Mobile Suit Gundam (Kidou Senshi Gandamu/機動戦士ガンダム)

Director: Yoshiyuki Tomino

Production: Nagoya Broadcasting/Sotsu Agency/Sunrise

Episodes: 43

Aired: Apr 1979-Jan 1980

Premise: In the future, the Earth Federation has dealt with overpopulation by forcibly resettling people in space colonies. As so-called "spacenoids" thrive, their resentment of Earth control grows, and one of the colony groups declares its independence from the Federation as the Zeon Principality. Through indiscriminate use of WMDs and their revolutionary new Mobile Suits, Zeon is able to fight the numerically superior Federation forces to a draw. The Federation takes advantage of the ceasefire to jump-start their own Mobile Suit program, culminating in the development of the prototype Gundam suit. When a Zeon reconaissance mission to the Gundam facilities escalates into a battle, a rag-tag crew of civilian refugees and low-ranking military personnel commandeer the Gundam and a powerful new battleship in order to escape the destruction. Now, though, they've officially stolen military secrets, and the crew find themselves caught in a renewed war between the Federation and Zeon.

So here it is, the show that launched one of the biggest (the biggest?) anime franchises ever. It also arguably catapulted the career of Tomino Yoshiyuki from a minor figure in the anime industry to a star director. The Anno Hideaki of the 1970s and 80s, Tomino took the bright, jaunty "superhero" feel of '70s robot anime and worked it into something deeper and darker, all the while suffering from bouts of depression and earning the moniker "Kill-'em-All Tomino" for his at the time shocking levels of cast casualties.