Gundam Rising

Gundam Rising is the first episode of Mobile Suit Gundam. It first aired on April 7th 1979 in Japan and on July 23rd 2001 in North America.

Summary
Three Zeon pilots, Slender, Gene, and Denim, enter Side 7 in their Zakus. Their plan is to spy on the colony, but they find the things almost deserted, with a lone car driving along, and only one person visible.

That person is Fraw Bow, who is running to her neighbor, Amuro, accompanied by a basketball-sized green robot named Haro. She finds him tinkering with a microscope, then informs him that there's a warship docking soon, and the whole sector is being evacuated. While Amuro gets himself ready, Fraw goes outside to find Hayato, who was driving the car the Zeon pilots had seen earlier. She accosts him for not warning Amuro, but he simply responds by bitterly commenting that if military engineers like Amuro's father hadn't come to the colony, they wouldn't need to evacuate. Finally, Amuro comes out in his own car and he and Frau drive off.

Near the colony, a Federation officer is speaking about the new warship which is docking, the White Base. He believes that it, along with Gundam, will give the Federation a great advantage in the war. On board the ship, Ensign Bright Noa tells Amuro's father, Tem Ray, that they will be docking soon. Tem hopes to mass-produce the Gundam in order to finally end the war.

On his Musai Cruiser, Zeon officer Char Aznable is watching the situation with his second in command, Dren. Char knows well that the Federation has been working on the V Project: a large project to build mobile suits of their own intended to be more powerful than those used by Zeon; and he believes that he's just stumbled upon it.

Back on the colony, Gene and Denim watch as the Federation prepares a few mobile suits to be transported. Gene breaks away, ignores Denim's orders, fires on the suits, and destroys them. In an emergency shelter, civilians, including Amuro and Fraw, feel the explosions. Amuro goes off to find his father to order an evacuation onto the warship.

Amuro drives off and comes across some soldiers who try to get into an underground bunker; but a missile strikes next to their car and kills them. Among the shrapnel and debris that shoots out towards Amuro, is a large classified book. He opens it and finds full instructions for the Federation's special mobile suit: the Gundam.

Slender contacts Char, telling him about the Federation's mobile suits. Gene and Denim continue to attack the base, and the evacuees begins moving to White Base. Amuro finally finds his father, who tells him to get in White Base and then runs off to find some way to load Gundam into the ship.

Fraw shouts for Amuro to hurry and join her with the evacuess, but as she does, a missile strikes the crowd. She is okay, but the rest of the crowd, including her mother and grandfather, are killed in the explosion. Amuro tries to calm the devastated Fraw, and finally gets her to make a run for the spaceport, before she shares their fate.

Amuro knows he must help somehow; He jumps in Gundam's cockpit and uses the manual to try to operate it. Gene notices the movement and Amuro fires Gundam's vulcan cannons. Gene recollects himself and fires, but he realizes that the Zaku's rifles have no effect. Amuro finally gets Gundam on its feet, and becomes terrified when the vulcans run out of ammo. He sits there helplessly as Gene moves in for the kill. Before Gene can do anything, Gundam grabs the front of the Zaku's head, ripping it away and slamming the suit to the ground.

Amuro activates Gundam's beam saber, slices through the retreating Gene's suit, hits it's engine, and creates a large explosion which blows a hole in the colony. This explosion takes in Tem Ray and another engineer. Knowing he can't do that again, Amuro targets Denim's cockpit, killing him and making his Zaku useless. Bright gets the rest of the evacuees on White Base and sees that Amuro is the only living candidate to pilot Gundam.

Char watches from his Musai and realizes how much he's underestimated the Federation's mobile suit. He then fires two missiles towards Side 7.

Important Events:
 * Characters Introduced: Amuro Ray, Fraw Bow, Haro, Hayato Kobayashi, Bright Noa, Char Aznable, Dren, Tem Ray&lt;/br&gt;
 * Mecha Introduced: Gundam, Zaku II
 * Amuro pilots Gundam for the first time.