How long does it take for a manga MS design to appear in other materials?

[False Prophet]

So, the 8th volume of MS Bible about the Jegan left a blank silhouette in place of the RGM-88X Jeddah. In the last few days, we finally got the design of the Jeddah as it appeared in MOON Gundam. I wonder how long with this new design appear in other supplemental materials?

Also, looking at the RIX-003 Cannongan's head design, do you think it also has an additional head sensor like the EWAC Jegan?

[ShadowCell]

sorry but i had to nix those links you posted and you're gonna have to find a different source for those charts.

[Kuruni]

Whenever the author like it, there's no fix date or whatever.

I mean, I too would like to see Dino Gundam in anime...

[Seto Kaiba]

So, the 8th volume of MS Bible about the Jegan left a blank silhouette in place of the RGM-88X Jeddah. In the last few days, we finally got the design of the Jeddah as it appeared in MOON Gundam. I wonder how long with this new design appear in other supplemental materials?

Anywhere between "Now" and "Never"... it's not like they're obligated to include every variant of every design.

[False Prophet]

nywhere between "Now" and "Never"... it's not like they're obligated to include every variant of every design.

But they tend to fill up over time unless the entire design was retconned out of existence, right?

Also, Bible-type books tend be treated as the established canon, right? Or it is only true with most TV shows?

[Kuruni]

But they tend to fill up over time unless the entire design was retconned out of existence, right?

Wrong.

And in the case you wonder, Jeddah is around since Hi-Streamer novel. Although Moon Gundam redesign and coloured it.

[Seto Kaiba]

But they tend to fill up over time unless the entire design was retconned out of existence, right?

No, only when they're actually relevant to something.

As a franchise, Gundam is seemingly never willing to use an existing design when a new one can do the job. It has so many one-off, ace custom, and limited production special duty variants of mobile suits that you'd suspect the Sunrise staff are worried Bandai will grind their children up and sell them as luncheon meat if every new OVA or series doesn't provide a certain number of new Gunpla designs. With so many variant designs that fill identical roles and have little-to-no plot relevance, a lot of them end up being glossed over or left out entirely when there are official publications being compiled because there's often little immediate difference between them and they don't do anything distinctive or interesting.

For instance, the Universal Century has produced something like sixty acknowledged major and minor variants of the Zeonic MS-06 Zaku II and ten for the Zeonic MS-05 Zaku I. When they put together an overview of the Zaku II development and production history in Master Archive Mobile Suit, they referenced only six major variants of the design: MS-06A, MS-06C, MS-06E, MS-06F, MS-06R, and MS-06S. The other six designs the book covered are all minor variants of those, the MS-06E-3 and five MS-06R variants, each of which got approximately one page.

If they're going to cover the RGM-88XX-X/3Ω+ Kai High-Mobility Legendary Special Forces Elite Command Sniper Limited Edition Super God GT Nitro 2000 Ultra Instinct Spicy Nacho Bankai Home Premium Suburban Test Type (Lt. Leeroy Jenkins version) it needs to actually matter to something. Either it'd need to be prominently featured in a major story with an important pilot and actually accomplish something (instead of just getting Worf'd), or play a major role in the development of a prominently featured later design.

The RGM-88X Jeddah is pretty damned inconsequential. Yeah, Amuro pilots one in Hi-Streamer and it puts in an appearance in Mobile Suit Moon Gundam, but neither is especially prominent and the Jeddah itself is just a badly built prototype Jegan... the Jegan being a pile of hot garbage that seemingly exists solely to get its ass kicked and blow up dramatically like every EFF mass production suit in the mid-UC era. It's unlikely that the Jeddah would get much coverage since it's a novel/manga-only design and it's only a prototype for a production mobile suit (which means it's getting the short shrift twice over). Unless they were setting out to specifically do coverage of the Jegan, I'd expect the Jeddah to be forgotten entirely or get a parenthetical text-only mention.

(If you've sensed that I might disapprove somewhat of Gundam's fetishistic obsession with customs, one-offs, and special limited production models essentially indistinguishable from the base models, you might be onto something.)

Also, Bible-type books tend be treated as the established canon, right? Or it is only true with most TV shows?

That varies between franchises and by publishers.

That word tends to get abused a lot by publishers looking to advertise any book that provides a general overview for a series as though it were a comprehensive and authoritative reference. Bandai and Dengeki have both used that word and in neither case were the books particularly informative... certainly not to the point of treating it like it was a primary reference.

[Cardi Doorl]

Either it'd need to [...] actually accomplish something (instead of just getting Worf'd)...

Hasn't stopped the GM Sniper II and GM Cold Climate Type from getting referenced fairly consistently.

[False Prophet]

Hasn't stopped the GM Sniper II and GM Cold Climate Type from getting referenced fairly consistently.

(If you've sensed that I might disapprove somewhat of Gundam's fetishistic obsession with customs, one-offs, and special limited production models essentially indistinguishable from the base models, you might be onto something.)

Maybe the two are actually related? If you think about it, short of Gundam and one-off customs, the GM Sniper Custom and the variants developed from it were Federation models with the highest performance during OYW. And since most Gundam story, especially manga and games, revolve around aces and would-be-ace, doesn't that is normal for these MS to be featured heavily?

If I not mistaken, several of the best Federation aces in OYW sortied in GM Command Space Type and GM Sniper Custom/Sniper II. Amuro in that regard is extremely unique--the Gundam was outperformed by many enemies that Amuro faced in the later part of the war.

[Seto Kaiba]

Either it'd need to [...] actually accomplish something (instead of just getting Worf'd)...

Hasn't stopped the GM Sniper II and GM Cold Climate Type from getting referenced fairly consistently.

The RGM-79SP GM Sniper II had a couple fairly prominent pilots like Lydo Wolf and the White Dingo team, who were main characters who prominently used it in at least one feature and weren't subjected to the Worf Effect piloting it.

Likewise, the RGM-79G GM Cold Climate type had Yuu Kajima and Guinea Pig team, for the same reason.

Lydo Wolf was apparently important enough as a high-scoring ace in the One Year War to merit coverage of his exploits in Master Archive Mobile Suit's Ace Pilot Log book, alongside Johnny Ridden, Gabby Hazard, Ian Graden, and Tenneth A. Jung.

Contrast with the RGM-88X Jeddah's appearance in Hi-Streamer, where it led to AMURO getting Worf'd. IIRC one of the few pieces of art of it is Amuro literally getting his kneecaps shot off in it.

Maybe the two are actually related? If you think about it, short of Gundam and one-off customs, the GM Sniper Custom and the variants developed from it were Federation models with the highest performance during OYW. And since most Gundam story, especially manga and games, revolve around aces and would-be-ace, doesn't that is normal for these MS to be featured heavily?

If I not mistaken, several of the best Federation aces in OYW sortied in GM Command Space Type and GM Sniper Custom/Sniper II. Amuro in that regard is extremely unique--the Gundam was outperformed by many enemies that Amuro faced in the later part of the war.

Not really, IMO... super prototypes and ace customs are incredibly unrealistic on their own, but really its that constant need to retcon in new, limited production high performance variants every sodding time they do a new UC series. It's reached the point where there are dozens of the damn things now. No military wants that shit. They want to have as few variants as possible to minimize the logistical requirements of keeping large numbers of vehicles operating. The unique hardware in each of those variants is more parts they have to stock, ship to the appropriate location, and train their maintenance crews on maintaining and installing. It doesn't make a lick of sense when Zeon and the Federation were both essentially at full stretch just keeping the war going, and the Federation was pushed just to get the GM into service at all. You'd expect to see one standard duty variant and maybe one or two limited production special mission variants like the Sniper and the Command, not sixty.

[MythSearcher]

But they tend to fill up over time unless the entire design was retconned out of existence, right?

Not quite, they don't just fill it up, they over fill it.
For example, they have 2 MSZ-007's one for the MP Zeta, one for Rapier I(Eta Gundam)

If they're going to cover the RGM-88XX-X/3Ω+ Kai High-Mobility Legendary Special Forces Elite Command Sniper Limited Edition Super God GT Nitro 2000 Ultra Instinct Spicy Nacho Bankai Home Premium Suburban Test Type (Lt. Leeroy Jenkins version) it needs to actually matter to something. Either it'd need to be prominently featured in a major story with an important pilot and actually accomplish something (instead of just getting Worf'd), or play a major role in the development of a prominently featured later design.

Wait, you mean General Jenkins' Ultra-Hi-Mega Particle Beam Enneacontahexatuple(96 in case you wondered) Rapid Cannon, Minovsky Drive Beam ram, 108 Fin-Funnel, Tetra-I-Field Generators, w/100 LM314V21 Top Fighters, Psychommu framed REON Ver. 7.5 Bio-computer Columbus Kai+alpha Seraphic Mega flare hexa beam wings of light Assault Strike Deus Ex Unlimited-limit break Interstellar Exoplanet explorer Laser-platinum-coated WBGBSB-HD(Well baked Golden Brown Super Buttery-Heavenly Delicious) ver. Ka Mk-XIV isn't prominently featured because it appeared only in a quarter of a frame and motion blur basically rendered it looking like just a regular out of place Columbus class being shot down? Blasphemy!

Hasn't stopped the GM Sniper II and GM Cold Climate Type from getting referenced fairly consistently.

That is why 0080 remains one of the most commercially successful Gundam anime. It introduces 2 MS per episode and still have all of them commercialized with at least a HG model kit.
None of the TV series did anything close, Stargazer seems to be the only other show that pulled this off.

I still have no idea why they didn't commercialize the ships in 0080, I really want to have the Graf Zeppelin(Tivvay final production type) and Siegfried(Musai final production)

Not really, IMO... super prototypes and ace customs are incredibly unrealistic on their own, but really its that constant need to retcon in new, limited production high performance variants every sodding time they do a new UC series. It's reached the point where there are dozens of the damn things now. No military wants that ZOINKS. They want to have as few variants as possible to minimize the logistical requirements of keeping large numbers of vehicles operating. The unique hardware in each of those variants is more parts they have to stock, ship to the appropriate location, and train their maintenance crews on maintaining and installing. It doesn't make a lick of sense when Zeon and the Federation were both essentially at full stretch just keeping the war going, and the Federation was pushed just to get the GM into service at all. You'd expect to see one standard duty variant and maybe one or two limited production special mission variants like the Sniper and the Command, not sixty.

Well, if the EFF isn't a single faction and acted more like WWII allies, and the war is more like Five Year War, then a dozen of variants makes a bit more sense.

[False Prophet]

Well, if the EFF isn't a single faction and acted more like WWII allies, and the war is more like Five Year War, then a dozen of variants makes a bit more sense.

I wonder if in the old canon there is anything about an EFF sub-faction in OYW, something like the South Seas Alliance.

Also, is there a rivalry between the Federation Army, Navy, Air Force, and Space Force?

[Seto Kaiba]

Wait, you mean General Jenkins' Ultra-Hi-Mega Particle Beam Enneacontahexatuple(96 in case you wondered) Rapid Cannon, Minovsky Drive Beam ram, 108 Fin-Funnel, Tetra-I-Field Generators, w/100 LM314V21 Top Fighters, Psychommu framed REON Ver. 7.5 Bio-computer Columbus Kai+alpha Seraphic Mega flare hexa beam wings of light Assault Strike Deus Ex Unlimited-limit break Interstellar Exoplanet explorer Laser-platinum-coated WBGBSB-HD(Well baked Golden Brown Super Buttery-Heavenly Delicious) ver. Ka Mk-XIV isn't prominently featured because it appeared only in a quarter of a frame and motion blur basically rendered it looking like just a regular out of place Columbus class being shot down? Blasphemy!

ビンゴ。

For my money, the only series more frustrating to work on as a fan translator is Five Star Stories... and that's only because Mamoru Nagano likes to troll fans. If I tried to draw up an evolutionary chart of Mobile Suit designs in the same fashion I'm doing one for VFs in Macross, I'd be redrawing it every alternate tuesday when a creator decides to invent another special purpose variant or heretofore unmentioned developmental super-prototype, ace custom, or limited production special variant that was supposedly collecting dust in Anaheim's stockroom or some forgotten hangar complex. Unicorn was the most frustrating in that regard, since like 90% of its designs are MSVs that hadn't had gunplas yet and were just thrown in.

Well, if the EFF isn't a single faction and acted more like WWII allies, and the war is more like Five Year War, then a dozen of variants makes a bit more sense.

Honestly, I don't recall anything like that ever coming up in any story set around the OYW... except maybe in the dumpster fire that is Thunderbolt.

What I recall from those shows and OVAs was the EFF being depicted as a generally monolithic force operating as a large integrated force covering all of the Earth Federation members. The only time I recall the EFF having explicit factions with differing agendas and equipment was Zeta Gundam's story arc, where you had the Titans riding roughshod over the regular EFF as the fanatical bigots du jour and the AEUG being comprised in large part of EFF personnel who weren't having that.

Even if the Federation Forces had several distinct factions with their own requirements, that'd only account for a few more variants as you'd expect each faction to want to streamline its supply chain... not the fifty-plus RGM-79 variants that officially exist at this point.

[yazi88]

Yeah, from what I've seen in various OYW mangas, most of the Federation forces use the same GM types. On Earth its either the Ground GM or the base GM majority of the time.

There is also the thing where some of the authors don't care about whatever MS is in the manga. I believe there was a manga that had a repaired Blue Destiny Unit 2, and the Zeta Define manga that brought back the GP02...

Let's not forget Lost War Chronicles manga where Matt Healy's team had a GM SNIPER 2 despite it being the BATTLE OF JABURO at that moment!

[MythSearcher]

ビンゴ。

For my money, the only series more frustrating to work on as a fan translator is Five Star Stories... and that's only because Mamoru Nagano likes to troll fans. If I tried to draw up an evolutionary chart of Mobile Suit designs in the same fashion I'm doing one for VFs in Macross, I'd be redrawing it every alternate tuesday when a creator decides to invent another special purpose variant or heretofore unmentioned developmental super-prototype, ace custom, or limited production special variant that was supposedly collecting dust in Anaheim's stockroom or some forgotten hangar complex. Unicorn was the most frustrating in that regard, since like 90% of its designs are MSVs that hadn't had gunplas yet and were just thrown in.

I don't know, at least the OYW mess seems to be more serious since it supposedly happened in only A YEAR.

Honestly, I don't recall anything like that ever coming up in any story set around the OYW... except maybe in the dumpster fire that is Thunderbolt.

What I recall from those shows and OVAs was the EFF being depicted as a generally monolithic force operating as a large integrated force covering all of the Earth Federation members. The only time I recall the EFF having explicit factions with differing agendas and equipment was Zeta Gundam's story arc, where you had the Titans riding roughshod over the regular EFF as the fanatical bigots du jour and the AEUG being comprised in large part of EFF personnel who weren't having that.

Even if the Federation Forces had several distinct factions with their own requirements, that'd only account for a few more variants as you'd expect each faction to want to streamline its supply chain... not the fifty-plus RGM-79 variants that officially exist at this point.

I'm just saying what will make it more plausible to have that many variants, pulling a WWII reference, not saying they have that many variants on one model, but they do have quite a lot of variants for many models, which should also be a logistic nightmare.

The only story that gave us a more independent states of the EF, is Moon Crisis, yes it is not in OYW and not canon (anymore), but it showed political leaders of various locations with names still relate to today's countries like USA, UK, France, etc.

If we take a more, ahem, liberate, view on the topic, which I totally agree with the author about Unicorn being so unnaturally similar to it in some ways, and Unicorn also mentioned about the local politicians being in factions and only cared about their own well being and political agendas, they might as well just encourage the manufacture capacity of their own area by producing variants that rely on their own area's factories?

Let's not forget Lost War Chronicles manga where Matt Healy's team had a GM SNIPER 2 despite it being the BATTLE OF JABURO at that moment!

That is, in fact, correct.
The GM Sniper II, despite the name, actually came before the GM Sniper(79SC) and was first deployed in BoJ. This can be traced back all the way to the book MS Era(1990) and not newly invented by LWC.

[yazi88]

I thought the Sniper 2 was rolled out in the last month of the war as it was based on the GM Command which itself was a late production unit...

Not to mention the master grade also states that the Sniper 2 is also one of the last GM models developed in the OYW...

And that MS Era guide... isn't that the one showing a Kampfer and Zaku II FZ type in the battle of Jaburo in the pic with the Sniper II? Both of which did not roll out until quite some time afterwards?

[MythSearcher]

I thought the Sniper 2 was rolled out in the last month of the war as it was based on the GM Command which itself was a late production unit...

Not to mention the master grade also states that the Sniper 2 is also one of the last GM models developed in the OYW...

And that MS Era guide... isn't that the one showing a Kampfer and Zaku II FZ type in the battle of Jaburo in the pic with the Sniper II? Both of which did not roll out until quite some time afterwards?

From Gundam Officials, the 79SP was rolled out a bit earlier with only a few units for the defense of Jaburo, which met the BoJ somehow.
MS Era also has a picture of 79SP in a forest, which has wording about it being deployed in Jaburo for whatever reason.
Considering the BoJ was on 30 Nov 0079, it is rather late so plausibly not contradicting the "Late OYW" idea.

[yazi88]

But how does that MS Era make sense if the Kampfer and Zaku II FZ are shown in that pic with the 79SP... Those 2 units were rolled out in late December, especially the Kampfer being a very late prototype unit.

[MythSearcher]

But how does that MS Era make sense if the Kampfer and Zaku II FZ are shown in that pic with the 79SP... Those 2 units were rolled out in late December, especially the Kampfer being a very late prototype unit.

I don't know, but the Ribot colony MS-18E arrived on 15 Dec 0079, and the Cyclops team left Granada on 14 Dec 0079, which is only 2 weeks after BoJ.
I'd imagine it would be at least rolled out when the higher ups planned for the Rubicon Operation a few days earlier, maybe as early as 9 Dec 0079 when they failed the Alaska assault, and wouldn't really be that out of place on 30 Nov 0079. YMS-18 will be even earlier.
The 06FZ was used in Libot even earlier than that, and it is a revised version of an old mass production type so it should be even less of a problem.

[Seto Kaiba]

I don't know, at least the OYW mess seems to be more serious since it supposedly happened in only A YEAR.

The One Year War was definitely the worst offender overall, but IMO Unicorn was more frustrating by far in light of the OVA being about as enjoyable as unanesthetized oral surgery and having absolutely no justification to have the Sleeves - a force that can clearly afford state of the art weapons like the Sinanju, Kshatriya, and so on - sortie in a collection of hideous MSV museum pieces.

I'm just saying what will make it more plausible to have that many variants, pulling a WWII reference, not saying they have that many variants on one model, but they do have quite a lot of variants for many models, which should also be a logistic nightmare.

The World War II angle works for Zeon, not so much for the Federation, since Zeon had a lot more history behind their Mobile Suit program and the ink was barely dry on the Federation's initial 1st Generation Mobile Suit design. Zeon was throwing anything and everything at the wall to see what'd stick after Odessa, so running out loads and loads of garbage prototypes for the Federation to convert into abstract sculpture with machine gun, cannon, and beam rifle fire made a modicum of sense. Having sixty variants of the basic Zaku II that was their mainstay well before sh*t went south makes NO sense.

The only story that gave us a more independent states of the EF, is Moon Crisis, yes it is not in OYW and not canon (anymore), but it showed political leaders of various locations with names still relate to today's countries like USA, UK, France, etc.

Well, there's Thunderbolt and its South Seas Alliance too... but that story is such a complete and utter mess of tryhard bullshit and pretentious garbage that I refuse to acknowledge it as a Gundam series.

If we take a more, ahem, liberate, view on the topic, which I totally agree with the author about Unicorn being so unnaturally similar to it in some ways, and Unicorn also mentioned about the local politicians being in factions and only cared about their own well being and political agendas, they might as well just encourage the manufacture capacity of their own area by producing variants that rely on their own area's factories?

Politicians only being interested in their own wellbeing and agendas is a universal truism entirely independent of any party, nation, or system of government. Even Star Trek's incredibly optimistic future doesn't pretend it isn't the norm even in a well-functioning government.

Now, realistically speaking, if a factory contracted with manufacturing a specific design of vehicle started making changes to its design on their own initiative they'd get crucified for it from all sides. All it takes is one change big enough to break compatibility between two previously standardized parts and you've entered logistical hell. That introduces so much potential for a change to have unintended knock-on consequences for other standard systems. That'd be an unacceptable state of affairs for a military, where human lives and potentially victory itself depend upon reliable equipment and keeping the supply chain as streamlined as possible. If a politician instigated some situation along those lines, they'd get crucified right alongside the factory staff who made the change the minute something went wrong.

You do sometimes see this kind of difference in build-under-license arrangements between allied nations for one another's hardware... but the whole point there is keeping your most advanced and capable technology out of the hands of an ally who might one day not be an ally. The Earth Federation is a federal government, not an alliance, so they don't have that problem because the entire Federation is technically one nation.