Podcasts · Leisure · TV & Film
Mobile Suit Breakdown: the Gundam Podcast
Nina & Thom
300 episodes
MSB is a weekly Gundam podcast for new fans, old fans, and not yet fans. Nina (a Gundam first-timer) and Thom (a lifelong Gundam fan) analyze, review, and research all 40+ years of the iconic sci-fi anime mega-franchise Mobile Suit Gundam in the order it was made. We research its influences, examine its themes, and discuss how each piece of the Gundam canon fits within the changing context in Japan and the world, from 1979 to today. Part history podcast, part discussion podcast, all Gundam podcast.
Episodes page 1 of 6
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11.26: The Gods Must Be Fighting
Show Notes And now the moment you've all been waiting for: the Gundam Fight Finals have begun! This week, Domon faces his most terrifying opponent yet in the form of the mighty Zeus Gundam and must learn that even a…
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11.25: The Cantonese Candidate
Show Notes This week on MSB, I've got a funny feeling like I've seen all this before... Ready? Go! Mobile Suit Breakdown is written, recorded, and produced within Lenapehoking, the ancestral and unceded homeland of…
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Yugoslav Interlude 7: The Race for Trieste
Show Notes In this week's Yugoslav History Interlude: the race for Trieste! Yugoslav and British Empire troops converge on the contested city from two directions, existing alliances give way to new contests, and…
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11.24: Around the World in Four Hours
Show Notes This week on MSB, the final battle between Domon and Master Asia begins at last! Plus: What's love got to do with it? Will Domon make it to the finals on time? Why does the tiara need a V-fin? Was that a…
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11.23: The Devil and Domon Kasshu
Show Notes This week on MSB, the greatest trick the Devil Gundam ever pulled was convincing Domon to get mad, get mad, get so mad that it drove him mad. It didn't last long though, thanks to a little help from his…
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11.22: Last Stand at Angel Falls
Show Notes This week on MSB, it's the final battle between Domon and Master Asia (for real this time we swear, no foolin')! Everyone shows off their skills, Chibodee can't handle his emotions, Nastasha knows how to…
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[Bonus Episode] The Witching Hour: The Witch and the Bride
Show Notes Hello again, welcome back to Mobile Suit Breakdown! This week I have another treat for you, from the MSB vault, this one from the long distant past of Twenty-Twenty-Two. Ever since the Witch from Mercury…
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[Bonus Episode] Nina's Revenge: His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik
Show Notes This week: we're exhausted from Anime NYC so please enjoy this first episode from our Patron-exclusive bonus series Nina's Revenge! Mobile Suit Breakdown is written, recorded, and produced within…
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11.21: The Death Army Strikes Back
Show Notes This week on MSB, could this feeling I'm feeling be the feeling... of friendship? As their support crews head to Neo Hong Kong for the Gundam Fight finals, the boys of the shuffle alliance hang around a…
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11.20: His Man Raymond
Show Notes This week on MSB, in an episode thick with subtext, Domon is the belle of the ball and everyone wants to be on his dance card, George realizes that it's hard to find good help these days, and Raymond faces…
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11.19: Dragons in the Mist
Show Notes This week on MSB, Domon takes a seat on the sidelines while Argo and Sai Saici answer the eternal question: can big guys and little guys be friends? Meanwhile, Schwarz Bruder takes a weird approach to…
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Yugoslav Interlude 6: The Adriatic Question
Show Notes On this week's Yugoslav History Interlude, they say that if you want to understand any political event in Europe you have to start with the Romans... and that may well be true for the split between Tito and…
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11.18: Cowardly Tiger, Headstrong Dragon
Show Notes This week on MSB, Rain's bored out of her mind, Domon still can't beat a tree, and Chibodee's struggling to cope with the trauma of DG Cell infection. Meanwhile his team gets back to their roots by…
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11.17: The Fist and the Furious: Tokyo Adrift
Show Notes This week on MSB: Domon takes our Gundam Boy Evaluation Test and scores off the charts in one metric, Schwarz Bruder remembers the old ways, the Death Army displays unexpected potential, Master Asia finds…
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11.16: The Invisible Fighter
Show Notes This week on MSB, can Shinjuku survive yet another climactic showdown? Could Domon have ended things right here if hejust had the right attitude? Who is behind the (goofy) mask of Neo German Gundam Fighter…
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Yugoslav Interlude 5: The Music Stops
Show Notes In the Interlude this week, does Yugoslavia still matter? Does it still matter for Gundam in 1994? Plus, back in Yugoslavia: Stalin pulls a top ten anime betrayal (which might even be a Top Ten Stalin…
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11.15: A History of Anti-Violence
Show Notes This week on MSB, G Gundam sets an unprecedented pace that would put the Shrikes to shame, Nina raises some interesting questions about the timeline, Thom dishes of scientific facts, and Domon takes a leap…
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11.14: The Darkness Rises
Show Notes This week on MSB: your hosts are shocked, dismayed, horrified by a sudden and entirely unexpected betrayal, a beloved Victory Gundam character makes a cameo, Rain reminds us that she's always got the right…
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11.13: Big Gundams in Little Shinjuku
Read transcript Show Notes This week on MSB, Domon walks into the most obvious trap in history and suffers a series of betrayals that will leave you shocked to your core... or they might have if the opening narration…
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Yugoslav Interlude 4: What Rough Beast Slouches Toward the Ballot Box to be Elected?
Show Notes This week on MSB: monarchs hate him! This former locksmith has ten weird tricks to win a crushing landslide election. Number five will amaze you! The fourth of our Yugoslav Interlude episodes sees the…
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11.12: Night of the Living Death Army
Show Notes This week on MSB, Tokyo is threatened by a menace from the sea! No, not Godzilla. No, not the lost undersea Empire of Mu or a stolen high tech submarine. And no, it's not angels either. It's cyber zombie…
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11.11: Rain's Man
Show Notes This week on MSB, falling rain is like the tears of the gods, bringing blessings to the thirsty earth... but no amount of water can wash away the pain of the past. When a fallen umbrella brings about an…
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11.10: The Mummy Gundam Returns
Show Notes This week on MSB, a specter is haunting Neo Egypt: the specter of com-mummy-nism! Hang on, that doesn't sound right... As the specter of Dahal Muhammad hunts Sai Saichi and memories of the Devil Gundam…
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Yugoslav Interlude 3: the Questionable Croatians
Show Notes This week on MSB: the third of our dedicated Yugoslavia episodes! In this installment, we look at two Croatian members of Peter II's royal government, Vladko Maček and Ivan Šubašić, who spent their careers…
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11.9: London Falling
Show Notes This week on MSB, Gundam Fighters never die they just fade away (in the arms of a beautiful woman). A new Ramba Ral shows Domon the fate of a Fighter (or maybe he's a new Duker Iq trying to revive the lost…
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11.8: Bon Gundam, Bad Gundam
Show Notes This week on MSB, we're celebrating 8 episode of G Gundam with a romantic trip to Niagara Falls followed by an extended stay in a cozy log cabin in the Rockies. I just hope we don't run into any scary…
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11.7: Once Upon a Fight in Neo Mexico
Show Notes With apologies for the delay, this week's episode takes us (back) to Mexico for a spy-thriller as Secret Agent Bunny and Team Chibodee pursue a missing Gundam Fighter and his dying sister. Also Domon is…
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MSB Listen-Along Track + Review of 4'33"
Show Notes Note: for copyright reasons this episode does not include any audio of 4'33", composed by John Cage - you will need to find your own version to listen alongside this track. Start both at the same time in…
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Yugoslav Interlude Part 2: Exile and Grief
Show Notes This week on MSB: the second of our dedicated Yugoslavia episodes! In this installment, we return to London to meet the gang of "discredited and out of date politicians" who made up King Peter II's…
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11.6: The Devil that Fell to Earth
Show Notes This week on MSB we're covering G Gundam episode 6 as the show finally sees fit to dump a big vat of mouthwatering main plot stew all over us. What deep emotional currents run beneath the seemingly placid…
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11.5: To Russia with Fight
Show Notes This week on MSB we cover G Gundam Episode 5 and a shocking revelation about how Rain got her position on Team Neo Japan, the cunningly-disguised real inspiration for Argo's prison, Foucault's Gundam Fight,…
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11.4: A Gundam Fighter in Paris
Show Notes This week on MSB, we're covering G Gundam episode 4 which means talking about [BLEEP]ed up Eiffel Towers, easy-listening pop, the Special Period in Cuba, what it takes to be a successful investment banker,…
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MSB's Yugoslav Interlude Part 1: Houses of the King
Show Notes This week we take a break from our regular coverage of G Gundam to return to a research topic that will remain salient throughout the 90s Gundam era: the violent breakup of Yugoslavia and the history that…
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11.3: Kung Fu Hassle!
Show Notes This week on MSB, we're visiting the ferocious world of wuxia action as Domon and a mysterious wandering chef follow the wreckage-strewn path of Neo China's Dragon Gundam and the Gundam Fighter Sai Saici.…
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11.2: Battles Over Broadway!
Show Notes This week on MSB: prog rock, MTV VJs (that's Video DJ for any youngsters in the audience), a science fiction double feature, something even more evil than Ticketmaster, the greatest and only city in the…
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11.1: Combat, Neo-Italian Style!
Read transcript Show Notes This week we're lacing our podcasting gloves up and jumping back into the arena for a brutal and bruising battle, with the fate of the Earth and the colonies hanging in the balance. Rather…
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The Bikes of the Middle Ages (History of Motocross) Part 2
Show Notes It's a short episode this week as Nina wraps up her research on the history of motocross, bringing us forward to the Xtreme sports era of the 1990s, offering our theory on why it took Japan so long to…
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Season 11 Announcement and 10+3: The Bikes of the Middle Ages
Show Notes This week on Mobile Suit Breakdown, an important update about what's coming next for the podcast, plus Nina finally gets to sate her curiosity (and yours) about the origins of motocross, and the state of…
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S10+2: The Environment Problem ft. Colin
Show Notes This week on MSB, environmentalism consultant Colin returns to the program to discuss the role of the environment across the whole grand sweep of Tomino Gundam to this point. Is Tomino actually an…
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S10+1: The Diapers of Victory
Show Notes This week in the first of our Season 10 extra research episodes, Nina explores the long history of diapers around the world and in Japan to better understand the subtext and significance of Karlmann's cloth…
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September 2025 Status Update
Show Notes A quick update on our work behind the scenes as we prepare for Season 11. Mobile Suit Breakdown is written, recorded, and produced within Lenapehoking, the ancestral and unceded homeland of the Lenape, or…
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10.52C K A S A R E L I A
Show Notes Thank you all for your patience and your kind words of sympathy. We're ready to talk about Gundam once again, and this week a question from a listener prompts us to look back at the whole Tomino Era of…
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10.52B - Kasarelia?
Show Notes This week we answer most of the outstanding listener questions, ranging from Haro to Hilda Bidan, missed opportunities, Family Guy, Tomino's improvisational writing style, and more! Please listen to it!…
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10.52: Kasarelia!
Show Notes Part one?? That's right, on this week's episode of MSB we start to answer your many thought-provoking questions about Victory Gundam. From the show's position on the role of women in society to its music to…
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10.51: Victory
Show Notes This week on MSB: Victory Gundam episode 51. After a wild road-to-air-to-space trip that took us from Kasarelia all the way to Kasarelia, we've reached the final stop and we're ready to type up our…
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10.50: They Sing the Songs that Remind Them of the Good Times
Show Notes This week, Victory Gundam's penultimate 50th episode! This one has it all: Tragedy! Heroism! Gender! There are shocking twists, heel turns, face turns! And the true audience surrogate is revealed at last!…
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10.49: In Hoc Signo Vinces
Show Notes This week: Victory Episode 49! Nothing says Epic Space War like bikinis! Plus we ask the important questions, like is Haro a misogynist? What does Katejina keep in the trunk of her mobile suit? Is Uso…
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10.48: Cleansing Fire
Show Notes This week on MSB: Victory episode 48, plus... Maria makes things right by making everything worse, Warren gives Elisha exactly the kind of pep talk we'd expect from a thirteen year old boy, Thom is forced…
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10.47: Two Lives in One
Show Notes This week on MSB: we're covering Victory episode 47. The Gender of it all is overwhelming, Cronicle underwhelms in truly impressive fashion, Maria has a funny idea of compassion, and Marbet discovers a cool…
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Wheels on Wheels within Wheels
Show Notes This week on MSB, we're joined by new consultant, and Bible scholar in training, Vivian 'Wheels' Wheeler to talk about the Ophanim, the famous 'wheels within wheels' from the Book of Ezekiel. You can also…
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