Mobile Suit Gundam: The Strongest (And Strangest) Newtypes

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In Zeta Gundam it is revealed for the first time that scientists can mimic Newtype abilities (albeit with some nasty side effects). Four is the fourth person to undergo the experiment. Her abilities are groomed for combat use, helping her to sync with the powerful Psyco Gundam.

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Dressed in a billowing poncho that evokes Lalah's flowing gown, Four gives off visual signifiers of clairvoyant abilities before they are even revealed. However, her soft appearance belies her thorny personality. Victimized by painful experiments to bring forth her abilities, Four puts up walls between herself and even people who just want to get to know her, like Kamille.

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Two teens in the same place with similar abilities, it's no wonder Four and Kamille fall in love, or at least the Tomino version of what passes for love in the depressing Zeta Gundam. This budding relationship is portrayed as a natural, positive development in contrast to Four's ever-enhancing powers, which are shown as artificial and therefore negative—but both have an equally strong pull on Four. While Four is meant to show that artificial Newtype creation doesn't work out for anybody, her arc's unintended message is that the damage they can cause is just as great as anything a born Newtype can do.

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Fast forward twenty years, Gundam Unicorn is about how even decades after the One Year War (shown in Mobile Suit Gundam and referenced in Zeta Gundam), the Earth and colonies’ governing bodies still have no clue what to do about natural and artificial Newtypes. Here is a growing number of people with abilities that help them to outclass regular people by default, and nobody's sure how to integrate them into normal society—or whether they even want to. This is the stage on which natural-born Newtype Banagher Links is born.

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Although he's a child of peacetime, Banagher's abilities taught him about violence from a young age. As a kid, he was subject to experiments designed to enhance his Newtype abilities, vague, half-remembered experiences that have me assuming the worst, like what Four went through. Banagher seems pretty well adjusted after that, or at least a fairly pliant vessel for goals and dreams of viewers (and for that matter, the adults around him). Because there's a lot of audience gratification in Banagher's neutrality. The typical Gundam plot of “seemingly ordinary boy gets handed the keys to the cockpit” is cranked up to eleven here when the Gundam is one of the flashiest, most powerful, and physically largest main suits ever seen in the Universal Timeline, while Banagher is strong enough from Day One to best other Newtypes.

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From augmented cyber Newtype Marida Cruz to veteran warrior Full Frontal, Banagher finds himself besting the strongest pilots in the world in a very short amount of time. His personality may be a thin veneer for wish fulfillment, but there's no denying how powerful he is. Since Banagher's abilities are exploited for combat rather than clairvoyance (at which he is also adept), he's a microcosm for the Newtype governance struggle at the center of the show. In wartime, Banagher is useful to Oldtypes, while in peacetime, he's more than a little bit dangerous—and it's going to take a new level of mutual understanding to resolve that.

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Judau Ashta is the poster boy for this statement. As skirmishes continue after the events of Zeta Gundam, Judau is only interested in ways that war can profit him personally. He and his friends cut class to steal mechs—sometimes still in use—and they're hardly more likeable than the Scooby Doo villains they defeat. Unfortunately, Judau is a boy on whom brilliant Newtype powers are wasted.