Bandai Namco Group announced the Sequel of the Mobile Suit Gundam Seed Project that was triggered during the opening ceremony of the life-size Freedom Gundam statue in Shanghai on Friday. The initiative commemorates the 20th anniversary of the original Mobile Suit Gundam Seed anime next year. It will have several parts, with the previously announced title of the film project (confirmed in production now) serving as a sequel to the television series. The staff, led by returning director Mitsuo Fukuda, will announce the opening date and other details in the future.
The initiative also includes the new Mobile Suit Gundam Seed game. The staff will announce more details in the future.
The Mobile Suit Gundam Seed Eclipse side story manga (pictured above) will launch in Japan and overseas in July as a new Mobile Suit Variation project. The story is set in Cosmic Era 72, during what has come to be known as the “lost two years” between the two wars. Some call it a time of “peace on thin ice”, while others call it “a brief respite before the next chaos.” The story follows 17-year-old mobile suit pilot Tatsumi Hori, 19-year-old commander Miyabi Oto Kiō, 18-year-old Coordinator pilot Ken Noland Suse, and others who risk their lives in the vacant unit known as “ODR. ”
MVF-X08 Eclipse Gundam manga is a special mobile suit developed in secret by ODR. Bandai will offer a Master Grade 1/100 model kit in August.
The story is credited to SOW, and Atsushi Soga is drawing the manga. Kogado Studio is designing the characters, and Junichi Akutsu (Astrays) is designing the mechas. Kadokawa’s Gundam Ace magazine will launch the manga on July 26. Gundam.info will begin serving the manga overseas in July.
After Friday’s original live broadcast was cancelled, the official Gundam Channel YouTube channel will stream the statue’s opening ceremony in Japan on May 31 at 12:00 p.m. (May 30 at 23:00 EDT). “Gundam dock in Shanghai,” China’s first large-scale Gundam event, runs from May 28 to July 11 at Mitsui Shopping Park LaLaport Jinqiao, home of the statue. The event features interactive areas dedicated to the history of Gundam, various anime, demonstrations of free Gundam plastic models, and other aspects of the franchise.
The first Mobile Suit Gundam Seed television anime aired from 2002 to 2003, followed by Mobile Suit Gundam Seed Destiny from 2004 to 2005. The three-part Mobile Suit Gundam Seed CE73: Stargazer anime project followed in 2006. Sony Music Anime Festival ’06 announced film project planned for May 2006.
Chiaki Morosawa, the main scriptwriter for the two Gundam Seed series, died at the age of 56 in 2022. She had collaborated with her husband Mitsuo Fukuda, who directed both Gundam Seed television series, on the planned Gundam Seed film project. Morosawa had made it clear in 2008 that the plot for the project had been completed, but he had been sick since the end of the Mobile Suit Gundam sequel Seed Destiny in 2005.
Singer TM Revolution (Takanori Nishikawa) stated in 2022 that the film project was “going on”.
Bandai Entertainment previously released the series on DVD in English in North America. Right Stuf released the anime on Blu-ray Disc in December 2022.
