A Pictorial History of Char Aznable’s Weirdest Ad Campaigns

Mobile Suit Gundam is a decades-old franchise analyzing the prices of conflict and that imperialism over eons of interstellar battle between decaying, corrupt governments. It’s additionally an anime present about large robots made to promote toys, so generally you get the very peculiar sensation of one of many sequence’ most iconic characters hawking a automotive.

Char Aznable—the ace pilot of the secessionist area colony Principality of Zeon within the unique 1979 basic Mobile Suit Gundam, eventual Anti-Earth guerrilla fighter below the guise of Quattro Bajeena in its sequel sequence Zeta Gundam, and ultimately the drastic chief of the Neo Zeon remnant in Char’s Counterattack—is one among Gundam’s most enduring and iconic characters. His shadow is forged throughout the franchise’s complete historical past as he switched from villain together with his personal private agenda, to anti-hero, to a radicalized chief—whether or not within the main “Universal Century” timeline of the sequence or throughout its totality in a litany of countless “Char Clone” expys. That makes him an enchanting and compelling character, one explored in depth greater than even among the franchise’s most well-known heroes.

But that additionally signifies that Char usually finds himself Darth Vader-ized in a manner, a public face of Gundam as a company franchise nearly as iconic as a model because the sequence’ large robots. In the a long time since his debut Char’s masked face has been slapped throughout all kinds of extraordinary advert campaigns in Japan—together with this week, the place a brand new collaboration with McDonald’s Japan noticed the Red Comet return to advertise three new hamburgers impressed by his cellular fits within the unique Gundam. Take a glance at that, and extra of Char’s most questionable advert campaigns, under.