Mobile Suit Crossbone Gundam

You have two choices. You can forget everything you've seen here and go back to Earth... Or you can come with us and learn the truth.

A Manga follow-up to the film Mobile Suit Gundam F91, written by Yoshiyuki Tomino and with art by Yuuichi Hasegawa, Mobile Suit Crossbone Gundam takes place ten years after the Cosmo Babylonia war depicted in the movie and follows Tobia Arronax, a space colony-born Ordinary High School Student who, during his first visit to the Jupiter-sphere colonies, becomes involved with the Crossbone Vanguard, a group of Space Pirates (utilizing stolen Mobile Suits, along with two powerful Super Prototype Crossbone Gundams) who are locked in a struggle against the Jupiter Empire, an aristocracy that is secretly plotting to invade the Earth-sphere.

After meeting the Vanguard's Ace Pilot Kincaid Nau and their Captain Berah Ronah (actually F91's Seabook Arno and Cecilly Fairchild under assumed names), Tobia decides to join up with them and stop the Empire's scheme. Unfortunately, things take a turn for the worse when it turns out that the Empire isn't quite up to what the Vanguard thinks they're up to...

Crossbone Gundam, sometimes called Gundam F97, is one of the most popular spinoffs of the Gundam franchise, on both sides of the Pacific. The general sentiment is that the series represents Gundam at its peak: characters, storytelling, action, drama, and comedy all come together well, without the concerns that usually hobble the televised chapters of the saga (such as desire to sell toys). The fact that it's one of the few Gundam stories handled by Tomino to avert his usual Kill'Em All ways might also be a factor.

The manga ran for 26 chapters in the Kadokawa Comics A magazine and was later compiled into six tankoubon volumes. It also has sequels:

  • Crossbone Gundam Skull Heart: Released in 2003, ten years after the original, the series consists primarily of short vignettes detailing the adventures of the Crossbone Vanguard three years after the original manga, with a few trips into the past to see Badass Grandpa Umon when he was a rookie in the One-Year War, and to explain how narrator Twink met the crew.
  • Crossbone Gundam: The Steel Seven: Released in 2006, Steel Seven introduces Bernadette's step-mother Europa, who flees to Earth to warn the Vanguard that the Jupiter Empire is building "Zeus' Wrath", a giant colony laser in order to destroy Earth. Tobia must race against time and agents of the Empire to recover a means with which to get to Jupiter, and to recruit the best pilots he can muster for what seems to be a suicide mission. This manga ties even more heavily into V Gundam than the original, serving to explain where the V2 Gundam's "Wings of Light" came from.
  • Crossbone Gundam: Ghost. The newest chapter in the story, which started serializing in the fall of 2011. It's set in UC 0153 (the same timeframe as Victory Gundam) and focuses on a young Gundam enthusiast named Font Baud, who accidentally stumbles on Zanscare's plans for the Angel Halo while on the Internet. As Zanscare hunts him down, he is rescued by the forces of Serpiente Tacon, a Jovian special forces group lead by Curtis Rothko (aka Tobia Arronax) and his daughter Belle. They are trying to retrieve "Angel's Call", an artifact which could make the Angel Halo far more horrific a weapon than anyone ever imagined...
Tropes used in Mobile Suit Crossbone Gundam include:
  • Absolute Cleavage: Jupiter Empire-employed female mercenary Rosemary Raspberry wears her pilot suit like this.
  • Ace Custom: Burns Gernsback's red Batara, and Federation pilot Harrison Martin's dark blue Mobile Suit Gundam F91.
    • Later, the Skull Heart and X1 Full Cloth. Even later the entirety of the Steel Seven, with the possible execption of the Angel Diona, whose only purpose is to operate the Ikaros flight wing and carry spare munitions for the others.
    • Ghost introduces the Crossbone X0 Ghost, which was cobbled together out of the wrekage of the X1 Full Cloth, as well as the ThouCus ("Thousand Custom"), a Jovian mobile suit said to be able to take on 1,000 enemies at once.
  • Ace Pilot: Seabook Arno Kincaid Nau and Zabine Chareux for the Crossbone Vanguard; Giri, Rosemarie, and Burns for The Empire; and Harrison for The Federation.
    • And maybe five of the seven Steel Seven.
  • Action Girl: Minor Vanguard pilot Yona, who is subpar when at the controls of a Mobile Suit, but kicks serious ass in hand-to-hand combat.
    • Bernadette is a milder version - basically useless in combat, but is pretty good at sneaking into places she's not expected to be in (into the Smashion, into the Mother Vanguard, into the Mother Vanguard again...). Eventually lampshaded by Capt. Onmo.
  • Always Second Best: Callisto (both of them) rubbed this in Giri's face back when they were all in the Jupiter Empire's Newtype Corps. In fact, the revelation that Callisto is in charge of the JE remnants in Steel 7 is what finally convinces Giri to quit saying "This isn't my problem" and join up with Tobia.
  • Amazon Brigade: The Diona MS that escort Tetenith's Elegolea are piloted by female Newtypes. It doesn't help them against Tobia. At all.
    • It's heavily implied that the Diona pilots are neither elite nor Newtypes, and the unit was set up strictly for propaganda purposes.
  • Animal Motifs: Jupiter Empire Mobile Suits and Mobile Armors sport fairly obvious ones. It's... never really explained why.
  • Another Century's Episode: Kincaid (with the Crossbone X-1 Kai) and Tobia (with the Crossbone X-3) are playable in R, with the Death Gale Team showing up as enemies.
  • A Nuclear Error / You Fail Nuclear Physics Forever: Averted/played straight. Faced with the monstrous Divinidad, Tobia guesses that it has several nuclear reactors within it and cuts off its appendages to keep Dougatie (who's psychotic enough to use dirty reactors, rather than Helium-3...) from exploding/self-destructing and spreading their radiation.
    • And then Dougatie reveals the 16 nuclear missiles in its chest... which Tobia promptly cuts, just below the warheads.
  • Annoying Arrows: The Abijo's Needle Gun works this way, damaging an MS's internal systems and slowing it down for the other Death Gales to finish it off.
  • Aristocrats Are Evil: Or rather, Aristocracy Is Evil. One of the main points of the story.
  • Armed Legs: The Crossbones have anti-MS knives hidden in their calves. The blades can pop out through the soles of the feet for a surprise attack.
  • Artificial Stupidity: At one point during Skull Heart, Jupiter Empire remnants use data from Amuro's core fighter to create a brain clone for their Super Prototype Amakusa. Things were going perfectly until the other remnants showed up to taunt Tobia, at which point the Amakusa started attacking them. It turned out that they used their own Mecha-Mooks against Amakusa in simulation battles and hadn't reset the friend/foe indicator.
  • Awesome but Impractical: The Pez Batara is an anti-ship MS that has a gigantic beam blade running right down the middle of its body; to attack, it ignites the blade and charges headlong at the enemy. On top of the obvious Death or Glory Attack element, this means it doesn't possess any other melee weapons. On top of that, said design means its main camera is only on the right side of its body, meaning that it has an absolutely titanic blind spot. And yet Tobia manages to kick ass in one of these...
  • Badass: Kincaid. It probably helps that he Took a level or five in the ten years since F91.
  • Badass Bookworm: Tobia is demonstrably smarter (and considerably more level-headed) than the average Gundam protagonist, coming up with tactics on the fly and applying practical solutions to various problems. This goes as far as him working out calculations to reunite with the Crossbone Vanguard in his head while awaiting his execution.
  • Badass Grandpa: The man known as Grey Stork, AKA "Uncle Jupiter" aka Judau Ashta,
    • Umon Samon is a One Year War veteran and still kicking ass. Example: When Dougatie is telling the Vanguard how they're all going to die in the Io base, everyone in the room is too shocked to interrupt - except Umon, who's hopping mad and demanding to know what's going to happen to the thousands of Empire citizens still in the base.
  • Badass Normal: Umon Samon, MS Pilot since the One Year War - and how many veterans, let alone active pilots, from that are still alive?
  • Barrier Warrior: The X3 has I-Field generators in its forearms. It's basically impervious to ranged beam weaponry, but only for 105 seconds each, AND they have a 2 minute cooldown - so, somewhat impractical. However... Because of where they're located, the X3 can grab Beam Sabers hot pointy end-first as well as force back beam shots at point blank range, causing a blowback.
  • Beehive Barrier: Beam Shields are in wide use. The Cool Ship even uses one as a sail... and what amounts to a battering ram.
  • Beneath the Mask: Berah shows her soft side in numerous scenes (including baking when stressed), indicating that she views her persona as the leader of the Crossbone Vanguard as a matter of duty rather than the person she was "born" to be. She seems to view "Cecily Fairchild" as her true self that she hides under an aristocratic façade.
  • Berserk Button: Just mention that you'll try doing anything to Bernadette. Tobia WILL kick your ass. Doesn't matter if he's unarmed, surrounded by rifle-wielding soldiers and tied to a chair.
  • Big Damn Heroes: Kincaid's specialty.
    • Also, Sebastian. Neatly foreshadows a certain episode of Skull Heart as well.
  • Bittersweet Ending: Steel Seven. The mission succeeds, but every member of the Steel Seven aside from Suzuki and Rosemary dies, with Tobia MIA. The pair marries and Rosemary pens a book telling the truth about the incident, but the Federation hushes it up. As Bernadette steps up to lead the Empire, she runs into Tobia - blinded in the final battle, but alive and signed on as her bodyguard.
  • BFS: Crossbone X-3's Muramasa Blaster -- It mounts ports that emit up to 14 seperate Beam Saber blades! The Jovians try to mimic it with the Arana Batara's Monza Blaster, which mounts half the number.
  • BFG: Crossbone X-2's Buster Launcher which, in a cute little Mythology Gag, is physically almost identical to the Zanneck's mega beam cannon.
  • Caped Mecha: The Crossbone Gundams have anti-beam coated mantles, which provide protection against five or so beam rifle shots. Crosses into Awesome Yet Practical, since they're extra defense with no energy requirements and are used in a number of clever improvisations throughout the series. The fact that they're dark also makes them appear to be practically invisible at longer distances, as enemies can only see their heads. One of which is black itself.
  • The Captain: Cecilly Fairchild Berah Ronah.
  • Character Development: Seabook and Cecily didn't have a whole lot of time to develop their characters in F91, but Crossbone does a good ways towards fleshing them out.
  • Chekhov's Gunman: A smaller example: Early on, Kincaid and Tobia go undercover in order to steal information from the Jupiter Empire. Tobia gives some extra water to a little girl, which attracts attention and forces Kincaid to beat the snot out of them to preserve their cover. A chapter later, when they're trying to escape, the girl and her mother help out to repay Tobia's kindness and because not every Jovian is a fanatical devotee of Dougatie.
  • Cloning Blues: Dougatie uses cloning extensively.
    • We find out in Skull Heart that the old Zeon research team (apparently under directions from Garma Zabi) dabbled in this as well, churning out Newtype chimps.
  • Comforting the Widow: The farmer on Earth implies this happened with him and Berah, though we don't actually know if it's true. She could probably be forgiven after holding out a decade for her Chaste Hero boyfriend (Kincaid seems to view himself and Berah Ronah as separate individuals from Seabook Arno and Cecily Fairchild, bound by common ideals rather than love) and then watching a pretty convincing fiery death by atmospheric reentry -- though it's also never brought up again and doesn't get in the way of their Babies Ever After.
  • Continuity Cameo: Grey Stoke (AKA Judau Ashta) previously appeared in V Gundam Gaiden, another manga by Yuichi Hasegawa. In that story, his Gump mobile suit has a peg leg; Skull Heart shows it losing the original leg in the fight with the Amakusa. Stoke himself is called "The Old Man from Jupiter", which is a nod to Zeta Gundam ("The Man from Jupiter" was a derisive nickname among the Titans for Paptimus Scirocco.)
    • Interestingly, when asked if he's met Amuro Ray, he flat out denies it; Yuichi Hasegawa, Crossbone's artist (and the writer for Skull Heart) also did a manga called Mobile Suit vs. Giant God: Gigantis' Counterattack, which is more colloquially known as Gundam vs. Ideon, and has Amuro team up with Judau to prevent Zeon remnants from reawakening Ideon.
  • Cool Old Guy: Vanguard pilot Umon Samon. Steel Seven's Minoru Suzuki as well.
  • Cool Ship: The Mother Vanguard, a mecha-scale Pirate ship. Complete with a full-body Beam Shield and a golden figurehead of a woman on the prow.
    • Later, in Skull Heart, the Little Gray. It actually transforms from a civilian delivery ship into a part-time pirate ship.
  • Crash Into Hello: Tobia and his eventual Love Interest Bernadette Briette run into each other twice in just as many chapters.
  • Crippling Overspecialization: The Death Gale squad's Mobile Suits each exceed the capabilities of the Crossbones, but in only one area each. One is a Glass Cannon, another is a Fragile Speedster, and the third is a Stone Wall. Kincaid successfully plays their weaknesses and wins against them. Despite having both his Gundam's arms blown off beforehand.
  • Demoted to Extra: For a looooong time, Crossbone was severely shafted in appearances in mecha games; SRW had only featured it once in Alpha 2 and it has only just begun to make an appearance in the Gundam vs. Series and Another Century's Episode.
  • Did Not Do the Research: Tomino seems to believe in Explosive Decompression in space, which actually does not happen under normal circumstances.
  • Disability Superpower: Curtis Rothko is capable of expertly piloting mobile suits despite being blind, due to a specially designed cockpit that converts visual data into audio. However, he has difficulty facing new machines, because the computer can't recognize them and gives him only a vague outline.
  • Damsel in Distress: Bernadette becomes this when she gets "reclaimed" by the Empire. (She stays behind when Tobia effects his CMoA rescue and escape, to try and talk her father out of warring with Earth. And then he puts her in a Mobile Armor...)
  • Dying Moment of Awesome: Giri and Barnes in Steel Seven, the former ramming the Colony Laser and the latter Taking the Bullet to ensure he can. If that doesn't seem like much, see Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale below.
  • Embarrassing First Name: Drake/Derek from Steel Seven reveals near the end that his first name is Mitchell, or perhaps Michelle, depending on how you romanize it. When the rest of the Steel Seven react in shock, he remarks "That's why I go by my middle name."
  • Enfant Terrible: Death Gale squadron leader Giri, who is a completely amoral 14-year old Tyke Bomb. (He grows out of it by Steel Seven.)
  • Everything's Better with Princesses: Bernadette turns out to be Tetenith Dogatie, Crux Dogatie's daughter and princess of the Jupiter Empire. This causes some problems down the line, both expected and unexpected.
  • Eyepatch of Power: Zabine's. The Crossbone X-1 and X-2 have a flip-down targeting sight that appears to give them one. And Kincaid is forced to wear a head bandage that results in this for most of the endgame.
  • Face Heel Turn: Zabine eventually betrays the Vanguard (whom he was only allied with out of convenience in the first place) in order to chase his aristocratic ideals under Dogatie.
  • Falling Into the Cockpit: Averted. Tobia is a mechanical engineering student with a MS license when he first leaps into a cockpit - only intending to serve as an extra flak gun, rather than fight at melee-range - and actually passed up a chance to get to a shelter to do so. He then gets his grunt MS sliced in two, and isn't a good pilot until halfway through the second chapter.
  • Furo Scene / Shower Scene: Berah and Bernadette have a few over the course of the series. Europa as well in Steel Seven.
  • Genki Girl: Captain Onmo of the Little Gray (and, later, president of Blacklow Delivery) has the best claim to this throughout the series.
  • Genre Busting: It's almost hilarious just how much better this series is than a lot of other Gundam entries, just because it doesn't subscribe to most of the tropes associated with it. And even if YMMV on the "better" part, that the series is so different is pretty obvious.
  • Giant Robot Hands Save Lives: Wonderfully averted in Steel Seven. Bernadette has the chance to save a falling Tobia and Europa with the X1 like this, but thinks better of it. She then uses the X1's cape and mouth exhaust to save them with an impromptu hot air balloon.
  • Good Scars, Evil Scars: Kincaid is revealed to have gotten a scar over his right eye after removing his mask.
  • Gundamjack: Tobia appropriates a Mecha Mook in the first chapter, but doesn't use it very well (it gets sliced in half). Halfway through the series, he does it properly, stealing the Crossbone X-3 during his escape from Sherindon's ship. And of course his previously mentioned CMoA.
    • A similar technology-jacking plays a key role in Steel Seven: The Mother Vanguard was sunk during the original manga, with the failing Anaheim Electronics cleaning up the wreckage and taking its Wings of Light-powered beam sail for themselves. The heroes need that sail, since it's the only way they can get to Jupiter in time to stop Operation Wrath of Zeus.
  • Gundam vs. Series: Gundam Extreme Vs. adds Crossbone to the mix, with Kincaid's X-1 Kai (with Tobia's Pez Batara as an Assist Character), Zabine's X-2 Kai, and Tobia's Full Cloth (Giri's Vigna Ghina II as a Finishing Move) as playables. The Jovian moon Io is CB's stage, and the Batara and Divinidad are enemy-exclusive machines in the Play Station 3 release.
  • Guns Are Worthless: Standard MS weapons in UC 133 tend to be focused around long-range beam gun/rifle battles, with beam shields in wide use and related tactics/strategies. The Crossbone Gundams are designed to take advantage of this with overpowering melee abilities (their Beam Zambers can easily cut through standard beam shields). The guns themselves aren't worthless here, but they're overused to the point of liability.
  • Gunship Rescue: When things look bleakest in the final chapter, the Colony armed forces arrive to act as the cavalry in droves of ships.
  • Happily Ever After: Yes, in a Gundam story!
    • ...After ten years of hard work and conflict, Kincaid and Bera go off into the sunset, hand in hand, leaving their old names behind. We find out in Skull Heart that they got married, opened a bakery, and had a boy.
    • When Tobia goes to ask Kincaid for help in Steel Seven, he finds out they now have two kids, and plays the trope out all the way by not meeting them, since he doesn't want to destroy their happiness...
  • Heel Face Turn: The Death Gales, in Steel Seven - Barnes wasn't particularly happy with his lot in the first place, Rosemary was in it for the money, and Giri... got his buttons mashed by Callisto.
    • The entire Crossbone Vanguard, between Mobile Suit Gundam F91 and this, though perhaps not completely. In one chapter Umon tells Tobia about the old Vanguard's Nobility Principle[1]; Tobia remarks on how stupid that is, and Bera bops him on the head and remarks "Most of the crew still holds those beliefs to some extent; badmouthing them so carelessly could get you killed."
  • Hidden Depths: In Steel Seven, we discover that Giri is a cook - and a damn good one, to Tobia's shock.
  • Homage: "The Strongest Soldier" chapters of Skull Heart have a few to Mobile Suit Gundam, particularly the ending where Tobia escapes from an exploding asteroid base because he heard a voice calling to him.
  • Hot-Blooded: Tobia. Becomes especially clear just prior to his stealing the X3 for its maiden sortie.
    • Umon comes off as this as well. It's what's been keeping him alive after 50+ years in a cockpit.
  • Humongous Mecha: Real Robot, of course, with a couple of giant Mobile Armors thrown in for good measure.
  • I'm Not a Hero, I'm X: Tobia repeatedly dismisses the idea that being a Newtype makes him anything special.
  • Indy Ploy: Tobia, when formulating plans on his own, is the poster boy of this amongst Gundam protagonists. Lampshaded by Giri in Steel Seven, noting that Tobia's reaction to seeing him for the first time in a few years was "Wow, you got tall" (keeping in mind that they were mortal enemies the last time they met). Subverted in that he's not at all good at strategic planning - he really just reacts to the moment.
    • The Crossbone Vanguard, after the destruction of the Mother Vanguard.
  • Kappei Yamaguchi: Tobia's official voice actor, as seen in his video game appearances. Really gives him an appropriate Hot-Blooded feel.
  • Kid Hero: Tobia, starting out at age 15 or so at the oldest[2]. He's still considerably more level-headed than most examples of the trope.
  • Kill'Em All: Averted to the extent possible in a Gundam series (a subversion for Tomino himself?) - none of the characters die, and Barnes even lampshades this after the Death Gales are beaten on Earth.
  • Lethal Joke Character: Two of the most hilarious examples in all of Gundam.
    • The B Gundam, Umon's unit from the One Year War. It's a Ball with a Gundam-looking faceplate (which makes it actually worse than a regular Ball because the plate ruins the balance of the machine). In its sortie at the battle of Solomon, it not only managed to destroy six Doms, but also turn the tide of the whole battle (Anavel Gato left his post because of reports of the Gundam's severed head floating around, allowing Amuro to sneak in) and making all of Zeon believe that the Federation had a 40-feet tall Gundam, all thanks to Umon's guts and a lot of luck.
    • "Project E", a Zeon experiment that everyone forgot. Long story short : NEWTYPE MONKEYS. Piloting legless, four-armed Zakus. And proving themselves to be actual threats. Good lord.
  • Light Is Not Good: The angelic looking Divinidad mobile armor has enough nukes to wipe out most life on earth, and is piloted by the Big Bad Emperor himself. Even worse, there's more than one of them!.
  • Lightning Bruiser: The X1 Full Cloth. Combines the high-power weapons and agility of the Full Cloth and stacks all the remaining Anti-Beam Coating equipment available to the Pirates with 4 I-Field generators onto the shoulders - in short, it's damn near unstoppable. (Only its lack of a Newtype-powered all-range attack keeps it from being a Game Breaker, really.)
  • Lolicon: The Crossbone Vanguard pirates suspect that Harrison is one, given how smitten he becomes with Twink.
  • The Magnificent Seven Samurai: Steel Seven. 1 Commander, 2 teams of Close-, Support, and Long-Range MS'. Explicitly referenced as an Homage when Suzuki remarks "I love Kurosawa movies!" while discussing the plan.
  • Mask Power: Kincaid wears a mask of bandages during the last few chapters after barely surviving a duel with Zabine.
  • May-December Romance: Dogatie reveals to Tobia that he was once forced into a political marriage with a woman who was somewhere between 50-60 years his junior at one point in order to foster relations with the Earth. The fact that he seemed to genuinely love her causes Tobia to rebuke Dogatie's own claims of being a Complete Monster.
  • Meaningful Name: "Serpiente Tacon" means "The Serpent's Feet". Snakes, of course, do not have feet. It's all a Stealth Pun on the fact that ST is a group that doesn't officially exist.
    • Grey Stoke's name is taken from Lord Greystoke, Tarzan's nobleman alterego. And similarly with Tarzan's disillusionment with civilization, Stoke (aka Judau Ashta) is tired of the Crapsack World that's the Universal Century. Which drives his decades-long plan of leaving the rest of mankind forever with a colony full of Newtypes by the time Mobile Suit Victory Gundam rolls around.
  • Mid-Season Upgrade: More like Last Volume Upgrade. The X-1 is outfitted with drill-whips to counter an enemy with a range advantage.
    • And then the X-1 gets upgraded into the Skull Heart and X-1 Full Cloth versions...
    • Subverted with the X2 Kai; while it's got about a dozen more thrusters than the original, the technical overview at the end of Volume 5 notes that its performance is basically unchanged since the Jupiter Empire wasn't familiar with SNRI's tech and had to base the modifications entirely off of second-hand info (namely, the data they collected from their battles against the Vanguard). Not to mention the fact that it loses its Core Fighter...
  • Minovsky Physics: Given less than its usual emphasis, however, and barely even mentioned.
  • Murder the Hypotenuse: A partially non-romantic version; in their final duel, Zabine says that Bera falling in love with a "commoner" (Kincaid) made her lose sight of the Crossbone Vanguard's original goal of creating an aristocratically-controlled nation, and thinks that killing him will put things back on track. Kincaid disagrees. Vehemently.
  • No Export for You: Curiously, one of the only Gundam manga to have never made it overseas.
    • It may have something to do with the art style - thin pens and rare facial shading, for example, which don't jive with the usual Gundam style.
  • Noisy Nature: Tobia grew up on a colony and has trouble sleeping during his short time on Earth, due to ambient sounds. (He is also under the impression that the wild animals he meets there are free-range pets.)
  • Non-Lethal Warfare: The Crossbone Vanguard practices this, to the extent that the situation allows. They take steps to avoid killing enemy pilots, and this is what allows Tobia to join them. The Jupiter Empire has no such qualms.
    • It turns out that the Jupiter Empire executes the pilots it recovers from this, however.
  • No One Could Survive That / Not Quite Dead: Kincaid barely survives being the first person to reenter the Earth's atmosphere with a Beam Shield.
  • No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup: The Skull Heart and the Crossbone Gundam X1 Full Cloth. The former is the Crossbone X1 augmented with parts from the X3. The latter uses all the remaining Crossbone Gundam parts to build what is easily the most defensive Gundam ever.
  • Nuclear Weapons Taboo: Averted all over the place. Dogatie's Divinidad mobile armors mount sixteen nuclear missiles (and he has a total of eight Divinidads, on top of that). The heroes themselves are willing to use nukes if the situation is critical enough, as seen in Steel Seven when most of the eponymous heroes carry miniature nukes in order to stop the colony laser.
  • Nuke'Em: Dogatie's true objective is to drop thousands upon thousands of nukes upon the Earth, wiping out The Federation and at the same time, rendering the planet of no use except as a mining resource for the aristocracy.
  • The Ojou: Sherindon "Sherry" Ronah, Berah's cousin. Bernadette is supposed to be this to the Jupiter Empire, and her absence after the war was a major factor in allowing the events of Steel Seven to transpire in the first place.
    • Belle from Ghost is noted to be from Jovian nobility (later confirmed to be Tetenith's daughter, and therefore princess of Jupiter).
  • The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: Zabine says this several times to Kincaid.
  • Pac-Man Fever: Subverted. The "Satellite of the Apes" chapter of Skull Heart shows that Zeon's Project E was sparked by Garma Zabi witnessing some monkeys playing Pac-Man; however, a margin note from Hasegawa suggests that he just used Pac-Man as a shorthand for whatever video games they would have in UC 0079.
  • Parental Abandonment: Played with. Tobia's parents were colony engineers who died when he was young, but he has an aunt and uncle who treat him like a son; when given the option of returning to Earth (his third chance thus far!), he says he wants to see the mission through to the end, and that their son will take care of them.
  • Percussive Maintenance: On a stubborn Unit X-3 that refuses to reactivate after repairs on Earth.
  • Pirate Parrot: Berah's pet parrot --named "Haro"-- is a flapping, squaking Shout-Out to other UC Gundam series.
  • Playful Hacker: Font. His accidentally stumbling on the plans for the Angel Halo gets him wrapped up in the conflict.
  • Psychic Powers: What would UC Gundam be without Newtypes? ...Don't answer that.
    • The White Dingoes from Rise From the Ashes? Because they did it with GMs.
  • Puni Plush: Not that blatant, but it's there.
  • Putting the Band Back Together: The quest to choose the "Steel Seven", even though it's a mixed group from the three sides that were fighting in the last war.
  • Rebellious Princess: Bernadette, though she's hardly an Action Girl. Rather, she escaped to learn more about the Earth that her father tried to teach her to despise and, finding that it wasn't nearly as bad as he claimed, joined the rebellion against him and everything he stood for.
    • She doesn't stop even after becoming Jupiter's queen. In Ghost, she authorizes Serpiente Tacon to go against the politicians in Jupiter and oppose Zanscare, even urging them to retake the name "Crossbone Vanguard" as an act of defiance.
  • Red Right Hand: Kincaid sports a prosthetic right hand after coming back from his duel with Zabine.
  • Reentry Scare: After losing the duel with Zabine, Kincaid gets kicked into Earth's gravity well. He's basically dead for 3 chapters, until he comes roaring back to save Tobia from certain death. Turns out, he's (probably) the first one to try reentry with a Beam Shield.
  • Say My Name: Fairly often, but particularly notable is when Berah screams out an anguished "SEABOOK!" after Kincaid loses his duel with Zabine and plummets to Earth.
  • Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale: Averted in Steel Seven. Giri rams the colony laser, which the Jovians initially write off as foolhardy suicide. However, the 0.1% divergence in alignment he caused will add up as it travels the 600,000 miles from Jupiter to the Earth Sphere, meaning it misses Earth by a long shot.
  • Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right: Harrison runs into this one a lot, given how slow the Federation is to react to... er, everything. He gets retired for it and goes to work for Blaclaw Transport.
  • The Scrooge: The Jovians tend to be extremely anal when it comes to resources like air, water, and machinery; the only resource they're not strict about is people. Early on, the Vanguard learns that releasing captured pilots isn't such a good idea, since the Empire punishes them losing their MS with execution.
  • Shout-Out: Haro frequently delivers classic UC Gundam lines, including "Do You Know Char Aznable?" and "Purupuru!~"
  • Shut UP, Hannibal: "That... is... BULLSHIT!"
    • His following line, "Koreijou, Hitogoroshi nanka sarete TA.MA.RU.KA-!!" ("I'm not letting you KILL! ANYONE! ELSE!" - the online translation missed this one), kinda got bootstrapped into being his Catch Phrase in the games, but without the This Is Sparta bit.
  • Social Darwinist: Karas is one.
  • Space Pirate: The Crossbone Vanguard, natch. Granted, they use this only as a motif while they wage a guerrilla war with the Jupiter Empire - but are seen as a straight example by the Federation.
    • The actual Skull and Crossbones on the X-1 and X-2's foreheads was Umon's idea, on the theory that a little intimidation goes a long way.
  • Spell My Name with an "S": Kincaid/Kincado/Kinkedo Nau.
    • Ghost had an even worse example of this with the new Jovian MS. In one chapter its name appears to be written as "Circus", but in the very next Curtis explains that it's short for "Thousand Custom"[3] and therefore is probably meant to be "ThousCust", which doesn't match the katakana at all.
  • Spider Sense: Umon Samon is at least convinced that he has this.
  • Super Robot Wars: Alpha 2.
  • Super Prototype: All three Crossbones. X-3 in particular has all kinds of cutting-edge tech that makes it a cut above many of the other units in the series. They even complete the weaker production model portion of this trope with the XM-10 Flint, the only production model in Gundam history to possess a Core Fighter.
    • Steel Seven introduces the F99 "Recordbreaker", a descendant of the F91 and Crossbone series (the Crossbones are techically F97s) that are the first MS to use the Wings of Light later seen in Usso Evin's V2 Gundam.
  • Sword and Gun: Crossbone X-1, using its Beam Zanber and Beam Buster, which appropriately look like a Laser Blade cutlass and a flintlock pistol that fires Frickin' Laser Beams.
  • Theme Naming: The Jupiter Empire's mecha, which are primarily derived from Portuguese - Batara = Batallia "soldier", Erebado = Elevado "elevated", etc.
  • Took a Level in Badass: Kincaid, as mentioned above. Tobia takes a few over the course of the series.
  • Tsundere: Giri, of all people, is specifically named as one in Steel Seven.
  • Treacherous Advisor: Karas, who starts out as Tobia's teacher, but is revealed rather quickly to be a zealous supporter and hypercompetent secret agent for Dogatie.
  • Tyke Bomb: The Newtype Squadron under imperial agent Karas is made up entirely of Tyke Bombs. Giri is their most famous allumni. Tobia was supposed to join them...but he politely declined.
  • Up to Eleven: You thought a Ball taking down a Zaku was impressive? Umon Samon took down 6 Doms in one.
  • Use Your Head: Tobia resorts to headbutts quite often; victims include Zabine and Giri. For a while his main MS, the Pez Batara, is pretty much centered around this (see Awesome but Impractical above).
  • We Have Reserves: Standard operating procedure for the Empire, using the logic that while there are lots of pilots, the air and water they take up, as well as the mecha they pilot, are costly to manufacture.
  • Weak but Skilled: Tobia during the middle part of the manga, as he pilots a grunt MS made solely for taking down battleships and generally comes out on top. Umon mentions having destroyed six Doms while piloting a Ball during the Battle of Solomon - and has been working as a mercenary continuously since then.
    • Skull Heart shows how Umon did it, with a modified Ball called the 'B-Gundam' - basically a regular Ball with a heavy mask on the front. Half of those kills were through the power of intimidation (the B-Gundam looks like the head of a 40 meter tall Gundam), and the other half were a combination of blind luck and rage at his Cool Big Sis commander being threatened.
  • The Woman Wearing the Queenly Mask: A major source of angst for Berah Ronah, who must sacrifice her personal happiness as long as she remains the leader of the Crossbone Vanguard. Kincaid is implied to have taken up his alias to try and make it easier for her to cope, as well as to fight for the day when they could return to their former names and the relationship they left off when events overtook their personal lives.
  • Worthy Opponent: Kincaid and Harrison come to view each other as this - the latter even promises to find the former a good lawyer when they finally catch him.
  • Wouldn't Hit a Girl: Gloriously averted when Tobia Zeta Punches Sherry after hearing her spiel about how Newtypes will inherit the future and thus shouldn't get involved in the dealings of Oldtypes. And then he cuts his arm with a knife, to remind her that they're both human.
  • You Can Leave Your Hat On: When Tobia finds Rosemarie in Steel Seven, she's performing in a burlesque show, where she wears nothing but panties, garters, and a strategically-placed feather boa.
  1. ↑ Namely, the idea that aristocrats should be in charge because they're just better people
  2. ↑ he is explicitly 18 by Steel Seven, 3 years after the end of the Jupiter Empire war
  3. ↑ Since it can supposedly take on 1,000 enemies at the same time
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