Amuro Ray
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Amuro Ray (アムロ・レイ) is a fictional character from the anime series Mobile Suit Gundam and its sequels, Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam and Char's Counterattack, voiced by Tōru Furuya (Japanese), Brad Swaile (English dub of original series and Char's Counterattack), Dylan Tully (English dub of Movies I-III) and Matthew Erickson (English dub of Zeta Gundam). He is widely considered to be the greatest pilot in Gundam history and the benchmark of all Gundam pilots that came after him.
Amuro Ray is the hero of the anime series Mobile Suit Gundam. He is the son of Tem Ray, the project leader for the Earth Federation's 'Project V', which produces the prototype Federation mobile suits Gundam, Guncannon, and Guntank to combat the Principality of Zeon's own mobile weapon, the Zaku. At the beginning of the Mobile Suit Gundam TV series, Amuro is 15 years old and a civilian, along with his friends Fraw Bow and Hayato Kobayashi, and living in Side 7, one of the few space colonies untouched by the fearsome One Year War. Amuro is a talented engineer who as a hobby designed the basketball-sized talking robot Haro, which has become the mascot of Gundam. Amuro Ray ends up piloting the Gundam when, during a Zeonic operation to spy on Side 7 on the transfer of the RX-78-2 Gundam (designed by Amuro's father Tem Ray) to the White Base and evacuation of the colony, he comes across the 'V' Project manual and the Gundam lying on a trailer. In order to defend the colony, he boards the Gundam and, using his inituition and reading the manual, manages to start up the Gundam and defeat two Zaku mobile suits piloted by two Zeon ace pilots. Due to his lack of experience Amuro, also caused Side 7 to become unstable and come close to destruction.
Shortly after that, he quickly gains the animosity of Commander Char Aznable, one of the top aces in the Zeon military. Char and Amuro face off many times during the course of the One Year War, but it is not until Lalah Sune is killed during one of their battles that this rivalry turns into a fierce hatred of one another. Each blaming the other for her death, their intense rivalry continues until it reaches its climax in Char's Counterattack, though other events put this rivalry on hold for many years.
Amuro is the first known Newtype pilot in the Earth Federation ranks and is arguably the most famous of them all, due the his piloting of the RX-78-2 Gundam and the televising of one of his battles in Side 6, where he shoots down 9 Rick Doms in a matter of minutes.
Despite being one of the most famous heroes of the One Year War, Amuro is effectively placed under house arrest shortly after the war due to the government's mistrust of Newtypes. While he lives in a luxurious mansion (possibly paid for by licensing his Haro design as a mass-produced toy) and is officially free to come and go as he pleases, Amuro's house servants are actually government agents charged with keeping track of his movements. During the Gryps conflict, Fraw Bow convinces Amuro to rejoin the military. Amuro escapes from his government handlers and joins the AEUG ally Karaba, leading several attacks on Titan's bases on Earth. It is not until after the events of Zeta Gundam that he rejoins the Earth Federation's ranks (now merged with the AEUG) and rises to Lt. Commander by the beginning of Char's Counterattack. During the Second Neo Zeon War he is assigned to the battleship Ra Cailum, the flagship of the Federation's Londo Bell taskforce. Amuro initially pilots the RGZ-91 Re-GZ, but Anaheim Electronics soon delivers to him the RX-93 Nu Gundam, a highly advanced mobile suit largely designed by Amuro himself. It is widely believed that his relatively low status in the Federation is a sign of the government's continued mistrust in his loyalties. At the end of the Second Neo Zeon War, Amuro Ray attempted to singlehandedly use his Gundam to stop the asteroid Axis from colliding with the earth. Although he succeeded, both he and Char overloaded their psychoframes as he and his mobile suit burned up in the Earths atmosphere, thus ending his long-time legacy of combat since the One Year War and concluding the Mobile Suit Gundam series at last.
Although Amuro isn't as timeless and celebrated a character as his rival Char, he is just as well known and is synonimous with Gundam as a whole in many ways. Amuro's exploits between the One Year War and the Gryps conflict are largely a mystery, as are his general exploits during the Gryps conflict and first Neo-Zeon war while going on many missions for the Karaba behind the scenes of Zeta Gundam and Gundam Double Zeta. His exploits during these times, similarly to Char's unknown exploits, are enthusiastically explored by fans and artists alike. The 2001 CGI short, Green Divers, shows that Amuro fought in his own Zeta Gundam, painted in pure white with patches of bluish purple (arguably his signature custom colors akin to Char's red and black) during the later stages of the Gryps conflict and presumably during the first Neo-Zeon war. Amuro also supposedly piloted an MSZ-006A1, the prototype in the Z-Plus series of Mobile Suits, but this was supposedly a marketing scheme by Anaheim Electronics to push sales of the MS line. Amuro piloting his own Zeta Gundam helps prove this, although one never knows. This is an example of Amuro's very strong presense in the Gundam mythos, as equally present an entity as his rival Char.
Notes: During the One Year War, Amuro holds the rank of Ensign; when he joins the AEUG six years later he is a Lieutenant Commander (this has been retconned by Bandai to Captain in the G Generation games), and during the second Neo Zeon conflict in UC 0093 he is a Captain.
Personal data
Age: 15 (Mobile Suit Gundam); 23 (Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam); 29 (Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack)
DOB: November 4, Universal Century 0063
Rank: Ensign (Mobile Suit Gundam); Lieutenant (Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam)
Family: Tem Ray (father); Kamaria Ray (mother)
Height: 168 cm (Mobile Suit Gundam),176 cm (Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam),180 cm (Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack)
Mobile Suits: RX-78-2 Gundam, RX-75-4 Guntank, RX-77-2 Guncannon, RMS-099 Rick Dias, MSK-008 Dijeh, MSZ-006-3 Zeta Gundam Amuro Custom RGZ-91 Re-GZ, RX-93 Nu Gundamja:アムロ・レイ
ko:아무로 레이
zh:阿姆羅·雷