mechascientific

Advance of Zeta was started as a serialzed Gundam story in late 2002. It is published in Dengeki Hobby Magazine in co-operation with Sunrise, with story by Konno Bin, mecha design by Fujioka Kenki, and character design by Saito Takuya. It’s first release was in a mixed photonovel and color manga format, but that was dropped by the next issue for a purely photonovel format. Later, a manga version of the story started serialization in Dengeki Comic Gaioh.

The story follows the Titans Test Team, Black Otter Team, on their mission to test new mobile suits for the Titans. It begins with Eliard Hunter, an Earth Federation mobile suit pilot being assigned to the Titans and transfering to the Aswan, an Alexandria class carrier. There he meets Carl Matsubara, another new Titans recruit, Audrey April a skilled pilot and chief of test operations and data gathering, and Wes Murphy, a vetern of the One Year War and the Delaz Conflict. The Black Otter team doesn’t just carry out test runs, it also participates in real combat missions against Zeon Remnants and later, against AEUG.

The photonovel episodes are not presented in chronological order. The whole story is meant to be a recount of Eliard Hunter to his defense attorney Conrad Morris. Eliard is being court-martialed for participation in the Bunch 30 incident (the Black Otter Team escorted the shuttle that delivered the gas), flying his TR-3 Kehaar too close to a building full of generals, and for destroying a prototype weapon, the TR-6.

The Black Otter Team (there are no other known Titans Test Teams) tests a variety of exotic machines during the course of the story. Their signature machine, which has many variations by the end of the series, is the Gundam TR-1 Hazel. Made from a modified Quel and given a Gundam style head to test its psychological effectiveness on Zeon Remnant forces, the Hazel proved a very effective combat machine.

RX-121 Gundam TR-1 [Hazel]

Many other mobile suits and mobile armors were tested by the team. The mechanical design serves as an interesting exercise in retrospective history. Many different features of the designs have been identified as possible precursors to ‘later’ designs, mostly Zeta, Double Zeta and Sentinel. Examples include the Icarus Unit as a precursor to the Byalant, and the Hrududu as a precursor to the Hambrabi. Of course, the designs have thier precursors as well. Examples of this include the Gundam NT-1 to the Full Armor Hazel and the Gundam GPO1Fb to the Hazel II.

The Advance of Zeta sidestory has proven to be a popular and long-running installment to the Universal Century storyline. Numerous model kits and figures have been released, and the serialized material has been published in several collected volumes.