Newtype
In the Gundam series of anime, a "Newtype" denotes a person with enhanced psychic empathy and awareness. Most Newtype abilities can be seen in Mobile Suit pilots, who have unnaturally good hand-eye coordination, a high reaction rate, and can sometimes even sense other people from great distances. Some rarer and stranger powers that manifest in various Newtypes are mass healing, foresight, and telepathic communication.
Newtype is also the name of a monthly Japanese anime magazine, named for the Newtypes of the UC Gundam universe. The magazine(published by Kadokawa Shoten) was first published in Japan in March 1985, and now has an American edition Newtype USA.
Spoiler warning: Plot or ending details follow.
The word "Newtype" first came into being in the Universal Century (UC) timeline of Gundam when Zeon Zum Daikun, the founder of the space colony-based Principality of Zeon, created his philosophy that mankind was destined to leave the Earth for space, where they would evolve into a new stage of evolution called the Newtype.
This philosophy was accepted by many people to the point that it became superstition, and it became a name for those with strange and exceptional abilities. Hence when enhanced psychic potential manifested in certain individuals in the One-Year War, the idea that Newtypes were evolved humans with psychic abilities as a result of the movement to space began to stick. Unenhanced human beings, by opposition, became known by the retronym "Oldtype."
These "Newtypes" began to grow in numbers during and following the One-Year War. However, they became the target of different militaries, who believed that they can be made into living weapons of war. The Psycommu (Psychic Communicator) system was invented, which allowed these Newtypes to control remote weapons known as "bits" and "funnels", and even mobile suits, through thought alone. Experimentations that would expand certain Newtypes' psychic abilities even more, and to bestow Newtype abilities on ordinary people also began. This process was extremely flawed, however. While many of these "artificial Newtypes" do have powerful abilities, they frequently suffer from extreme mental instability.
As time past, the number of new naturally occurring Newtypes appearing remain fairly stable. However, their sole purpose had been transformed from the "future of mankind" to living weapons forced to fight in wars, and artificially created Newtypes began to outnumber them. So by the time of the Second Neo Zeon War (Char's Counterattack), it was doubtful whether these Newtypes are the same as the legendary ones found in Daikun's theory.
The link between Daikun's theory and these empathatic individuals were seemingly severed in the final two Gundam anime in the UC timeline chronologically, Gundam F-91 and Victory Gundam, which take place 30 years and 60 years after Char's Counterattack, respectively. In the amount of time that past, not only did mankind fail to achieve any sort of evolution, the amount of naturally-occuring Newtypes had actually been decreasing steadily. The final word on the matter said in the UC timeline was in the manga, Crossbone Gundam, where the Newtype hero Seabrooke Arno explicit refutes the idea that he is of any higher evolution than any other ordinary human.
Newtypes in After War
The alternate universe series, Gundam X was the only one to delve into Newtypes as a major story element. Like their counterparts in the Universal Century timeline, the Newtypes in the After War timeline are also mystified by the common people. Also like their counterparts in UC, people with psychic powers in this series are declared Newtypes, and are experimented on and used for wars to power the AW equivalent of a Psycommu system--the Flash system. One idea that was unique to the AW timeline are that animals can also be Newtypes, with the appearance of a Newtype Dolphin.
As various fractions began debating the true meaning of Newtypes in the series, the final answer was given by the entity known as D.O.M.E. Declaring the fact that the word "Newtype" was only created to describe himself when he was alive, but was turned into false ideas by others who had found the word useful for their own philosophies, he reveals the fact that those people with special powers are neither superior to ordinary humans nor are the next evolution of mankind, but are mere gifted mutants brought about by the changing conditions of Earth and space.
While the answer given by D.O.M.E. does not affect the UC in any way, it is accepted by many fans as the one that Gundam creator Yoshiyuki Tomino was trying to imply in the later UC shows. However, other people continue to debate whether the Newtypes in Gundam X should be considered the same as those in UC.
In the alternate universe, Cosmic Era (CE), of Gundam Seed, people, both Naturals and Coordinators, with abilities similar to the Newtypes of previous shows appear. They could pilot suits with weapons similar to the Psycommu weapons found in UC, and they can also sense danger and others of their kind telepathically.
According to director Mitsuo Fukuda, the two characters with these abilities that appeared in Gundam Seed are indeed Newtypes, but are in fact the last of their kind. Whether this means that they are the last of their kind in the CE timeline, or that they are the last Newtypes in Gundam itself is unclear.
