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In the midst of Bandai Namco‘s success over multiple forms of media, Bandai also unveiled the new Gundam, named Gquuuuuux (pronounced ‘g-quax’), along with the anime of the same name. You’ll notice right away that it’s a departure from the usual Gundam design, and even the mecha designer is Hideaki Anno from Neon Genesis Evangelion.
Here’s what Gquuuuuux looks like in action:
The anime itself is shying away from the typical war stories and child soldier formula that has comprised most of Mobile Suit Gundam‘s identity since its inception. In fact, it looks closer to a cyberpunk story now instead of a war drama.
Even the protagonist Amate Yuzuriha happens to be a high-schooler who joins arena battles involving Gundam and mechas presumably to break free from the dystopian space colony’s system. She’s a spitting image of the previous female MC from Mobile Suit Gundam: Witch from Mercury, Sulette Mercury.
If you’ve been out of the loop, Witch from Mercury began this tonal shift for the Gundam franchise, where it’s more of a corporate conspiracy drama than a war drama. From there, the pattern starts to emerge: Gundam’s creative heads are now steering clear from war and child soldiers, and there’s a good reason for this.
Too Many Child Soldiers, Too Much War
The thing is, Mobile Suit Gundam has been reiterating the teenager-caught-in-a-war formula for four decades now, since 1979’s original Mobile Suit Gundam and Amuro Ray (the original MC). Each new universe doubled down on the child soldier trope, from Gundam Wing to Gundam 00, and it finally culminated in its darkest child soldier story with Iron-Blooded Orphans in 2015.
Now, if you look at the protagonists of those aforementioned Gundam anime in action, you’ll notice something– they all look alike and have the personalities of jagged cardboard cutouts. You can only reiterate the sociopathic/psychotic child soldier protagonist so much before it becomes stale. And for that matter, retold war stories involving them have become unoriginal.
Not to mention, the trope is a bit problematic. By selling or promoting the Gundam toys in whatever way, you’d also be glorifying the very wars that created these child soldiers in the first place so there goes your anti-war message.
Gquuuuuux is a Chance for Gundam to Innovate
So while Gquuuuuux could be polarizing at the start, I daresay it’s good for the Gundam franchise as a whole in the long run. This experimentation is similar to what Turn-A Gundam, Mobile Fighter G, and Witch from Mercury did for the franchise, which is to reinvigorate it and attract new subsets of audiences.
Moreover, cyberpunk anime like Cyberpunk: Edgerunners have proven that the setting and trope are fresh and successful. Gquuuuuux could hopefully capitalize on that and create a story about a teenager piloting a mecha that doesn’t involve accidentally romanticizing child soldier slavery or intergalactic war.
One thing’s for sure though, Bandai won’t stop stuffing children into giant superweapons with or without war. So there’s a chance it would eventually have to go back to war stories and reluctant child soldiers.
