Well THAT was a treat, a joy, and a hoot. A film cut of the earliest episodes of the upcoming latest television series in the never-ending Mobile Suit Gundam franchise, the GQuuuuuuX (pronounced “G-quacks”) feature opens with familiar sights and sounds to the seasoned GUNDAM fan, but things quickly take a turn, and then things just keep on turning throughout the first act of the film; it’s all prologue that sets up the new branching timeline off of Gundam’s venerable Universal Century setting, featuring as its protagonist classic and oft-imitated Gundam antihero Char Aznable.
Once the butterfly has flapped its wings enough and the tornado has taken out enough of the firmament of Gundam history, we arrive at the space colony Side 6 in the year U.C. 0085 and are introduced to Amate Yuzuriha, a red-haired “ordinary” high school student whose chance encounter with a purple-haired courier girl — who breaks Amate’s cell phone but accidentally leaves her with a mysterious package — pulls her into a world of illegal Mobile Suit fighting and lands her, in classic robot cartoon style, in the cockpit of Zeon’s newly developed Gundam, the titular GQuuuuuuX. Amate’s a great robot cartoon heroine, curious and spirited with an eagerness to jump into action to set things right. I’m less taken with her eventual partner in Mobile Suit combat Shuji, though the more I think about it, it’s clear that he’s cast in the more traditionally feminine “flighty Newtype” role — someone attuned to the classic Gundam ESP powers with a slightly zoned out persona who is very much marching to the beat of their own drummer.
While the show is largely their story, what long-time fans will likely be most fascinated by are the ramifications of the changes to the history established in the original 1979 series — what the whole geopolitical situation looks like, how this changed the lives of major figures in the series, what they’re up to if they’re even still alive — even just in this early going, there were a couple of surprising appearances that will very definitely be lost on a newcomer. Indeed, I do fret a little (and this seemingly was confirmed by some conversation I heard from our only other fellow viewers) that the opening combination homage and explanation of where things went wrong or right, depending on your perspective, might be a bit much for anyone not versed in the classic series or its film re-edit. That said, I do think that the extremely likable and straightforward lead gives viewers who were scratching their heads something — someONE — to latch onto for the balance of the runtime — and, honestly, even if the opening whirlwind threw them off balance, I also can’t imagine they weren’t at least a LITTLE intrigued by Char Aznable and his shenanigans.
GQuuuuuuX is directed by Kazuya Tsurumaki, a longtime Gainax animator who, for them, directed the classic oddball robot anime FLCL and the Gunbuster sequel Diebuster before ultimately following Evangelion director Hideaki Anno to his own studio Khara and serving as assistant director on Anno’s Rebuild of Evangelion films. (Khara is jointly producing this series with Gundam’s rights-holder and home studio Sunrise.) I can definitely feels hints of the mood, energy, and vibe of Tsurumaki’s earlier work here — for instance, the weirdos that Amate falls in with in the illegal Mobile Suit fighting world wouldn’t seem totally out of place in in FLCL’s ground-down oddball setting, while Amate’s own energetic behavior and its depiction remind me of the heroines of Tsurumaki’s work at Gainax.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the robot battles — largely 3D CG, I believe, but not in a way that sticks out like a sore thumb. The mechanical designs are fiddly as all hell; I’m not a huge fan of the Gundam designs, though the title unit does have its charms, including a “V” on its forehead that looks more like the crown from THOR: RAGNAROK antagonist Surtur’s brow. The Zeon suits are clearly recognizable if you’re familiar with their classic depiction, but now have inexplicably huge thighs. And yet despite the eccentric shapes and greebly surfaces, I never had a hard time following the mechanized melees — indeed, seeing the flashy and magnificently directed mecha combat on the silver screen was a highlight of the whole experience.
Despite my misgivings about how it may play for others, I personally had a tremendous time watching Char’s scheming segue into Amate’s awakening into a greater world. It’s all very familiar stuff, but executed extremely well by creators with a clear love for the material who are having a ball twisting a world they’re very familiar with into knots. The series proper starts in April, and I’m very excited to see how this all plays out — both on a macro “how does the rejiggered history work” level, and also on the character level of “how does a Universal Century Gundam series treat a chipper schoolgirl protagonist”? I really can’t wait to find the answers.