this post was submitted on 24 Jun 2025
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People are going to be divided on this gundam entry. To say it's rushed or that it's story beats are undeserved isn't wrong per se, but it isn't exactly right either- it's just paying off things from 40 years (and 100+ episodes) ago, just not things that are introduced or explained within this series. And that's a shame- with more episodes that could entirely have been avoided and this show made more self-contained, but from what I read so far in interviews I guess that wasn't the show Tsurumaki and Studio Khara had in mind when making it.

See, Tsurumaki is making a show that's almost entirely coasting on subtext and vibes, but unlike FLCL you need to have an almost encyclopedic knowledge of a fictional history that rivals the complexity of the real world, and I'm not sure that works at all- when something surprising or unexpected happened in FLCL you, as the audience, just kinda rolled with it, whereas here you kinda need to place everything either in a (fictional) socio-economic political context, OR you need to parse what the characters represents based on their archetype established in a series of 40 year old Japanese cartoons. Because at the end of the day, going "oh, there's a metatextual reason why I've written my main character to just be yanked around by events beyond her ken or understanding" doesn't exactly change the fact that following your main character getting yanked around isn't exactly compelling storytelling in-and-of itself. And that level of metatextual-ness is why I'm having a hard time evaluating GQuuuuuuX- as the target audience a lot of this show works for me because I can follow the same storytelling shortcuts Tsurumaki is taking (at least on some level), but I keep wondering if absent that preexisting context I would feel the same. I suspect not.

(Although, if I do have one complaint it is that the ending is entirely too hetero for my liking. WHERE'S MY SLOPPY CHARxCHALLIA MAKE OUT SESH KHARA! YOU HAD ONE JOB!)

What I can say with certainty, is that this show is a fitting love-letter to the Universal Century and Tomino's work in general, and a way for a character whose legacy, whose "curse of Gundam" was to be eternally fridged for the character development of the two male leads, to finally regain her agency and her dignity.

And in that, I can say that I'm more than a little moved.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (4 children)

While I probably wasn't the target audience with only a casual Gundam familiarity, I did enjoy it. Wish it had done more episodes to develope the characters. While a lot of references went over my head context etc made it clear when it was a big deal and could vibe with it. Final rating: might show the first ep to a friend

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

The best thing about the show is probably that it got a lot of people to go back and rewatch the original, I'm glad you enjoyed it

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 days ago (1 children)

It needs a ending card that says "please don't skip ZZ Gundam when you watch the old Tomino stuff"

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Guilty as charged kitty-birthday-sad

(I'm halfway thru ZZ now lol)

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 days ago

snipes-hesitation

Kidding blob-no-thoughts - if you're on Earth you got some good shit coming.

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