GQuuuuuuX Record #3: Machu in Clan Battle

Our GQuuuuuuX coverage continues with the third episode! There will be spoilers after this point.

After last week’s trip to the past, we return to Side 6 in the year 0085. Machu has stolen the psych-controlled robot GQuuuuuuX. Xavier, the previous pilot of GQuuuuuuX, is being interrogated by Side 6’s police. Nyaan is on the outs with her employers after her last failed delivery. Meanwhile, the pilot of the Red Gundam–a mysterious boy named Shuji–is set to enter the fray.

This episode introduces what looks like the central gimmick of this show, the Clan Battle. It’s an illegal fight club where ne'er-do-wells duel each other on pirate streaming with giant robots salvaged from the One Year War. These battles are fought two on two, rather than one on one; Char’s past partnership with Challia Bull set the expectation that space battles are fought in pairs.

Tournament-style

We’re two series deep now on tournament-style Gundam series. The original Mobile Suit Gundam was not like that at all. Director Yoshiyuki Tomino and his team put weekly giant robot battles into a material context. Theirs was a world of messy armed skirmishes, not duels following a code of conduct. 

This changed immediately once Tomino took a break from Gundam. Mobile Fighter G Gundam remade the franchise as an absurd martial arts tournament. Years later, Gundam Build Fighters removed the darker aspects of Gundam in favor of kid-friendly action. That’s not to say that these shows were bad. Build Fighters is joyous, and there’s an earnestness to G Gundam that I think is often overlooked by folks drawn to its camp. Yet perhaps they also paved the road to the Gundam of today, where giant robot fights are a contained spectacle rather than sprawling armed conflict.

Building formulas

I think Yoji Enokido’s involvement with GQuuuuuuX has something to do with it, too. Enokido is best known for his contributions to Revolutionary Girl Utena, a stone-cold masterpiece. Utena used weekly sword duels as a device to examine the characters and their hang-ups via multiple angles. Building formulas in order to subvert them has always been his thing, just like Utena’s director Kunihiko Ikuhara did in his own original series such as Yuri Bear Storm and Sarazanmai. 

Outside of Enokido’s work with Ikuhara and Kazuya Tsurumaki, his best-known original anime are probably Star Driver and Captain Earth. These repurposed the “duel of the week” formula within the context of 2010 giant robot anime. Much like Utena’s duels take place in a surreal theater of the mind, both of these series by Enokido go to great lengths to separate the physical world from the fantastic battlefield. Star Driver’s giant robots are sealed in the realm of “Zero Time.” Captain Earth’s battles take place in the far reaches of space, which is recast as a cosmic stage.

Pageantry

I love the sense of pageantry in these series. The ebullient animation of Star Driver’s battles, and the proceduralism of Captain Earth’s “launch sequence,” is entertaining no matter how many times they repeat. Yet these two shows cannot help but feel sterile to me somehow. The divide between the physical world and the battlefield ensure that you never feel as if the combatants are in any danger. Neither are the characters jagged enough that you get the sense, like in Utena, that they are putting their reason for living on the line with each fight.

GQuuuuuuX’s Clan Battles do have that spark of danger I was missing. If I was to guess why, it would be that Tsurumaki strips out the pageantry. There is very little embellishment outside of flashy television logos. The contestants do not play fair. They do not introduce themselves with pride or explain the capabilities of their machines. Instead they hide and snipe each other from a distance. You get the sense that Machu’s opponents in this episode really would try and kill her if they could.

Youth

The stakes are so low, too. As far as we know there is no glamorous secret society behind the Clan Battles. Competitors fight for money rather than for something as grand as eternity. They are expected to disguise themselves; not to hide their identities from fans, but because it would be shameful to be clocked as a participant in the underground ring. Clan Battles might be the center of the world for our characters but they are at the fringes of Side 6.

Another recurring theme in Enokido’s works is the power of youth. Often this just manifests as “sexual energy,” which can be sophomoric and occasionally boring in execution. Enokido’s past collaborations with Tsurumaki, though, are a lot more thoughtful. In FLCL for instance, Naota looks down on adults but is a child at heart who hates sour and bitter drinks. Diebuster imagines a society where teenagers briefly grasp infinite power before being consigned to mediocrity. Every adult wants that for themselves, forgetting how isolating power can be.

In thrall to the Red Comet

GQuuuuuuX is already setting up these generational battle lines. On one hand you have adults like Challia Bull and the “advisor to the President” Cameron Bloom. These characters appeared for just an episode each in the original Gundam. Here, though, they are given space to plot in the shadows together. I love that Bloom is the first to cut to the heart of the matter and ask Bull, “are you still in thrall to the Red Comet, commander?” 

The world of adults is as de-glamorized as Clan Battle. Bloom might have a chance at real political power in this setting, but he confronts Bull not in a gilded office but in a cavernous parking lot. These are liminal spaces, the adult equivalent of Machu and company’s shady back alleys. It’s the same with the bar where Bull and Xavier drink together while watching illegal Clan Battles on television. Once again the question of “what you drink” determines who you are.

Kids

Then you have the children, like Nyaan and this week’s new character Shuji. They make for an odd contrast. Nyaan is a small-time crook reluctant to share her feelings with others. She wears giant sunglasses to hide herself from the world, but she’s so anxious that she can’t help but spill her real thoughts to anybody paying attention.

Shuji by comparison is intimately involved with GQuuuuuuX’s alternate history; he pilots the Red Gundam, can see the “kira kira” and becomes Machu’s MAV, or battle partner. But he’s also a weird guy who runs around smelling people and making cryptic statements. The only reason Machu can understand him is that she’s seen the “kira kira,” too. 

Machu acts without thinking; Nyaan refuses to say what she thinks; everything Shuji says is incomprehensible. It’s risky to tell a story like this where nobody knows how to talk to each other. That’s why the presence of adults in this story, who are actually aware of how they carry themselves and what they communicate to others, is useful. But those adults have built a world, Side 6, that rejects outside influence and hides its inherent contradictions. I want to see what kind of world Machu and her friends will create.

This week’s addendum

Technobabble Corner: I like the explanation we are given for MAV terminology this episode. It pays off a mystery in the premiere while giving the viewer a new motif to sink their teeth into.

The Machu and Shuji Power Hour: Love the sequence where Machu and Shuji communicate in the “kira kira” Newtype realm. I wonder if Nyaan has those capabilities too, or if she’ll spend the whole series being shut out…

That’s Right, Enokido: “But, tell me, are you still in thrall to the Red Comet, Commander?”

This Week’s Moment of Violence: Machu perfectly timing a falling axe so that it crushes the head of an enemy robot is the sort of trick that could only work with Newtype abilities. That’s why it’s fun!

Friends of Gundam: Some more works of GQuuuuuuX fanart.

Bookmarks

Shinseiki published a translated interview from Monthly Newtype featuring GQuuuuuuX’s scriptwriter Yoji Enokido.

I enjoyed this video by Pyramid Inu about Hideaki Anno’s recent works. Aside from the context it provides to better understand Anno’s career, it also does a great job explaining the flavor of early Gundam.

Amelie Doree did a video about Tsui no Sora, the uneven but influential visual novel that was remade years later as Wonderful Everyday/Subarashiki Hibi.

For Yatta-Tachi, Sara Linsley interviewed letterer Sabrina Heep about her past experience on series like Nana and Chainsaw Man. (For transparency's sake, I helped edit this one.)

For Catsuka, Anton Guzman wrote about Ne Zha 2 and the Chinese animation market.

For Anime News Network, Kennedy reviewed Hundred Line, a collaboration between visual novel kings Kazutaka Kodaka (Danganronpa) and Kotaro Uchikoshi (999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors.)

What I Wrote

For Yatta-Tachi, I wrote about the fantastic visual novel Seedsow Lullaby, an intergenerational portal fantasy (or “isekai”) story.

For Crunchyroll News, I recommended some great anime series to folks who have watched Naruto–but only Naruto.

For Beat’s Bizarre Adventure, I wrote about Natsujikei Miyazaki’s long-awaited manga collection …And The Strange and Funky Happenings One Day.

AMV of the Week

Here's "Tonight" by Nekokitkat.