The reveal of the ν Gundam in the first Char’s Counterattack teaser trailer featured a white/red color scheme that differed from the one in the final film. A later trailer which included final footage of the film used a version of that teaser’s animation of the white/red ν Gundam in more stylized lighting. That same trailer also announced the new Gundam’s name in both English and Japanese, with the English using the capitalized “Ν Gundam” instead of the now standard lowercase.

ν Gundam rendered in English as “Ν Gundam”

This version was most recently included in the 2016 Mobile Suit Archive: MSN-06S Sinanju book, where it was attributed to documents sent to Londo Bell along with the ν Gundam and speculated as possibly being a color scheme used in early testing.

Left: ν Gundam in teaser trailer colors by Kyoshi Takigawa from Mobile Suit Archive: MSN-06S Sinanju; Right: Unused rough ν Gundam design from Char’s Counterattack Cinema Book

You can’t help but wonder if this white “N Gundam” was a jumping off point for the design of the largely monochromatic Narrative Gundam. Even the fact that the Narrative Gundam’s only fixed weaponry is a pair of head vulcans may be a nod to the trailer’s unique cut of animation, which prominently features the ν Gundam firing off its own. If that turns out to be the case, it might not even be the first time in recent memory a lead Gundam was inspired by a weird footnote in the history of Char’s Counterattack’s production: notably, the design of the Unicorn Gundam’s Destroy Mode bore a striking resemblance to a rejected early rough design of the ν Gundam itself.

August 1987 Newtype Cover ν Gundam

Cover art by Yoshinori Sayama

While similar to the Teaser Trailer ν Gundam, Yoshinori Sayama’s Newtype cover art version is explicitly meant to portray the ν Gundam under development. It shares many elements with the Narrative Gundam: a yellow v-fin, areas where the inner frame is exposed, and a monochromatic color scheme. Sayama was a mechanical designer on the original Char’s Counterattack, and is actually on the staff for Gundam NT as well for “Monitor Design.” (Thanks to Mark Simmons for pointing this one out!)

PX-00531

The PX-00531 is revealed in The Revival of Zeon

PX-00531 line art by Kazuhisa Kondo

The otherwise unnamed PX-00531(more factory serial number than proper model number) is a testbed predecessor to the ν Gundam that appeared in Kazuhisa Kondo’s 1988 manga Mobile Suit Gundam: The Revival of Zeon, and likely the earliest explicit example of the Narrative Gundam’s concept.

Revival of Zeon depicts vignettes of remnants of Haman’s Neo-Zeon’s retreating back into space to join Char Aznable’s own nascent Neo-Zeon movement a year before the events of Char’s Counterattack. In one such vignette, the PX, still unequipped with any Newtype systems, is being transported to the Earth Federation’s Verboten Base in western Europe for land trials when the base gets caught in a Neo-Zeon surprise attack. The PX’s overzealous test pilot sorties in response, but the testbed suit overheats mid-battle and is destroyed by a similarly non-Newtype Sazabi variant, setting the ν Gundam’s own development back in the process.

YRA-90A μ Gundam

μ Gundam line art by Masafumi Matsuura

The μ (Mu) Gundam is a redesign of the PX-00531 by Gundam manga author Masafumi Matsuura that appears in the 1992 PC-9801 game Mobile Suit Gundam: Advanced Operation (which I previously wrote about here). Both Advanced Operation and its follow-up Return of Zeon were inspired by the Revival of Zeon manga and more-or-less pull their roster of MS from it.

The new name/model number for the Advanced Operation version suggests that it’s also drawing from the “RX-90 μ Gundam,” a hypothetical Gundam listed only as a “psycho-frame test unit” on an Anaheim Electronics development chart in the 1989 collected edition of the Gundam Sentinel photonovel. The “μ” designation also more explicitly marks it as a predecessor to the ν Gundam, as μ immediately precedes ν in the Greek alphabet.

The μ Gundam brings the PX-00531 much closer visually to the ν Gundam as well, rendered in more typical proportions over Kondo’s more stylized signature look. Its distinctive faceplate may also have been an attempt by Matsuura to anticipate the Gundam F91’s open face gimmick, the Gundam F91 movie having come out the year before.

The μ Gundam as it appears in-game in Advanced Operation

In the time between the initial appearance of these testbed ν Gundam designs and Gundam NT, Gundam as a franchise refocused on alternate universe fare and the original One Year War period. With the success of Gundam UC pushing out past the wall of Char’s Counterattack and Gundam NT on the horizon, there is renewed interest in this previously neglected period of the Gundam saga. As the eponymous lead MS of a new Gundam production, the Narrative Gundam resurrects that testbed concept and will be the definitive version going forward.

Look forward to the next installment of Gundam NT Design History, where I will be discussing the Sinanju Stein Unit 2.

I hope you enjoyed part 1 of what will be a series of articles on the design lineage of the mobile suits of the upcoming Gundam NT. If you liked what you saw and want to see more content like this, please consider supporting me with a small tip via Ko-fi. I often end up purchasing new materials or commissioning translations to aide in research, and this series is no exception. Any contribution will help offset the cost of those kind of materials.