It’s been clear since we first heard about the premise for Gundam GQuuuuuuX that it was a series being developed by creatives with an unyielding, loveably fannish reverence for the original 1979 anime that started it all. But this week as the series hit its halfway turning point—and ramped up its stakes significantly—GQuuuuuuX also revealed that it’s also being made by people who are fans of another Gundam show.
Specifically, Gundam‘s successor, Zeta Gundam.
“The Plot to Assassinate Kycilia,” GQuuuuuuX‘s sixth episode, sees young protagonist Machu assailed on multiple fronts, as pressure from her school and home life, lingering jealousy over Nyaan’s awakening as a Newtype, and a new threat of being sold out by Clan Battle manager Annqi to Zeon all come to a head on the eve of her what might be her final scrap in the GQuuuuuuX. But beyond all that, the episode lays the groundwork for an intriguing political scheme simmering in the background surrounding the titular Kycilia Zabi, one of Zeon’s ruling family members as she comes to visit Side 6.
The episode does a lot to play up that the Zeon forces already at Side 6 serving under Challia Bull might not be entirely on board with “her excellency”—there’s doubts from his own subordinates as to where his loyalties lie between Kycilia and her brother Gihren, but we’ve known since Beginning‘s flashbacks to the alternate 0079 that Challia himself was onboard with Char’s secret plans to overthrow the Zabis entirely, so there’s multiple games at play. But it also throws in an extra complication: the titular plot is seemingly not coming from anyone affiliated with Zeon, but their former opponents in the One Year War, the Earth Federation, when it’s revealed that the mysterious company behind Machu and Shuji’s final clan battle opponents have very familiar faces.
They are none other than Bask Om and Gates Capa, members of the Titans from Gundam‘s 1985 sequel, Zeta Gundam. Set almost a decade after the original series, Zeta flipped expectations by having its protagonists, a rogue independent group called AEUG, battle the Titans, the Federation’s elite special forces division dedicated to wiping out Zeon remnants, but also an increasingly authoritarian and powerful branch of the Federation trying to usurp control of the planet and the space colonies alike. It seems so far that in GQuuuuuuX‘s re-imagining of Gundam‘s Universal Century timeline, the Titans are now more of a guerrilla group themselves in the wake of the Federation’s defeat in the war. But while Om is an interesting addition to the new show (he was a major antagonist in Zeta), it’s Capa who becomes more interesting here as GQuuuuuuX prepares to dabble with another fascinating element of Gundam history.
In Zeta Gundam, Capa was a test subject from the Federation’s Newtype labs, one of several pilots who undergoes a series of surgical and psychological upgrades (and face mentally destabilizing trauma in the process) to be enhanced as a “Cyber Newtype”, an artificially engineered version of the natural evolutionary process that makes humans living in space develop empathetic psychic abilities and heightened awareness. The emergence of the Cyber Newtypes is a major element of Zeta Gundam‘s worldbuilding, as the Federation and Zeon’s remnants alike begin to try and exploit the emergence of Newtypes as weapons of war, using their abilities to pilot even deadlier mobile suits. And although Capa’s got a different co-pilot here than he did in Zeta, a mysterious new character and fellow Cyber Newtype known only as Deux so far, they’re piloting the same horrific weapon…
The Psycho Gundam, briefly glimpsed in the next-time trailer at the climax of the episode. A transforming mobile armor developed by the Murasame Newtype Labs in Zeta, the Psycho Gundam and its successor suit were specifically designed for use by Cyber Newtypes, massive mecha multiple times the size of the average mobile suit, and stacked with a terrifying amount of weaponry. Both iterations of the Psycho Gundam also put tremendous mental pressure on their pilots, ultimately driving them to total mental breakdown before their deaths, so, suffice to say, things are about to get pretty rough on GQuuuuuuX!
It’s a fascinating development that the series itself its turning its eyes to the original Gundam‘s successor as a way to amplify the stakes getting bigger and bigger beyond any of its protagonists. In some ways, it’s just a natural continuation of the mirror GQuuuuuuX has held up to the 1979 anime after all, although it’s not exactly the same time difference its main story is set, like Zeta was, years after the conclusion of the war that shaped the original Gundam, following a generation of people who were raised in its aftermath.
But it’s also a telling one thematically: if the original Gundam was a more clear cut about its Earth vs. Zeon conflict, Zeta was all about muddying the lines and adding further layers of complexity to that conflict for its protagonists, asking them and the audience alike to critique systems of power beyond the expected idea of who was the hero and who was the villain. If things are about to get real for GQuuuuuuX‘s young trio of heroes, it’s perhaps only fitting that the series begins to reflect on, and draw direct reference to, Gundam‘s own darker, morally messier successor in turn.
Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX is now streaming on Prime Video
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