Toksan's Guide to Watching (and reading) SD Gundam

This guide is part of the Gundam collection.

SD Gundam is a spinoff franchise from, you guessed it, the Gundam franchise. This franchise, much like the mainline Gundam series, has a couple different "timelines" or unrelated entries.

"SD" means a few different things, depending on the series, mainly "Super Deformed" or "Superior Defender." An SD is usually a chibi-like redesign of an existing character, but in some entries the SD versions of mechs are much more elaborate than their original form.

I referenced the wikia and Wikipedia for this post. Manga entries are in red.

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The Mobile Suit SD Gundam Series (1988-1993)

The original series, Mobile Suit SD Gundam is primarily a parody of the UC timeline, up to around Char's Counterattack. There is a loose watch order, which is basically release order, and goes:

Mobile Suit SD Gundam -> MSSD Gundam Mk II -> MSSD Gundam's Counterattack MSSD

Outside of this, there are also MSSD Gundam Mk III, MSSD Gundam Mk IV, and MSSD Gundam Mk V. They're unrelated to the rest of this series.

Gundam's Counterattack is split into two parts. The first part is a parody like the rest of the SD series, while part two is a somewhat more serious entry where the Gundams are sentient samurai in historical Japan.

Mk III is less of a parody of the franchise, and more a return to Gundam's Counterattack's "samurai Gundams" idea.

Mk IV features a reinterpretation of the Battle of Jaburo, and then "SD Gundam Crazy Races." According to the wikia, if you've seen the Cartoon Network series "Wacky Races," you've seen the plot of SDG Crazy Races.

There is not a lot of info on MK V, but it seems like a return to the "samurai Gundams" aesthetic. Gundam's Counterattack begins the trend of "samurai Gundams," but at the moment, I do not know if it, Mk III, and Mk V are one linear story. In theory, they might be:

Counterattack Pt. 2 -> Mk III -> Mk V

However, I have not seen these yet, so I'm not sure. I'll update this once I have.

Outside of this main series, there is also SD Gundam Legend (or Legend), which is adapted from Gaiden Seig Zion Hen, and Musha Knight Command: SD Gundam Scramble. The series was wrapped up with SD Gundam Festival, which featured characters from the Musha Gundam (Japan), Knight Gundam (Europe), and Command Chronicles (USA) worlds. Finally, there is MSSD Gundam The Movie: Musha Knight Command: SD Gundam Scramble, which ties in all three worlds once again.

There are manga series of both Musha Gundam and Knight Gundam. There's a lot, so I'm just going to link the Wikipedia list. This is a cry for help, Gundam Wikia. Please. There's so many stubs.

Following the release of Mobile Suit SD Gundam, there was a series what was proposed as a western adaptation, called Doozy Bots. It was not approved, and only a trailer exists.

After MSSDG and all that, the next series that was made was Superior Defender Gundam Force, which aired in 2004. It is somewhat a crossover of Musha, Knight, and Command, and also references the mainline series a bit. It ran for 26 episodes on Cartoon Network in the US, but has 52 episodes total.

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Other Animated Works

Outside of the MSSDG series, there are many model kits that Bandai has dubbed "BB Shenshi Sangokuden," which are more elaborate redesigns of various mobile suits from the mainline Gundam series. In 2010, Sunrise produced BB Senshi Sangokuden: Brave Battle Warriors, which ran for 51 episodes. In 2019, Sunrise released an entirely different series, SD Gundam World Sangoku Soketsuden, which is ongoing even today. Both are loosely based on the 14th-century Chinese novel, Romance of the Three Kingdoms.