Let's Be Newtypes Together!

“Whether you like it or not, you will become adults and have rigid ideologies forced on you in aged institutions. It may be nonsense or even just a joke, but why don’t we say something crazy like “I’ll be a Newtype!”

-Yoshiyuki Tomino
Oct. 1984

Michael Lee

When Gundam 0079 introduces the concept of the Newtype late in the series run (episode 36 of 42), it suddenly becomes the talk of every character in the show. Series protagonist Amuro Ray’s instincts on the battlefield leads enemy Zeon General M’Quve to wonder if Amuro might be “one of those new types” saying “atarashii taipu no yatsu na no ka?” very literally asking if Amuro is one of those new types of people. At the climax of the fight with M’Quve, Amuro suddenly hears the voice of Lalah Sune, a mysterious young woman who is observing the fight from a distance. She seems to telepathically call out to Amuro, telling him to “stop the fight, as it is already over.”

Zeon General M'Quve says of Amuro Ray "Does he have good instincts, or is he one of those Newtypes?" — Gundam 0079 | Sunrise

In the next episode, series mainstay Char Aznable uses the term “Newtype” [nyu–taipu] to describe Amuro’s abilities, positing that the young pilot may in fact have awakened some new level of power. He tests this by sneaking up on Amuro and firing his rifle at him, somehow Amuro senses this attack coming and reacts.

From here until the end of the series, Newtypeism begins to manifest in a number of characters who, at one time or another, either have a moment of exceptional skill on the battlefield or establish a strange psychic bond with another character. By the end, nearly every young character has experienced something akin to this Newtype phenomenon, and Char admits that it is now the age of Newtypes.

For many, this is all that Newtype means. It appears in a number of future Gundam series under a different guise, whether that is Coordinators in Gundam SEED, or Innovators in Gundam 00, with the same general properties of a human who has somewhat enhanced or evolved abilities. There is often an element of psychic connection or a general sense of empathy or compassion associated with being a Newtype, but overall, the concept remains stagnant and used as a vague shorthand to show that characters important to the story are special.

This simplistic framing has haunted the Gundam franchise and series creator Yoshiyuki Tomino’s legacy almost since its inception, if the discourse found in online Gundam forums is to be believed. The franchise’s latest entry, GQuuuuuuX, is guilty of this too. The term Newtype is thrown around, but we only see it applied to key characters who show exceptional ability. They are spoken about as being used as weapons of war, and that their ‘freedom’ from that fate is the goal to be realized. The politics of the Newtype in GQuuuuuuX is an individual politics where personal freedom and strength is of the highest value. We see at the conclusion of the series that Machu and Nyaan are ‘free’ in that they were able to abscond, chill on a beach on Earth, and achieve their own freedom. And society is… maybe better? Maybe it’s not? We don’t know, but these two individual ‘Newtypes’ are free, so that’s good? It’s a selfish view of what Newtypeism is, which in the original trilogy is much more of a body politic. That of a collective, societal movement of change that everyone can, nay, must be a part of.

One of Tomino’s fears early on was that society was regressing, both the older generation and their systems becoming more entrenched, but that the youth were susceptible to ‘self-righteousness masked as individualism.” GQuuuuuuX’s Newtype philosophy gives you no sense that this is supposed to be a movement for the youth to rally around, series lead Machu talks vaguely about Newtypes “getting stronger”, kisses the boy she likes, and blows off everyone who helped her to go catch rays on a sunny shoreline on Earth while pondering if she should ‘chase after Shuji’ the boy she kissed. Particularly galling is during her big moment to shine, Machu says “A Newtype who needs to be protected isn’t a Newtype at all” which is a SHOCKING thing to hear for its callousness towards folks in need. Every young person has the potential to be a Newtype to Tomino, they don’t all have to have super powers, and some may even need help. It’s a collectivist movement where the rising tide raises all ships. Sometimes that means Newtypes need a helping hand. The children of Gaza right now are Newtypes, are they not worthy of protection? What an insane thing to suggest that needing protection disqualifies someone from being a Newtype. It’s an utter bastardization of what being a Newtype really means.

Newtype Philosophy

It becomes clear that even if the idea of the Newtype may have been introduced in a somewhat rushed manner in Gundam 0079, Tomino was aiming for something more, and only by seeing Newtype’s philosophical evolution in both Zeta Gundam and Gundam ZZ does it become clear what Tomino was really trying to get across. Once you start to see the true essence of the Newtype solidify into its more complete, beautiful form, do you begin to see the first trilogy of Gundam in a completely new light. It makes them all even better than they already are. I promise.

The thesis here is that Tomino created a trilogy that, amidst all the flashy cool robots, war, and geopolitics, is really about fostering a social movement, with all three series of a piece working in concert, building one after the other reaching a philosophical crescendo. The trilogy implores the viewer to indulge themselves in the idea of the Newtype much more deeply, and it is that which should actually resonate most. What’s surprising, is that for all the mythologizing that has been done in subsequent franchise entries and in online fan spaces about what being a Newtype is, the original Gundam trilogy is actually pretty clear about what the Age of Newtypes is supposed to be. It’s very straightforward messaging about empowering the next generation to lead humanity to a brighter future. To not follow in the footsteps of the previous generation who are stuck in their ways. To be empathetic and kind and environmental conscious and to help people and to work together collectively and not be consumed by hate. This kind of message may seem cliche at this point, but I don’t think you can understate how strongly Tomino believed this. Gundam isn’t cynical. These shows weren’t created in our affective postmodern media present.

0079: FLY! Newtype!

Let’s start at the beginning. Gundam 0079. This is the awakening of Newtype thinking, and as such sets up that stereotypical “war is bad” theme that has dogged weaker Gundam entries ever since. But there’s good reason for the horrors of war to be included in a series like this. Along with his contemporaries like Hayao Miyazaki and Keiji Nakazawa (Barefoot Gen), Tomino experienced the tail end of World War II and the struggle of rebuilding in the wake of wartime destruction. The echoes of that war reverberate through their work. The violence still seems tangible, the scars visible in buildings and on bodies in their own lived world serving as a constant reminder of that past that influences their work. And in that, a feeling of lingering trauma that the generation before theirs had utterly failed them. How could they lead us to such destruction? Why was there so much hatred? Not only that, but also recognizing their own generation’s failure for not making enough of an impact to create meaningful change. There should have been hope that, in the post-war, things would be better. Yet, the world created out of that cradle of destruction was still tainted by mistakes of the past.

The Newtype awakening happens in Gundam 0079 because it introduces the first step in making change actually possible. Recognition that something is not right. The older generation in Gundam 0079 is hellbent on war. It is the only way they know to exist. They are shown to be rigid and stuck in their ways. The military chain of command on the White Base remains intact, with older generation leaders in control, and the younger crew, like Amuro, obeying their captain despite mild protestations. Amuro sulks and whines because he’s a teenager, but when he’s told to get into the Gundam and fight, he does. He is being pushed by this older generation. He tries to appease them by fighting, to live up to their expectations of him, and he loses almost everything in the process. “Newtype” emerging as a kind of super power here makes sense, as it would take some monumental kind of awakening to break out from under the weight of those expectations.

None of the older generation quite understands the Newtype phenomenon when it is happening, they can only identify it vaguely as some kind of vibe shift. There is one instance, early on in the series, that clocks the emergence of Newtypes before the term is mentioned however, and it comes from the deathbed confessional of the first captain of the White Base, Captain Paolo Cassius. Gravely wounded in episode 2, Cassius hangs on until episode 4, and in his last major lines of dialogue points out that the young crew members of the White Base, like Amuro, seem to be more adept at using the Gundam (and Guntank and Guncannon) and should be supported in their development. He’s recognizing that ‘the children are the future’ here, but he’s also bringing to attention something about Newtypeism that always gets misunderstood as it requires just a bit of abstraction (something our media illiterate present has trouble with). Young people being proficient at piloting Gundams is only happening because they are growing up in the age of this technology. It’s not a magic power at all.

The easiest way to turn this into a metaphor would be to think about the computer. When home computers started to become more common, the technology was developed by an older generation, and while some of them were obviously well-versed in how computers worked because they made them, young people instinctively learned how they worked simply by having them in their everyday lives. Eventually using a computer would just be second nature. It’s not magic that I figured out how to install programs, surf the web, and even make custom scripts in RPG Maker. It might seem like it was magic to boomer parents (like mine) that I could create a cutscene with dialogue in my little 16-bit RPG Maker world, but I had just been around computers since the first grade, it didn’t seem hard to me.

In Gundam, mobile suits are a relatively new technology, with The Gundam (RX-78-2) at the center of Gundam 0079 being the latest and greatest. Put a kid in it, they’ll push all the buttons and mess around until the thing starts moving. It is why EVERY main character pilot in a Gundam series initially looks frazzled as they look around the cockpit, but very shortly thereafter, cool as a cucumber. They’re a kid who figures the thing out and uses it in a new way that the older generation hadn’t thought of. It’s why Amuro’s movements in the Gundam surprise so many people. He didn’t go to Gundam school, he isn’t a trained soldier, but that doesn’t mean his skill is magic. He’s a kid, and he’s just winging it, but having been surrounded by the technology of mobile suits—Amuro is shown to be a tinkerer—it quickly makes sense to him.

Another key trait of Newtypes that shows up more in Zeta Gundam and beyond is that they are Spacenoids. Spacenoids are an evolution of Earthnoids quite simply because they made the move into space, into the colonies. They find themselves in ‘a new world’ and because they are on this frontier, they are better able to adapt to this change to humanity. They are an evolution. This is also an allegory. There’s a famous line in Gundam applied to Earthnoids that is, ‘the people of Earth are bound by the gravity of the planet’, which is essentially saying they are stuck in the past. This is why Earth is often depicted as being destroyed, uninhabitable, polluted beyond belief, in a Gundam series. It represents what the old generation did to it, just as the WWII generation (almost) destroyed our planet back then. For some, like Barefoot Gen’s Keiji Nakazawa, his world was actually destroyed back then as he lived through the bombing of Hiroshima. The old generation did that. Forced him to live in an unknown future. Did he evolve? Perhaps, but really he just had to confront a new reality on a new horizon. The split between Earthnoids and Spacenoids in Gundam is just sci-fi set dressing to further emphasize the difference between the old and new generations of our own world. The word ‘evolution’ is often given more weight when people talk about Spacenoids in Gundam, but it’s actually not that deep.

By the time we get to the sequel, 1985’s Zeta Gundam, we start to see the next stage of Newtype consciousness, as we go beyond the awakening of the Newtype and into the phase of taking action to make change.

Zeta: Believe in the Newtype Sky

Kamille Bidan is not Amuro Ray. In the first episode of Zeta Gundam, our new series lead Kamille reveals himself to be insubordinate and willing to sock a person in the mouth for disrespecting him. Where Amuro is seen as a tragic hero who does what the Earth Federation asks of him out of a misguided sense of duty towards the war effort. A young man who loses so much, but never (truly) blames the military for his misfortune. He sees it as part of the sacrifice he had to make. He drank the kool-aid. Kamille, on the other hand, fights against these systems that would lead him to a similar inevitable fate. He is always asking why, and challenging power structures. When his parents get obliterated in the first half dozen episodes of the series, he places the blame squarely on the military apparatus for killing them. Even when faced with his mother’s killer, Jerid Messa of the paramilitary organization the Titans, Kamille shows his humanity early on by forgiving Jerid, recognizing that Jerid was merely an idiot taking orders and pointedly placing the blame on the system that led to Jerid taking those orders. Kamille is compassionate towards Jerid, even in heated battles with him later on in the series,because as the series goes on, you see how someone like Jerid could be a Newtype too, but he’s fallen into the old generations ways.

Kamille lives in the aftermath of the One Year War, so he sees the still unhealed wounds the war has left, and asks the now incognito Char Aznable—fooling no one as ‘Lt. Quattro Bajeena’— why any of this had to happen. What was the point of all the fighting?

In episode 7, Escape from Side One, Kamille, Char, and Lt. Emma Sheen tour Colony 30, a colony that protested the Earth Federation’s inefficient and neglectful governance of people living in the space colonies. After the Spacenoid residents of Colony 30 held demonstrations against the Earth Federation, the Federation sent in the Titans to quell the dissent. Being an overzealous army for hire, the Titans filled the colony with poison gas, killing everyone inside. It’s a poignant, eye-opening episode for viewers and for Kamille, with haunting imagery of the dead, mummified bodies of the colony residents, many appearing as they were, in the middle of a normal day in their lives before being wiped out.

It is here where Char further explains why the Earth Federation did what they did. He tells Lt. Emma that the people of Earth (the old generation) saw the people living, thriving, and adapting in space as a threat. That these Spacenoids were becoming Newtypes (the new generation) and if the Newtypes were to ever gain power, they’d start enacting crazy policy changes… like… oh… environmental stewardship, basic human rights and demilitarization. Fearing this, the Earth Federation desperately clings to power by crushing this rising opposition, even if it means killing them. This is an INCREDIBLY important part of Newtype philosophy and the supposed threat it presents to the established order.

What about our current political moment does this sound like? Perhaps the smear campaign to try and stop Zohran Mamdani from becoming the Democratic nominee for Mayor of New York? Or any number of ghouls in Congress continuing to reward the decrepit gerontocracy with cushy appointments in key positions and who cannot stand the idea of releasing power from their chattering skeletal appendages. These bony lich-like hands are gripped firmly around the neck of the nation, siphoning any youthful energy they can to fill their phylactery and preserve their immortality.

I’ve written at length already about Kamille’s navigation through masculinity and his rejection of what “a man’s role” is supposed to be. Nearly all of Kamille’s growth comes from conversations he has with the women around him. He’s trying to find another way to live in the world, because nearly all of the (older) males in Zeta Gundam are deeply flawed terrible role models. Kamille confronts both obvious toxic masculinity, as well as its soft-power variant, the “healthy” masculinity of characters like Char, Amuro, and Bright. To be a Newtype is to reject these awful male identities. While Titans leader Bask Om’s thirst for power and dominance and Scirocco’s pick-up artistry charm thinly masking his libertarian Thiel-like ambitions are rightfully called out and extinguished, the ‘healthy’ examples of masculinity presented by the good guys, the A.E.U.G. (Anti-Earth Union Group) men are an appeal to maintain a status quo.

They want Kamille to continue the forever war that lingers in the aftermath of the One Year War. Perpetual conflict will give these weak men continued “purpose” in their lives. This is again Zeta Gundam letting us in on what being a Newtype is really about. Challenging the systems in power. Male-dominated, war-driven, old world systems. There is a lot of pontificating done during the show that does try to further this narrative, so much so that the weight of all Char’s grandstanding would likely crush a weaker Gundam show, but Zeta Gundam bears this weight thanks to Kamille’s strength as a protagonist.

I will say that I think Kamille is the best protagonist in all of Gundam, and certainly the most vital part of Newtype philosophy. He is also the hardest to emulate effectively. Because the world he lives in is a mirror to the one we currently suffer through, disheartening to be sure considering this show came out in 1985, but it shows you how long the military industrial complex and the perpetual war machine has been at work, and it shows us how hard it is to dismantle structures of power. We don’t have a Gundam to take the fight to the idiots driving this clown car society, but Kamille is the character EVERYONE should take inspiration from.

He is empathetic, he challenges the structures of power, he stands up for those who are marginalized or cannot stand up for themselves, he rejects old world thinking, he… well, he’s damn near perfect. And this almost Christ-like status is why Kamille is essentially sacrificed at the end of Zeta. Left in a regressed, child-like state, Kamille gives everything he has to move Newtypeism forward, but what is ultimately being said here is it is still worth it to give everything you have, to want that better future, even if you might not be part of it, because true change is just over the horizon.

Double Zeta: It’s not an anime! (It’s the real newtype!)

And now we come to the series that everyone—and I mean EVERYONE—gets wrong. What might be the most misunderstood part in the evolution of the Newtype is completely lost on people, yet it is right there for those with eyes to see. Let’s talk about 1986’s Gundam ZZ (Double Zeta).

We’ll keep this part brief as Kamille did most of the heavy lifting in Zeta Gundam, but why does it seem like Gundam ZZ has such a tonal shift? Why do events in the show often feel comedic at times?

“Serious” Gundam enjoyers fail to see that this is showing us the old generation fully in decline. They’re finally losing their grip on power and the age of Newtypes (the new generation) is almost here. But before this can fully be realized, we have to watch the Oldtypes shit themselves on the way out. Mashymre Cello, Glemy Toto, August Guidan, even certified baddie Haman Karn, they’re all pathetic grovellers trying to hang onto power as it slips through their fingers. In our world, this is Dianne Feinstein’s rotten ass finally turning to dust, Andrew Cuomo and his cabal of billionaire losers being defeated by a 33-year old Muslim socialist upstart, Donald Trump doing… whatever the fuck he’s doing right now. We just have to hold the line and keep up the fight a little longer, and these monsters might finally be vanquished.

If our world wasn’t in such a state of abject despair, you might be able to look at what some of these despicable people are doing in their death throes, and see an air of comedy about it, which is what we see in Gundam ZZ. Trump’s birthday parade was legitimately hilarious in its pitiful display of America’s flaccidity, if only he wasn’t deporting folks without due process, bombing foreign countries, assisting in genocide, and destroying our environment. Gundam ZZ allows us to laugh heartily at Glemy Toto repeatedly fail while Newtype Judau sticks out his tongue at him and dunks on his ass.

The rag tag group of kids at the center of Gundam ZZ, led by Judau Ashta, all feel like actual kids thrown into “the real world” because they are. And when there are moments where the series feels unserious, it’s because it is supposed to be. It is what the youth finally having their crack at running the show will look like. It might not be polished, there might be missteps along the way, but we have to be allowed to be in the position to lead and take these lumps as we go.

Gundam ZZ is showing us the future we’re close to but can’t quite reach. It is the Newtype future we want. It’s still one that we have to fight for however, as we see in Gundam ZZ the force that was leading the charge against the major powers, the A.E.U.G., capitulates to series villain (and Zeta Gundam survivor) Haman Karn, allowing her to claw back some control for the re-emergent Neo Zeon. In our world, this is Kamala Harris letting Israel commit genocide in Palestine, as she fed us libbed up ‘progressive’ talking points to make us like her. It’s not good enough to simply pay us lip service while committing heinous acts that the Oldtypes of our world applaud with blood-stained hands.This is our final hurdle to clear, and it is what the kids in Gundam ZZ must overcome as well.

Gundam ZZ is sometimes less serious, the kids bicker a lot, but they are also the first Newtypes to get to pilot their own ship into battle. THIS IS A BIG DEVELOPMENT. Captain Bright gives them the keys to the car, err, Nahel Argama, putting Beecha Oleg in the role of captain. He power trips a bit, he stumbles in attempts to give rousing speeches, but he eventually takes hold of the wheel and leads the crew safely through battle. The new generation gets a chance to lead, and handles it magnificently. In a franchise where the bodies pile up, causing viewers a great deal of grief online, isn’t it fitting that Gundam ZZ’s unserious crew of kids, working together, all make it to the end of the show. It’s the only series of the original trilogy that has a happy end. Newtypes, baby!

Let’s Be Newtypes Together!

For Tomino, being a Newtype has always been about the next generation wresting power away from a crusty older generation stuck in their ways. Speaking about Japan in 1984, Tomino says “how is it that the adults in this country can let the morals of the previous century run rampant… it is dangerous for this generation [the youth] to merely let the old generation preserve the old state of affairs when there is urgent need for reform.” From a quote like this, and many others like it that are out there, particularly from this era of Tomino’s career, it’s clear that this is truly what Newtypeism is about.

In a later series of interviews, Tomino sat down with kids who grew up as part of this “Gundam Generation” and it shows that Tomino is so interested to hear how these kids, now adults with careers, are faring. Are they Newtypes? In a wonderful interview with a hospice physician (translated by Zeonic Republic), you can see Tomino still fighting with himself, his Oldtype self, struggling to imagine how he could show composure in the face of death “I’d probably scream out, I don’t want to die!” he says, or lamenting how his generation created systems that deprived the youth of life experience, and in doing so, his generation has “grown old without ever becoming true elders ourselves” while “permitting themselves the vanity of never-ending life.” It’s amazing stuff. It’s why he wanted us to be Newtypes.

Gundam might just be a space opera series about robots pitted against one another in a fight for humanity, but in the original trilogy, there was a legitimate call to action threaded through it. Yoshiyuki Tomino saw the older generation leading society down the wrong path and wanted to create something that inspired the new generation to fight against that. To be the change that could lead to a better future for people and the planet. He called this generation Newtypes. Even now, 40 some odd years later, we can still be Newtypes. The stories of Amuro, Kamille, & Judau still have relevance today. We are up against the same kind of evil seen in the Universal Century, and we can defeat it if we band together and resist. As the lyrics to the opening theme for Gundam ZZ state: “This isn’t an anime! It’s for real!” Let’s be Newtypes together.