Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuux Beginnings

In what seems to be a trend, the first three episodes of the upcoming Gundam series, GQuuuuuux (pronounced G-Kwux) have been edited together and released in the cinema. Witch Watch is doing the same next week.

Visiting The Light in Leeds, James, Sophie and I (and comically James' brother Ben who we bumped into) really had no idea of what to expect. The series has been written with Hideki Anno of Evangelion fame, and a lot of speculation was that we would be getting some fusion of the two. What we actually got was more a fusion of Gundam and Anno's other cult hit, FLCL.

While the Zaku's look much the same, this is not your Grandaddy's Gundam

It's hard to set the scene without giving away a few spoilers, but suffice to say the series is set after the One Year War in the Universal Century timeline, but events have been changed and this time Zeon emerged the victor. This leaves us with characters like Captain Challia Bull taking a pivotal role in the story, commanding a captured White Base (renamed the Sodon) and looking for the lost Char Aznable.

Reducing the One Year War into a single episode that rewrites pivotal events is necessary to provide a lot of context for the later story, and though I'm familiar with the original Gundam, even Sophie (whose Gundam knowledge is minimal) could understand that this was a different set of events than what we're used to. One of the foundational aspects of GQuuuuuux is the two-man battle unit, where one mobile suit covers another to provide support against surprise attacks from other units - it's often hard to spot another mobile suit in space, so first strike usually goes to the attacking party, but it also reveals their location, allowing the second MAV unit to react while their partner evades. This is known as MAV, and forms the basis for the sport of Clan Bat we're introduced to after the 5 year time-skip. 

Another important aspect of the show is the Psycommu system which enables Newtypes to control Gundam units with their minds. This technology is developed because Zeon gains access to the Gundam and reverse engineers it, rapidly accelerating their technological progress across the board - this system is clearly shown to be integral to the series even as little as three episodes in.

Nyaan, Amate and mystery man Shuji

So with the backstory, technology and tactics explained, we're free to meet the main cast of GQuuuuuux. Schoolgirl Amate Yuzihara unwittingly gets dragged into the seedy underground world of Clan Battles when an underground courier, Nyaan, stashes a drive in her bag while being pursued by police. Amate proves to be quite cunning and manages to trick Nyaan who comes for the drive when the coast is clear, following the tracking beacon she placed on it - Amate finds the tracker and places it on a rooftop where she can get the drop on the older girl. Events lead the pair to a group of refugees who partake in Clan-Bat tournaments, though it seems they're struggling to win and make ends meet.

The Pomeranian Clan that Amate (nicknamed "Machu") will join - collectively very Pokemon-esque!

Meanwhile, Challia Bull is chasing down a sighting of a red Gundam unit at the same Side 6 colony, and events transpire to leave his experimental GQuuuuuux Gundam unmanned and ripe for Amate to nick it, thus giving our series its central Gundam pilot and a way to use it in battle, earning money in tournaments and evading the rightful owners. 

All of which only serves to scratch the surface of the intrigue and entertaining historical re-jigging that gives the series its legs. I've tried to keep it bare-bones because much of the series deserves to be discovered un-spoiled, but you really can't give a meaningful review without setting up the world you're in. On paper, the premise of Clan-Bat sounds very similar to The Witch From Mercury, wherein mobile suits are also used in tournaments, albeit for house points rather than cash. There's no doubt that this is a very different beast indeed, and everything from the animation style to the music casts a very different atmosphere to the last Gundam series. 

I made a comparison to FLCL earlier, and this is largely down to those two elements. The music is the sort of underground, pounding rock-funk that gave FLCL so much of its energy, while the animation is very exaggerated, all stretched limbs and cool poses. Amate is a street-smart heroine with a quick wit and youthful ignorance of danger while Nyaan's world-weary outlook is reminiscent of Mamimi. Without having read about the series ahead of time, James was quick to notice the post time-skip characters all looked like Pokemon characters, which are of course courtesy of Pokemon designer Take who worked on this series too. Good eye!

Lots of stretchy, leaping shots provide for an energetic and youthful feel, in stark contrast to the composed and serious opening episode

The Gundams themselves are a very strange take on the series signature mecha, all skeletal structure, pipes and odd angles. They certainly mark the series out as different from any other Gundam series, I'm interested to see how kit and toy sales fare as a result. I can't say they appeal to me all that much, but on-screen they were interesting to watch. Seeing the classic RX-78 in this style certainly showcases just how different Evangelion designer Ikuto Yamashita's mechanical vision for mobile suits is from past efforts. 

If the brief was to create a Gundam that was unlike anything that came before it, I'd say the team succeeded. I was entertained throughout and the three episodes simply flew by. As a cinema experience I found a lot of the tracking shots pretty lacklustre, but the soundtrack on huge cinema speakers was a joy, so certainly worth the price of entry overall. I'm excited to see how the story develops, how a Zeon ruled government works and all the Easter eggs and additional character development we might get for those who were gone too quickly the first time around.

I do hope that the narrative can stand up a little better than Gundam Witch. While I very much enjoyed the world, designs and characters of the previous Sunrise series, the ending and character arcs felt largely illogical and underwhelming, coasting on feelings rather than solid story beats, aided by my all-time favourite Gundam soundtrack by the talented Takashi Ohmama which might just be my favourite orchestral anime score of all time. Whether Yoshimasa Terui and Masayuki Hasuo can create something equally timeless is yet to be seen, but it certainly gets the blood pumping.

Mobile Suit Gundam Gquuuuuux begins streaming globally on Amazon Prime from April 8th.