Review of Mobile Suit Gundam: GQuuuuuuX

Undoubtably unique amongst the Gundam franchise, 'Mobile Suit Gundam: GQuuuuuuX' was always going to find itself walking a bit of a tightrope; pitching itself as coming from the mind of Hideaki Anno, there were a lot of expectations going in, not just of overall quality but of the KIND of story that was going to be told. In the end, it's difficult to say exactly whether GQuuuuuuX met those expectations. To be clear, I do think this was a successful show. The story felt consistent, characterisation was reasonably strong, and the mecha battles - obviously the thing that Gundam in particular kind of has to getright - were fantastic. I felt satisfied by the ending, and even as someone not quite as intimately familiar with the original series as some, was able to understand and care about the ways it blended in with that original 1979 series.

That said, I suspect that I was also kind of thinking we were going to get more? I'm not even quite sure what I felt it didn't do, perhaps a twist more than it had, perhaps something more metatextual, perhaps something to really make you go 'oh damn, I didn't expect it to go there'. Something that makes you feel like no one else could have come up with this story other than the man behind on of the most well-regarded and subversive stories in the mecha genre. And honestly? It just didn't do that. It definitely manages to set itself apart from previous Gundam series, both in style and in the kind of story it tells, but at no point did it blow my mind in the way I was hoping it would.
In a sense, I think I was expecting it to feel more ambitious than the final product did.

But, while I do feel all of that, and also think that some of the characterisation would have been helped by extending the episode count to G-Witch's two-cour length, none of that especially spoils what was still a very fun, stylish, and unique entry in this franchise. It's not going to make you feel like you've watching something that's going to change the genre, but for long-term fans of the franchise, there's also not really anything not to like!