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Gundam GQuuuuuux Film Adds 'Special Footage' Starting on Saturday

The Gundam.info portal site announced on Monday that screenings of the Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX -Beginning- anime film will add "special footage" starting this Saturday throughout Japan. The footage will run after the main feature and will tease the story after the film.

In addition, participating theaters will begin handing out the fifth wave of gifts to audience members on Saturday (the start of the film's sixth week in theaters). The project's animation character designer and chief character animation director Yumi Ikeda drew exclusive art for the A5-size gift cards.

The story of Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX centers on Amate Yuzuriha, a high-school student living peacefully in a space colony. When she meets a war refugee named Nyaan, Amate is drawn into the illegal mobile suit dueling sport known as Clan Battle. Under the entry name "Machu," she throws herself into fierce battle day after day, piloting the GQuuuuuuX. Then an unidentified Gundam mobile suit pursued by both the space force and the police appears before her, along with its pilot, a boy named Shūji.

Kazuya Tsurumaki (FLCL, Gunbuster 2: Diebuster) is directing the anime, and Yōji Enokido (Bungo Stray Dogs, Sailor Moon Super S, Revolutionary Girl Utena, Ouran High School Host Club) is supervising the series scripts and writing the scripts with Hideaki Anno (Evangelion, Shin Godzilla). Illustrator Take (Katanagatari, Zaregoto, Pokémon Sun & Moon) is designing the characters, and Ikuto Yamashita (Evangelion, Shin Kamen Rider, Yukikaze) is the mechanical designer.

The film, a reedited version of episodes from the upcoming Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX (pronounced as "g-quax") television series, opened in Japan on January 17, and it debuted at #1 at the Japanese box office. It sold 352,500 tickets and earned 598,832,300 yen (about US$3.83 million) in its first three days. As of February 9, the film has sold a total of 1.38 million tickets for a cumulative total of 2,256,093,900 yen (about US$14.62 million). This makes the Gundam GQuuuuuuX film the third highest-earning film in the Gundam franchise in Japan, with Mobile Suit Gundam Seed FREEDOM holding the all-time high of 4,796,455,740 yen (about US$31.05 million).

GKIDS acquired the theatrical distribution rights to the film, and it will screen the film in theaters in North America on February 28. This marks the first collaboration between GKIDS and Bandai Namco Filmworks. The film will screen early on IMAX screens for one-night only on February 26.

Source: Gundam.info