The upcoming VR feature length anime Gundam: Silver Phantom just got a new trailer and finally confirmed the Gundam type mobile suit that will be featured.
Back when Silver Phantom was announced, I could see that the main Gundam was some kind of Delta Gundam variant. This new trailer (shown below) confirms that, as does the breakdown on the anime over at Gundam.info.
The latter specifies that this Delta Gundam variant is actually based off the Delta Plus and is called the Delta Zein. It does, however, have a different head taken from another mobile suit, but it’s cool to see a proper Delta Gundam finally.
This is because the original Delta Gundam acted as the basis for the Hyakushiki in Zeta Gundam. The Delta Plus then popped up in Gundam Unicorn and considering that Silver Phantom takes places in UC 0096, it makes sense that a few Delta Plus mobile suits would be laying around for some funky modifications.
As for this anime, it’s a funny one. The setup has you as the protagonist, so the anime will be from the point of view of that character, or at least some of it will be. It also appears to have some interactive elements, like a video game, which I suppose makes sense given the technology.
It’s clearly meant as an experiment and it does somewhat fit the setup of how mobile suits of that period would be piloted. In that, they used panoramic displays in their cockpits, so having that done via VR to show that in situ is a nice idea.
Gundam also has a pretty cool history of doing crazy new ways of handling entertainment. Anime one-offs like Green Divers come to mind, not to mention Gundam: The Ride. The latter had you transported through the final battle of the One Year War in a civilian transport and that was very cool for its time. Well, it at least impressed me when I went to see it over two decades ago.
No details on the release date for Gundam: Silver Phantom, over than sometime this Fall, but it will be available to watch via the Meta Quest VR headset when it does come out.
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