I Am a Soul Weighed Down by Gravity: GWitch, GQuuuuuuX and What makes Gundam Special

My Gundam Journey begins nearly 5 years ago. There was a mutual on Twitter I thought was cool and wanted to get to know them better. They were a big fan of Gundam, and I had a 7-hour drive as a passenger to Northern Alberta the next week and would be out of cell service range so I decided it would be the perfect time to get into Gundam. I started with the folly of googling “Gundam chronological order” and got the oft repeated but incorrect advice that Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin Ova was the first step in in the Universal Century. I was transfixed right away. The story of Char was interesting even as I had no way of knowing what he would become. Then it was time for the drive, so I downloaded the three compilation films of the original series and a YouTube upload of Zeta. I watched all three movies in one sitting on the drive. They were mesmerizing. The White Base crew felt so real and human, the mobile suits were incredible in motion. My life was changed forever. I was ravenous after. I watched Zeta quickly after, as well as Char’s Counterattack and that quickly became my favourite movie I had ever watched. Then I moved onto Unicorn and Iron-Blooded Orphans, the most recent full show at that time. I became a different person after Gundam. I was more willing to be myself, less afraid of what others would think of me. I made real human connections with people I still cherish to this day. Which was life saving and still is. I started on the road to being comfortable with being transgender. I would not be alive without Gundam. It gave me the will to be something more than an empty shell.

This has led to me having a somewhat spiritual relationship to Gundam. I am well aware it is a media franchise run by a soulless evil company that, as a self-respecting Gundam fan, I hate with a passion of 1000 suns. Yet, I feel a real connection with the people who create for this franchise and some of the people who also enjoy it. It is fun to talk with friends about how cool the robots are or the depth of characters like Jamil, Char, and Fraw. Something I keep returning to in my every day life is a quote from Mobile Suit Gundam Hathaway’s Flash novel 3, “Historically, Gundams, even those within the Federation, were piloted by individuals with a rebellious spirit. And the end for a Gundam has always been somewhat tragic - decapitated, scorched, or torn apart. But that rebellious spirit? It aways persisted, even long after the Gundam was gone” . The world we live in currently is in a stage of great upheaval. Things are not going well for large swathes of the population. As a trans person I feel this keenly as the most powerful nations in the world strive to make it so people like me do not exist. One of the things that keeps me going is a desire to have that rebellious spirit Tomino is talking about. That rebellious spirit is always in service to a better, kinder world, even if its in vain. Amuro finds the home he wanted only for it to be taken away from him. Hathaway fights like hell against an oppressive government only to fail and be executed, nearly in front of his father. we do not know if we will succeed in our struggles, but we must fight for a better future regardless.

These thoughts bring me recent Gundam series releases I have seen, the ones released after I became a fan of Gundam. The first, Witch from Mercury (GWitch) released about a year after I became a fan. It was interesting. The characters were a joy to be around and it felt like a Gundam for the modern age. It had its stumbles, it felt as though it wrapped up too quickly. But at its heart was a compelling lesbian relationship between the main character and the woman she became engaged to at the end of the first episode. Its existence as an alternate universe away from the large shadow of the original Gundam helps it greatly. It can feel free to be its own thing and is a breath of fresh air. It has a slightly lighter tone at the beginning compared to other Gundam shows and the main character is a bundle of joy. GWitch shows it is a worthwhile entry in the series with the mantra the main character, Suletta, often repeats, “If you run, you gain one. If you move forward, you gain two”. Fundamentally, it is a survival strategy. Running away is okay, you get to live another day. Yet, it also says doing so forever is not the best strategy. You gain more by pushing forward into the future, even if its scary. This is why despite the problems I have with GWitch, I can’t help but enjoy it. The show understands what makes Gundam special and plays around with that in a new setting. The next entry does the opposite and returns to well trod ground, and this mires its attempts to anything interesting,

As discussed previously, I went to see GQuuuuuuX The Beginning in theatres. It is 2/3s everything I want from Gundam. A bold protagonist willing to stand up for what she believes is right, great action sequences, character depth. It is mostly fantastic. The first third is an extended shot for shot remake of Char Aznable being pretty much exactly what Amuro did in episode one of Mobile Suit Gundam. Before when I complained about this section it was after the halfway point of the show. Now, with the full context of the show it even worse. Gundam GQuuuuuuX seems to point to letting go of things and moving on as a theme. Shiiko Sugai is killed because she cannot let her hatred of Char’s red Gundam go. In the show’s last episode, Challia Bull, a man described as “In the thrall of the Red Comet” (Char) grows as a person when he rather suddenly betrays Char’s trust as Challia no longer believes that Char is the person to lead Newtypes into a new dawn. Shuji is dissuaded from killing Lalah and letting her go. There are real palpable moments where it feels at though the show is building to a thesis that fits into Gundam as a whole. Let go of comfort and the past, push into the unknown future. Shuji, the manic pixie dream boy of the show does this for the main character Machu. He breaks her boring life as a girl from a rich family and showed her a freedom she didn’t think was possible. These are good moments. Unfortunately, the show by its nature fails to deliver on them.

As an alternative Universal Century, part of what GQuuuuuuX is interested in is how the differing events effected characters from the original setting. This interest is at odds with the let go thesis it seems to be hinting at for the entire show. Large portions oif the show are dedicated to showing you how characters of varying renown are fairing in this new world. The two worst being Char Aznable and Lalah Sune. Char exists here not as we was in the main Tomino Gundam works, a deeply flawed person with real hang ups about life trying to do what he believes the world wishes him to. In the end this destroys him. Here, Char is a hyper competent badass who rarely fails and is incredibly charming. In addition to his ability pilot mobile suits extremely well, he also hijacks a Newtype weapon from its original purpose to his own designs, apparently mastering science in this universe. The show knows of Char’s reputation amongst fans of Gundam as the show was made by immense fans of Gundam. That leads to characters like Char being written not as they were in the original series, but instead as almost caricatures of those characters.

Lalah is similar. In the original she was defined by her Newtype abilities and her love for Char and Amuro. That is dialled up to eleven in GQuuuuuuX. Lalah creates this entire new UC just to invent a world where Char survives her version of the One-Year War. Inexplicably, the version of the world we see is an alternative version not of the Universal Century as we know it in Mobile Suit Gundam and Zeta Gundam, but a version of the Universal Century where Char is killed by Amuro in the One-Year War. Instead of using this new version of the story to build on Lalah’s character, they simply use her as Newtype magic and reduce her even further to someone who loves Char and is exploited. Machu finds this world’s version of Lalah a brothel where the women appear to be enslaved. This seems done for cheap shock value as the brothel is burned down minutes later. This treatment of Lalah is so frustrating because Challia Bull, a returning character from Mobile Suit Gundam, is treated very well. He is developed in cool and interesting ways. Taking a semi-worthless character in the original series and giving them new life as someone who believes in Char’s vision for the world and is working to enact that world, even if it means betraying Char to do it.

This reliance on the story to be moved forward by returning characters leads to the new characters to feel lost in their own show. It is not bad at first as the trio have a goal to get to earth and are competing in dangerous underground mobile suit fights to do it. It all comes to a head when Shuji, one of the trio is going to be arrested and Machu and Nyaan hatch a plot to save him and flee to Earth. This gfoes terribly wrong and the girls never feel in a driver seat of the plot again. Instead they are treated as pieces on a chess board by higher powers. Which would be fine and interesting but the plot being devised feels like bad fanfiction that is rushing against a deadline. Still all throughout this, Machu and Nyaan remain compelling characters. Until the end of the series. The two are having a beach day together, having fled to earth after the events of the show, Machu turns to the camera and says, “The Gquuuuux says “we’ll meet again someday”” in relation to Shuji who disappeared at the end of the show. This feels to me a refutation of everything it felt like the show was building towards. It is as though she is trapped the same way Challia Bull was with Char At the beginning of the series. She cannot let him go.

I worry I cannot let Gundam go. It was a refuge in a very trying time that lead me to better myself and reach out to people for the first time in my life. I still cherish the memories and people I met through gundam. Yet I worry, like GQuuuuuuX,  I am beholded to it, afraid to try new and exciting things. Instead staying in my Gundam comfort zone scared to leave its safety and challenge myself. Afraid to push into genres or stories that don’t push me to better myself like Gundam did for me. Perhaps I need to take Suletta’s advice and push to gain two a few times. Lately I feel afraid I have not been that rebellious spirit that inspired me all those years ago. Yet it makes sense, Gundam has gone from a cancelled show that failed to meet expectations despite its brilliance to a global brand that is lumbering and slow. It itself has lost that rebellious spirit. To grow we must push outside our comfort zone. GWitch accomplishes that, GQuuuuuuX doesn’t.