You realize you've shot yourself in the foot, and subsequently lost any argumentative credibility the second you typed "I have NEVER seen a Gundam series.", right?
Hearsay. That's exactly what this entire one-sided argument has been.
I knew you'd react in that exact way, but you're wrong. We have strayed too far from my original point, which was that Gundam was indeed influential and important, but it has now grown older and dated in it's concept and isn't able to get any interest but from the people that have been following it for a long time. I don't need to watch every Gundam piece to know that. I just need to look at the general anime community/industry/scene.
Take this forum for example. We're a small but solid anime community. We have moe lovers, a very strong EVA fanbase, people that draw, old-timers, geeks of a lot of shows.. we are like an anime forum, only with 10 people, lol.
I don't remember seeing Gundam mentioned until you or... I know there is another guy here who watches Gundam and has one as his avatar, but I don't remember who he is, came here (all the Gundam fan stuff I was talking about earlier), which means for me that it hasn't been able to hold up interest.
And just so you don't say that this forum can't represent what everyone thinks, I'll also present another forum in which I mostly lurk,
www.mcanime.net, as an example. Don't bother, it's in spanish, but take my word for it, interest in Gundam is nill.
Thst doesn't mean it isn't good by any means, but as people don't find it interesting, they simply won't go looking into it, unlike you fans who are always on the look for more Gundam stuff. Everyone else, well, we all know what to expect from a Gundam show: a war drama (well played) with giant robots. And indeed, that IS the story that Gundam tells, in different ways and times and whatever you want, and it's also fine. As you said, you don't have to mess with something if it's well structured and has worked for 40+ years. But don't expect people to go en-masse to check out the latest giant robot shenaningans, because unless they are really interested in it, they won't bite, and
I think that happens exactly because of the longevity of the Gundam franchise and how it's grown old in its concept.
This hasn't happened, for example, with Evangelion, yet again. It's been 15 years hence, and people still jump into it. It cannot be atributed to fame, because arguably, EVa and Gundam are as famous one as the other. It cannot be attributed to influence either, because they both are/were influential, very influential in their own ways and times. It all comes down to interest. EVangelion has managed to keep people's interest troughout the years and has actually gained a lot of followers, enough for 4 movies to be crafted around as we speak.
Gundam, on the other side, has endured too much time with the same formula and has lost many followers because, well, it's the same. Yeah, different stories, different times, different ways to tell them, but nothing that no one has seen before in a Gundam show; so, only the fans of the series will go back to it, while other casual followers or new comers will stray away, because seen one, seen all.
You have come to defend your series in a good way, with an in-depht view of a culture I am absolutely alien to, but I wasn't discussing Gundam culture, I was discussing Gundam's role in anime culture. I don't need to watch Gundam to take a crack at that, as I don't need to watch anything else as big and influential or as small and obscure to also take a crack at how it stands in anime culture today. You just need to look at the interest and fuzz it makes. It's entertainment, after all, and that is how it's all measured, regardless of whatever the heck you are missing if you don't watch it.
Also, the red Gundam looks like Scaflowne.
