam Explorer
by Kazuhisa Fujie and Martin Foster
Cocoro Books, 2004
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.
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