Back in early December, we were treated to the first looks at what was going to be a very interesting one-off spin on the usual Gundam formula. Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX is a unique project between Sunrise/Bandai Namco and Studio Khara, which if you’ve kept up with your studio acquisition no-jutsu, is the studio founded by Evangelion creator and director Hideaki Anno, and whom produced the four Rebuild films along with a handful of other series and live-action television. Despite leaving GAINAX prior to the start of the Rebuild films, Khara had still done some collaborative work with them, and lent them money, which when they weren’t able to repay, forced them to sue for it, and ultimately GAINAX folded last year, transferring most of its properties and licenses to Khara.
Directed by Kazuya Tsurumaki (Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water, Evangelion) and written by Yoji Enokido (Sailor Moon, Evangelion, RahXephon) and Hideaki Anno (Evangelion), and features character designs by Take (Katanagatari, Kubikiri Cycle: Aoiro Savant to Zaregotozukai) and mechanical designs by Ikuto Yamashita (Gunbuster, Evangelion, Kishin Taisen Gigantic Formula), G-QUACKS as I began to call it, is a sort of alternate universe Universal Century where Zeon won the One-Year War due to Char Anzable capturing both the Gundam and White Base. This series takes place five years after that in UC 0085, which would be after Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory but before Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam. This series had a unique debut in that they made a theatrical cut of the first few episodes that debuted in Japanese and American theaters earlier this year. It depicts the deviation in the OYW where Char captures the Gundam and White Base and the fallout from that, how Amate Yuzuriha got her hands on the Gundam, and her meeting the Red Gundam’s pilot and subsequent “Clan Battle”. Where the series goes from there I do not know, or how many episodes. Given The Witch From Mercury was 24 in total in two seasons, I am not expecting the old fifty-episode format of the olden days and probably at least one cour.
I have not seen the theatrical cut yet, and that was on purpose. I didn’t want to spoil the order with which the series would unfold for me. I have read the synopsis though so as to at least write this post out. Likewise, I knew enough about the new characters to not be surprised at what happens in this first episode, but compared to many previous Gundam series openers, I found this one to be a bit mid. To contextualize that, let me give you a one-line elevator pitch for the last ten Gundam series first episodes, excluding the Build series.
- Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury: A transfer student saves another girl trying to escape into space, and ends up dueling the top guy in the class in her one-of-a-kind unique mobile suit, and wins.
- Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans: A war orphan taken in by a private security company pilots an ancient mobile suit to defeat attackers and defend a nation’s princess.
- Gundam Reconguista in G: A mystery mobile suit is captured by pirates, and then those pirates attack some students, and those students capture the mobile suit and pilot.
- Mobile Suit Gundam AGE: A kid finds blueprints to a mobile suit left by his mother and builds it to defend his home.
- Mobile Suit Gundam 00: A team of overpowered mobile suits descend on Earth’s three major superpowers declaring themselves the arbiters of conflict.
- Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny: An orphan whose family was killed in a previous conflict joins the military and becomes a prototype mobile suit pilot as their base is attacked in an attempt to seize three new prototype mobile suits and start a new conflict between Earth and Space.
- Mobile Suit Gundam SEED: A teen and his friends are drawn in to a war between Earth and Space when the neutral colony they were living on is attacked in an attempt to seize five new prototype mobile suits and their spaceship being developed in secret.
- Turn A Gundam: A man from an advanced moon civilization embarks on a secret mission to Earth and takes on the role of a chauffeur for a rich family while gathering intel. He comes across rumors of an ancient mobile suit from conflicts long ago.
- After War Gundam X: A boy is hired to rescue a girl being held by Vultures, armed roaming gangs in post-war Earth, before coming across an old mobile suit from the war and discovering she has a connection with it.
- Mobile Suit Gundam Wing: In a bid to achieve independence from Earth, the colonies launch five mobile suits to Earth to attack and destroy certain military targets. One pilot crashes in the ocean and washes up on the shore in front of a politician’s daughter.
Now, my one-liner for Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX would be: A girl who yearns for the freedom of space inadvertently falls in with a rogue group of mobile suit battlers while the military pursues a legendary mobile suit and pilot from the past war, which causes her to wind up piloting their prototype suit and control system that awakens latent abilities within her.
I say mid because although I wrote it fairly eloquently that one might be interested in such a thing, when you look at the other shows above, I feel like you’d be more interested in many of the others because their first episodes just had more bang for your buck. Surprisingly, although SEED Destiny overall was mid, I would consider its first episode to be towards the top of that list, along with SEED, 00, and X. No, Wing doesn’t get an automatic pass because it was your first Gundam in the old Toonami days and that was what you jorked off to. It was good, but not that good.
Nevertheless, despite the plot and characters being a little looser than previous entries, the visuals were both colorful and expected from the Khara-ara~ara~ universe. Very pastel, much tri-tone, wow. I know many purists have argued extensively over the last five months how this feels even less Gundam than WFM was, but I think you need to treat this less as a Gundam series and more as a Gundam experience, insofar as this is what Anno thinks Gundam is from his perspective, using an alternate UC as the framework. I guess part of me wishes he just went AU with his ideas so as not to intensely corrupt the golden goose, but I think what is giving him a pass here among the fanbase is that because Rebuild was so successful at re-imagining Evangelion, folks are like “Sure, you can take a whack at the UC timeline.” The moment people realized that the entire timeline could be changed by not having Gene come on the mission was truly Mobile Suit Shitposting.
Of course, the suit designs have been a bit controversial for being less Gundam and more Eva in appearance, and that is something that does bother me slightly, but not as much as the UC purists get bothered by anything that isn’t a Rick Dom. The way I look at it is that when you consider some of the crazy shit that was made during the OG Gundam series (MSG, Z, and ZZ) it’s really not that far-fetched after applying the Khara filter to it. They still captured the Zakus pretty well, and when you come in swinging with new PSYCOMMU bullshit, that just makes it more unrealistic, and better. Gundam fans always seem to forget that their quasi-real robot show has always been more of a quasi-super robot show when you add in the whole Newtype-Psycomm-NT======D shit to it.
It’s hard for me to speculate where this show will go, or who else they plan on throwing in as cameos. I think it would be interesting to see where Amuro ends up if not the Gundam, or Fraw Bow, Bright Noa, and others. But more importantly, would this also change the outcome of Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket? Would Bernie not become a pile of hamburger? Or would Christina become the hamburger? These are the most important questions we must endure.
