Let the tone be set as the official site for Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt has updated to reveal the first key visual for the anime adaptation of the original work. This piece gives us a look at the two lead characters with Io Fleming and Daryl Lorentz alongside the Eath Federation and Zeon mobile suits. The look of it definitely does what it needs to in reaffirming that this is going to be a serious toned UC 0079 series when it hits, which is something that a lot of fans of the older work, such as myself, have been craving.

No production details have been revealed yet.

The book, which began in 2012 in Big Comic Superior from Yasuo Ohtagaki, is a side story for the UC timeline set in 0079. It’s aimed at an older audience with more of a science fiction/military design than the traditional action-oriented materials of the last decade or so.

Plot concept: Federation troops and Zeon forces carry out a fierce battle in the Thunderbolt Sector in what was once Side 4 “Mua”. The Thunderbolt Sector is a shoal zone composed of the debris of destroyed space colonies, named for the electrical discharges from the metal debris. MS pilot Io Flemming is among the Federation soldiers who are dispatched to the area, where Zeon sniper Daryl Lorenz awaits them on the battlefield.