Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX

Episodes 1-2

Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX comes to us with a fantastic pedigree. The director, FLCL's Kazuya Tsurumaki, is the protégé of Neon Genesis Evangelion director Hideaki Anno. The mecha designer is Ikuto Yamashita, who designed the iconic Eva units. In other words, this collaboration pairs up some of the biggest names in mecha anime of all time. It was my most anticipated spring anime, especially after I watched its titular movie. But even before I left the theater, I had some concerns for this show's reception among newer fans.

When I watched the movie this March, there were only three nerds in the theater: me, my husband, and a woman around our age who told us she'd been a Gundam fan for years. When the film began and transported us right back to 0079, I realized that existing fans were exactly who this film was for. Its alternate reality premise, which offers a lengthy “what if” scenario of the 1979 main antagonists winning the war instead, is only shocking if you've accepted the opposite as canon for decades. The first third of the film mirrors the show's second episode: slow, gratuitous, and mired in Gundam deep cuts. The previous Sunrise flagship, Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury, was a big hit because it was an ideal springboard for new fans, in which prior Gundam knowledge was rewarded with Easter eggs but not required. So what's going on with the about-face here? Why make a good third of this movie fan service for existing fans?

I got my answer in the credits of episode 2, which lists Anno as the writer credited with the script as well as the first name credited for the storyboards. As ANN previously reported, Anno only has a supporting role in the making of Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX. His real contribution is episode 2, an imaginative backstory that posits what could have happened if famed Gundam antagonist Char got his hands on the protagonist's mobile suit. Amuro, the protagonist of 1979's Mobile Suit Gundam, is nowhere to be found. So Char jumps into the unoccupied titular Gundam and instantly begins figuring it out. Armed with such a powerful weapon, it's no surprise that he's able to turn the tide of the One Year War (the central conflict of the first Gundam show). There's no reason to watch Char do target practice with his new toy, to the point that the most important part of the flashback, the “Zeknova incident,” is told instead of shown. But if this is Anno's main contribution, suddenly it all makes sense. When you're as famous and esteemed, your fanfiction can go primetime. Anno has been thinking about this “Red Gundam” concept for ages. For more background on his involvement in Gundam, Zimmerit has some excellent reporting on the topic.

Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX made a wise decision to shift this backstory to episode 2. Machu's story, which requires zero barrier to entry, is more compelling to more people. From the music to the pacing to the smooth, glossy surfaces of everything from mecha to characters' hair, it didn't take much to suck me into a new protagonist's story—even if it leaves a ton unanswered. When Machu leaps right into one mobile suit after another, does she have a death wish? It'll be A-OK because she's clearly the Chosen One, but I'm wondering if she had any experience with mecha before she tried piloting one. Despite sharing her familiar red hair, Machu is not Suletta. She can be impulsive, mouthy, and sarcastic. She makes a great foil to nervous courier Nyaan, and I'm looking forward to seeing their chemistry develop in future episodes. The mecha designs, with all their insectoid appeal (organic forms! Segmented bodies! Compound eyes!), are unlike anything I've seen in a Gundam show to the point where I'm very curious to find out how Bandai is planning to turn them into model kits.

Still, I can't imagine how strange it would feel to go from that slick, futuristic premiere episode into episode 2 without having seen the movie first. “The Red Gundam” is a sincere love letter to the Mobile Suit Gundam. The art style, soundtrack, and even the interstitial are directly copped from 1979. The new names flying around (Kycilia, Garma, Gihren, M'quve) are all characters from the first Gundam show. Interestingly, Challia Bull only shows up in one episode of the first show, getting far less screen time than any of those other names—only to become a leading man in Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX, and apparently he went on a crash diet as well. Putting aside the decision to shelve Machu's story for a week and make this lengthy prologue the entire second episode, I'm also questioning the need to turn the movie into the first several (three, I am guessing) episodes of the show. With Mercury, which I can't help comparing this to since it's the most recent previous Gundam show, the movie served as a prologue. But with GQuuuuuuX, the movie is part of the show, and that's where it suffers. Episode 2 gets deep into the weeds, and then explains away the most important part—Char's “Zeknova” incident that causes his disappearance. In the movie, this was a huge emotional moment that served to fuel Challia's motivation in the present; here, the narrator just tells us what happened.

Credit where it's due: this anime has loads of style, and I have no doubt it's going to make me fall in love with sardonic, spunky Machu. But I sure hope that the gratuitous second episode doesn't serve existing fans at the expense of alienating newer fans. Don't worry, newbies, if this is anything like the movie, Machu and Nyaan are coming right back next week.

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Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX is currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video on Tuesdays.

Lauren writes about model kits at Gunpla 101. She spends her days teaching her two small Newtypes to bring peace to the space colonies.