That first run is pretty interesting because they clearly had the foresight to make things morally grey and the villians human. It's very clear they added some mustache twirling villiany to a few episodes as an afterthought. It's not even clear until like the last dozen episodes that Zeon is evil.
I know Gundam quality is a huge spectrum, but the 'sloppiness' of moral ambiguity in the first one is pretty great. Way too often (Z Gundam) they just do a timeskip and say "what if the good guys became bad after they won?"
> It's not even clear until like the last dozen episodes that Zeon is evil.
Zeon is literally portrayed as eugenicist Nazis early in the show. They literally chant "Sieg Zeon!" while saluting. Literally the very first episode shows Zeon dropping a space colony on Earth, essentially nuking a major population center (and says half the civilian population dies in the war.)
It's pretty clear Zeon is evil. What's unclear initially is that it was the Zabi family that made it evil.
Originally, Zeon was an idealistic movement by an essentially leftist philosopher (Zeon Deikun) whose work was co-opted by a militant autocratic family (the Zabi family). The leftist guy gets assassinated, and a big part of the series is watching his son, Char (the primary antagonist of the show) trying to take down the Zabi's while fighting for independence from the Federation.
I know Gundam quality is a huge spectrum, but the 'sloppiness' of moral ambiguity in the first one is pretty great. Way too often (Z Gundam) they just do a timeskip and say "what if the good guys became bad after they won?"