An Anime TV series
It has been nearly a year since I watched Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX: Beginning in theaters, and I absolutely loved the experience. The film functions as an alternate retelling of the original Mobile Suit Gundam timeline, built around one seismic change that alters the entire course of the One Year War: what if Char Aznable entered the Gundam instead of Amuro Ray? In this version of history, Zeon wins the war, but a strange accident causes both Char and the Gundam to completely vanish. The story then jumps ahead six years, when the Gundam mysteriously resurfaces, raising the central question of whether Char has returned with it.
This prologue was crafted by Hideaki Anno at Studio Khara, who reportedly rewatched the entirety of the original Gundam series and constructed an extensive alternate-history flowchart in preparation – a process that feels quintessentially Anno. Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX continued as a television series the following April, though it did not immediately click with me in the same way. Now, a year later, I find myself revisiting the series and reassessing my reaction. Do I like it more now, and if not, why?
“Set in UC 0085, five years after the Principality of Zeon’s victory in the One Year War, high school student Amate Yuzuriha lives a quiet life in the Side 6 colony Izuma until she meets Nyaan, a war refugee. Their encounter pulls Amate into an unfolding incident involving illegal Clan Battle mobile suit duels, the mysterious GQuuuuuuX, and the sudden reappearance of the missing Red Gundam, now pursued by both Zeon forces and the Space Police, drawing her into a dangerous underground conflict.”
My biggest issue with GQuuuuuuX is the same problem I had with about half of Sunrise’s previous Gundam TV series, The Witch from Mercury. If the franchise already has multiple shows built around fighting video game style small-scale mobile suit battles (so they can tell tons of Gunpla) – including Gundam Build Fighters, Gundam Build Divers, and related spinoffs – why do these same clan-style battle structures keep becoming the main narrative engine of all modern Gundam television? The moment I realized a significant portion of this show would revolve around two-versus-two illegal mobile suit battles, I admittedly rolled my eyes. I’m not even a stuffy Universal Century diehard that only likes the original show, my favorite Gundam is probably Gundam Wing and Gundam SEED, but I feel the entire premise of this show was squandered.
What makes this more frustrating is the sheer potential of the setting. This is a fully realized alternate Universal Century where Char essentially changes the course of history single-handedly, and the story now exists in what should be the Zeta Gundam era. Instead of deeply exploring that fallout, we get a familiar inversion: Zeon operates as a police state, the Federation remains bitter and marginalized, and scattered resistance groups resemble terrorists clinging to a lost past – the classic timeline, but flipped. While the mobile suit designs are genuinely interesting, especially the police Zakus, and the occasional Zeta callbacks are fun to see, the series often feels overly self-referential, if not outright pandering to longtime fans rather than fully committing to the bold alternate history it sets up.
The show runs only twelve episodes, with much of the Prologue film content chopped up and reintroduced through flashbacks across several episodes. The illegal Gundam fighting storyline dominates the early portion of the series, lingering until Zeon finally moves to shut it down and captures several of the main characters around episode seven, placing them in different camps. From there, the focus shifts toward a looming internal conflict within Zeon itself.
The remaining episodes set up a confrontation between those still loyal to the remaining members of the Zabi family and a splinter faction carrying on Char’s plan to eliminate Gihren and Kycilia Zabi, now seemingly led by Challia Bull. This late-stage pivot into internal Zeon politics and conspiracy is genuinely engaging, and the last few episodes are arguably the strongest material in the show. Unfortunately, it all arrives too late. By the time I fully reconnected with the narrative and its stakes, the series was already over.
Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX exemplifies issues not only with Gundam, but with many legacy science fiction properties as a whole, including Star Wars and Star Trek. Rather than moving past formative characters and storylines to embrace a new generation of storytelling, nostalgia has pushed creators to fill in every undocumented second between UC 0079 and UC 0096, cramming seemingly infinite additional stories into the timeline. We get secret Gundams, endless Char clones, stories about Char’s childhood, and then more stories about more Char clones.
As a result, the Universal Century has evolved into an increasingly complex monster of continuity, where every new addition struggles to codify itself into canon. Yoshiyuki Tomino may have had the right idea by moving the goalposts hundreds, if not thousands, of years into the future just to allow something new to exist. I know Sunrise is committed to exploring the next hundred years of the Universal Century through the “UC NexT 0100” project, which aims to expand the timeline between Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn and Mobile Suit Gundam F91, as well as the era following Victory Gundam. This is an exciting idea, but it will only work if the temptation to constantly go backward is used sparingly, because retreading the same ground through alternate versions is just as limiting.
I do not want to come across like I hated this show. It has amazing animation, interesting character designs, and great music, and if it had been given even twelve more episodes, I strongly feel that many of my issues would not exist. The rushed pacing and how oddly sidelined the main characters felt within their own story might have been resolved with more time. With a longer run, the show could have explored its ideas more fully and taken bigger narrative risks.
What makes these creative choices especially puzzling is how popular older Gundam series like Wing, 00, and SEED remain. All three followed a proven formula, telling long-form war stories with giant robots across extended episode counts. While The Witch from Mercury was undeniably popular and brought in a new audience, it almost feels like a fluke that Sunrise tried to replicate with GQuuuuuuX, resulting in a more mixed reaction. In my very humble opinion, the last Gundam TV series that truly “felt like Gundam” was Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans, which recently hit its ten-year anniversary. I would love to see a future Gundam series, whether Universal Century or alternate universe, return to a fifty-episode format and revisit the themes that originally defined the franchise.
Overall, this was a very frustrating watch for me. There are moments of absolute brilliance sitting right alongside some of the most puzzling narrative choices I have seen in Gundam in a long time. If anything, I would strongly recommend watching the prologue film if you can. I have no idea if it will ever be released in the same form it was shown in theaters, but if it has been, or if someone has put together a rogue edit, it is excellent. Likewise, the final stretch of the series, roughly episodes 9 through 12, is solid and honestly should have set the tone for the entire project.
While it might seem like this is a show that could support a sequel, it ends in a way that makes one feel unnecessary, and there does not appear to be much demand for one anyway. GQuuuuuuX is not a complete disaster, but it is a clear missed opportunity, something that could have been a modern classic, held back by a short episode count that leaves the series feeling incomplete. Gundam fans should absolutely watch it, but for non-fans, this is unlikely to bring a new generation into the franchise. Honestly, it’s so soaked in nostalgia, and assumes familiarity with fifty year old shows to such a degree, new fans will probably have no clue what is happening, which is another issue entirely. Finally, having it land quietly on Amazon Prime also did it no favors, likely cutting off the kind of social media momentum that might have helped it find a broader audience. I am interested to see what Sunrise does next post the second Hathaway film – will we get another experiment like this, or will they go back to a more traditional idea?