We start out with a little exposition - it's 197 years after the first space colonies were established, and the Earth Federation is in one of its ascendant cycles, cheerfully bringing all those wayward, independant minded spacers under Earth control. This is the theme in pretty much every other Gundam series I've seen, so it's not too surprising. Those colonies which still maintain their independance have decided to take the fight to Earth (being as it's rather silly to fight in a place where even a miss is likely to blow up something vital) by sending five of their best pilots and mecha to engage in a campaign of terrorism.
(And these are the good guys.)
Cut to a civilian shuttle in orbit, where our female character for this series is peering out of a window in between banter with her father, an important Federation diplomat. Sure enough, she sees one of these things in re-entry in the distance. "Oh," her father remarks, "Operation M." Oh, yeah, way to engage in secret operations, guys.
The Federation have also noticed this and radio to one of their ships to go check it out. The ship is commanded by a surly guy named Zechs, who has the stupidest hat I've ever seen[1]. He decides to go whup up on these things alone, despite the fact that he can only get to one of them. Um. Yeah. He also doesn't tell the Federation that those things they asked him to check out are clearly enemy giant robots on a secret operation.
Meanwhile, our hero (who, just in case we weren't sure, is named Heero) is coming in behind the shuttle, and is annoyed that it's in his way. He gets ready to vaporize these hapless civilians, when he notices Zechs' ship and gets even more annoyed. They all get a little further into the atmosphere and Zechs decides to go out and kick some ass.
"We'll use the machine gun, sir," one of the crew remarks helpfully. "No!" Zechs orders, "Just shoot him down!" Yes. They shoot at Heero with the machine gun. It doesn't work.
Some banter between Zechs and his crew over which of the giant robots in the ship's fighter bay he should use ensues, possibly to ensure that the audience goes out and buys lots of toys. Zechs gets into his suit, launches, and promptly has to dodge like a maniac, as Heero has used this banter break to get right up close.
Zechs gets irritated and shoots at Heero a bit. Meanwhile, two people in Disposable Gundams launch from Zechs ship, and are promptly obliterated by Heero. Heero's mecha transforms. Zechs comments a bit about how powerful Heero's Gundam is. We call it a Gundam because it's made of Gundanium[2]. Umm... yeah. Okay. Zechs gets annoyed again and tackles the Gundam with his own giant robot, then ejects, letting the two machines plummet to the ocean below. "He could never have survived that," Zechs insists.
Meanwhile, the Federation diplomat and daughter land, and he's promptly hustled off to a waiting military transport to go off and do important things. His daughter surls a bit, as he's clearly not going to be able to make it to her birthday party, which is soon. She wanders off, and discovers Heero washed up on the beach. How he got out of the Gundam, we don't know. "Egads," she says, "I must go get help!"
Meanwhile, Zechs reports to his superior, who then goes to report to his Federation allies. It turns out Zechs works for OZ[3], a secret society that plans to take over from the Federation because frankly, the Federation have all the intelligence of rotten peaches. The Feds surl at Zechs' superior about the fact that, hey, if he'd said something, maybe they could have shot down more Gundams instead of just one. He fobs them off.
The girl wakes Heero up and gets his helmet off. He loses it, tries to hide his face (you know, it's a secret mission. Um, really.) and when he sees the ambulance she helpfully called pull up, he tries to detonate some kind of suicide device on his space suit. Of course, being a bad-ass, it doesn't kill him, it just knocks him down. Extremely irritated, he gets up and punches his way through the medical personnel (yeah, that's the last time they come to save you, you sociopath, you) and steals the ambulance. The girl gapes at all this, awe-struck. This little sociopath has apparently gotten her motor running, however, as she stares at the departing ambulance in a contemplative way. "My name's Relina," she comments, to the departing angst-boy, "What's yours?" It's sad that her tone isn't at all sardonic, as he's way the hell out of hearing range.
Meanwhile, Heero's four companions whup some ass and introduce themselves for the viewer. Due to weird cutting and editing, it's not entirely clear wether they rendezvous with reinforcements or just blow up everything in sight. I've also forgotten their names. Oh well. Lots of people getting blown up.
Now we see Relina's school, where her friends are all cheerfully bantering about the fact that she's really rich, and they all hope they'll get invited to her party. Everyone goes to class. The teacher (oh no! it's a nun! my god, they're in CATHOLIC SCHOOL! Nnnnooooo!) comes in with a new student... yes, it's Heero! Heero gets the seat next to Relina. Later, Relina corners everyone's favorite sociopath (Heero) and invites him to her party. Heero looks at her like she's out of her mind, and walks past her, saying, "I will destroy you." Apparently because she's seen his face and connected him with the Gundam, or so he thinks. Although, if it's a secret mission, what the hell is he doing signed up for school with his real name?
Just in case that didn't quite click, the original Japanese line is, "I will kill you."
Heero isn't very heroic, I don't think.
Footnotes:
[1] - In previous Gundam shows, there were villains called the Jions, who
were trying to win independance for the space colonies. They probably
would have been heroes if they weren't sort of neo-nazis. Zechs' hat
resembles the weird Jion hats that showed up now and then. Or something.
[2] - No, I don't know what they were smoking when they came up with
Gundanium, either. This is the first time I've heard it.
[3] - OZ? OZ? I don't know what this means, except that at some
point, it's almost certain that someone will drop something on Australia from
orbit.
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