Gundam Show Thread - MSG thru GQuuuuuuX

[Seto Kaiba]

Well, GQuuuuuuX ended today.

I'll say this for it.  The ending is the best episode of the series.  Still not great, but actually enjoyable to watch where a lot of the rest of the series has felt like a bit of a slog though filler.  There's a fair amount of fanservice, multiple betrayals, and a proper explanation of WTH is actually going on with the universe.

Spoiler

So, apparently I was mostly correct... the GQuuuuuuX timeline is a product of Lalah Sune Zero Escape-ing herself repeatedly in a bid to create a Golden Timeline where she and Char both survive and can ideally be together.

Rose of Sharon Lalah is not First Gundam Lalah, though.  She's from another alternate timeline where it was Char who died fighting the RX-78-2 Gundam not Lalah, and her despair caused the first zeknova.  This alternate Lalah has spent a small eternity frantically save scumming the One Year War with her Newtype time powers in an effort to tweak the circumstances enough that Char survives the conflict.  She has supposedly created, then discarded and destroyed, innumerable alternate timelines in her frantic despair to find some combination of circumstances that doesn't get Char killed.

Shuji Ito is her hatchet man.  His job, as a fellow native of The Other Side, is to kill her and thus Reset the World and destroy the current parallel timeline.  He claims that this is something he's done countless times before as Char dies in practically every timeline.  He shows us Char's custom mobile suits from a bunch of Lalah's failed attempts... with a Char's Custom Gouf, Zudah, Bigro, Big Zam, Galbaldy Beta, and some giant MS I've never seen before.  The GQuuuuuuX timeline is implied to be the closest Lalah has come to success: an alternate timeline where, by having Char steal the Gundam, Lalah has successfully prevented Char from being killed by it during the war.   What Shuji's concerned about, though, is that since this Char rejects the distortions Lalah has made in the world that his rejection of her will drive her mad with despair and cause her to unintentionally destroy BOTH realities.  

So there's a final clusterf*** of a confrontation as Shuji tries to kill Lalah to reset the world, Machu and Nyan try to stop him, and Char and Challia have it out over what's best for the future.  The whole mess ends with Shuji summoning a kaiju-sized white Gundam, the GQuuuuuuX turning into an Evangelion and beheading it, Kycilia getting blown up similar to how she did in First Gundam, and Lalah waking up and deciding to go the hell home.  So she destroys Yomagn'tho and takes herself and Shuji out of the universe.

The rest of the cast get happy endings.  Machu and Nyan are besties again, hanging out on a beach somewhere on Earth since they're still wanted terrorists in Side 6.  Char escapes the destruction of the Red Gundam and goes to Earth to meet this timeline's Lalah.  Challia is rescued from the wreck of the Kikeroga by Xavier, and then goes on to oversee Artesia Deikun's installation as sovereign in Zeon now that Gihren and Kycilia are dead.  We even get to see that the Pomeranians, who've apparently been living on the run in their junk guild ship, have found a new MS for Clan Battle (a Zock) and are planning to salvage what remains of the Yomagn'tho for the junk guild.  

 

[Hikuro]

Hm....

Spoiler

For me it still doesn't make up that the majority of the series rather blew. But at least they gave us something and had Keith Silverstein reprise his role as Char from the other world.....though Lucien Dodge I don't care for. That dude and I had beef way back when we were novice voice artists and he just really pissed me off cause he was sore that people preferred my voice on a certain character we both did over his and he just bashed the living hell out my variant and I didn't say squat on his.


 

But hey, 12 episodes, series is over, 12 episodes of meh, and now I really feel like I'm losing faith in the Gundam franchise once more. 

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

It is over yay. Now I can forget about this show.  Zero reason to ever watch it again.  I hope the next Gundam show is better.  But I am losing hope quickly.  I thought Witch was bad this is far worse.

[Big s]

Well, shows over.

Spoiler

Have no idea where artesia has been this whole time. Was she still sided with earth? Did the fact that she took over mean that she has a bigger role not only of Zeon, but the earth federation as well?

I kinda get the feeling that this show was meant to be far longer, but got cut short and they just had to cram everything in The last few episodes. 

Spoiler

The fact the junkers had an amphibious mobile suit kinda gave the impression that there were supposed to be more earth episodes 

I definitely enjoyed it more than witch and overall thought it was fun despite many many flaws.

[pengbuzz]

3 hours ago, Hikaru Ichijo SL said:

It is over yay. Now I can forget about this show.  Zero reason to ever watch it again.  I hope the next Gundam show is better.  But I am losing hope quickly.  I thought Witch was bad this is far worse.

Watch the next one be about:

Spoiler

A distant future Earth (well after the Universal Century or any other variants) where mutant bunny rabbits who are at war discover the remains of the Mobile Suits and create a whole new series of them to fight their wars....

 

[Seto Kaiba]

Just now, Big s said:

Well, shows over.

  Hide contents

Have no idea where artesia has been this whole time. Was she still sided with earth? Did the fact that she took over mean that she has a bigger role not only of Zeon, but the earth federation as well?

Spoiler

A much bigger role, yeah.

Similar to the original Mobile Suit Gundam series, Artesia Som Deikun joined the Earth Federation Forces under her longtime alias "Sayla Mass".

Unlike the original Mobile Suit Gundam series, in the absence of Amuro Ray it was Artesia who became the Federation's ace Mobile Suit pilot.  Her signature machine was one of the Federation's Light Guncannons painted in the classic Gundam paint scheme:

Spoiler

We know that she was instrumental in two of the most pivotal battles in the GQuuuuuuX timeline's One Year War: Solomon and Granada.

At Solomon, Artesia was the one who took down Admiral Dozle Zabi's Big Zam mobile armor and cleared the way for the Federation to capture Zeon's frontline fortress.  She was also on the front lines at Granada, trying to stop Zeon's forces from diverting Solomon's course by blasting it into pieces.  She confronted and defeated Char inside of the fortress, and the two vanished in the Zeknova that saved Granada.

Where she's been since is anyone's guess.  Probably Earth, since she is aligned with the Federation.

 

 

Just now, Big s said:

I kinda get the feeling that this show was meant to be far longer, but got cut short and they just had to cram everything in The last few episodes. 

  Hide contents

The fact the junkers had an amphibious mobile suit kinda gave the impression that there were supposed to be more earth episodes 

I definitely enjoyed it more than witch and overall thought it was fun despite many many flaws.

Nah, this series was definitely meant to be this short.  

There's a lot they could have done with it, but most of what they did was screwing around to waste airtime because they didn't even have enough actual story to fill twelve episodes.

Spoiler

As for the Pomeranians, that they show up one last time on a junk run with an old MSM-10 Zock they intend to retrofit for Clan Battle is pretty much a joke at their expense.

The Zock is an infamously sh*tty one-episode wonder of a Mobile Suit that's best known for being defeated incredibly quickly and for Char's immediate reaction of disgust when he saw it for the first time.  It's barely a Mobile Suit.  Its legs are purely decorative.  It can't walk.  Its arms have a very limited range of motion and can't hold weapons.  Overall its mobility is nearly zero.  It's basically an extremely ungainly self-propelled gun turret thanks to its built-in mega particle cannons.  It had to be made symmetrical  and have a ton of built-in guns because it literally cannot turn around properly.  The only place where it excels is in underwater straight-line speed due to its shape.  It's the very last mobile suit that has any business being anywhere NEAR space.

[Old_Nash_II]

About the last episode of Gundam 

Spoiler

 

[VF8000G]

Spoiler

Tsurumaki: Giant White Gundam?  Get it?  Because it's a homage to Giant Naked Rei teheeheee!

I hate this show.  It transcends member berries homages and becomes an Inferno Cop level shitpost. 

Spoiler

Also really bad optics to bring back Tohru Furuya after all the horrible crap he did. 

Edited 12 hours ago by VF8000G

[Big s]

8 minutes ago, VF8000G said:

  Reveal hidden contents

Tsurumaki: Giant White Gundam?  Get it?  Because it's a homage to Giant Naked Rei teheeheee!

I hate this show.  It transcends member berries homages into an Inferno Cop level shitpost. 

I thought it was more of an odd Dunbine reference 

[VF8000G]

2 minutes ago, Big s said:

I thought it was more of an odd Dunbine reference 

I don't think so, the show never hides its own self-indulgence with the Gainax staff.  Or maybe, it was forced to be this way by the committee.

 

[Seto Kaiba]

5 hours ago, VF8000G said:

I don't think so, the show never hides its own self-indulgence with the Gainax staff.  Or maybe, it was forced to be this way by the committee.

Granted, Khara leans extremely heavily on its legacy ties with Gainax - its soft reboot of Gainax's Neon Genesis Evangelion being most of its minimal self-produced output over its 19 years in operation - but a good amount of what that video samples from GunBuster to accuse GQuuuuuuX of copying was GunBuster copying Gundam in the first place!

Khara's obnoxious self-indulgence and inability to establish a creative identity outside of Evangelion is certainly a problem...

Spoiler

... with the GFreD's obvious EVA-01 paintjob, the Amuro Rei Ray's giant white supernatural Gundam that gets beheaded, the GQuuuuuuX itself turning into a berserk EVA at the end of the series when its Omega Psycommu goes into overdrive, and the borderline "Congratulations, Shinji!" nature of the ending where the Lalah who created the world takes her ball and goes home.

 

[VF8000G]

The saddest part of it all is that even the "protagonist vs. evil RX-78-2" is itself not new.  00 did it two decades ago, and without managing to be tasteless and desperate.

 

[Seto Kaiba]

15 minutes ago, VF8000G said:

The saddest part of it all is that even the "protagonist vs. evil RX-78-2" is itself not new.  00 did it two decades ago, and without managing to be tasteless and desperate.

It's framed in such a radically different context from the one in 00... I'd give it a pass easily.

Rather than simply being a villain dusting off their old MS for fanservice's sake, this was...

Spoiler

... Shuji summoning what they'd spend half an episode establishing is essentially the physical embodiment of Lalah's trauma and the inevitability of Char's defeat across the multiverse in order to defeat Char, kill Lalah, and bring the GQuuuuuuX universe to an end.

Besides, if we want to complain about the hero fighting an "evil" version of the RX-78, 00 was the THIRD time.  It was done twice before in Zeta and 0083.  Gundam has always liked to repeat itself.

[azrael]

Just some observations...

Spoiler

To get all sci-fi...

So this alternate OYW Lalah is basically trying to alter a fixed point (Char dies by a Gundam) and every time she tries to alter things, the universe fights back. And even having Char successfully steal the Gundam and surviving, eventually results in him rejecting alternate OYW Lalah. 🤨 And it looks like the only way Char survives is to make him give up his quest for revenge.

GQ Lalah doesn't pilot Elmeth nor join Zeon in this universe as a result of Char piloting the Gundam. Eventually they will meet and neither dies.

Kycilia Zabi always dies by Char's rocket to the face. Guess that's a fixed event. 👍

 

[Big s]

Spoiler

1 hour ago, azrael said:

Kycilia Zabi always dies by Char's rocket to the face. Guess that's a fixed event. 👍

She’s always gotta go with a bang. In this case, it was a much bigger bang. I just thought it would have been funnier if he had a dom’s giant bazooka this time rather than the miniature dom’s bazooka that he was carrying in the og

 

[Old_Nash_II]

3 minutes ago, Big s said:

  Hide contents

She’s always gotta go with a bang. In this case, it was a much bigger bang. I just thought it would have been funnier if he had a dom’s giant bazooka this time rather than the miniature dom’s bazooka that he was carrying in the og

 

Spoiler

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/16fi2Q1bU7/

Canonic event

 

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

17 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

Watch the next one be about:

  Hide contents

A distant future Earth (well after the Universal Century or any other variants) where mutant bunny rabbits who are at war discover the remains of the Mobile Suits and create a whole new series of them to fight their wars....

 

Thanks I needed a good laugh.

[VF8000G]

2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

It's framed in such a radically different context from the one in 00... I'd give it a pass easily.

Rather than simply being a villain dusting off their old MS for fanservice's sake, this was...

Yes, that "radically different context" is what I find to be tasteless and desperate.  Metafiction is usually a gateway for lazy writing and this takes the cake.  Kira Jesus Yamato knows we've had more than enough franchises  dealing with "canon events" recently, and I didn't think Gundam or Khara would stoop that low to be such a lazy slop imitation riding on the most recent Hollywood trends while also bathing in their own sea of self indulgence.   This is why I'm now more than ever convinced that this show was meticulously planned and controlled by some committee that wanted to make sure all the boxes were checked.  

As for 00, it wasn't fanservice - 0 Gundam was quite literally the first Gundam we saw in 00.  Its pilot had a very clever twist at the end of the first season that revealed his true identity as its pilot, and it made perfect sense for the protagonist to fight it because it was originally his "god" that he had to overcome.  00 was not perfect, but I think it nailed that aspect of the 0 Gundam.

Spoiler

Meanwhile here, the RX-78-2 exists only to show a metacommentary about how Char is supposed to be killed by Amuro in the RX-78-2.  That's it.  There's nothing more to it than that.  This is the equivalent of Darth Vader turning on his lightsaber in Rogue One.     

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, azrael said:

Just some observations...

  Hide contents

To get all sci-fi...

So this alternate OYW Lalah is basically trying to alter a fixed point (Char dies by a Gundam) and every time she tries to alter things, the universe fights back. And even having Char successfully steal the Gundam and surviving, eventually results in him rejecting alternate OYW Lalah. 🤨 And it looks like the only way Char survives is to make him give up his quest for revenge.

Spoiler

Not quite a fixed point, since we know that GQuuuuuuX isn't the only timeline where Char doesn't die in the One Year War.

To hear Shuji Ito tell it, it sounds like fate really has it in for Char Aznable and Lalah's spent a small eternity banging her head against causality itself trying to save him. Lalah has created and destroyed the universe more times than Shuji can count as she tries to brute force her way to a combination of events that allows Char to survive by making any and every combination of changes she can think of in the hope that eventually something will work.  GQuuuuuuX is apparently the closest she got to success, though she still had to directly intervene to save him from Artesia and his own cleverness at Solomon.  

 

 

1 hour ago, azrael said:

Spoiler

Kycilia Zabi always dies by Char's rocket to the face.

PHRASING! 🤣

[Seto Kaiba]

3 minutes ago, VF8000G said:

[...] I didn't think Gundam or Khara would stoop that low to be such a lazy slop imitation [...]

It's Khara.  Lazy slop is pretty much a two-word summary of their entire original filmography.

Did you SEE Rebuild?  It's basically just Anno jerking himself off for three movies and change.

 

3 minutes ago, VF8000G said:

This is why I'm now more than ever convinced that this show was meticulously planned and controlled by some committee that wanted to make sure all the boxes were checked.  

It's a franchise series.  Of course it was.  They're literally listed in the credits. 🤣

 

3 minutes ago, VF8000G said:

As for 00, it wasn't fanservice

It absolutely was fanservice.  The 0 Gundam looks exactly like the RX-78-2, and its pilot is voiced by Tohru Furuya.  There's no other word for that but fanservice.  Especially since both Setsuna and Ribbons swap GN drives into older Gundams for their last fight instead of finishing with their season two upgrades.

[VF8000G]

I'll just say this -

Spoiler

the RX-78-2 showing up in Gquacks has more in common with the RX-78-2 in Ready Player One than any other incarnation of the design.  The entire reason for its existence is for the audience to clap and eat their memberberries.  It serves zero importance to the story outside of its own metafictional context and could have been replaced with any other entity.

[Seto Kaiba]

5 minutes ago, VF8000G said:

I'll just say this -

  Hide contents

the RX-78-2 showing up in Gquacks has more in common with the RX-78-2 in Ready Player One than any other incarnation of the design.  The entire reason for its existence is for the audience to clap and eat their memberberries.  It serves zero importance to the story outside of its own metafictional context and could have been replaced with any other entity.

Wasn't the RX-78-2 in Ready Player One a last minute licensing-induced plot substitution?  IIRC, it was meant to be Ultraman but they couldn't get the rights.

Anyway...

Spoiler

... it does have some critical importance to the story.  To Lalah, it's the inevitable instrument of Char's demise and the thing that traumatized her so badly she froze herself and her Elmeth in time and repeatedly tried to remake the universe to save Char from it.  It is The Entire Reason that GQuuuuuuX's universe exists at all and it is also Shuji's chosen weapon to exploit Lalah's weakness and kill her once and for all so her despair at being rejected by Char doesn't cause her to wipe his home universe too.  No other mobile suit would have been anywhere near as appropriate to the role... especially given the limited selection from when Lalah was alive.

 

[Big s]

I’m just waiting for someone to sink up that Kycilia scene with that new song by Ghost “Missilia Amori”. Seems extremely fitting right now

[VF8000G]

10 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

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... it does have some critical importance to the story.  To Lalah, it's the inevitable instrument of Char's demise and the thing that traumatized her so badly she froze herself and her Elmeth in time and repeatedly tried to remake the universe to save Char from it.  It is The Entire Reason that GQuuuuuuX's universe exists at all and it is also Shuji's chosen weapon to exploit Lalah's weakness and kill her once and for all so her despair at being rejected by Char doesn't cause her to wipe his home universe too.  No other mobile suit would have been anywhere near as appropriate to the role... especially given the limited selection from when Lalah was alive.

That's not quite how I see it.

Spoiler

The "instrument of Char's demise" was Amuro.  As seen in the collage of the various other Char MS that he got killed in by Amuro, who was unquestionably piloting different suits other than the RX-78-2 (one of the suits referenced was Yamashita's Sazabi, which has its own Nu counterpart that he designed).  The entity that shows up to kill Lalah was not actually the RX-78-2, it was an apparition that simply took the form of the original RX-78-2.  It could have taken any form it wanted too, hence why it later became a Giant Naked Rei ripoff.  The reason it took the form of the RX-78-2 is because it's typical metafictional rubbish dangling nostalgia memberberries in front of the audience.  Ghostbusters lampooned this embarrassing trope decades ago with with the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man yet here it's played straight. 

[Seto Kaiba]

16 minutes ago, VF8000G said:

That's not quite how I see it.

  Hide contents

The "instrument of Char's demise" was Amuro.  As seen in the collage of the various other Char MS that he got killed in by Amuro, who was unquestionably piloting different suits other than the RX-78-2 (one of the suits referenced was Yamashita's Sazabi, which has its own Nu counterpart that he designed).  The entity that shows up to kill Lalah was not actually the RX-78-2, it was an apparition that simply took the form of the original RX-78-2.  It could have taken any form it wanted too, hence why it later became a Giant Naked Rei ripoff.  The reason it took the form of the RX-78-2 is because it's typical metafictional rubbish dangling nostalgia memberberries in front of the audience.  Ghostbusters lampooned this embarrassing trope decades ago with with the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man yet here it's played straight. 

Spoiler

That's an assumption, though... and we know at least one case where it wasn't true.

Yeah, Lalah tried a bunch of different permutations to try and find a set of changes that'd save Char's arse... but it's never specified that it's Amuro each time who's doing the killing.  Indeed, we see in the Beginning movie and Ep8 of the series proper that there are other potential pilots who have the talent and Newtype power to put Char down for good.  Amuro isn't even involved in GQuuuuuuX's version of events, and Artesia/Sayla steps into his role and does as well or better despite having an inferior MS.  When she finds Char aboard Granada and they fight, Lalah has to zeknova him away to save his life.

Shuji specifically choses the RX-78-2 as his weapon to crush Char and defeat Lalah because it has a very specific resonance with both of them.  To Lalah, it's THE weapon that killed Char and started all this.  It is the reason GQuuuuuuX's entire universe exists.  To Char, or at least the Chars of other universes, it was the weapon they could not defeat.

There's a lot to criticize in this series, but this point you've fixated on ain't one of 'em.

[VF8000G]

41 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

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That's an assumption, though... and we know at least one case where it wasn't true.

Yeah, Lalah tried a bunch of different permutations to try and find a set of changes that'd save Char's arse... but it's never specified that it's Amuro each time who's doing the killing.  Indeed, we see in the Beginning movie and Ep8 of the series proper that there are other potential pilots who have the talent and Newtype power to put Char down for good.  Amuro isn't even involved in GQuuuuuuX's version of events, and Artesia/Sayla steps into his role and does as well or better despite having an inferior MS.  When she finds Char aboard Granada and they fight, Lalah has to zeknova him away to save his life.

Shuji specifically choses the RX-78-2 as his weapon to crush Char and defeat Lalah because it has a very specific resonance with both of them.  To Lalah, it's THE weapon that killed Char and started all this.  It is the reason GQuuuuuuX's entire universe exists.  To Char, or at least the Chars of other universes, it was the weapon they could not defeat.

There's a lot to criticize in this series, but this point you've fixated on ain't one of 'em.

Spoiler

There is no assumption.  The one universe where Amuro isn't present, the Gquacks universe, Char survives.  Sure he came close to being killed several times, but the same was true of the main UC timeline (especially in Zeta).  The premise of Lalah's premonitions is based on fate, there is no amount of logic that overcomes this, as we've seen time and again with these types of stories about Peter Parker saving Gwen Stacey or Flash saving his mother.  Char is fated to be killed by Amuro in every timeline, and this includes the main one (CCA), even when Lalah was no longer there. 

Putting the metafiction and memberberries aside, the main reason the RX-78-2 was chosen as the "last boss" is because the series itself serves as a sort of wish fulfillment for people who want to see Char and Lalah get their "happy ending" which they were denied in 0079.  Amuro is not allowed to exist because he shatters that ship with his mere existence, therefore the RX-78-2 has to serve as the stand-in for the source of Char and Lalah's tragedy because it's the closest catalyst for it without Amuro being present.  That this stupid wish fulfillment is written as the main anchor of the story is why I will never stop seeing this series as anything more than repulsive fanfictious garbage - and the memberberries only make things worse.  At least with the Rebuilds, Anno denies the wish fulfillment pairings of Shinji+Asuka or Shinji+Rei.  It's too bad they couldn't exercise that modicum of self control for Gquacks and instead just went full Annie Wilkes. 

As a side note, for being a series claimed to be written by fans for fans, it's funny how hard Khara misinterprets Char and Lalah's relationship in the original series.  It was unhappy and exploitive on Char's end, where Lalah's demise wasn't the real cause of his grief,  and was only an excuse and scapegoat for Char to latch onto to fuel his "complex feelings" for Amuro.  But I suppose I shouldn't expect such critical thinking from writers who think "Zeon are the good guys and should have won"   

Edited 13 minutes ago by VF8000G

[azrael]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

PHRASING! 🤣

What.....🤭

Spoiler

Kycilia Zabi will always eats Char's missile.

Char is destined to shoot his rocket at Kycilla's face.

🤣

[Big s]

Spoiler

38 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

but it's never specified that it's Amuro each time who's doing the killing. 

The Lalah of the G Quuuuuuuuuuuuacks universe said it basically was amuro without naming him . She said she lived them both. Also the one thing that changed in this new universe is that Char was the one to hop in the Gundam. Even though Amuro is never named, it’s implied that he’s always been the one in the white mobile suit that killed Char

 

[Big s]

6 minutes ago, azrael said:

What.....🤭

  Reveal hidden contents

Kycilia Zabi will always eats Char's missile.

Char is destined to shoot his rocket at Kycilla's face.

🤣

Spoiler