Ahead of San Diego Comic Con, Bandai Namco Filmworks let the world know it had a new Mobile Suit Gundam series waiting in the wings to announce. That day has finally come. The anime is called Mobile Suit Gundam RG XARX-ZERO; it’s being crafted by legendary Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex writer-director Kenji Kamiyama; it’ll have a video game tie-in; and it’s coming in 2027.
Kamiyama (Eden of the East/Blade Runner: Black Lotus) being tied to the series is a huge deal for anime fans worldwide, still buzzing over the last Gundam anime seeing legendary creatives from Evangelion, Pokémon, and FLCL team up. But for folks who don’t know Kamiyama’s bona fides, his illustrious resume includes, yes, being the director and writer of inarguably the best iteration of GitS, co-director of Netflix’s 2019 Ultraman anime, Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045, director of The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, and supervising director of Star Wars: Visions Volume 3. All that to say, Kamiyama taking the helm of the latest Gundam series by Sunrise and Sola Animation spells appointment viewing.
Here’s the series’ logline:
The three revelations delivered by the Autonomous Interstellar Object from another galaxy ushered in an age of unprecedented prosperity, allowing humanity to expand across the entire solar system. Gravity Control. FTL Communication. Cognitive Materialization. Yet less than ten years after its discovery, the Object that had delivered these three revelations suddenly ran rampant, spawning an aggressive, self-proliferating ecosystem. Humanity came to see this unknown ecosystem as the Apocalypse. For three months, humanity fought the Apocalypse to a standstill in orbit above Earth. Forced to abandon the planet, humanity marked that year as A.A. 1—the first year After Apocalypse. By A.A. 45, children born on the Moon and in space colonies have never known life without the Apocalypse. And on the lunar surface, a boy named Ray Azumi awakens—
And here are the rest of the lovely folks behind the anime’s production:
Original Concept: Yoshiyuki Tomino, Hajime Yatate
SF Setting Supervisor: Toh Enjoe
Gundam Design: Eiichi Shimizu
Original Character Design: STATO
Character Design/Supervising Animation Director: Miyako Takasu
Music: Go Shiina
Production: Sola Animation
Produced by: Bandai Namco Filmworks
As is the case with creatives tasked with creating new series in the prestigious mecha franchise, Kamiyama shared the exciting yet daunting challenge of delivering a show worthy of the Gundam legacy.
“When I was approached with the idea of creating ‘a Gundam set in an entirely new timeline, one that is neither the Universal Century nor the Common Era,’ I found myself wrestling with all sorts of questions,” Kamiyama wrote in a press release. “What would replace the Earth Federation and the Principality of Zeon? What would become of the Newtype concept? What about Minovsky particles? And where did war fit into all of this? The more I turned over the question of what fundamentally makes Gundam Gundam, the further I drifted from the creative excitement that should have been driving the project. So I stepped back and reminded myself: I had been given the chance to create my own Gundam from the ground up for a series I’ve loved for years. What could be more exciting than that? Once I found my way back to that excitement, a fresh and unexpected Gundam began to take shape. That Gundam is Mobile Suit Gundam RG XARX-ZERO.”
Takeo Otsuka also spoke about the privilege of playing Mobile Suit Gundam RG XARX-ZERO protagonist Ray Azumi.
“It is a tremendous honor to be part of a new entry in the Gundam series. Director Kamiyama’s story gave me plenty to think about with every episode, and I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge as I approached each recording session. I’m also incredibly excited to see how this project unfolds as a media-mix project spanning both anime and video games. I hope you’ll look forward to Mobile Suit Gundam RG XARX-ZERO!”
And here’s a closer look at Ray Azumi, RG XARX-ZERO‘s Apocalypse war orphan-turned “permanently assigned pilot” of the Gundam Zero, a “state-of-the-art experimental anti-Apocalypse mobile suit, which we’re still in awe of the aura of it wearing a cloak in its key visual.
As Kamiyama and Otsuka noted above, RG XARX-ZERO is a “media-mix project” connecting the anime’s tale with Bandai Namco’s upcoming single-player action RPG, Gundam Rogue Orbit, which was announced during Summer Game Fest. Whatever lies in store for RG XARX-ZERO‘s story, Gundam Rogue Orbit promises to expand its universe further with a tale set a century after the events of the anime. The game is slated to release on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and Steam.
Mobile Suit Gundam RG XARX-ZERO comes in the wake of Sunrise breathing new life into the franchise with hits like its Revolutionary Girl Utena-esque, sapphic as hell 2022 series, The Witch From Mercury, and its Universal Century rebuild in the equally hard-to-pronounce 2025 anime Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX from Neon Genesis Evangelion studio Khara and FLCL and Gunbuster 2: Diebuster director Kazuya Tsurumaki. The series also comes following the theatrical release of the second film in the Hathaway series, The Sorcery of Nymph Circe.
All that to say, now’s as good a time as any to get into watching (and playing) Mobile Suit Gundam when RG XARX-ZERO premieres in 2027.
Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
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