“Machu in Clan Battle” and “The Witch’s War”
Amate and Nyaa link up with the mysterious Shuji Ito, who somehow has retrieved the Red Gundam and currently pilots the suit.
Zigg’s Thoughts
After the rather abrupt gear change of episode 2’s extended One Year War flashback, this pair of instalments finds GQuuuuuux back on more familiar ground, fleshing out some of the particulars of the altered world we find ourselves in and giving us some key indicators as to the style and tone of the show going forward. It’s a somewhat intriguing mix of the familiar, the new and the abstract, and while I don’t necessarily jive 100% with some of the choices that have been made, there’s little denying that they’re laying the ground for some potentially explosive drama.
Obviously the most important thing that happens in these episodes is the introduction and establishment of Shuji, graffiti artist, seeming Newtype, and the pilot of the Red Gundam, which has emerged under his control for reasons unknown. Shuji’s an interesting embodiment of the old & new combining in GQuuuuuux – his gentle, dreamy, stoner-like demeanour is very representative of character archetypes that director Tsurumaki has drawn upon before, and of mid-to-late period Gainax works in general. On the other hand, his position as a powerful-but erratic Newtype who has a (not-so) secret ruthless streak is classic Gundam, an echo of countless angsty teens down the years with too much ammunition and not enough counselling. I do think that his killing of Shiiko at the end of episode 4 is a fine bit of storytelling however, a memorable contrast between his sleepy demeanour and the ruthlessness of his battling. It’s a classic Gundam moment, delivered with appropriate flourish, and without a doubt the standout sequence of GQuuuuuux thus far.
Elsewhere however the show still seems to be struggling to coalesce. One thing which has particularly concerned me is that we’re not really getting a great deal of time with the characters outside of their nuts-and-bolts narrative scenes, and they’re feeling a little underdeveloped as a result. While there are some scattered lovely moments with Amate, particularly her scenes with her mother, I still don’t really feel like I’ve gotten the measure of the character yet outside of her basic robot-related motivations. That goes double for Nyaan, who’s basically still a complete cypher to the audience at this point. This wouldn’t be an issue in a traditional length Gundam show but if GQuuuuuux really is going to only be a single season long then they need to step on the gas as far as character development goes – while I don’t hate the cast I also don’t yet have the affection for them that’s necessary to sell the likelihood of heightened drama going forward.
In fact, that applies doubly to the Zeon wing of the ensemble. Their only real contribution to these episodes is Challia Bull and his failson Xavier sitting around drinking and occasionally going “wow it sure is wild that that girl can pilot the Gundam huh?”. They feel totally peripheral to the actual meat of the story at the moment, which is kind of wild considering that they’ve had a top-secret black-ops weapon hijacked from them. I don’t necessarily need them to be throwing their weight around and barging into the narrative constantly, but some sort of sense of purpose or urgency to their actions would do a lot to make them feel meaningful. It’s this strand of the show which I feel the BIG QUESTION most acutely lurking around – namely ‘Why is this an alternate Universal Century’ rather than its own thing?’. Absent Char, Challia Bull and the former White Base are GQuuuuuux‘s most tangible link back to established continuity, and having them just sort of doing nothing does nothing to quell the feeling of redundancy a lot of the legacy elements have had ever since the start of the show.
With that said, the introduction (and subsequent ‘departure’) of Shiiko is a far more successful example of the show leaning on its history in a breezy, playful way to generate an enjoyable new dynamic. UC Gundam has a long history of Zeon aces who just can’t let the One Year War go – Kelly Layzner, Marida Cruz, Anavel Gato and, most famously, Quattro Bajeena are all notable examples – so inverting that cliche and giving us an embittered, vengeance-seeking Federation pilot is a fun way to spin a classic trope and tell the story in a new light. Given the compressed timeframe a lot of Shiiko’s character scenes are a bit on the nose (particularly the ‘I love my husband and son’ segment which should clue even the most ignorant viewer in to what’s about to happen) but that’s forgivable under the circumstances. Additional flourishes like the presence of the ”’Gelgoog”’ are also delightful and further indicate that perhaps GQuuuuuux is best when it treats its weighty history in a lighter way.
One thing we do have to touch on before wrapping up is that battles themselves, given how they’re the defining feature of both of these episodes. Look, there’s always going to be a part of my heart which sinks a little when the CGI mecha pop up, but putting that part to one side it’s hard to deny just how thrilling these confrontations are. The sense of speed, ferocity and firepower is fantastic, and Khara do take full advantage of the freeedom that the all-digital format offers by flinging the camera all over the place, but always pulling back just before it becomes to disorienting. I love Shiiko’s cool tether-fighting style too, although using the term ‘stigamata’ is maybe getting a bit too Evangelion for my liking thank you very much.
Overall, GQuuuuuux continues to be be equal parts frustrating and fascinating. It’s hard to deny the terrific production values, and it seems to be right on the verge of going somewhere interesting narratively, but at the same time I can’t help but worry about the curiously underdeveloped characters and (I fully cop to this being my own pet peeve) abundance of ‘space magic’-based storytelling. At the moment I think it’s a show I respect more than I love, but I’m still very open to persuasion, and it does look like we’re only going to be ramping up the drama from here on in.
Random Observations
- Good Amate scenes – bath gremlin, handstanding on bed for no reason
- People in-universe being unsure of how to pronounce the GQuuuuuux’s name is a great joke and another proud Gundam tradition.
- For anyone who doesn’t understand the Gelgoog thing, the joke is that this mech looks nothing like the original Gelgoog, but instead is basically a GM with a different head. In the original timeline, the GM was a cheaper, flimsier, mass-production version of the Gundam, so it makes sense that in a timeline where Zeon had the Gundam, the GM would actually be a Zeon suit instead.
- I get into this more on the podcast but it does seem very weird that Shiiko is so hell-bent on destroying the Red Gundam even though she knows it’s not being piloted by the same person who killed her Mav. Comes dangerously close to prioritising the mech over the human being in my opinion.
- Familiar faces from original Mobile Suit Gundam in these episodes – Cameron Bloom, who was Mirai Yashima’s fiancee, and Mosk Han, who invented the Gundam’s magnetic coating.
