Learning English is big business in Japan. I can understand learning English from your favorite movies and tv shows when the source material is English but I find it really funny that they would publish an English textbook based on Japanese material translated into English. But then again, it’s Gundam so someone is bound to buy these books. I suppose there are some people who wonder how they would say some of the famous scenes in English. Well, I scanned the book and found some of the translations amusing, but most of it was pretty non-native and just plain useless like “Let’s test the reaction time of your brand-new mobile suits.” I supposed this makes as much sense as me trying to learn Japanese from a Japanese translation of South Park.
I’ve seen the same type of thing for learning Japanese. But things like “Fire the wave motion gun!” just don’t come up in conversation. Sadly…
Well think about it… Popular media is the most commercialized form of educational material, even language learning. Although probably the Japanese will learn English that will be useful in 100 years :S… lol!