Tomino made this one for people who wanted to understand how a Gundam world actually works, not just watch it burn. The mechanical design philosophy is so specific, every Mobile Suit exists to solve a real problem in this particular conflict, that you're constantly reverse-engineering the politics from the hardware. By the time you realize the story is about institutional power masked as spiritual authority, the show has already committed you to caring about a kid caught between two sides that both think they're protecting humanity from the same invisible threat.

In Regild Century 1014, a millennium after the Universal Century ended, the Capital Tower is an orbital elevator that links Earth to space. It delivers Photon Batteries to power the surface and is revered almost as a holy site. Bellri Zenam is a cadet in the Capital Guard, the force that defends the tower, when an unaffiliated mobile suit called the G-Self strikes it with technology no known nation built. Piloting a Recten maintenance suit, Bellri captures the G-Self, and its pilot turns out to be a young space pirate girl named Aida. Both she and the machine stir something in him, even though he believes he has never seen the G-Self before. The G-Self should only run under specific conditions, yet Bellri manages to start it. Aida's reasons for attacking the tower and Bellri's fate as the G-Self's chosen pilot point toward truths that could shake the whole era. He goes on to join the crew of the Amerian ship Megafauna and fights the Capital Guard alongside Aida in this action mecha science fiction series.