GQuuuuuuX

Or: I wish I had that much self-confidence.

Earth Overshoot Day fell on July 24 and 2025 is on track to be the 2nd or 3rd warmest year ever, just behind 2024 (January 2025 was the hottest January on record).
So let’s talk about the really important stuff, that is Gundam GQuuuuuuX.

Warning: This newsletter is probably going to make zero sense if you don’t know at least a little about Gundam. Or if you’ve never heard of Hideaki Anno, Kazuya Tsurumaki, or Studio Khara. I’m writing it anyway.

I’ve spent days obsessing over Gundam GQuuuuuuX, and I’m hoping that writing about it will finally get it out of my head—because I’ve got a ton of other stuff to write, and another surgery coming up (this time it’s my nose. 2025 is the year I keep getting patched up, apparently…).

Anyway.

If you’re not Italian, you probably don’t know the weird history of Gundam in my native country. Long story short: because of some unpaid licensing issues, Mobile Suit Gundam (the original 1979 series, Kidō Senshi Gundam in Japanese) aired only ONCE on Italian TV. And none of Tomino’s follow-up anime series ever made it over here (it took me decades to be able to watch Battle Aura Dunbine, just to name one). It wasn’t until the global launch of Gundam Wing in the late ’90s that the franchise returned to Italian screens.

So the fact that I got to watch GQuuuuuuX—the latest Gundam series— in simulcast, at the same time as Japanese viewers? That hit me in a weird way.

I also wonder how widely known Gundam really is outside Japan and outside a tight-knit circle of Western otaku like myself. In Japan, I’d say its cultural footprint is about on par with Star Wars—a full-blown sci-fi transmedia juggernaut. And for the curious: Italy is the top European market for Gunpla (those Gundam model kits you build and paint).

So, GQuuuuuuX had two big reasons to interest me:
1. First, of course, it’s the newest Gundam series.
2. Second, it was made by Studio Khara—that’s the studio Hideaki Anno founded after leaving Gainax. The lead creator is Kazuya Tsurumaki, Anno’s protégé and the guy behind FLCL, which is flat-out a masterpiece.

Now, talking about Gundam GQuuuuuuX is… tricky.
Mainly because you really can’t talk about it without diving into

SPOILERS.

You’ve been warned. If you haven’t seen it, I’d say: go watch it.
Or maybe don’t.
Which is kind of the point.
On one hand, this is a Gundam series so packed with references to older installments (the original series, Z Gundam, Char’s Counterattack) that I guess it’s basically incomprehensible if you’re not a diehard fan—or maybe even a scholar of the franchise.
On the other hand… it clearly targets a younger audience.
What was Bandai thinking when they handed the franchise to Studio Khara? What was Studio Khara thinking? These are the mysteries of a show that drops a ton of stuff to unpack. And yeah, I’m going to unpack it—but not necessarily in any logical order. Sorry again.

So: Tsurumaki (though according to Japanese sources, the original story concept came from Anno—not surprising: if I have to bet, a thick block of pages has been ready since 1989) creates 12 episodes of Gundam with two clear goals:
1. Pay tribute to the genius of franchise creator Yoshiyuki Tomino.
2. Say that the original series was WRONG—and that even Tomino “got things wrong.”
You read that right.
I don’t know what kind of confidence it takes to do something like that, but that’s what they did.
And the wildest part (for me)? It made me realize that’s exactly how I work when I’m writing characters created by someone else. That hit in an even weirder way.

From episode one, we’re told this is an alternate universe. In this reality, Zeon won the war. How? Episode 2 gives us the divergence point: Char gets to the Gundam just a few minutes before Amuro.
From that moment on, the story—and UC history (UC=Universal Century, the official setting/timeline of the first Gundam series and sequels)—goes in a completely different direction. Completely different… yet identical.
Meaning that even though Char is now the one piloting the Gundam, the scene where he climbs into it is exactly the same, shot for shot, as in the original series.
Same with the fight scenes—identical frame-by-frame (just flipped vertically, since it’s the “villain” using the Gundam this time).
That’s why I find all the complaints about “fan service” I read on line so off base.
Let me explain: fan service is content you can strip out without affecting the story. Decorative fluff. But the 1:1 remakes here are doing real narrative work. I get it, because I think the same way: as a writer, there’s no real difference between fan references and narrative commentary, if it’s grounded in the story. That split in perception? It comes from the fans. But a writer doesn’t think just like an otaku—if that’s all you’re doing, you’re in the wrong line of work. What Khara is doing here isn’t fan service—it’s philology. “We’re analyzing the original Gundam, Tomino’s version of it, because that’s where everything begins. It’s the archetype. And based on what we’ve seen on screen, heard in dialogue, or found in song lyrics (!)—we’re drawing conclusions that are *different* from those of Master Tomino.”

Some scenes repeat because, in this story—which you gradually realize is one of countless slightly different iterations of the same story—those moments are “canonical.” (Spider-Verse style).
And I totally get that logic. When I write inside a pre-existing IP, I’m not necessarily trying to reinvent it. I want to continue it. Add something. But I want to base that on what I’ve seen, read, heard. If this were court, I’d say: “Your Honor, I can prove this.” So no, this series isn’t reinventing Gundam. It’s a meta-reflection on the whole franchise.
Bold.

So we’re getting two stories here:
1. A retelling of the original series, set in an alternate universe and framed as a meditation on the *meaning* of Gundam.
2. A new story about a younger generation of characters.

Let’s look at the first one. The divergence point—Char living while Lalah dies in the original series, Lalah survives while Char dies in what we are told is the “original” reality—seems tiny. But it’s a massive narrative insight. Because Japanese storytelling is (I apologise for the oversimplification) about character emotions. You don’t need something huge or loud, just one small change can create a full-blown emotional big bang. And then, when Beyond the Time (the legendary song from Char’s Counterattack) starts playing… again, this is *not* fan service. Shuji literally says Lalah has created infinite universes where she tries to prevent Char from dying. They’re telling us: the original Gundam series? Not the “main” reality. Not the “real” one. As I said before: the creators are saying Tomino got it wrong. But to make that argument, they quote Tomino himself: “We didn’t invent anything. All of this was already in the lyrics of “Beyond the Time”, courtesy of Master Tomino himself in Char’s Counterattack.” And they don’t even play the whole song—just the part that justifies *this* version of Gundam. From “MEBIUSU no wakara nukedase nakute” to “You can change your destiny toki no mukou.” Exactly the part that matters.
Brilliant.
Fuck, you have to listen to it, that song is a masterpiece:

And then comes Granpa (as we die-hard fans call it), the RX-78—the original Gundam from 1979, not the one from Char’s Counterattack. Because now we’re not just telling a story—we’re going full meta. We’re going back to where everything began. To *the* Gundam. In fact, Shuji even claims to know what the Gundam “thinks.” But then the Gundam itself—reincarnated—speaks *in the first person* and says: “I’m tired of killing Lalah.” And yeah, the voice is Amuro’s actor. But that doesn’t contradict anything. Because it’s not about Amuro killing Char over and over—it’s *Gundam*.

So… Char realizes the brutal engine that drives this whole narrative, and he understands: he has to live a life completely opposite to the one he’s lived until now.
In fact, in this ending, Char’s not a soldier. After the Zabis fell, *he* was the one that kept the wars going. And Challia Bull flat-out tells him: if *you* were in power, you’d be no better than them.
And the big shiny robot we all love—that’s been merchandised to death—is stripped back down to its essence: a weapon that kills.
It’s not Amuro killing Char or Lalah again and again.
It’s *Gundam*.

Is the ending Evangelion-style? Well, of course. This is Studio Khara. I hope nobody will object if I say that one of the many things Evangelion is… is a grunge mid-’90s retelling of a war story starring a depressed, insecure teenager. Which is, in a way, the same kind of emotional structure the first Gundam series featuring Amuro as a main character already had.
If you’re creating something new but with a philological intent, how could you *not* draw a connection between the two franchises… especially if you created the latter?
Is that self-important? Maybe. But I didn’t make Evangelion. Anno and Tsurumaki did.
So when the final moments of GQuuuuuuX start echoing *Rebuild*—and even quoting a scene from Z Gundam at the same time, I KNOW—it all makes sense.
Also, notice that we don’t have a depressed main character here. Because this series wants to talk to new generations. And they don’t need an updated version of an Amuro or a Shinji to identify with. They’re so different and more interesting.

And honestly, there’s an interpretation I can’t shake:
Shuji *is* Tsurumaki.
An otaku who once fell (virtually) in love with Lalah—a fictional girl—and who, after meeting his real-life “Machu,” stops imagining endless timelines where Lalah doesn’t die. Too much? Again: I go strictly by what I see and hear on screen: Shuji never say exactly where comes from. “The other side”. What’s this other side? He might literally come from *our world*. And that alien-ness is underlined by a small but telling detail: his name is written in katakana—not kanji, not hiragana. Which is how foreign or -allow me again the oversemplification- “outsider” names are written in Japanese : シュウジ・イトウ).
Shuji doesn’t come from within the Gundam universe. He comes from outside the diegetic world.

Which brings us to the second narrative layer: the story of the new young characters. The underground fighting subplot? Character growth—not just advancing the main plot. Machu (too fast of a shift? I won’t argue if you think so—I’m fine with it, but I get it) is the character for the younger audience: she goes from being a clueless kid worried about her cracked phone screen to a warrior, a self-aware NewType. And “NewType”, even more than in Tomino’s stories, represents “the younger generations”. And here’s the second time Tomino gets contradicted: his view of Newtypes got darker and darker over the years—peaking probably in Turn A Gundam.
But in GQuuuuuuX? This is what Studio Khara has to say to younger generations, or better, has younger generations tell us: “We’ll grow up. We don’t need anyone - we don’t need *you* to protect us.” A line written by a group of authors in their sixties. Doesn’t remind you of what Pa Kent tells Superman about parents being basically idiot and please do your stuff, don’t think about our mistakes? If this is the zeitgeist, it’s beautiful.

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Rejecting Tomino, while starting from Tomino? Wow. And this approach? It is (and must be) very different from what James Gunn is doing with Superman, where he’s choosing one continuity among many to tell the story *he* wants to tell. Here, they start with what’s officially “canon” (the UC timeline—messy but overall consistent through the years), and then they reflect on it by giving new meaning to it.

I can understand not everyone appreciates this kind of approach (I know people who *hated* GQuuuuuuX. But Evangelion, too). This kind of rigor doesn’t always land (and that’s fine!). It’s easy to accuse this kind of storytelling of solipsism, or say it’s just a “fanboy” project. But it’s not. It’s a precise method. A very disciplined one.
And whether it works or not (and to me, Gundam GQuuuuuuX absolutely works), I admire that approach. As I said, in fact, when I write other people’s characters, that’s the approach I use too.
Even if I’ll probably never have the guts of Tsurumaki and Anno.

If you’re still here, and you live in Italy, France, Spain or Germany, allow me to remind you that you can find in bookshops my manga one-shot “Not yet” (with art by the magnificent Maria Chiara Tonti) in Manga Issho 2. If you read it, and you like it, please also vote it. :-)

And that’s it for this week. See you next time with a brand new nose.