Gundam has spent nearly 50 years reinventing itself across myriad side stories, new universes, and reimaginings of the story that started it all in the events of the “Universal Century” that kicked off in the original 1979 series Mobile Suit Gundam. There are so many ways to get into the franchise, newer starting points, perhaps less intimidating starting points than a 43-episode TV series. But there’s a reason the original Gundam still endures as one of the best, if not the best, entry points all these years later, especially after Gundam GQuuuuuuX just spent 12 weeks drawing upon and remixing it: not only does the show remain as relevant and poignant as it did all those years ago, visiting it now beyond the context of its legacy is fascinatingly rewarding.
Either the original Gundam‘s compilation trilogy or its TV anime (for what it’s worth, it is a larger ask, but the show is worth its runtime) still gives you a fascinating meditation on the impact of war on a generation of young people disenfranchised by the powers and generations that came before them. Its mecha action remains compelling in spite of any perceived “dated” animation from a 46-year-old cartoon, especially so for the way the series frames the impact of that action on the humans driving it. A show still feeling out the early shapes of the genre it would go on to help define, the original Gundam endures as a classic because its ideas remain so potent; it’s no wonder the series has spent the decades since either trying to build on and continue that story or create new imaginings and parallels that exist in conversation with it.
GQuuuuuuX represents arguably the apex of that decades-long desire to reflect on the legacy of what Mobile Suit Gundam has come to be in the minds of legions of fans and creatives who have come in its wake. The original show looms large over GQuuuuuuX, not just for the sheer amount of context from it the series ultimately demanded of its audience, but because GQuuuuuuX exists in the context of Mobile Suit Gundam‘s legacy. Figures like Char are treated less like people within the narrative and more emblematic of their reputations, not just within the universe, but their reputations from years of fascination with these characters and the original series. Even the very act of being a direct, alternative universe remix on the outcome of the original show is an acknowledgement that the reputation of the original Gundam is so vast that the very act of engaging with what it would mean to retell its story is worthy of building an entire series out of. GQuuuuuuX‘s creatives have not been shy about the aims of the show being not just its own thing, but a way to encourage new generations of audiences to go and explore the original show and see what sparked their own fascinations with it, to see what created the legacy that GQuuuuuuX celebrates.
Which is why it’s so interesting to go back to that original show and realize that it is a show distinctly removed from the legacy it would go on to attain. The original Gundam was not necessarily made with the future of the franchise in mind—there almost wasn’t going to be a franchise, with the show getting its initial runtime reduced and ending with the almost certainty that there would not be more coming. With all these years and images fans and the wider franchise itself have conjured up in their heads about its events and characters through years of revisits and expansions, through years of commentary and conversations across a litany of side stories and other series, there is something remarkably refreshing about experiencing Mobile Suit Gundam when it was just that show and not the herald of one of the most influential series in anime.
It allows you to be able to go back in time, in some way, and see when Char and Amuro were not Char Aznable and Amuro Ray yet. Amuro spends most of the first half of the series struggling to survive the horror he is enduring, let alone being shaped into the heroic figure and symbol he eventually becomes, metanarratively or otherwise. Char admittedly does have something of a reputation even upon first meeting him in comparison (half the cast of the show, ally or enemy, won’t stop gasping about “The Red Comet” and his ace piloting skills), but not so much that the show isn’t scared of humbling him or moving focus away from him, as it does so for a good chunk of the series’ middle act. At the end of the day, they’re simply just the people they were, characters allowed to grow and develop, to be flawed and to be challenged, instead of the subjects of Gundam‘s entire legacy. It’s remarkable to watch them be humanized in this way, instead of held up as almost-untouchable figureheads. In the original Gundam, its world and its characters are not yet beholden to legacy and just simply… are.
Whether it would be the first time you’re seeing it or you’re a Gundam diehard revisiting for the umpteenth time, it’s important to be reminded of what Mobile Suit Gundam was before all that. Even without the context of its legacy, it endures as a remarkable show.
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