GQuuuuuuX Record #10: Yomagn'tho Blockade

Our Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX coverage continues with the tenth episode! There will be spoilers after this point.

This was an especially busy week for GQuuuuuuX. Kycillia murdered her brother Gihren and his retinue! Xavier led an attack on Gihren’s Big Zams! Nyaan infiltrated the Yomagn’tho Solar Ray to obliterate the space fortress A Baoa Qu with the Rose of Sharon’s power! Machu teamed up with Challia Bull for a final destined battle with Nyaan!

I expected that the endgame would be Challia maneuvering Kycilia and Gihren right where he wanted them so that he might dispose of them in one fell swoop. Instead Challia was caught flat footed as Kycilia made a grab for power. Worse, there’s now a giant death laser in the mix that can break reality. A death laser powered by an artifact that Challia himself dragged out of the ocean last episode. By playing nice with Kycilia, Challia only ended up playing himself.

Cleaning the table

As exhilarating as it is to watch everything explode, there’s a distinct feeling of table-cleaning to this episode as well. GQuuuuuuX simply doesn’t have the time to do a story about political subterfuge between warring Zabis this late in the game. Better to dispose of Gihren as an afterthought, knock Challia off balance and play the ensuing conflict with as much widescreen chaos as possible. Centering the Yomagn’tho serves the same purpose of efficiency; death lasers make for a more convenient final boss than an army. At the very least, unlike The Witch From Mercury, GQuuuuuuX teased the Yomagn’tho weeks ago rather than inventing it for the finale.

I think there’s a more fleshed out version of this final arc that could have taught us more about the characters than what we see here. Then again, Gundam’s Universal Century was always ruled by mistakes and bad luck rather than grand strategy. Kycilia’s bloodthirst, Challia’s overconfidence and even Gihren’s swift exit from the series are all well in keeping with the world Yoshiyuki Tomino and his team created back in 1979.

Adult conversations

At the heart of this episode are two conversations with Machu, Nyaan and their respective mentors. Challia confesses to Machu about the time he lost faith in Zeon after a doomed space mission. Kycilia brushes Nyaan’s hair as she lectures her about the importance of strength.

The parallels between these two adults and their surrogates are clear. Challia realized that his life meant nothing to Zeon and so he embraced life as a disappointment. Like Machu, he latched onto the first charismatic person he found (Char Aznable in his case) and pursued him as far as he could. Kycilia on the other hand is desperate to survive the power struggle into which she was born. Like Nyaan, she will do whatever it takes to survive life’s indignities.

Adult weapons

Each gives their surrogate child a pistol; Challia’s was a former suicide weapon, while Kycilia’s is a family heirloom. You might ask, “why is the symbol of their adult power a gun rather than a giant robot?” Well, guns have haunted Yoji Enokido’s career. He originally wanted to use them in Revolutionary Girl Utena, only to be rejected by the director Kunihiko Ikuhara. (Ikuhara himself found a place for them in his later series Penguindrum and Yuri Kuma Arashi.) Enokido snuck guns into FLCL, Captain Earth, and even his serialized novel Shounen Ou for Newtype Magazine.

A giant robot is a weapon that looks like a person. But a gun can only be a gun: a weapon held in the hand that is used to kill other people. They are swift, direct and loud. Explicit symbols of the war machine. A giant robot model kit comes with plausible deniability. Machu can pilot the GQuuuuuuX without ever actually killing anybody. (Even when she got her hands on a gun in the seventh episode, she never intentionally shot to kill.) Now the gloves are off. Becoming an “adult” in this world means accepting the right to bear arms.

Yomagn'tho

Is that really the way things should be, though? Tsurumaki’s past work has a fraught relationship with weapons. Naota works out his gun love phase in the fifth episode of FLCL, “Brittle Bullet,” but in the sixth episode he gives up on adulthood to stay a kid while he still can. Nono, the heroine of Diebuster, learns to transform into a superweapon, only to realize that she cannot defeat the enemy on her own. Her final act is one of self-sacrificial love rather than destruction.

That’s why it matters that the ultimate gun, the Yomagn’tho Solar Ray, is so nightmarish. There’s a moment after it fires when A Baoa Qu, the fortress caught in its sights, is somehow transported across space and time. We see the fortress bend, break, and make the specific sound characteristic of Space Monsters from Gunbuster and Diebuster. Any Diebuster fan knows that sound means nothing good. This Solar Ray is no standard issue space weapon; its visual and audio design (like the horrible gulping noise it makes when switched off) marks it a crime against humanity and nature.

Light

The Yomagn’tho beam sparkles radiantly just like the Kira Kira. Once Machu and Nyaan saw the Kira Kira as a revolutionary escape from their oppressive society. Now the Kira Kira has been seized by the oppressor for its own purposes. Worse, it uses the Rose of Sharon (and whoever is trapped inside) as a power source. It’s like if Akio, the abusive principal from Revolutionary Girl Utena, put his sister, scapegoat and victim Anthy in a gun and shot her at people. Scary!

The next episode sees Machu and Nyaan facing each other at long last. Rather than fighting over the same robot, or the same boy, they now stand on the battlefield as equals. Will the two reconcile? Will they hurt one another so badly that their former friendship will never recover?

All I know is that the two of them don't fit so easily into the boxes Challia and Kycilia want for them. Nyaan will kill to protect herself but will also cook for her friends; Machu says she's finished with the world but her mother is presumably waiting for her back home. I'm curious to see what these two difficult girls will do next.

This week’s addendum

The Machu and Nyaan Power Hour: We’re so back???? (It’s so over)

This Week’s Moment of Violence: I enjoyed watching Nyaan solo a Big Zam, but it’s also just fun to watch Xavier throw himself at things in his cool knight robot.

The Robot Corner: RIP Big Zam. Doomed to be a joke despite its supposed size and power.

Gundam is Feminist: Funny moment in this episode where a scientist working within the Yomagn’tho yells, “this is why women shouldn’t have jobs!” only to be swatted into space by Nyaan’s GFreD.

Where is Char: Another person who makes a cameo within the Yomagn'tho: he who may or may not be Char. He escapes out the air lock just before Nyaan obliterates his coworkers, sneaky bastard.

Friends of Gundam: Have some more Gundam fanart.

Bookmarks

For GQ Magazine, Sam White interviewed game director Hideo Kojima. Some nice quotes in here.

IdolismJ broke down visual novel composer Naotoshi Nishino’s body of work. (18+ material, so be warned!)

For The Land of Obscusion, George wrote about twelve famous manga artists who have yet to be translated into English. (Including my fave, Daijiro Morohoshi!)

Asian Docs published a translated 2024 interview with stop-motion artist Soejima Shinobu.

For The Comics Journal, Kaoru Kumi wrote about the technique of Akira Toriyama’s early success Dr. Slump.

What I Wrote

For start menu, I spoke with Melos Han-Tani and Liz Ryerson about their Unearthed Treasure Room games showcase.

I made an appearance on Giant Robot FM’s Side 6 Soundwaves podcast, covering the 9th episode of Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX. You can listen in by becoming a member of their Patreon.

AMV of the Week

Here's "Starlighter ✰" by UnluckyArtist.