Mobile Suit Gundam GquuuuuuX Impressions

Gundam as a franchise has such an interesting history. For those who are new to the franchise, Japan essentially had, for a while, one type of robot show. You had more cartoonish-looking robots taking down fantastical-looking monsters, demons, or other giant robots. The big franchises back in the day were shows like Tetsujin 28 aka Gigantor, Getter Robo, and Mazinger, so these were the type of giant robot shows we got until 1979 when Mobile Suit Gundam aired and changed the giant robot scene forever (inspiring other giant robot shows like Evangelion, Dai-Guard, and so on). Previous giant robot shows sometimes had anti-war messages, but it’s not always about who did it first, but who did it best. With its giant robot action mixed with a blunt anti-war message, it demonstrated how shows with giant robots could be about more than just giant metal machines blowing each other up. 

Since then, Gundam has chugged along being a massively profitable franchise that always had to dance around the fact that you were supposed to agree with its anti-war message, while also being amazed by all of the intense and thrilling action. While maybe not realistically sensible in their designs, the shows made you want to buy the model kits and action figures, games, and so on. It’s weird how we have to deal with that notion of the franchise constantly because just being a consistent downer show wouldn’t make it as long-lasting as it is. The message and substance of the story are good and all, but they also have to be entertaining in some form or fashion. 

So, with the new entry in the franchise on the horizon with Sunrise collaborating with Studio Khara and Hideaki Anno, we have Mobile Suit Gundam GquuuuuuX. This new iteration of the franchise, based on this compilation film, is directed by Kazuya Tsurumaki and written by Yoji Enokido and Hideaki Anno. It takes place within the 1979 series’ timeline but takes a more Marvel “what if” approach to the story. Instead of Amuro Ray getting the very first Mobile Suit Gundam, what if the series’ anti-hero/villain Char Anzable got a hold of it for the forces of Zeon? 

That is where this universe’s story takes us into a world where the Space Nazis won. Sometime during that conflict, Char Anzable vanished. Now jumping to our current timeline, Zeon has ruled over the colonies and the earth. We follow Yuzuriha Amate, voiced by Tomoyo Kurosawa, a school girl who lives in a space colony. Her life is turned upside down when she meets a refugee named Nyaan, voiced by Yui Ishikawa, and encounters a new mobile suit Gundam nicknamed GQuuuuuuX. Amate becomes the pilot of this new mobile suit and enters these fighting events known as Clan Battles. Of course, while all of this is going on, we also have the sudden surprise return of the mysterious Gundam Char piloted all those years ago, and a young man named Shuji Ito, voiced by Shimba Tsuchiya, who becomes Amate’s battle partner in the Clan Battles. 

As a movie, this isn’t very good. For about 30-plus minutes, what we get is an episode zero where they use the 30 minutes or more to build up the foundation of the plot upon which this new Gundam series builds itself. You can tell how much of a fan/nerd Anno and the crew were about this series, since you can get a ton of easter eggs, references, and nods to the original franchise and just in the general Gundam universe. For old-school fans, this is an all-you-can-eat-buffet for fans of the franchise from the original (or even the 90s favorite, Gundam Wing).

The problem comes when we have to move forward to the current timeline and see how the show introduces the new world. We don’t get too much help with what has changed outside of the tyrannical rule of the Zeon and some thematic elements, like our leads talking about true freedom from under the rule of Zeon and not being confined to the world of the colonies. This might be the first two episodes of the series, and at the end of the day, you have to accept that these aren’t meant to be real movies. 

I don’t mean this in some snobbery “This is not true art/cinema way”. It’s a marketing tool. You get the first three or so episodes shoved into a theatrical package, where fans can get in and check out the series a month or so early from its official release on something like Crunchyroll, and the companies and distributors can make a ton of early money based on fan hype. There is no hiding this fact, and you can enjoy it as a sneak peek of what you’ll get to see the the series on the big screen. 

It’s at the very least more cohesive than Moana 2. It’s tough to truly see this because you don’t get a lot about the new characters since the film spends so much time with everyone else around our leads and Char Anzable. I get it since Char has become the most recognizable face of the franchise outside of the titular Gundam or Zaku design, but it would have been nice to get more of a taste of our main characters. You get some glimpses of who they are, but they feel like characters Anno would help create. I mean, Anno and this particular franchise sure love making stories about how it’s extremely messed up to send teenagers to war by war-hungry adults in giant mechs with the stress of saving the world on their shoulders. 

The jarring tone/look of the movie doesn’t help things, because the first 30 minutes that take place in the “movie” are done in the same spirit and look of the original show, designs and all. Yeah, the mech designs by Ikuto Yamashita stick out, while the humans look like the ‘79 designs, but it’s cool to see retro designs of characters from such a franchise. When we jump to the modern show, you can tell there is a very real shift in design that’s distracting. It’s because the humans in the show, who may look very Pokemon to folks, are done by Take, and they do look good. It just makes you wish that the other characters were designed like that. It would still feel like Gundam with these new designs, but the cohesiveness of it all is where it falls flat. It’s odd because other older series like Getter Robo and Devilman receive new designs, but they still feel familiar. It’s like if you went from watching the 90s Berserk series straight into Panty and Stocking. Part of me wonders if it wouldn’t feel so jarring if the first 30 minutes didn’t try to stick so closely to the original look of the anime from back in the day. 

In the end, how does this work as a means to introduce folks to a sneak peek of the new anime series? It might not work as a movie since it ends pretty unceremoniously with very little character development, but as a means to show us this new universe and characters, it does a solid job! It makes me excited for a franchise I had been seriously blah about. Ever since 2022’s Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury, it seems like the franchise has taken more initiative to be creative with its anti-war epics, and I am all for giving someone like Hideaki Anno the reins to craft another nerdy/otaku favorite. It’s also an oddly timely series, especially with what’s going on in the world of politics and who is running the US right now to have a show saying “Fight back against the dictatorship”. If you are down to wanting to see the sneak peek, then by all means find a theater playing it. Otherwise, be ready to wait until April to check out this fresh take on a famous franchise.