When I was a kid, I had one of those Little Tikes toy chests with a green lid. The plastic chest was filled to the brim with random toys like Rescue Heroes, G.I. Joes, and McDonald’s toys my family bought me without knowing my astute taste in rad shit. Said rad shit was designated to the bottom right corner of my trunk with my favorite toys: Dragon Ball Z, Bruce Lee, and WWE action figures that I twisted my mom’s arm to get whenever we went to Chinatown, Toys R Us, KB Toys, and Montgomery Ward. These, my friends, were bathtub toys: the highest honor of any toy. There, I’d create crossover battles combining their respective storylines, character motivations, and super-powered feats to the fullest extent of their limited joint articulation and my imagination before my mom pulled the drain, signaling a hasty cliffhanger for my next bath. The holy alliance of anime creatives behind Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX are letting the same childlike imagination run.
Before I went to see Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX: The Beginning, a compilation film of the first four episodes of the anime, I sold the friend I brought with me on being my plus one by name-dropping the big-names behind the show. Despite my friend never watching a lick of Gundam, the chain combo of me texting them saying the anime was written by Neon Genesis Evangelion’s Hideaki Anno and FLCL’s Yoji Enokido with mech designs from Eva’s Ikuto Yamashita, character designs from Pokémon’s Take, and directed by Kazuya Tsurumaki of Eva, FLCL, and Diebuster fame was enough to warrant them texting back, “Bet.” I’m not gonna lie: The first episode portion was built solely for diehard OG Gundam fans, and it left my friend overwhelmed by the magnitude of information exposited about its alternate timeline. I only grasped the broad strokes of its space colonial war with my limited knowledge of the original anime.
But when we reached the second episode portion of The Beginning, I realized I was watching Studio Khara and Sunrise play with their toys the same way I once did. GQuuuuuX is the epitome of anime, combining its parts into something both familiar and new for mecha anime fans.
[Spoiler warning, I guess on the premise of the anime]
The film opens with the OG anime’s morally grey antagonist, Char Aznable, successfully stealing the titular mech, reverse engineering its specs, and altering the course of events of the original anime’s “One Year War” in his nation of Zeon’s favor. Things eventually go topsy-turvy for Char, leading to a five year time skip to the story of three teenagers: Amate “Machu” Yuzuriha, an angsty redhead girl languishing in cram school; a skittish raven-haired girl named Nyaan (no, really) delivering contraband mech gear while masquerading as an Uber Eats delivery driver; and a blue-haired graffiti artist and savant mech pilot named Shuji Ito, with a weird habit of sniffing people. Their paths eventually converge as the trio comes into ownership of Char’s long-lost Gundam—a giant robot the former warring nations of Zeon and the Federation desperately want their hands on.
Although The Beginning sets the stage for Gundam to get its own Rebuild of Evangelion treatment, reimagining the original anime’s story, the most fascinating part of the film is how it draws in all the best parts of its staff’s past works. It feels like Khara and Sunrise got in the studio, grabbed a pack of cutesy, approachable, noodle-armed Pokémon characters, waved said toys around while yelling defiant one-liners akin to FLCL quotes, and threw in Gundam’s political mumbo jumbo while bashing giant robots against each other. In short, GQuuuuuuX is a designer baby from some of the greatest minds in anime, and I’m digging it.
Aesthetically, GquuuuuuX’s amalgamation of moods shines through its animation style, switching from emulating the grainy, retro look of the ‘79 anime to the sleek, vibrant, and bouncy mix of 3D and 2D animation of today’s anime. Narratively, GQuuuuuuX’s fusion dance of vibes comes together best through Machu. Her petulant grimaces and defiant attitude towards authoritative grown-ups, while struggling to appear more mature and free, mirrors Naota Nandaba’s whole deal in FLCL. The anime plays with this by having her and Nyaan’s meet-cute happen similarly to Naota’s and Haruko Haruhara—while Naota takes a bit longer to grow into his person, Machu gets her “swing the bat” moment by chasing the high of piloting a Gundam. She is a Pokémon–looking character with an FLCL protagonist’s rebellious attitude, navigating the complexities of a Gundam world, and I can’t help but root for her.
While it is still too early to know whether I’ll like Gundam’s new hotness as much as I adored its last adventure with The Witch From Mercury, if The Beginning is any indication of what’s to come when GQuuuuuuX’s anime airs in April, the anime has the makings of a compelling blend of styles from the industry’s best minds.
