“For women in particular, I have the actual feeling of finally becoming able to write female characters. “
Too often, in a series like Gundam, amidst titans like Amuro Ray, Char Azanable, and Kamille Bidan, the better half of the cast is neglected or forgotten. Despite being some of the more interesting characters, the women of Gundam don’t seem to get the same treatment as their male counterparts. Why is that? I asked Otaku journalist Lauren Orsini for the answers!
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Opening Theme: Koi no HEAT WAVE by Granrodeo
Ending Theme: Kunimichi 127-go Sen no Shiroki Inazumi by Kishidan
-Femme Fatal Ou Femme Oubliée-
Lauren Orsini
Gunpla enthusiast and master journalist, Lauren often spends her time cultivating new fans through her newsletter over at the Otaku Journalist. She is the author of the 2015 book: Cosplay: The Fantasy World of Role Play. Currently, she writes about Iron Blooded Orphans on ANN week to week. An accomplished reporter, Lauren’s name can be found on CNN, Forbes, and Kotaku, among other publications.
Wave Motion Cannon 
A little too UC centric, but I guess there was limited time for the interview, so that’s okay. Kinda weird that Lila from Zeta wasn’t mentioned – sure, she wound up being one of Jerid’s many dead love interests, but she was all around competent and a good mentor, which Jerid really needed.
Anyway, I think Lauren’s on to something with how Gundam iterates on the female characters and makes them better. Kudelia and Atra from IBO are the best versions of the Princess and Frau/childhood friend archetypes. Kudelia in particular is great because just about everything about her is reasonable: her goals, the ways she achieves them, her personality, her lack of total pacifism – they make her WAY more tolerable than Relena and Marina were. Atra’s a bit different, because a lot of the Frau/childhood friend types were characterized by nagging, while Atra’s eager and enthusiastic, but still worries about Mikazuki… plus she has more guts than most of the characters in her type.
That said, I did see a good post on a forum (which I can’t link to, because the anime forum’s only for members) about how Gundam’s track record for female characters looks so bad because most of the female characters that die are pilots that get tons of focus, and that having some female background pilots would help soften that. I can totally see that point, since stuff like Star Trek, Mass Effect, and Battlestar Galactica had lots of background female characters get killed alongside male background characters, and no one complained about that.
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