The is a fictional manned robot (mecha), introduced in 1979 in Yoshiyuki Tomino's and Sunrise's anime series Mobile Suit Gundam. In the series, it is a prototype weapon for the Earth Federation when it falls into the hands of Amuro Ray, the son of its designer in story (Tem Ray), who goes on to pilot it in the Earth Federation's war against the Principality of Zeon. As the success of the series began the Gundam franchise, the robot's design was the first of many variations in subsequent works. The design appearing in Mobile Suit Gundam serves as the iconic symbol of the Gundam franchise and sparked the creation of its multiple sequels and spinoffs. Character design The RX-78's initial concept was that of a powered armor, the primary design for Yoshiyuki Tomino's proposed series Freedom Fighter Gunboy. The series later changed its name to Mobile Suit Gundam and Kunio Okawara was given Tomino's concept to shape into a finalized design for the anime. Okawara created multiple designs before settling on the current, samurai-styled design for the anime in 1979. Enemies in the series keep referring to the RX-78-2 as the white suit or the White Devil (due to the suit's formidable battle performance) while it is a mix of blue, red, and white. Tomino's response in the novel version of Gundam is that the original design was to be a grayscale machine, made up of mostly white and light gray colouring. However, Sunrise disapproved of the colouring and insisted the unit to be painted in brighter colours to attract attention, like other super robot anime at that time. The "original" Gundam, the RX-78-2 design was to be the second unit in a line of eight prototype high-performance assault-type mobile suits. The preceding Gundam model RX-78-1 and the subsequent model RX-78-3 were designed by Okawara between 1980 and 1983 for Gundam Century and Mobile Suit Variations and the latter appeared in the novel version as the G-3 Gundam after the original Unit 2 was destroyed in battle. The fourth to seventh Gundam is designed by Okawara in 1989 for Kunio Okawara collection, also known as M-MSV(Missing Mobile Suit Variation). Other mechanical designers later added further design variations; including Yutaka Izubuchi's RX-78NT-1, designed in 1989 for the OVA series Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket, and Shoji Kawamori's and Hajime Katoki's Gundam Development Project designs in 1992 for Gundam 0083.