Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuX Part 3 Episodes 7-9

Following a disaster in Side 6, Shuji is missing and Machu and Nyaan are on separate sides of a growing conflict.  Nyaan finds herself in the care of Kycillia Zabi herself.  With renewed purpose and a Gundam of her own, Nyaan hopes she can find the missing Shuji.  Meanwhile, Machu flies to Earth in the GQuuuuux, secretly pursued by Chalia Bull and his unit.  Here, she meets the mysterious Lalah Sune only to learn there’s more to her story and the end goals of everyone around her than she could have ever imagined.

Ok.  I’ve said this a couple of times but it bears asking once again (and in all caps this time):  WHY IS THIS SHOW ONLY 12 EPISODES LONG!!!???  And I’m not saying that because I’m liking what I’m watching.  No I’m practically screaming it because the structure of Gundam GQuuuuuX is all over the place, filled with ideas that don’t have time to breathe, characters who are just characters without character, and one of the worst pacing problems I’ve ever seen not just in Gundam but in Anime in a while.  This is the penultimate set of episodes for the entire series and yet it wants to act like it successfully crammed…let’s say 9 or so episodes into 3…and it sucks.  Whoever greenlit this approach should have been told flat out, to quote the great Benoit Blanc from Glass Onion, “NO!!! It’s just dumb.”
 
Like I said, there’s a lot to get to in these three episodes, mostly bad but there is some actual good I found.  So we’re gonna break it all down episode by episode, starting with the worst one of the series yet: Episode 7.  Once again, Machu’s betrayal by the Pomeranians and the attack by the Cyber Newtype Titans feels rushed and with only a few minutes of the previous episode to build it up.  Gates and Deux found themselves wiped out pretty quickly, and pretty easily, by Chalia Bull cause he’s gotta show up everyone in the series and not in a good way (stealing poor Xavier’s spotlight when he finally got a chance to do something for once, Bull really hates him doesn’t he).  Deux is another wasted opportunity of a proper rival for Machu, especially with her even more insane obsession with KIRA FREAKING KIRA!!!  And the appearance of the Psycho Gundam Mk. II with detachable armor as a shield was pretty cool too.  But no, at the heart of it all it’s not about the action or the sudden shifts in loyalty…no at the end of the day all of this chaos is secondary to Machu and Nyaan trying to sort out their feelings for freaking Shuji and his “talking Gundam”.  Ugggggh.  Even if you wanted me to buy into a love triangle with these three 1. You have to get me to like them, which I don’t.  And 2. You have to do more than the stupid “love at first sight” angle that even Frozen rightfully called into question.  And all of this is coming off a very successful and naturally built up romance between Suletta and Miroine in The Witch from Mercury.  In that regard, GQuuuuuX fails and Episode 6 just pissed me off…also Bye Bye Pomeranians, don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
 
By contrast, Episode 8 might be my favorite episode of the series.  Besides the fact that we got to see The Second Battle of Solomon that was also in the Beginnings movie, Episode 8 just feels like I’m watching what GQuuuuuX could and should have been:  with Nyaan a candidate to pilot the Eva Gundam with Xavier as her guide and Kycillia as her mentor. She then slowly finds herself becoming a pawn in the forthcoming Zabi civil war.  Putting Kycillia in a major role as evil mentor with a kinda kind demeanor towards Nyaan is a nice change of pace for her (she’s still a bad girl but damn she still looks hot).  Even Xavier got to enjoy some screentime not being among Chalia Bull’s several third wheels.  Plus we got the mecha we’ve all been waiting for: a Gundam with an Evangelion Unit 01 paint job and it looks so sick.  It even activated to save Nyaan’s life from a Zeon officer a la Eva Unit 01 protecting Shinji in the first episode of Evangelion.  I cant believe I was actually cheering for something in GQuuuuuX eight episodes in. 
 
There’s just a vibe to Episode 8 I really enjoyed that perfectly balanced present day happenings with the tale of the end of the One Year War.  Not only did we get to see Char kicking ass again but we also got to see his “Star Child” moment where he glimpsed Lalah (I think, I’m mostly sure).  We even got confirmation that while Amuro Ray might not have taken part in the war, Salya Mass sure did (we even got confirmation she took down Dozle Zabi at Solomon).  Add in more classic 1979 OST tracks and it’s just another reminder that there are people working on this who do love Gundam…they were just given a terrible batch of crunched together scripts to work on along with it.
 
Which brings us back to the present in Episode 9…and back to Machu.  Man after all the good stuff we got with Nyaan and furthering the promise of her character, I think I kind of hate Machu.  Any scene with her feels like a waste of time when we could be exploring other facets of this show and its new universe.  Hell Comoli could use some more screentime to be more than just Chalia Bull’s glorified and constantly ignored Secretary in a cute outfit (speaking of Chalia, he needs a restraining order against anyone he gets THAT close to with that stare, if you know you know).  The only saving grace about Machu’s trip to Earth was the return of Lalah Sune, who I guess in this timeline is a popular “escort” living in a brothel.  Like a lot of original elements from the OG Series, Lalah is a welcome bit of comfort that I’d rather be listening to instead of Machu’s continued Kira Kira talk or Rose of Sharon (we’ll get to that in a sec).  Also, I love Lalah’s two maids, they were fun (burning down the brothel made their day). 
 
Lalah’s existence and dreams raises a few questions about where GQuuuuuX is heading…and I do not like the answers that might be coming.  It’s one thing for a Newtype to see alternate outcomes of events, ok I can buy that.  But WHY THE HELL IS THERE ANOTHER LALAH AND A ELMETH FROM ANOTHER REALITY AT THE BOTTOM OF THE FREAKING OCEAN!!!???  Is this even the same Lalah from the original series in that thing?  Cant be because (Spoilers) Amuro buried his beam saber deep in her cockpit, she was very, very dead.  The Lalah of this current universe (God this is gonna be hard to keep track of), also says she’s seen Char die in battle with the Gundam.  That also adds validity to the Multiverse theory as Char and Amuro’s ultimate fates in Char’s Counterattack are kind of up in the air to me.  Oh God this means the doors to the Multiverse are about to be unlocked and I am NOT ok with that.  Would it be cool to see a Dynasty Warriors Gundam 3 or SD Gundam Battle Alliance style team up with Gundam pilots from different series and realities?  Yes.  But GQuuuuuX suddenly throwing this in…I already have it watching the show but it bears saying: I have a bad feeling about this.
 
Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuX was all over the place in this penultimate chapter.  Rushing through story beats like it knows it’s running out of episodes, wasting potential new characters in favor of advancing a terrible romance, and opening the gates of the Multiverse show that this series probably didn’t know what it really wanted to be before production got started.  At the same time though, the flashbacks and sprinkles of actual good stuff show that GQuuuuuX could be a strong entry if it went through a bit of reworking and had a longer episode count than a measly 12.  The Witch From Mercury might not have had the best ending but it felt more earned and played out compared to what probably awaits in the Series Finale of Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuX, which we’ll be checking out tomorrow right here at the Gundam Anime Corner.