Gundam Side Material?

[Mafty]

So how necessary are Side Material to understanding the story in Gundam? I read a twitter post from Toysdream yesterday; which focused upon the novelizations of the different series, of which most UC series had one. The stories often included prologue chapters, and were frequently released as tie ins around the time the anime's aired. The prologues often featured more setting information than was at times present in the animes. That being said the side materials have often not been exported, and you can still actually follow the storyline in the anime, albeit the side material often makes onto webpages. So what does everyone think; can you follow the story easier with side material, is the anime enough on it's own, or does it vary?

[Deacon Blues]

If you want answers to burning questions, then I suppose side/supplemental material is a good thing. Is it 100% necessary for enjoying Gundam? Absolutely not. I'd hesitate to call them prologues, though, since that's not quite what they are. They're "prequels" in a sense, but, the novelizations are meant to be their own standalone thing anyways.

[Seto Kaiba]

Novelizations of TV-original anime tend to go into more detail and offer more continuity nods than the TV anime or the compilation films do. They're not essential by any means, but for die-hard fans they often offer a bit of added value to the existing story.

[MythSearcher]

Most of the time you get more details, but with more discrepancies thrown in.
Some of the stories are simply "What if"s, like the FG novel, Amuro died in the middle of the story, and Tomino didn't even bother to fix that in Zeta's novel with the excuse being "defeating his previous self".

[Kuruni]

The only side material that's close to be "essential" IMO, is Astray to SeeD. Simply because it plug a big hole (how Kira's survive Aegis' self-destruct) that has meaningful impact to the series, and the itself offer no alternate explanation.

Still, it's just "close". And with Mu survive in GSD, Kira's tanking a explosion blast is pretty tame :p .

[Mafty]

I didn't realize the Zeta Gundam novelization followed the first novel and not FG. Also some of the added material could help flesh out things that are more vague in the Anime. For instance in F91 there are hints of a conspiracy between the colony corporation and the Crossbone Vanguard, explaining why the colony is built in European style, which are never followed up on. Also some story elements in Stardust Memory; like the Federation conspiracy to form the Titans, and Cima's betrayal. Side materials make way more sense of the plotlines than just seeing the anime would; I'm not counting the love triangle, as that was clearly a retcon.

[Deacon Blues]

Tomino didn't even bother to fix that in Zeta's novel with the excuse being "defeating his previous self".

Out of curiosity, where did you pick up that idea from? Did Tomino mention that somewhere? The widely held understanding (all throughout the Japanese info sites/blogs) is that the original novel series stands alone and that Zeta is what established the "supplemental" guides to the television series/movies that followed (aka the worldbuilding and extra descriptors that lore has been pulled from over the decades). Arguably, if we're trying to tie the written versions together, the First Gundam novelization by Masaake Nakane would tie into subsequent novel series.

I didn't realize the Zeta Gundam novelization followed the first novel and not FG.

The Zeta novels don't follow the first novel. That novel series is entirely standalone. Zeta's novels are considered to be a "subtext" of the anime series. They're almost entirely the same, only certain events are shifted around and Reccoa's departure is the biggest difference. Arguably, there's more of a focus on "family" in the series, so it connects it to Beltorchika's Children moreso than anything. It's closer to Tomino's vision of what Gundam should be.

[MythSearcher]

Tomino didn't even bother to fix that in Zeta's novel with the excuse being "defeating his previous self".

Out of curiosity, where did you pick up that idea from? Did Tomino mention that somewhere? The widely held understanding (all throughout the Japanese info sites/blogs) is that the original novel series stands alone and that Zeta is what established the "supplemental" guides to the television series/movies that followed (aka the worldbuilding and extra descriptors that lore has been pulled from over the decades). Arguably, if we're trying to tie the written versions together, the First Gundam novelization by Masaake Nakane would tie into subsequent novel series.

富野は角川文庫からの再版時に、アムロとハヤトの死を削るなど『Ζガンダム』との整合化作業を試みようとしたが、過去の自分を否定することになるとして断念したと語っている

The Japanese Wikipedia page listed this as the source.
富野由悠季『機動戦士ガンダム』3、角川書店〈角川文庫〉、1987年10月24日、287頁。