A few years ago now, I wrote a feature on the parallels between the first 5 seasons of The Expanse’s TV series and the Gundam franchise. There are so many trivial points in common I thought it had to be intentional, despite James S A Corey insisting they were not aware of Gundam. I’ve nearly finished the novels now, and I believe them.
Spoilers for Tiamat’s Wrath
The 8th book is about a resistance against an empire’s reconquest of Earth. This resistance is primarily made of people past retirement age. They have a recruitment problem where young adults don’t have experience in resistance, and the youth don’t know other ways of life are possible. This is the League Militaire!
Mobile Suit Victory Gundam is, famously, the one nobody watches. And they recreated it exactly. Anyone deep enough in to be doing Victory Gundam tributes would be claiming it for cred. So this one has to be a coincidence. Therefore, all the other ones look more like coincidence.
Except the show-original stuff like talking about souls weighed down by gravity while on board the MCRN Sirocco. I’ve still got that one.
