The new Gundam series – SEED, SEED Destiny and 00 can give you a flavour of Gundam without being weighed down by a good deal of thirty-odd years back story (note that 00 is a separate continuity to the SEED stories; kind of like Star Trek The Next Generation and the new movie); however for a lot of the “old-time” fans like myself they’re a little bit like New Coke; they’ll never be on a par with the original. ^_^

For “proper” Gundam set in the series most well known setting, the “Universal Century”, Cacophanus and his suggesting of Gundam 0080 is a good starting point.

Gundam 0083 and 8th MS Team are also pretty good, mostly self-contained stories which can be watched without any prior Gundam knowledge, though certainly with 0083 it does help a little (such as to understand why Gato is so wound up about a battle he wasn’t even at… ^_^).

Turn-A Gundam is about as different from any Gundam there has ever been, yet its amazingly true to the original series and one of the best entries in the entire franchise. Possibly best appreciated after seeing a couple other Gundams first, it nevertheless can be perfectly enjoyed as a superb, standalone science fiction adventure as well.

Hi, Ollie, by the way…! ^_^