What is Hi-Streamer (or High-Streamer, as it was later republished as), exactly?

Formally known as Mobile Suit Gundam: Hi-Streamer, it’s a three volume novel written by Yoshiyuki Tomino that was originally serialized in Animage magazine from May 1987 to April 1988. One of the major misconceptions the fandom seems to have surrounding this novel, for whatever reason, is that the Char’s Counterattack film is based on the trilogy.

As most have known for a while, it’s well documented that Beltorchika’s Children is, at least in the form we got in the novel, one version of the original idea that Tomino had for the film project. Let’s dive in.

First, we’ll need to cover some early production talk on the film, which helps prove that the novel isn’t the foundation for the film.

In some of the early proposals for the film (dated prior to December 1986), the story centered around Amuro stealing the Hi-S Gundam created by Char. At this planning stage, there were also several divergent plot points, such as Luna II slated to be dropped on Earth instead of Axis. At this point, Beltorchika was planned as Amuro’s partner, along with the fact that she was also pregnant with his child, though the planned ending is said to be different (what it was, we do not know). As Tomino began his preliminary storyboarding (December 6, 1986), he’d sketched out the 5th Luna battle between Quess (piloting the Hi-S Gundam) and Amuro in the Re-GZ. Yes, you read that right. Quess, not Gyunei. It’s crucial to note here that character roles were quite different in this, but the overall dramatic progression of that battle remained relatively similar to the final version.

When the project proposal was revamped again, a newer proposal moved ever-“closer” to the film’s final version, though it would still be different in some regards. Beltorchika still held on, though instead of psycho-frame technology leaking to Amuro, Char outright arranged for the (now called) “S Gundam” to fall into Amuro’s hands. For reference, a quick glance at setting material for the time indicates that Beltorchika was still very much in the picture based on her finalized character designs being dated March 13, 1987 before there was a hard pivot and introduction of Chan’s rough sketches on April 3 of that same year. Presumably, this is where the Gundam Film Committee rejected the notion of the titular hero Amuro being a married man, and Tomino had to backtrack and tweak things.

As a quick sidebar here, when Gundam Sentinel was being created, the team was pulling their hair out because of the supposed “Hi-S” Gundam name and very few details on the film project itself (likely because everything was still just as up in the air). As Asano noted, they, too, were under the assumption that the Hi-S tied into Hi-Streamer. As the project moved from one stage to the next with varying tweaks and redesigns, we’d see wild assortment of names for the lead mecha. Amuro’s suit would go from the Hi-S Gundam to S Gundam to N Gundam (based on Nagano exiting and the design competition starting again). Char’s suit would see a progression from the Nightengale to Zanac before settling on Sazabi. You can still see traces of the name Zanac, and even the old design, in the March 1987 storyboards for the film.

As all of this work is being done behind the scenes, Animage magazine quietly rolls out a novel under the banner of Mobile Suit Gundam: Hi-Streamer in its May 1987 issue. Around this time, there were no indications of a film project on the horizon. That wouldn’t come until a teeny-tiny little blurb in Newtype magazine in June that said:

NEW GUNDAM PLAMODEL COMING FROM BANDAI FOR NEXT YEAR’S MOVIE!

For the new Gundam theatrical film “Hi-S Gundam (tentative title)” scheduled for release next spring, Bandai, one of the investing companies, will release previously unreleased mobile suits under the “New Gundam Series” banner as part of their promotional campaign. The lineup includes the Full Armor ZZ with original designs by Mika Akitaka, which was featured in the April issue of NT. We’re happy to see the NT version getting attention. Release is planned for June-July. Price to be determined.

So here we have the first sort of “confirmation” that a film is coming in Spring ’88. The tentative title they’ve used here is a carryover from Nagano’s doodles that said, “For HiS Gundam the Moving Picture.” While there were still no nuggets of information on what the film was going to be about (though there were supposed whisperings it was a finale between Char and Amuro), you can see how the fandom at large started to shift toward this idea of Hi-Streamer being a potential “prequel” to the movie. But, what they didn’t know (at the time), was that the Hi-S labeling was just a silly little misconception by Tomino. Shinichiro Inoue, then Kadokawa editor, explains in an essay in Gundam Episode Guide 3:

“Initially, Mamoru Nagano, who had stepped down from ZZ, was set to return for this project. His design for Char’s Nightingale (renamed Sazabi in the final theatrical version) was a masterpiece that could have set a new standard for Zeon-type mobile suits. For Amuro, the Hi-S Gundam was developing into a design that would have overturned conventional Gundam aesthetics. Tomino apparently thought Char’s name started with S rather than C, hence Hi-S: meaning to surpass Char.”

Cue jokes about Hi-C and it being Char’s favorite drink of choice.

So, what am I ranting about?

A lot of people assumed (and it doesn’t help that the Wiki erroneously claims this) that because the novel started serialization prior to the film being released, it’s what the film was based on. To further compound this, we were told in 2021 by Producer Ogata and former Kadokawa Editor Inoue that the Animage serialization is considered to more or less be the “official prequel” to the film. But, I should caution that they also note that this was all a result of the fandom and misunderstandings at the time and was not Tomino’s intent.

So, how did that happen?

The novel starts out as one of Tomino’s first attempts (along with Gaia Gear) to, as he says, “distance himself from Gundam.” There were many times when he wanted to create an independent Gundam work that didn’t have to rely on the name, characters, etc., of what he created thus far. Basically, he didn’t want to rely on the brand. That, and it was solely a “business decision” as he so eloquently puts it half the time (though he tends to say this for titles he isn’t happy with). His initial goal was to write a long-spanning narrative free from the corporate shackles (see also doing what he wanted with Char Aznable’s character in Gaia Gear). Animage was happy to host this venture. Now, here is the crucial part: the plan was to eventually incorporate elements of the Char’s Counterattack film before moving beyond it. So, as you can see, the reverse notion is actually true here. Tomino did, more or less, incorporate the film (though astute readers of it will see that not everything is a copy-and-paste fit from the film). Had things been successful, Hathaway’s Flash would have followed. Obviously, though, things changed.

As most know, Hathaway’s Flash would be a follow-up to Beltorchika’s Children, a lightning-fast novel project Tomino fired off for Kadokawa, seeing as they dropped the ball for having a novel tie-in to the CCA film. They had, after all, been collecting Tomino’s various novels under their own banner. As Inoue mentioned in a 2021 interview, he was astounded at the speed at which Tomino returned the completed novel to them, mainly because he said he had an old draft to work with (aka one of the original plans for the film project). As one would expect, this version, along with Hi-Streamer, all dropping before the film release in March ’88 caused all sorts of confusion. Incidentally, as Inoue wanted a follow-up to the novel (since sales were great for them), he pitched the idea of Hathaway being the protagonist. Tomino would give him his trademark “Hm…” response, which meant he already had ideas brewing about that (as evidenced by his desires for Hi-Streamer).

As mentioned earlier, the fandom at the time had been laboring under the false premise that Hi-Streamer was the “source material” for the film, so the possibility of Tomino truly continuing on with the story as he envisioned pretty much went up in smoke. He’d later even joked that it’d take a lot of fan clamoring to save the title (though this didn’t happen, obviously). Now, I had mentioned “confusion” among the fandom at the time. Everything was pretty much labeled with “Char’s Counterattack” in the lead-up to the film’s release. When the compilation volume for the first chunk of Hi-Streamer was released in December 1987, it was simply titled Mobile Suit Gundam: Char’s Counterattack (Part 1). For volumes two and three, “from Hi-Streamer” was added as a byline to the title (signifying its continuation of the previous material). This, more or less, later led to there being two separate brandings of the title based on the publisher. You have Animage Bunko’s format (Mobile Suit Gundam: Char’s Couterattack Part.XX -from Hi-Streamer-) and later Tokuma Shoten’s Mobile Suit Gundam: High-Streamer (a return to the original title, albeit with a new stylized spelling).

So now that all of the pieces are assembled, you can hopefully see that the novel trilogy isn’t the basis for the film at all. While it does share some thematic elements here and there, the overall “film-sourced” section of story differs considerably. When you get down to it, everything is just a rehashed version of the original Beltorchika’s Children plot in some regard (heck, even traces of Beltorchika being Amuro’s former girlfriend are mentioned in the novel proper). If anything, the back half of the novel comes from some version of the film during its planning stages (likely a version before Izubuchi proposed the Alpha Azieru since Quess rides out everything in the novel in her Jagd Doga).

I hope this clarifies matters for everyone on where the novel stands.