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Director Yoshiyuki Tomino sparked discussion on 5ch’s hardware/industry (Geha) board after making comments acknowledging Judau Ashta as a presence surpassing even Amuro and Char. The thread kicked off with a “division of strengths” theory — “Amuro for combat ability, Kamille for Newtype power, Judau for mentality” — which spiraled into a broader debate comparing the strength and Newtype abilities of pilots across the whole Gundam series.
Amuro’s the strongest, obviously
Source: pbs.twimg.com / Original post here
What people said
Z is regarded as the better series, but Kamille himself doesn't feel that popular
No need to get so worked up about it lol
Honestly, without Amuro's combat data, the Federation's mobile suit development afterward might not have advanced nearly as much.
Kycilia, who kept sending ace pilot after ace pilot to keep pace with Amuro's growth and racked up all that valuable data, is basically a god as far as the Federation's concerned.
I actually crunched the numbers just now — the combat data from Zeon's ace pilots massively boosted the Federation's MS performance.
You guys tried way too hard.
Beecha or Mondo feel even less like Newtypes than he does
Reading the interview, I got the sense he actually holds it in pretty high regard — though isn't that more about Tobia?
He was involved under a different pen name, so saying he "wasn't involved" doesn't really hold up
Once Char's Counterattack got greenlit, Glemy got the promotion instead
That's probably why the OP randomly has Judau shouting at Char — a leftover scrap from the old plot lol
A big part of that is Kats inheriting all of Kamille's unhinged energy lol
Judau's popular with Haman, Puru, Elle, and Roux all at once.
He's the only one playing a dating sim, and everyone else has to deal with the fallout
ZZ basically got written out of existence
Isn't it F91 you should feel bad for? It's a theatrical film too, yet it gets ignored
Best Newtype ability: Kamille
Best mentality: Judau
Isn't that basically settled?
Knowledge-wise it's probably Amuro too
Feels like he's portrayed them pretty much exactly like Re: #63 describes
Kira-sama gets handed the strongest weapon and the strongest weapon system and just dominates in every direction — flashy through and through.
"Perm-head" (Amuro's nickname, for his curly hair) uses an ordinary high-spec MS and just perfectly executes the one thing he absolutely has to do — understated but brutal.
In fact, the Nu Gundam isn't some porcupine loadout — it's built and equipped for one purpose: reaching Char and beating him down.
Yeah, in the episode where the Strike Freedom actually debuted, he was piloting the Rouge and got completely wrecked
Mwu La Flaga in his prime — the one the Rau Le Creuset clone was based on — was such a monster that I sometimes wonder if he was even stronger than Kira
In Double Zeta, the AEUG isn't even really an army anymore
Yeah, it's a garbage story.
The only good thing about it is the girls are cute
That's why Seabook ends up a so-so Newtype,
while Kamille and Uso turn out to be terrifying ones
Finding an unconscious person in the vastness of space, without even knowing which way is up, is actually pretty incredible though.
Maybe it's just a shift in mindset — that Newtype ability being "good enough" at that level is fine
That's probably why he never got as mentally unstable
Depending on how dark Lord Baldy (Scirocco) had gone, I think Reccoa could've ended up seriously injured or dead
Universal Century pilots seem to have natural talent on top of experience, so
no matter how much experience Judau racks up, I don't think he can surpass Amuro as a pilot — or as a soldier, really
Honestly, the one who was amazing both as a pilot and as a Newtype might be Haman
The Qubeley itself feels less like some "incredible Newtype-exclusive MS" and more like
"an ace pilot's machine that happens to be equipped with a psycommu system"
solo, he shot down over 200 units from a combined force of Zeon's final-form mobile suits and the Crossbone Vanguard
Honestly, pretty much exactly right
The Crossbone Vanguard probably never imagined that the F91 — their actual target — had been brought right into their line of attack, and that it wasn't even Newtype ability but pure machine performance doing the damage lol
that would mean Judau's just too weak
To begin with, it's just weird that Haman actively charges in with melee attacks in a machine that's loaded with tons of funnels and is supposed to fight mainly through funnel operation
Wasn't it actually Lady Haman who treated Kamille — who was trying to reach out to her — like some vulgar nobody and cut him off?
Background and Key Points
Yoshiyuki Tomino created the “Universal Century” Gundam lineage in three stages: the original Mobile Suit Gundam (1979, protagonist Amuro Ray, rival Char Aznable), Zeta Gundam (1985, protagonist Kamille Bidan), and Zeta Zeta (ZZ) Gundam (1986, protagonist Judau Ashta). These three works, plus the theatrical trilogy and Char’s Counterattack (1988), form the backbone of a franchise now in its fifth decade. ZZ has long occupied an awkward position in that lineage: it opened with a comedic, juvenile tone before darkening considerably, and Tomino himself reportedly wanted a “seven-part saga” of compilation films that quietly excluded ZZ altogether — a real production history, not fan speculation. Part of ZZ’s shakiness also traces to Tomino delegating episodes under a pen name during a period of overwork, which is why some fans argue it isn’t “really” his work.
The thread’s actual fault line isn’t whether Judau is strong — it’s whether the three-way split of labor (Amuro’s combat skill, Kamille’s raw Newtype power, Judau’s mental stability) is a fair or even coherent way to compare protagonists built fourteen years apart under different creative pressures, with posters invoking a Maradona-vs-Messi framing to reject the exercise entirely.
What outsiders likely miss is that this isn’t really about combat rankings at all — it’s a proxy fight over ZZ’s legitimacy within the UC canon. Tomino is notorious for revising his own stated opinions about his shows years later, so a single quote elevating Judau reads to longtime fans less as settled lore and more as the latest flip in a decades-long pattern, which is exactly why the thread immediately questioned his credibility rather than taking the ranking at face value.
*This article is compiled from excerpts and a summary of the 5ch (Hardware/Industry [Geha]) thread “Yoshiyuki Tomino Ends Up Acknowledging Judau as Surpassing Amuro and Char.”
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