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Haruhiko Mikimoto really puts a differentish spin on gundam in Ecole du Ciel.
He did a lot of work on character design in a number of series, including pretty much every Macross animated production out there, and green divers, among other works.

Anyways, the manga itself is about an EF MS academy in canadia(hence the french title), where a former Zeon NT research subject is enrolled as a student.

It's really hard to say more without giving major spoilers.

http://www.mahq.net/mecha/gundam/ecoleduciel/
Take a gander at some of the mecha designs though, the headless, robustified GM trainer is somewhat interesting.

I really think it's worth a look, if my opinion is worth anything.

Ecole du Ciel is pretty good and Lost War Chronicles seems pretti good.

... Mobile Suit Gundam Hathaway's Flash is a novel trilogy only, if I remember correctly, not a manga.



Mobile Suit Gundam Lost War Chronicles follows the adventures of a team of Earth Federation test pilots and a Mobile Suit team in the Principality of Zeon's Foreign Legion. It's not bad, though it is rather rushed.

Mobile Suit Gundam Ecole du Ciel begins in Universal Century 0085, at a pilot academy near Montreal, Canada. The story follows a fifteen year old girl named Asuna Elmarit from Side 3 as she reluctantly trains to become a Mobile Suit pilot. However, we soon learn that there is more to Asuna and this school than meets the eye, as we get caught in a web of deceit, lies, politics, radicalism, and personal ambition. It's simply amazing (I'd love nothing more than for it to be animated), and I highly suggest that everyone pick up the three volumes that are available here in North America as soon as possible.*

* And yes, I'm not happy that they were put out by TOKYOPOP--and their original translator did do a pretty scruffy job on the first two volumes (though the third is much better)--but I'd rather see you pick it up than miss out. wink

I have two volumes of Ecole Du Ciel. They claim it's good for anyone lacking Gundam knowledge, but they kinda lie. They go into talk about NewTypes, Flanagan and suchlike with no real explanation. You DO need prior knowledge of UC for the books to be understandable...

mm, I might pick up Eco in Japanese, for the art work...
but right now, I don't want to commit to another manga series...
I might go read it at a manga cafe in Japan...
(which honestly, America should have...)