So it occurred to me that if I put the Gundam's V-fin on the side of the head, it would look like the feathers in a traditional German hat. Then it was only a matter of putting on some lederhosen and thus was born the Oktoberfest Gundam. I played up the whole caricature of Germans associated with beer drinking in the autumn. I even made weapons of beer steins. Flipping the lid of the stein activated a beam blade.

It was silly and entirely in the vein of G-Gundam but I started to have pangs of guilt for stereotyping. Seriously, it is often brought up that G-Gundam is insensitive in it's portrayal of other countries and I wanted my design to avoid that criticism. I really liked the way the design was coming along though, so I thought that maybe toning down the silliness and associating it with something other than beer drinking debaucery would work. So it was on the mountains of Austria for the new Alpen Gundam.

(continue)