Gentle Chapman

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Gentle Chapman is a fictional character from the anime series Mobile Fighter G Gundam. He was one of the more tragic characters, first appearing as an aging hero forced to resort to dirty tricks and later still as a mindless thrall of the Devil Gundam.

[edit] Character history

Gentle Chapman was a renowned Gundam Fighter champion of Neo-England. As Neo-England's Gundam Fighter, he fought in the Gundam Fight, a fighting tournament whose victor's country would become undisputed ruler of Earth for a period of four years. He was famed for winning the 9th, 10th and 11th Gundam Fights, a feat never before accomplished. He was ultimately defeated in the 12th Gundam Fight to eventual victor Master Asia, a superhuman martial artist easily capable of destroying Mobile Suits with his bare hands.

According to George de Sand, Chapman was a personal hero of his, and his sense of sportsmanship and fair play had long been influences for the young French Gundam pilot. Many other Gundam Fighters looked up to him as well, and he was considered the greatest Gundam champion of all time for his unprecedented three Fight victories.

However, by the time of the 13th Gundam Fight, Chapman had changed. His age catching up to him, he was forced to take performance enhancing drugs (the side effects of which eventually led to his death). He was also forced to give up his close combat oriented Gundam and replace it with the John Bull Gundam, a Mobile Suit armed with a powerful sniper rifle. Furthermore, his wife Manon Chapman assisted him during his fights by providing artificial fog and unmanned mobile suits to distract opponents while Chapman himself picked them off at leisure. She thought he had no idea, but in fact knew all along, and admits this to her as he dies.

He seemed to have a liking for Japanese fighter Domon Kasshu, even encouraging him to destroy the head of the John Bull Gundam while he was having his fatal stroke. With this act, he managed to reclaim the slightest bit of honour, showing the brave and honourable Gundam Fighter who'd brought victory to his homeland many times over.

To the shock of Domon and his comrades, the supposedly deceased Chapman would later reappear at the finals. He was quickly revealed as a puppet of the Devil Gundam, but there was no sense of the honourable man left.

He did not speak, only growled, and was in effect little more than a zombie controlled by the Devil Gundam's DG Cells. Chapman was killed when the John Bull Gundam, which had been mutated into the Grand Gundam by the DG Cells, was destroyed by Chibodee Crockett and George de Sand. Chibodee bade the champion goodbye with the line "Good-bye, champ..." before shooting him through the cockpit with one of George's Rose Bits.