Sunrise Releases Gundam 50th Anniversary Prologue Short A Boy With Gundam
Bandai Namco and Sunrise released a nearly six-minute animated short on Thursday as the opening piece of the Gundam 50th Anniversary Project. The video, titled A Boy with Gundam, debuted during the Conference Spring 2026 presentation and is available on the official English and Japanese Gundam channels. It is set in the real world and follows a grandfather who, while visiting a life-size moving Gundam statue with his family, recalls how the original Mobile Suit Gundam shaped his life from childhood onward. Amuro Ray and other pilots appear in flashback sequences, and the short closes with a montage of franchise references. The song Kinjito by the group PEOPLE 1 plays over the footage, and the English upload carries subtitles for the lyrics. Tsukuro Hayakawa directed, storyboarded, and handled CG direction. Shinya Watada served as unit director. Juri Toida designed the animation characters, and Bandai Namco Studios' Yasuto Morioka provided the original character designs. The actual 50th anniversary arrives in 2029, and Bandai Namco is assembling a slate of projects under the Road to 50 banner ahead of that date.