While female characters and female pilots have always been important in the Mobile Suit Gundam series, 2022’s The Witch from Mercury was the first mainline animated series in the franchise to feature a female primary protagonist. In 2025, Studio Khara’s new Gundam GquuuuuuX continues the trend with a story revolving around schoolgirl protagonist Amate Yuzuriha.
When it comes to Gundam, there’s obviously a plethora of topics more worthy of discussion than the gender of the main character, but with the franchise’s history as a shonen series featuring male protagonists, the recent trend of telling the story through a girl’s perspective has been met with some resistance. Japanese outlet MagMix reports that domestic message boards have been full of discourse on the topic, with some fans arguing that the casting of female pilots as MCs is “pandering” that brings down the realism of the series.
Since “female pilots are unrealistic because men generally make stronger soldiers” is an often-cited point among naysayers, MagMix decided to invite Japanese aviation and military journalist Kentaro Seki and ask him if the argument holds any truth in real-world terms.
Seki starts out by clarifying that fighter pilots (the closest thing to a real-world equivalent of Gundam pilots) should not be equated to ordinary soldiers in the first place, as they are in most cases officers or higher ranked members of the military. He comments that while it is true that fighter pilots are overwhelmingly male in the real world, there are factors to consider. For example, Japan’s Air Defense Force (JASDF) only started allowing women to work as fighter pilots in 2015, which is very recent. In addition, the total number of female applicants is extremely low to begin with, Seki explains.
When it comes to physical characteristics, he notes that height can be a factor preventing some women from becoming pilots, as the JASDF sets a 158cm (5 foot 2) minimum height requirement. However, he explains that there is no significant difference between men and women when it comes to specific aptitudes required of a pilot, such as resistance to G-forces, reaction speed and spatial awareness. He does on to cite examples of female pilots in history that have demonstrated outstanding performance as fighter pilots, such as the Soviet Union’s Lidia Litvyak, who recorded 12 kills on the battlefield.
Seki also cites the example of astronauts, a profession in which it is no longer uncommon to see women. “Astronauts undergo advanced training and are forced to work in harsh environments, but women have been showing the same aptitudes as men. Considering this, I would not find it strange at all for a Mobile Suit pilot to be female.”
He emphasizes that neither female fighter pilots nor astronauts are, as many people mistakenly assume, hired “to satisfy a quota,” but rather because they are recognized for having the necessary abilities through equal competition regardless of gender. “The debate over whether women can be successful as fighter pilots is already a thing of the past,” Seki concludes.
