Gunsight - Phase 0 has officially been documented in 4K/HD
After a years long search for a copy, Mad Angler Press would like to formally introduce a 4K/HD scan of GUNSIGHT Phase 0, a text that is a cornerstone as to how we understand Mobile Suit Gundam's lore today. To view the text, I uploaded this to safe to view, legal platforms. All links are SFW (safe for work).
Context on the book itself:
While a doujinshi, Gunsight is more akin to coterie magazines due to its focus on speculative fiction and hard SF discussions, all in an effort to support the lore, and sometimes lack thereof, within Mobile Suit Gundam (1979). Created as the 'official' Mobile Suit Gundam F.C., G.F.C. existed in a sea of many similar clubs, though stood apart due to the circle's production quality. Each page uses professional typesetting and word processing, showing the amount of funding that went into its production.
Materials in Gunsight, as well as their discussion would lead to the creation of Gundam Century, a text that canonized information and scientific data surrounding the UC era, including information in Gunsight, namely due to the efforts of Kenichi Matsuzaki and Studio Nue. Yoshiyuki Tomino personally read Gunsight and all of its imprints and found it to be the most concise fanwork made in regards to its focus on believable science fiction.
Many individuals who would become associated with Studio Nue as well as prominent animators of their era, such as Haruhiko Mikimoto (as HAL, a play on HAL-9000 FROM 2001: A Space Odyssey), who contributed several works and illustrations during the life of the circle. Other prominent contributing members include the following but are not limited to:
- Kenichi Matsuzaki
- Shōji Kawamori
- Hiroshi Ōnogi
- Yui Nagase
- Kenichi Matsuzaki
- Hoshi Yoshimasu
A few things that are particularly interesting in that vol.0 of Gunsight was strictly foundational, deliberately so. The editors explicitly say that Phase 0 contains the “ideas/thinking that form the premise” of the G.F.C.'s activities. The other important point is the introduction of Gun Modoki. The name modoki (もどき) has a sense of “imitation,” “pseudo-,” “something resembling X,” or “X-like thing.”
The editors explicitly describe Gun Modoki as a 別冊 (bessatsu), a separate supplement/extra publication, while saying they may eventually publish it independently on an irregular basis. As is historically noted, only one volume / issue of Gun Modoki was ever produced. That is useful evidence that the G.F.C. was already thinking beyond a single Gunsight issue and was experimenting with a small, semi-independent publication ecosystem around the fan club.
Most importantly for dating: this page gives us an unambiguous publication date of December 23, 1979, giving further historical documentation that this work was sold at the famous Winter Comiket of that same year, or Comiket 13. Comiket 13 was implicitly known as a ground 0 for one of the largest Gundam booms in both speculative fiction and yaoi, showing that these two groups coexisted.
Thank you so much who helped make this happen!