9 Horror Movie References You Never Noticed In Anime

Zeta was the first sequel to Mobile Suit Gundam, taking place eight years after the original series. A controversial series due to its bleak atmosphere and meandering plot, and in fact the original creator of Gundam, Tomino Yoshiyuki, is not a fan of how the series turned out. It was, nevertheless, the series that caused Gundam to really pick up and become the megalith franchise it is today.

The prequel series to Gundam Zeta – Advance of Zeta takes place shortly before the series picks up from the viewpoint of several Titans test pilots – the Titans being the villains of Zeta. The whole Zeta series is filled with references to western media, as is much of the Gundam universe, including franchise regular Char Aznable using a humorous alias.

In Zeta he goes by Quattro Bajeena – literally Quarter Vagina – in a purposefully ham-fisted reference to James Bond's Octupussy.

A less easy to spot reference would be that many of the Titan test suits appearing in Advance of Zeta are named after characters from the rabbit thriller Watership Down: The Gaplant TR-5 Fiver, Gundam TR-1 Hazel, RX-107 TR 4 Dandelion, and NRX-044 TR-3 Kehaar being just a few examples.

So if you ever picked up Advance of Zeta and thought Hyzenthlay's a weird name for a bipedal space warsuit, now you know that it was named after a rabbit's love interest in a cartoon survival thriller that many kids who watched it in the late seventies would absolutely call a horror film.