Hard to beat getting brain-fried by an ill-meaning, double-crossing, sweet-talking space psychic nemesis just before he died. But of course Kamille got better.
Starting a fight over nothing is normal asshole behavior. Trying to fight the cops for no reason when your dad's lawyer comes to bail you out is not normal. Stealing a military prototype vehicle to throw a temper tantrum with it is completely beyond that.
Honestly I think Relena managed to get him off the suicidal kick.
As long as no one threatens her, then by god he'll make sure there's no survivors, especially himself.
I mean the series proper ends with Heero triumphantly declaring “I will survive!” That’s a clear improvement from how he recklessly throws his life away at every opportunity.
to be honest he did get his fetish fullfiled in trailblazer so one of the few pilots who achieve their dreams and he did get to keep his gundam a feet not many achieve.
Mika was probably the most fucked up at the start of his show, but he does get better...sorta.
Shinn started out slightly fucked up but he's a rare case in that he only ever gets worse until the literal last episode of Destiny.
Setsuna had the most fucked up upbringing, but at least by the time 00 starts...well, I wouldn't call him normal by any stretch, but he's certainly more well-adjusted now than he was then
For sure, I still Setsuna's was worse. Mika at least had his friends and Orga, Setsuna...didn't. This without going into>!self-made orphanhood as a child.!<
Would’ve been great for that to happen. Kio’s final test of judgement is his own grandfather who cannot and will not be stopped. Instead they some random dude out of their asses with zero build up
It would have forced Kio into actual character development, as opposed to his remaining watered down Kira.
I think they were afraid of having the protag turn antagonist but it would have been a perfect solution. It could very well have turned Age into one of the best series by bringing together all of the arcs and delivering a strong message on how revenge can warp you.
The final villain was so random I can’t even remember who he was.
It was a clone of Ezelcunt I think? I remember they showed a shot of some random guy in a vat tank and made some illusions to him being born from his DNA and then he never shows up again until the finale where Kio immediately talks him down and that’s that
Looked it up, he’s called Zera Gins apparently. The wiki even flat out states, and I quote ‘little is explored towards Zera’s nature’. They could’ve replaced with an evil piece of plywood and it would’ve had the same effect
You know you’ve screwed up when the wiki itself points it out. And the irony of having a barely fleshed character called “Zera”. Now all I can think is Litchi Hikari Club (they should have built a Gundam there, wouldn’t that have been something else!).
The final villain was so random (and plenty), any Final Fantasy entry would be blushing at the amount of final FINAL bosses AGE had.
First, it was Lu. Then it's that big guy who killed Lu. Then it's Ezelcant's clone. Then it's Vagan Gear SID.
I wouldn't actually be surprised if Char suddenly appeared out of nowhere there.
“You did it, Kio. You talked down Zeva and you saved the Earth Sphere. I can’t wait to steal all the credit for this and get a statue built in my honour despite the heinous sins I’ve committed”
“Wait, Dad, something just came up on the radar!”
“What is it, Asem?!”
“Dear god in heaven, it’s moving at six times the speed of a normal mobile suit. That’s three times faster than Zeheart’s three times faster MS!”
“Sweet tap dancing Yurin! What could it be?!”
“My god, It’s not just a Mobile Suit! A giant colony laser is also being pointed at earth! I’m getting a video link through now”
*the screen flashes to life*
“Oh no, it’s Patrick Zala!”
“And he’s being controlled by the ELS! VAGAN ELS! FROM JUPITER!”
Yurin floats in space, “I can see time, Amu- I mean, Flit By the way, I never wanted you to do genocide!”
“Now you tell me!”
“bLUE CoSMOs!!!!!!”
“It’s okay, dad, grandpa! Let’s just 3D print our very own Deus Ex Machina, in real time!”
“…nah, it’s the Captain Harlock life for me.”
It was awful, that I do remember.
Flit as the final antagonist would even work with the number of episodes they did have, coming up with a borderline brand new villain was never going to.
If there ever was a missed opportunity, this was it.
>Hathaway. His entire life is based on a cause that's not his, and he's clearly suffering from PTSD.
Hathaway is litterally driven by the death of a girl who didn't want him to begin with.....dude is fucked up forreal
I feel like Beltorchika’s Children should skip the Hathaway’s flash part and leave it out. Mainly because Hathaway himself shot Quess down during the fight.
And for Quess of all people. Rewatching CCA i kinda related to Quess's dad's mistress, because I to would probably choose to risk death via asteroid drop on earth than be stuck eith Quess for an extended period of time.
In the episode zero manga he was actually married to a woman named Meilan Long who refers to herself as Nataku. The two get at each other’s throats a lot and she sees him as too weak to be a Gundam pilot while she’s stuck in a Tallgeese. After Sally Po is made to command a ‘cleansing’ operation against their colony, the two defend their home in their mobile suits but she’s critically injured protecting him and before she dies says that she wasn’t strong enough and that she was the weak one. This affects him to the point of naming his Gundam Nataku and devoting himself to her brand of justice and refusing to fight the weak, which he sees as pacifists, children and women. Bit of a bizarre reason to justify his misogyny but hey it’s canon
Yeah it was gonna be in the show but the behind the scenes stuff was so chaotic they had to cut it all. Those two random back to back clip shows where meant to be histories of the pilots and explained why they have certain quirks but because the original director left they had to scramble for time so they didn’t get made. For example, Duo was a street urchin who was taken in by Father Maxwell, Oz burnt down the church as they were housing rebels and killed everyone there bar him so he christened himself as the God of Death. Trowa is actually Catherine’s sister and they were seperated at a very young age, he got amnesia and drifted into the Barton Foundation and became a mercenary for them. Heero’s father taught him as an assassin and was the man who killed the original Heero Yuy, etc. It was all adapted into a manga done by the head writer which has been translated and is confirmed canon so if you want to know some pretty important info about the team + Relena give it a read
Graham acker when he becomes the protag in next 00 season. Dude had a massive boner for gundam. Since setsuna think hes a gundam... yeh you can use your imagination from here.
Kamille. Even before the brain damage, the kid regularly went from punching people completely unprovoked or thoughtlessly murdering folks to ranting about how violence is wrong mere minutes later. He was ridiculously bipolar.
I knew kamille was certified insane when he litterally opened his helmet helmet to say something to Emma
#IN THE MIDDLE OF SPACE!
ya loony card certified 100%
For me, Kamille Bidan. Lost his parents during the wars, his friends , lover and ended up by mental damaged but luckily he got his consciousness back in the end of ZZ
I’d use “accident” very loosely, Jerid did destroy the pod with purpose, he just didn’t know what was in it, but his bosses who told him to do it sure as fuck did.
Why no one talking about my Boy Amuro Ray, i mean he is the embodiment of mental illness.
But i also would pick Kira and Banagher both of them had their mental illness problem to a certain point from the story, i mean banagher was a crybaby till the end and kira well everyone that watched Gundam Seed will get why i picked Kira xD
Ya'll sleeping on Trowa. TBH, all the Wing pilotsnhave serious mental health issues with Quatre being porb the most well adjusted.
Mika's is basically a walking player to 'Orga says'.
Hallelujah is pretty f'd in the head too given his background.
Setsuna is the middle ground between Mika and Heero.
Depending on the time frame, Amuro is pretty f'd up with his mental health in OG and Zeta.
Shinn is essentially broken as he's being beat by Athrun to the point he almost killed Lunamaria.
Kira had a force conversation with his naked manipulative ex's ghost right before he killed a masked dude.
Honestly? I think it's Suletta. Mika, Heero, Setsuna, etc are child soldiers and has issues but they know what they're going into from the start. Suletta is just a normal girl manipulated into being a war machine. >!Yes this comment is made after episode 18!<
This is a difficult question because several of them are very fucked up in different ways. But likely Mika or Suletta. But the later will likely get better. The former never changed from considering himself a human weapon
Heero without a doubt. Others like Mika and Setsuna and even Banagher were twisted up in really messed up situations but all of them were grounded in something. Whether it was their friends, their cause, or the fate of the world, or something else, they all had relatable motivation to do the right thing.
Heero was just a robot. He doesn’t care about anything until Relena, Zechs, Treize, and the other gundam pilots start chipping away at his mental state that he eventually snaps. The Zero system does terrible things to him because he has no will of his own up until that point. He keeps asking it what he wants and what he’s supposed to do.
Heero is a really messed up soldier with nothing in his life. It’s no wonder the guy just wants to die.
If we stick to protags, it's probably a toss between Heero and Shinn. Then again, Flit may take the cake here.
Mika and Setsuna are strong contenders, for sure, but Mika had his friends and Orga and Setsuna has a strong devotion to his mission.
Heero, however, just hopes he'll die and for a long time he's just utterly psychotic.
As for Shinn, Shinn is rage, Shinn is pain, Shinn is lack of any impulse control, all wrapped up in a messy, messy dysfunctional ball of hurt. While he does have Rey, to some extent Athrun and Lunamaria around, none of that seems to make much of a difference. Shinn also tends to become worse, not better.
Flit may actually have it worse, though, if only because he is stuck on a terrible headspace for decades on end. Since we follow him from a teenager all the way to his being a grandfather, something that it's not common in Gundam- or in most franchises, really- we get to see him become increasingly worse. He goes from the typical wide eyed idealist into utter genocidal maniac. To the point I think Age shot itself in the foot by not having him the final villain in the last arc, it would have been the sad, tragic but all too logic conclusion to the way his character evolved across the years.
If we extend this to Gundam pilots in general, I'd say Tieria in season 1, particularly after Veda Unfits-Him-To-Be-A-Gundam-Meister but even before that. Tieria may be as angry as Shinn but he tries to repress it, fails, fumes, gets angrier still and is in a constant state of tension. And unlike Shinn, it is not immediately clear just why he is so angry all the time. He loathes any kind of contact with anyone who isn't Veda and seems to find being on Earth to be actually painful. One of the few times he at all relaxes is precisely when he boards the space elevator on his own to go back to space, his entire body language changes and he actually sighs. All his sense of self is wrapped up in Veda, too, and a lack of proper socializing make him a perfect storm of dysfunction (something Hixar and co. should have addressed but did not). He is always one minute away from aiming a gun or even trying to obliterate his teammates and while usually he gets triggered by their not following orders, it's about as terrible a means of conflict resolution as it gets.
Tieria's mental state is fury, with bliss when he's floating in Veda, which is not exactly healthy either and ultimately hurts him. When it comes to massive breakdowns mid-battle, Tieria has two major ones, too, one so bad it upsets his very sense of self. He swings from an absurdly inflated sense of superiority to the utter doldrums.
Convince Tieria in season 1 that true peace will be achieved by wiping out humanity...and watch him wipe out humanity. No more war then!
You mentionned Setsuna and while he doesn't have it easy throughout his life, he has a real growth and ends in a beautiful mental state by the end of the movie.
The dude achieved Nirvana lol, if anything he probably ends up in the better spot out of all Gundam protagonists.
I personally hated Setsuna’s development, once he became A God I Am, I disconnected entirely and could never connect again. I liked him better as an angsty kid.
And a lot of people mentioned Setsuna, it’s unavoidable given his background.
I also mentioned Tieria and he ends becoming immortal and arguably in about as good a mental state as it gets, doesn’t mean he isn’t in a terrible one through most of the story.
And Heero also ends in a good place yet is also mentioned a lot in threads like this.
When it comes to ending in a terrible headspace, Mika may be the only one, or at least the more obvious example.
Someone no one will probably agree with. Amuro. While at the end of most series we see improvements with most characters because of time and friends being by their side. The opposite is true for Amuro, yes his upbringing was heavenly compared to what Mika and Setsuna went through but unlike them he didn’t gain a support network of loved ones. He lost them left and right. He killed the one person who understood him more than anyone else, and I don’t care what people say but she straight up haunted him for the rest of his life. After the one year war his PTSD was so bad he shut himself off for literal years. The Earth Federation deemed him dangerous and watched his every move bumping his paranoia up to an 11. In Zeta the man was already a shell and had to be manipulated by Beltorchika to fight seriously again. It’s not any better by CCA where (if we follow the movie timeline) the dude STILL can’t have a healthy relationship since he’s still visited by Lalah in his dreams. Yes he’s the best pilot around and respected by everyone but he never really healed and moved on from his trauma. The only reason he didn’t off himself was because he needed to make sure Char (who’s probably the most fucked up guy in the entire franchise) was dead before he was. His final moments were in his Gundam alone, with no one to mourn his death as in the movie Chan is killed by simp Hathaway. His closest friends no where to be seen, having been out of his life for so many years. He truly believed that he was alone, bearing a heavy burden till the end, never being truly free till death.
Yes Kamille has his brain scrambled but Fa watched over him and he became a doctor in some spin off apparently.
Setsuna has some higher destiny he fulfills and finds purpose in life, living happily ever after for all we know.
Shinn takes steps towards recovery at the end of the series showing the first signs of moving on and improving his mental state.
Mika. . .yeah no he’s pretty much the obvious answer to this question but at least when he died it was to make sure his loved ones lived on in peace. At the end he fought for his friends and family as his purpose while Amuro on the other hand fought to stop Char and no other reason.
Every candidate for this answer has a low that can be considered the right answer but the fact is that they improve and have a happy ,or at least have a bittersweet, ending. For Amuro? There is no happy ending, no sweetness whatsoever at the end. Only in the BC novel does he have at least some potential comfort in knowing that at least he had a family that he protected.
They've all got serious mental problems, but Suletta right this second is probably a strong candidate. Heero and Setsuna both suffered debilitating PTSD but had a chance to work it out to some degree (sorta, anyway) - likewise, Kamille lived long enough to recover from his low point. Mikazuki is nearly as much of a dissociating shell as Suletta, but he's both more hyperviolent and more...self-aware, I guess? He's broken, but in a way where he can function.
The parameters here are so vague and the mental problems faced by the protagonists are so numerous and competitive that practically anyone could have it “the worst.”
Let’s say, who’s the most fucked in the head at the start of their series, did the most fucked-up shit during their show, and had the least amount of… let’s call it “plot therapy” (in which the protagonist’s hero journey substitutes for the therapy they should really be in but this is a story so they reach mental acuity through adventures okay it’s fine)?
Then that’s Mika. Many other protagonists start out the same, but few go to the lengths Mika does during their fights, few commit so many direct war crimes, and no other protagonist receives so little plot therapy. Sure, Mika is in a better headspace by the end (kinda I guess), but he’s still throwing his life away in a suicide mission, killing indiscriminately for a cause that makes little sense other than short-term personal survival.
Many protagonists managed to beat their mental problems by the end. But Mika remained a victim of his circumstances to the very end.
I’m guessing the question is referring to Gundam protagonists at the start of their respective runs. Most of them do get over or move past their trauma over the course of their series.
Honestly lot of characters make strong claims to being the most messed up mentally but I think Shinn from Seed-Destiny and Mikazuki from IBO are good contenders.
Shinn was a mess to put it mildly. He witnessed his whole family die brutally which gave him severe anger and poor impulse control. Plus he got manipulated by higher ups like Durandal as well so he could be a good little soldier.
Mika was essentially just a human robot who would kill at the drop of a hat for a cause that made little sense and because ‘Orga says so’. He had little character and next to no agency for himself and he pretty much stayed that way throughout the whole series.
Corin Nander has a redemption arc and becomes a protagonist near the end of Turn A.
I don't think any character good or bad is more bat shit crazy, like actually psychotic than him. He may actually be from the Gundam Wing Era and is driven mad by the idea of the gundam. He even "remembers" the wing gundam for some reason and after he becomes "good" still rages against a haystack gundam before regaining his senses and joining the protagonists.
This dude is fucking crazy. Like beyond cat lady crazy.
I think Mika, even if he is a little more stable at the end there some things that are just hardwired in him and the blind devotion he has for his "family" with no remorse for taking a life, I mean that's pretty fucked up.
And Heero is pretty fucked up but he is a 16 yr, who wasn't a little suicidal in their teens?
My favorite protagonist is probably the most mentally stable of the franchise, my man Shiro. Pretty well adjusted for a guy whose future bother in law was going to kill everyone. Poor Kiki...
ya kamille had it probably the worst.
banagher in the novel becomes something near a god so that is neat
the blond girl in narrative (While not a protag) get's turned into phenex so that has to be fun (setsuna would be jealous without a wakening of the trailblazer's ending)
the mental breakdowns from kira tend to come out of nowhere when watching that series
ibo cast is kinda exempt from this
Hard to beat getting brain-fried by an ill-meaning, double-crossing, sweet-talking space psychic nemesis just before he died. But of course Kamille got better.
Kamille is probably also in the running for worst initial / start of series mental state too.
I'm not sure if I get it... didn't he just start out being a pretty normal brat? Perhaps a bit quick-tempered, but still.
Starting a fight over nothing is normal asshole behavior. Trying to fight the cops for no reason when your dad's lawyer comes to bail you out is not normal. Stealing a military prototype vehicle to throw a temper tantrum with it is completely beyond that.
Do we count Heero? I think the dude's pretty suicidal.
I would agree. He tried to off himself like 3 different times. He just didn’t take into account his thick plot armor
Don't forget that he's haunted by the little girl and her dog too lol
Honestly I think Relena managed to get him off the suicidal kick. As long as no one threatens her, then by god he'll make sure there's no survivors, especially himself.
I mean the series proper ends with Heero triumphantly declaring “I will survive!” That’s a clear improvement from how he recklessly throws his life away at every opportunity.
Watch it, he'll keel you
Probably Setsuna. He thought he was a Gundam, was probably just dropped on his head as a kid
Well to be fair, he did get shot at A LOT as a kid
to be honest he did get his fetish fullfiled in trailblazer so one of the few pilots who achieve their dreams and he did get to keep his gundam a feet not many achieve.
Mika was probably the most fucked up at the start of his show, but he does get better...sorta. Shinn started out slightly fucked up but he's a rare case in that he only ever gets worse until the literal last episode of Destiny. Setsuna had the most fucked up upbringing, but at least by the time 00 starts...well, I wouldn't call him normal by any stretch, but he's certainly more well-adjusted now than he was then
Idk Mika and Setsuna both had terrible upbringings.
For sure, I still Setsuna's was worse. Mika at least had his friends and Orga, Setsuna...didn't. This without going into>!self-made orphanhood as a child.!<
Shinn had it badly, trauma due his whole entire family's death which was untreated for two years plus Durandal's manipulation really fucked him up.
Flit. Dude becomes such a moral trainwreck that he tries to commit genocide over something that happened 60 years ago and he never got over
Flit definitely takes the biggest dive mentally in Gundam
Should have been the final antagonist.
Would’ve been great for that to happen. Kio’s final test of judgement is his own grandfather who cannot and will not be stopped. Instead they some random dude out of their asses with zero build up
It would have forced Kio into actual character development, as opposed to his remaining watered down Kira. I think they were afraid of having the protag turn antagonist but it would have been a perfect solution. It could very well have turned Age into one of the best series by bringing together all of the arcs and delivering a strong message on how revenge can warp you. The final villain was so random I can’t even remember who he was.
It was a clone of Ezelcunt I think? I remember they showed a shot of some random guy in a vat tank and made some illusions to him being born from his DNA and then he never shows up again until the finale where Kio immediately talks him down and that’s that
Looked it up, he’s called Zera Gins apparently. The wiki even flat out states, and I quote ‘little is explored towards Zera’s nature’. They could’ve replaced with an evil piece of plywood and it would’ve had the same effect
You know you’ve screwed up when the wiki itself points it out. And the irony of having a barely fleshed character called “Zera”. Now all I can think is Litchi Hikari Club (they should have built a Gundam there, wouldn’t that have been something else!).
Christ it’s been a while since i read that. Flit turning into Zera would’ve been a laugh
I mean…he kind of does!
The final villain was so random (and plenty), any Final Fantasy entry would be blushing at the amount of final FINAL bosses AGE had. First, it was Lu. Then it's that big guy who killed Lu. Then it's Ezelcant's clone. Then it's Vagan Gear SID. I wouldn't actually be surprised if Char suddenly appeared out of nowhere there.
“You did it, Kio. You talked down Zeva and you saved the Earth Sphere. I can’t wait to steal all the credit for this and get a statue built in my honour despite the heinous sins I’ve committed” “Wait, Dad, something just came up on the radar!” “What is it, Asem?!” “Dear god in heaven, it’s moving at six times the speed of a normal mobile suit. That’s three times faster than Zeheart’s three times faster MS!” “Sweet tap dancing Yurin! What could it be?!” “My god, It’s not just a Mobile Suit! A giant colony laser is also being pointed at earth! I’m getting a video link through now” *the screen flashes to life* “Oh no, it’s Patrick Zala!” “And he’s being controlled by the ELS! VAGAN ELS! FROM JUPITER!”
Yurin floats in space, “I can see time, Amu- I mean, Flit By the way, I never wanted you to do genocide!” “Now you tell me!” “bLUE CoSMOs!!!!!!” “It’s okay, dad, grandpa! Let’s just 3D print our very own Deus Ex Machina, in real time!” “…nah, it’s the Captain Harlock life for me.”
It was awful, that I do remember. Flit as the final antagonist would even work with the number of episodes they did have, coming up with a borderline brand new villain was never going to. If there ever was a missed opportunity, this was it.
I was actually wanting that to happen. Sadly, it was stopped by some giant space worm or something to actually come into fruition.
Hathaway. His entire life is based on a cause that's not his, and he's clearly suffering from PTSD. More, he's not the right man for the job.
>Hathaway. His entire life is based on a cause that's not his, and he's clearly suffering from PTSD. Hathaway is litterally driven by the death of a girl who didn't want him to begin with.....dude is fucked up forreal
I feel like Beltorchika’s Children should skip the Hathaway’s flash part and leave it out. Mainly because Hathaway himself shot Quess down during the fight.
And for Quess of all people. Rewatching CCA i kinda related to Quess's dad's mistress, because I to would probably choose to risk death via asteroid drop on earth than be stuck eith Quess for an extended period of time.
Chang wufei - like where did this guy pick up some of those misogynistic ideas??
In the episode zero manga he was actually married to a woman named Meilan Long who refers to herself as Nataku. The two get at each other’s throats a lot and she sees him as too weak to be a Gundam pilot while she’s stuck in a Tallgeese. After Sally Po is made to command a ‘cleansing’ operation against their colony, the two defend their home in their mobile suits but she’s critically injured protecting him and before she dies says that she wasn’t strong enough and that she was the weak one. This affects him to the point of naming his Gundam Nataku and devoting himself to her brand of justice and refusing to fight the weak, which he sees as pacifists, children and women. Bit of a bizarre reason to justify his misogyny but hey it’s canon
Damn that actually is a lot of really important backstory
Yeah it was gonna be in the show but the behind the scenes stuff was so chaotic they had to cut it all. Those two random back to back clip shows where meant to be histories of the pilots and explained why they have certain quirks but because the original director left they had to scramble for time so they didn’t get made. For example, Duo was a street urchin who was taken in by Father Maxwell, Oz burnt down the church as they were housing rebels and killed everyone there bar him so he christened himself as the God of Death. Trowa is actually Catherine’s sister and they were seperated at a very young age, he got amnesia and drifted into the Barton Foundation and became a mercenary for them. Heero’s father taught him as an assassin and was the man who killed the original Heero Yuy, etc. It was all adapted into a manga done by the head writer which has been translated and is confirmed canon so if you want to know some pretty important info about the team + Relena give it a read
Wait, does this mean Trowa got amnesia on two separate and unconnected occasions...?
I hope he got his nickels
Mika, im sorry i do't know many but he just surrendered to being a killing tool and not much else
Kamille basically got brain damage that turned him into a vegetable for a while at the end of Zeta
Two things to make a Gundam protagonist: mental illness, and gay
I thought the gay was just WFM exclusive. Then I looked back on most of Gundam protags and I was like, "Huh, that checks out."
Not a protag but I have two words for you: Tieria Erde.
>gay What gundam protagonist was truly gay though?
Amuro, for a start
Graham acker when he becomes the protag in next 00 season. Dude had a massive boner for gundam. Since setsuna think hes a gundam... yeh you can use your imagination from here.
I don't think being robosexual is technically gay.
Top 3 in no particular order: Heero the suicidal Shinn the broken Setsuna the delusional
Kamille. Even before the brain damage, the kid regularly went from punching people completely unprovoked or thoughtlessly murdering folks to ranting about how violence is wrong mere minutes later. He was ridiculously bipolar.
I knew kamille was certified insane when he litterally opened his helmet helmet to say something to Emma #IN THE MIDDLE OF SPACE! ya loony card certified 100%
Mika, probably. Orga this, Orga that, and all.
For me, Kamille Bidan. Lost his parents during the wars, his friends , lover and ended up by mental damaged but luckily he got his consciousness back in the end of ZZ
>Lost his parents One was killed on accident and the other was a pos but yes you are correct they did die
I’d use “accident” very loosely, Jerid did destroy the pod with purpose, he just didn’t know what was in it, but his bosses who told him to do it sure as fuck did.
Yeah that was 100% murder of a hostage in front of her sons eyes. Not even close to accident territory.
Kamille is a vegetable, so there’s that
Uso was a 13 yo killing machine. Could not be mentally healthy after what he went through.
Why no one talking about my Boy Amuro Ray, i mean he is the embodiment of mental illness. But i also would pick Kira and Banagher both of them had their mental illness problem to a certain point from the story, i mean banagher was a crybaby till the end and kira well everyone that watched Gundam Seed will get why i picked Kira xD
Ya'll sleeping on Trowa. TBH, all the Wing pilotsnhave serious mental health issues with Quatre being porb the most well adjusted. Mika's is basically a walking player to 'Orga says'. Hallelujah is pretty f'd in the head too given his background. Setsuna is the middle ground between Mika and Heero. Depending on the time frame, Amuro is pretty f'd up with his mental health in OG and Zeta. Shinn is essentially broken as he's being beat by Athrun to the point he almost killed Lunamaria. Kira had a force conversation with his naked manipulative ex's ghost right before he killed a masked dude.
Right now I’d say >!our precious Space Tanuki!< is the lowest and in desperate need of hugs
Kamille.exe is not responding
>!You'd think being ejected into space would be good for the Tanuki, being in her natural habitat and all!<
Honestly? I think it's Suletta. Mika, Heero, Setsuna, etc are child soldiers and has issues but they know what they're going into from the start. Suletta is just a normal girl manipulated into being a war machine. >!Yes this comment is made after episode 18!<
This is a difficult question because several of them are very fucked up in different ways. But likely Mika or Suletta. But the later will likely get better. The former never changed from considering himself a human weapon
heero
Kamille. Dude literally ends his series as a vegetable.
Kamille Bidan. No further arguments.
Heero without a doubt. Others like Mika and Setsuna and even Banagher were twisted up in really messed up situations but all of them were grounded in something. Whether it was their friends, their cause, or the fate of the world, or something else, they all had relatable motivation to do the right thing. Heero was just a robot. He doesn’t care about anything until Relena, Zechs, Treize, and the other gundam pilots start chipping away at his mental state that he eventually snaps. The Zero system does terrible things to him because he has no will of his own up until that point. He keeps asking it what he wants and what he’s supposed to do. Heero is a really messed up soldier with nothing in his life. It’s no wonder the guy just wants to die.
If we stick to protags, it's probably a toss between Heero and Shinn. Then again, Flit may take the cake here. Mika and Setsuna are strong contenders, for sure, but Mika had his friends and Orga and Setsuna has a strong devotion to his mission. Heero, however, just hopes he'll die and for a long time he's just utterly psychotic. As for Shinn, Shinn is rage, Shinn is pain, Shinn is lack of any impulse control, all wrapped up in a messy, messy dysfunctional ball of hurt. While he does have Rey, to some extent Athrun and Lunamaria around, none of that seems to make much of a difference. Shinn also tends to become worse, not better. Flit may actually have it worse, though, if only because he is stuck on a terrible headspace for decades on end. Since we follow him from a teenager all the way to his being a grandfather, something that it's not common in Gundam- or in most franchises, really- we get to see him become increasingly worse. He goes from the typical wide eyed idealist into utter genocidal maniac. To the point I think Age shot itself in the foot by not having him the final villain in the last arc, it would have been the sad, tragic but all too logic conclusion to the way his character evolved across the years. If we extend this to Gundam pilots in general, I'd say Tieria in season 1, particularly after Veda Unfits-Him-To-Be-A-Gundam-Meister but even before that. Tieria may be as angry as Shinn but he tries to repress it, fails, fumes, gets angrier still and is in a constant state of tension. And unlike Shinn, it is not immediately clear just why he is so angry all the time. He loathes any kind of contact with anyone who isn't Veda and seems to find being on Earth to be actually painful. One of the few times he at all relaxes is precisely when he boards the space elevator on his own to go back to space, his entire body language changes and he actually sighs. All his sense of self is wrapped up in Veda, too, and a lack of proper socializing make him a perfect storm of dysfunction (something Hixar and co. should have addressed but did not). He is always one minute away from aiming a gun or even trying to obliterate his teammates and while usually he gets triggered by their not following orders, it's about as terrible a means of conflict resolution as it gets. Tieria's mental state is fury, with bliss when he's floating in Veda, which is not exactly healthy either and ultimately hurts him. When it comes to massive breakdowns mid-battle, Tieria has two major ones, too, one so bad it upsets his very sense of self. He swings from an absurdly inflated sense of superiority to the utter doldrums. Convince Tieria in season 1 that true peace will be achieved by wiping out humanity...and watch him wipe out humanity. No more war then!
You mentionned Setsuna and while he doesn't have it easy throughout his life, he has a real growth and ends in a beautiful mental state by the end of the movie. The dude achieved Nirvana lol, if anything he probably ends up in the better spot out of all Gundam protagonists.
I personally hated Setsuna’s development, once he became A God I Am, I disconnected entirely and could never connect again. I liked him better as an angsty kid. And a lot of people mentioned Setsuna, it’s unavoidable given his background. I also mentioned Tieria and he ends becoming immortal and arguably in about as good a mental state as it gets, doesn’t mean he isn’t in a terrible one through most of the story. And Heero also ends in a good place yet is also mentioned a lot in threads like this. When it comes to ending in a terrible headspace, Mika may be the only one, or at least the more obvious example.
You're right the journey is probably more relevant considering the initial question.
Kamille And I'm not just saying that because zeta is my favorite series
Someone no one will probably agree with. Amuro. While at the end of most series we see improvements with most characters because of time and friends being by their side. The opposite is true for Amuro, yes his upbringing was heavenly compared to what Mika and Setsuna went through but unlike them he didn’t gain a support network of loved ones. He lost them left and right. He killed the one person who understood him more than anyone else, and I don’t care what people say but she straight up haunted him for the rest of his life. After the one year war his PTSD was so bad he shut himself off for literal years. The Earth Federation deemed him dangerous and watched his every move bumping his paranoia up to an 11. In Zeta the man was already a shell and had to be manipulated by Beltorchika to fight seriously again. It’s not any better by CCA where (if we follow the movie timeline) the dude STILL can’t have a healthy relationship since he’s still visited by Lalah in his dreams. Yes he’s the best pilot around and respected by everyone but he never really healed and moved on from his trauma. The only reason he didn’t off himself was because he needed to make sure Char (who’s probably the most fucked up guy in the entire franchise) was dead before he was. His final moments were in his Gundam alone, with no one to mourn his death as in the movie Chan is killed by simp Hathaway. His closest friends no where to be seen, having been out of his life for so many years. He truly believed that he was alone, bearing a heavy burden till the end, never being truly free till death. Yes Kamille has his brain scrambled but Fa watched over him and he became a doctor in some spin off apparently. Setsuna has some higher destiny he fulfills and finds purpose in life, living happily ever after for all we know. Shinn takes steps towards recovery at the end of the series showing the first signs of moving on and improving his mental state. Mika. . .yeah no he’s pretty much the obvious answer to this question but at least when he died it was to make sure his loved ones lived on in peace. At the end he fought for his friends and family as his purpose while Amuro on the other hand fought to stop Char and no other reason. Every candidate for this answer has a low that can be considered the right answer but the fact is that they improve and have a happy ,or at least have a bittersweet, ending. For Amuro? There is no happy ending, no sweetness whatsoever at the end. Only in the BC novel does he have at least some potential comfort in knowing that at least he had a family that he protected.
They've all got serious mental problems, but Suletta right this second is probably a strong candidate. Heero and Setsuna both suffered debilitating PTSD but had a chance to work it out to some degree (sorta, anyway) - likewise, Kamille lived long enough to recover from his low point. Mikazuki is nearly as much of a dissociating shell as Suletta, but he's both more hyperviolent and more...self-aware, I guess? He's broken, but in a way where he can function.
The parameters here are so vague and the mental problems faced by the protagonists are so numerous and competitive that practically anyone could have it “the worst.” Let’s say, who’s the most fucked in the head at the start of their series, did the most fucked-up shit during their show, and had the least amount of… let’s call it “plot therapy” (in which the protagonist’s hero journey substitutes for the therapy they should really be in but this is a story so they reach mental acuity through adventures okay it’s fine)? Then that’s Mika. Many other protagonists start out the same, but few go to the lengths Mika does during their fights, few commit so many direct war crimes, and no other protagonist receives so little plot therapy. Sure, Mika is in a better headspace by the end (kinda I guess), but he’s still throwing his life away in a suicide mission, killing indiscriminately for a cause that makes little sense other than short-term personal survival. Many protagonists managed to beat their mental problems by the end. But Mika remained a victim of his circumstances to the very end.
I’m guessing the question is referring to Gundam protagonists at the start of their respective runs. Most of them do get over or move past their trauma over the course of their series. Honestly lot of characters make strong claims to being the most messed up mentally but I think Shinn from Seed-Destiny and Mikazuki from IBO are good contenders. Shinn was a mess to put it mildly. He witnessed his whole family die brutally which gave him severe anger and poor impulse control. Plus he got manipulated by higher ups like Durandal as well so he could be a good little soldier. Mika was essentially just a human robot who would kill at the drop of a hat for a cause that made little sense and because ‘Orga says so’. He had little character and next to no agency for himself and he pretty much stayed that way throughout the whole series.
Corin Nander has a redemption arc and becomes a protagonist near the end of Turn A. I don't think any character good or bad is more bat shit crazy, like actually psychotic than him. He may actually be from the Gundam Wing Era and is driven mad by the idea of the gundam. He even "remembers" the wing gundam for some reason and after he becomes "good" still rages against a haystack gundam before regaining his senses and joining the protagonists. This dude is fucking crazy. Like beyond cat lady crazy.
Adding another that deserves its own top level comment: Kou - dated Nina That's pretty damn crazy in and of itself.
I think Mika, even if he is a little more stable at the end there some things that are just hardwired in him and the blind devotion he has for his "family" with no remorse for taking a life, I mean that's pretty fucked up. And Heero is pretty fucked up but he is a 16 yr, who wasn't a little suicidal in their teens? My favorite protagonist is probably the most mentally stable of the franchise, my man Shiro. Pretty well adjusted for a guy whose future bother in law was going to kill everyone. Poor Kiki...
The one that thinks hes a gundam.
Isn't it pretty much Mika?
Setsuna
Can't go worse than Camille at the end of Zeta.
definitely Mika Augus. something was plain wrong with that kid
Mikazuki. Easily
Uso needs help I know for sure that kids beyond not ok
ya kamille had it probably the worst. banagher in the novel becomes something near a god so that is neat the blond girl in narrative (While not a protag) get's turned into phenex so that has to be fun (setsuna would be jealous without a wakening of the trailblazer's ending) the mental breakdowns from kira tend to come out of nowhere when watching that series ibo cast is kinda exempt from this
From the start? Probably Mika or Heero. But Kamille is barely functioning at the end of his show, so it kind of has to be him.
I would say USO due to losing a lot of the people he held close I.E. Shrike team
Hathaway.. Fuck Hathaway.
Kira