GQuuuuuuX Record #2: The White Gundam

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

Last week I wrote about Kazuya Tsurumaki, a director who spent eighteen years assisting his mentor Hideaki Anno on the Rebuild of Evangelion films before making his grand return with this new series. This week Anno returns the favor, by writing and co-directing this episode alongside Tsurumaki and their colleague Mahiro Maeda.

Anno is deceptively tough to pin down as a director. He’s one of the best animators of all time at making things explode on screen. He’s also experimental; aside from his 1995 magnum opus Neon Genesis Evangelion, his 1998 live-action film Love & Pop was one of the first theatrical films shot in digital video (per Reuben Baron at Yatta-Tachi.) But all his recent work has been lavish, even fannish remakes of favorites from his youth: Ultraman, Kamen Rider etc.

The origin

It was inevitable that he would make his way to Gundam one day. He already wrote an essay introducing the manga series Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin where he praised the vitality of the original 1979 television series. Its mix of robot action, interpersonal drama and a dash of material reality was a clear influence on Evangelion, even if Anno himself prefers to call Space Runaway Ideon his inspiration. I’d venture to say that Shinji, the famously depressive hero of Evangelion, probably wouldn’t exist without Gundam’s young protagonist Amuro setting precedent.

His contributions to GQuuuuuuX, then, sit right in the intersection between indulgent personal project and precision-targeted attack on nostalgia that you would expect from him. This second episode is (in part) a slavish recreation of the first episode of Mobile Suit Gundam. So slavish, in fact, that the music cues and even some of the dialogue is reused from the original series. The character designs as well break from take’s stylized ones in favor of original Gundam character artist Yoshikazu Yasuhiko.

Alternate history

Yet this also isn’t Mobile Suit Gundam as you remember it. First and foremost because, as I wrote previously, this is alternate history. Char finds the Gundam instead of Amuro and ultimately reverses the outcome of the One Year War. But this difference manifests itself in other ways too. The most noticeable to me is that the robots are all clearly designed by Ikuto Yamashita at this point rather than the original Kunio Okawara models. The Gundam itself especially looks monstrous, as if it were an Evangelion unit.

Yamashita’s robot designs have been one of the more controversial aspects of GQuuuuuuX. It’s not just that they’re animated in 3DCG. Their silhouettes are much more cluttered than Okawara’s earlier designs. They immediately break the illusion that you are watching Gundam of the past just by sharing the frame with faithful recreations of Char and company.

The mobile suit

I can’t say whether this was intentional or not. But I think it’s a good example of what this episode is trying to accomplish. Char steals and renames the White Base. He paints the Gundam red. Everything from the original that has long become familiar through repetition is taken from you and changed just enough to be threatening. 

“The pivotal creation that made Gundam a classic and drives the franchise expansion to this day,” Anno wrote in his essay regarding Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin, “is, of course, the mobile suit.” He admits that this was inevitable; that “characters are what ultimately remain with the audience,” and the mobile suit is the most memorable and marketable character in Mobile Suit Gundam itself. Yet the context within which the Gundam first appeared cannot help but fade in comparison to the mass reproduction of the model itself as a toy by Bandai.

Anno's love

GQuuuuuuX is an attempt to correct that imbalance. To make the Gundam a threatening weapon of war again rather than a heroic action figure. But Anno can’t help but love heroic action figures, so of course his script is also a loving throwback to the original. That contradiction is fundamental not just to Anno’s career but (perhaps) to Gundam as a whole.

As satisfying as it might be to Gundam fans, though, I can’t speak to how well it works for newcomers. It’s an episode spent away from Machu and Nyaan, characters who we were just getting to know. The fact that they dominate the opening and ending credits that bookend this episode just makes things more confusing. What do these two girls have to do with the story of a man who steals a giant robot? The inclusion of Challia Bull, who appeared in the previous episode, helps to contextualize this episode. But it’s still a stretch, at least for me.

Indulgence

This episode makes significant cuts to what appeared in the film version of this story. While the opening section as well as Char’s meeting with Bull are retained, the rest is either summarized or excised completely. In some respects I think this makes for an easier watch for folks who haven’t seen the original Mobile Suit Gundam. They wouldn’t know to laugh at the mass production of Big Zams, or gasp when Char’s sister Artesia flies in to kick his ass. 

I can’t help but wonder, though, what a version of this script might have looked like if it was seeded through GQuuuuuuX as a whole rather than dumped here. There might have been a more elegant way to, for instance, tease Bull’s longing for Char the red comet within the Side 6 material. We might see that later. What we were given this week was a forty-minute script by Hideaki Anno cut down by half. It’s rather indulgent.

Mistakes and dumb luck

Then again, indulgence has always been Anno and Tsurumaki’s thing. They have always packed their works with shout-outs to their favorite works and refused to apologize for it. And I think that Anno does understand the material. As much as he clearly loves Char as a character, he also loves the original Mobile Suit Gundam too much to let him run away with it. Mistakes and dumb luck remain key to the setting as they were in Tomino's day.

Next week we return to Side 6 and Machu’s adventures in the world of Clan Battle. I’m curious to see how this episode stands up in the context of the whole series. There’s a lot about GQuuuuuuX that we don’t know yet.

This week’s addendum

The Char and Bull Power Hour: The wine drinking scene with Char and Bull was a highlight of the film for me, and of this episode too. You get a great sense of Char’s magnetism and why he haunts Bull five years later.

Robot Central: I’ll call out the Guntank as an example of a model that benefits from Ikuto Yamashita’s redesign. It’s bigger and nastier than the original in ways that enhance rather than detract from its presence.

Opening Credits Thoughts: It’s neat! Parts are more static than I thought, but I love the running motif. It’s in keeping with the opening credits for Diebuster which were all about the heroine Nono taking a walk.

This Week’s Moment of Violence: Pretty small-scale all things considered, but I winced when Char murdered the crew of the White Base by stabbing the Gundam’s laser sword through the ship’s windows. Talk about overkill! 

Friends of Gundam: Here is some more GQuuuuuuX fanart.

Bookmarks

• Giant Robot FM started up a new miniseries called Side 6 Soundwaves to cover Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX. Most of the series will be exclusive to Patreon subscribers, but you can listen to the first episode right now.
• At Mirage Library, jowy wrote about the rather obscure 1999 Playstation game Prisoner, which was recently translated into English.
• At heart on wave, nana wrote about the “curious, contradictory” manga series Iyagatteru Kimi ga Suki.
• For Anime Herald, Paul Cecchini covered how Discotek Media, producer Mark Levy and company redubbed the first three Digimon films with much of the original English voice talent.
• For Anime News Network, Lauren Orsini attended the first real life Hunter Exam and wrote about the experience.

What I Wrote

• For Yatta-Tachi, I reviewed Fumi Yoshinaga’s manga Tamaki and Amane.
• For Beat’s Bizarre Adventure at Comics Beat, I wrote about HIRAETH -The End of the Journey-, by one of my favorite artists Yuhki Kamatani.
• At Unpacking the Shelf, my friend Alex and I covered two comics published by DC’s Black Label imprint: Zatanna: Bring Down the House and The Boy Wonder.

AMV of the Week

Here's "XO" by katranat.