‘Gundam GQuuuuuuX' Reveals The New Gelgoog, That's Just Like A GM
The new Gelgoog that's more like a GM.
We're now finally in the new stretch of content for Gundam GQuuuuuuX, and it's a mixed bag.
Following the initial clan battle, Machu and Shuji are doing very well for the Pomeranians, with multiple victories under their collective belts.
Even Challia Bull is impressed with their output and doesn't seem at all concerned that having two psycommu mobile suits in close proximity could cause a Zek Nova.
One neat detail is that the room where Challia watches the clan battles is actually a reused asset from the Rebuild of Evangelion movies (see below).
This is in no way a criticism and is actually a smart and sensible approach to anime production.
We are also introduced to a new Federation pilot called Shiiko Sugai. Known as the Witch during the war, due to her high kill count, we also get hit with a new term, 'unicum', which is this in-universe's name for an ace pilot. Why they just didn't call her an ace, I don't know.
In any case, she wants to fight the Red Gundam, as Char killed her MAV during the war.
Sugai is an interesting character because, on first appearance, she's a very sweet and polite mother with a mushroom bob haircut. I like the fact that her demeanor and appearance subvert what we expect an ace pilot to be like in Gundam.
In amongst this, Shuji says that the Red Gundam wants to go to Earth, and the constant dialogue he has with the mobile suit makes me think that something of Char Aznable was left behind after the original Zek Nova. Machu also enthusiastically agrees to go to with him.
The resultant clan battle then reveals some bizarre mobile suits which are called Gelgoogs but are in fact GMs.
Let me explain, in the original Mobile Suit Gundam, the initial objective was to get the Gundam back to the Federation so they could mass produce it. As they were on the clock, the Federation made a simpler version called the GM. The name is sometimes thought to be 'Gundam type Mass-production model', but that hasn't always been consistent.
Now, in this weird new timeline, Char told the Zeon higher-ups to stop production of the Zeon Gelgoog and instead mass-produce the Gundam, which in turn creates a mobile suit that looks like a GM, but because this is Zeon, it is now called a Gelgoog.
It does make sense, but all of this is beginning to feel like bad fan fiction again, and it's also just confusing to newcomers, which this series is seemingly aimed at.
One interesting feature is that the head design for this 'Gelgoog' does really remind me of the Daughtress from Gundam X, and I suppose that's no bad thing, especially as Gundam X deserves more love as it is.
Anyway, the fight between Sugai and the Gundams goes as you'd expect. Sugai uses hooks and wires to move around her target in a difficult-to-predict manner, but is eventually undone by Shuji, who literally zips behind her in 'nothing personal, kid' meme fashion and shivs her mobile suit in the back.
To be honest, this felt massively unnecessary. Yes, Sugai was determined to get vengeance on the Red Gundam, but Shuji could have easily immobilised her mobile suit rather than kill her. After all the prior clan battles weren't to the death.
Like with most of GQuuuuuuX, it's not really coming together as it should and feels oddly amateurish at times. The designs are still bugging me, but I think that now we are in new narrative territory, the story will hopefully pick up.
However, this latest episode didn't really do it for me and just felt overly convoluted to get to a death that was wholly unnecessary. Here's hoping the following episodes get better from here on out.
Gundam GQuuuuuuX is now streaming worldwide via Amazon Prime Video.
Follow me on X, Facebook and YouTube. I also manage Mecha Damashii and am currently featured in the Giant Robots exhibition currently touring Japan.
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The latest episode of the series sets the stage for 'GQuuuuuuX' and its remixing of classic 'Gundam' to enter a fascinating new step. Gundam GQuuuuuuX's remixing of the story of the 1979 anime classic has had to dance around some pretty major players as it weaves in a cast of a new generation of post-war spacenoids and obscure faves from the original show. The shadow of Amuro Ray, through his absence, and Char Aznable, through his perpetual ability to stalk Gundam's narrative, looms large over everything the series has done up to this point. But now, arguably the original Gundam's other major figure is preparing to step into the spotlight. 'Falling on the Moon,' the latest episode of GQuuuuuuX, splits itself between the events of the final hours of the One Year War in 0079—polishing off the remainder of the prologue footage from GQuuuuuuX – Beginning – in the the process—and the series' contemporary five-years-later era to set the stage for what is now a brewing conflict to come between its young female heroines Machu and Nyaan. Together, they are pawns in the broader astropolitical game among Zeon's head honchos that has simmered in the background of the series. But that conflict is about to get a huge psychic wrench thrown in it, it seems. The closing moments of the episodes follow two researchers, Tirza Lionni and the mysterious Shirouzu, as they discuss their eager participation in two of Zeon's top secret projects. One is the 'Yomang'tho site,' the secret name given to development of the Solar Ray, a vast superweapon from the original Gundam, and the other is the successor mobile suit to the GQuuuuuuX, the GfreD (much easier to say for those initially confused by the series' title). But Shirouzu is immediately presented as suspicious to the audience, as he briefly regards Tirza with a look that shows one of his bright blue eyes under a mop of platinum blond hair. He happens to look at a lot like Char Aznable, who has been missing since the closing moments of the war depicted earlier in the episode. He happens to sound a lot like Char Aznable, and shares a voice actor with him in both Japanese and English. Char Aznable (excuse me, sorry, Casval rem Deikun, excuse me, sorry, Quattro Bajeena) certainly does not have a history across Gundam of using pseudonyms and assumed identities to infiltrate and undermine the plans of his most hated enemies, Zeon's ruling Zabi family, or anything. But if all that wasn't enough, it's even more deliberately clear that Shirouzu is a Char (whether the man himself or some kind of clone; Gundam has, of course, done both, metaphorically and literally) in what he's reacting to when his proverbial mask falls away for a moment: Tirza regretfully confides to him her frustration that Zeon has been unable to locate the mysterious 'Rose of Sharon.' This 'object' has been brought up briefly in GQuuuuuuX before—whatever the Rose was, it was under the control of the Zabis before it vanished just as mysteriously as Char did in the 'zeknova' explosion that ended GQuuuuuuX's version of the One Year War. But the next time trailer for episode nine, itself titled 'The Rose of Sharon,' makes it all the more explicit just what that object is: a person with an uncanny resemblance to Lalah Sune from the original Gundam. Introduced in the final few episodes of the 1979 anime, Lalah is one of the most important thematic cornerstones of the show, and her legacy drives much of the thematic thrust of the rest of Gundam's primary 'Universal Century' timeline. A young woman groomed by Char as his potential secret weapon in his revenge plot against the Zabis, Lalah is one of the first and most prominent emergences of Newtypes in Gundam. The purported next evolutionary step for humanity as civilization moves from beyond Earth and toward life in the stars, Newtypes are beings with enhanced senses, from psionic precognition to empathic communication abilities. Lalah is presented as both one of the most powerful to have emerged and also Gundam's commentary on the tragic exploitation of this burgeoning evolution of humankind, as she's promptly tasked with using her Newtype abilities to control an experimental weapon of war and enact awesome and terrifying levels of carnage. 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