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A new Gundam movie is in theaters, and it starts us in a very familiar place before going on an entirely new journey. Prior to 2025, the franchise was prone to recycling elements from its original Universal Century setting into new alternate universes, whether that was Earth-space wars, masked men or teenaged pilots with emotional issues. But starting with Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX we get our first actual “alternate UC” anime.
The premise is simple enough – what if a key turning point caused the One Year War to play out very differently and end in Zeon’s favor? What does the world look like five years later when some of the Zabi family are still alive and in power? That’s the question that is posed (but not yet answered) by “Beginning,” a movie edit of the upcoming series’ early episodes. The movie is the product of a surprising but also highly anticipated collaboration between Sunrise and Studio Khara, Hideaki Anno’s studio that is filled with Gainax veterans who escaped the collapse of that company. “Beginning” is a tale of opposites – its prologue portion starts as a straight replay of Mobile Suit Gundam and is in many scenes a shot-for-shot remake of the 1979 series, blending modern mecha design with 1979 character designs and music. But the story takes a twist with Char Aznable infiltrating Side 7 in place of hotshot pilot Gene, setting off a cascade of events that ends with Zeon winning the war.
The story then jumps to UC 0085 and the aesthetic shifts to one that recalls Gainax’s FLCL, which is no coincidence since Kazuya Tsurumaki directed both. If you look closely, you’ll even see some inside jokes about his older show, including the “Foolypedia” website. In this new rendition of the Universal Century, the story shifts to Amate Yuzuriha, a teenaged girl living in the neutral Side 6 Izuma Colony. Through a series of convoluted events, Amate falls in with a group of people who participate in illegal civilian mobile suit fights called Clan Battle. She also falls into the cockpit of the series’ title mobile suit, a mysterious mecha equipped with an “Omega Psycommu” that Amate is able to immediately unlock.
The movie ends after Amate successfully completes her first Clan Battle in the stolen mobile suit she’s claimed for herself. In this early stage of the story, Amate is a bit of a mystery, but she definitely comes across as quite different from Suletta Mercury, protagonist of the preceding series Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury. Of course, the role of this movie edit is to tease all these questions, but not yet answer them. If you’re a fan of Rebuild of Evangelion, FLCL and Diebuster, you’ll enjoy this movie. If you’re a big UC nerd, you might enjoy this movie, if you’re willing to go into it with an open mind. GQuuuuuuX has already set itself apart with its alternate history setting, bright character designs and unorthodox mobile suit designs. I’m eager to see how this story plays out and if it can fulfill on the promise of being something new wrapped in familiar trappings.
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