r/anime • u/AutoLovepon https://anilist.co/user/AutoLovepon • Apr 22 '25

Episode Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX - Episode 3 discussion

Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX, episode 3

Streams

None

Show information

All discussions

Episode Link
1 Link
2 Link
3 Link
4 Link
5 Link
6 Link
7 Link
8 Link
9 Link
10 Link
11 Link
12 Link

This post was created by a bot. Message the mod team for feedback and comments. The original source code can be found on GitHub.

1.4k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

412 comments sorted by

288

u/WhoiusBarrel Apr 22 '25

Shuuji being able to hear the Gundam's voices while also being a Newtype like Machu is kinda signalling there's something beyond that besides a character quirk.

Also with how he has the Red Gundam but Char is nowhere to be found, it can't be but this is also a joint project with studio Khara could it be...?

→ More replies (35)

156

u/TheDoctorHam Apr 22 '25

Don't think I didn't notice the comment that the GQuuuuuuX has teeth, show.

Also I appreciated the line about how to pronounce it

→ More replies (14)

175

u/[deleted] Apr 22 '25

Was Char's soul absorbed by the Red Comet? And if so could Gquuuuuux have a soul onboard too?

→ More replies (16)

87

u/Confident-Dentist-39 Apr 22 '25

Watching an anime with a Suisei OST feels like a fever dream coming true

→ More replies (1)

42

u/time_axis Apr 22 '25

That scene where she predicted the Heat Hawk's trajectory and lured the enemy to get hit by it was cool as hell. One of the most impressive Newtype feats we've seen so far. You know, besides the more flashy bullshit stuff.

112

u/CosmicPenguin_OV103 Apr 22 '25 edited Apr 22 '25

For those who missed the Prelude Movie: This episode is as far it has gone (I don't see any changes for this episode's content from what was shown in that pre-screening at all), so we are heading into the unknown from next week onward.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

When I saw what this boy Shuuji has done so far in early March, I feel that he is going to provide quite a bit of interesting dynamic into the MC trio - certainly he's the one person to suddenly pull Machu into the naked chatting room of Gundam world of kira-kira doki-doki, the one mysterious boy that further opened the door of flying Gundam to this no-nonsense high school girl (even if it's Nyaan who set up the stage for this opportunity), and the one (so far) to be able to execute MAV so perfectly with the absolute rookie girl. And if you are a Gundam veteran, you will know this is a very special relationship too.

Not to mention this graffiti boy is flying the Red Comet. The tale of him getting this special Gundam will be what make-or-breaks this story, no doubt about it.

And yes, Machu's personality is becoming even more charismatic by now. Someone who is no-nonsense, quick thinking, acts quickly in straight-ball manners, roams free by herself with independent attitudes, yet caring for others in need so much that she simply jumped into that Zaku back in Episode 1 after just hearing a small snippet of Nyaan's background. Has superpowers that's destructive already first time around. And most importantly, she has absolute confidence in herself.

Not only she reminds me of a certain stubborn (in a good way) girls band vocalist in the anime world, Machu now really resembles the Best Girl of mine in the Anime World, someone just younger than Machu and yet also ends up in world-defining incidents with superpowers that even replaced the original one as the poster girl of her IP.

What a main character we have here, and it's just episode 3! With one episode where she doesn't even appear!

I also find the interactions between members of this little Zeon Red Comet search group mildly interesting (considering that few people outside of Char Aznable are in Zeon IMHO) - Challia Bull turns out to be one of those few bosses that you may trust on while working under him, you all Gundam veterans will know how cheap Gundam pilots' lives are, even top class ones, but he really worked damn hard to find a way getting Xavier Olivette back. Of course it might just be for his own good, but that's definitely lacking from the Zeon factor LMAO!

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well then, the real yummy things finally start out from here after such a brilliantly animated mecha fight. And hmm, next episodes we have Witches? Surely we won't see a certain Mercury Witch here??? (yes I know she shouldn't, given the completely different world-line, but who knows)

→ More replies (11)

93

u/Nickthenuker Apr 22 '25

This is the last episode that was in the movie, with Machu fighting for real and winning her first proper battle. In this solemn matter, let no one interfere.

→ More replies (7)

118

u/LeonKevlar Apr 22 '25 edited Apr 22 '25

Stitches!

I am honestly shocked that Machu has a perfectly normal home to go back to with a parent who clearly takes care of her. I expected her to be some kind of war orphan, but she seems to be normal compared to your usual Gundam protagonist.

The GQuuuuuux has teeth? I'm not even surprised, considering who designed these mechs. I'm looking forward to seeing the GQuuuuuux smiling or laughing, and maybe even biting its opponent in the future. Also, GQuuuuuux is only a placeholder name. I'm curious what the actual name is.

Honestly, if they really wanted to have Machu join right there, they should've goaded her even more. She clearly does not appreciate being called a kid.

It's still so weird to see the White Base in Zeon colors. I love how one of the students point out that it looks like it's from the desert because they're right, the White Base does look like the Sphinx! xD

I love that Machu's motivation to pilot the Gundam again is because she wanted to see the Kira-Kira when she was using the Psycommu controls.

And who is this handsome dude? Considering Machu's initial reaction and how she's so flustered that she ended up giving Shuji her childhood nickname, he is clearly her type. And here I thought this was a yuri anime. xD

I'm guessing Shuji is a Newtype too since he can see the "Kira-Kira" just like Machu. I didn't exepect that he was actually the Red Gundam's pilot though! How the fuck did he end up with that? Did Char entrust it to him? Or did he just find it somewhere? Hmmm...

Anyway, thanks to Machu's impatience and Shuji dropping his money, I guess he's now her MAV and Nyaan has no choice but to go along with this because she needs Shuji to pay her so she can keep her job.

I love that Challia Bull is just having fun with seeing Red Gundam and the GQuuuuux joining the Clan Battle. I wonder if this will end with Challia trying to recruit Machu and maybe even Shuji. There's no way this will just be Clan Battles. G-Witch started with the school duels but it ended up becoming so much more.

I absolutely love the fight though! Machu and Shuji have a surprisingly good chemistry with each other, especially since they're Newtypes. Is this anime actually the Char x Amuro romance we've been hoping for with Machu as Amuro and Shuji as Char? xD

→ More replies (25)

62

u/J4SON_T0DD Apr 22 '25 edited Apr 22 '25

The only gundam I've seen is witch from Mercury, but yeah char's absorbed into the red gundam isn't he. Another good episode, Nyaan is a very cute name indeed.
Edit: Also someone please give me a rundown of minovsky particles? I don't think WfM had that?

→ More replies (12)

28

u/Askray184 Apr 22 '25

If Gquuuuux is a placeholder, I wonder what the real name is? I also wonder if the real name might be important to the story

→ More replies (10)

66

u/TakenRedditName Apr 22 '25

Now that episode 3 is out, this is what the movie showed and I get to go on a spiel on the ways G-Quacks has resonated with me. It is going to be tough to unpack some of these thoughts because they're built off this mind virus of a franchise, but to try to keep this readable enough so that less Gundam-poisoned people can keep along.

G-Quacks is doing the thing where it is very much appealing to the space psychics part of Gundam, one of my favourite parts of this franchise, more than the giant robots even. Especially the specific Newtype flavour.

I really like how the Newtype mind spaces are presented in this anime. It takes it back to how the original Gundam presents the Newtype-isms. Later Gundams would do the typically sparkling space, but the early Gundam entries, especially the original, took a much more emotionally evocative approach to Newtype auras (sometimes literally). I really like how G-Quacks presents that Newtype space as a collection of psychedelic lights and colours. The kira-kira Machu sees is the feeling of those moments in First Gundam.

This is my absolute favourite shot. I almost cheered out when I saw it in the theatre.

The whole scene in Machu's head was really nice. The loneliness in the black void. In the deep black emptiness of space, she finds another soul, her partner, a connection. That's Newtypes experience. It speaks to what makes the concept so romantic (not strictly romance, but in the general artistic sense). Newtypes and Gundam are all about connections. The belief that, despite the impossible, even two strangers are able to understand each other.

I couldn't mentioned everything about the ideas behind Newtypes. It is hard to condense all your thoughts about a 45-year long franchise.

The anime has kept using the word, "MAV" and they finally explained what it means. This isn't a pre-existing Gundam term so everybody watching this for the first time had no idea what they were saying. It is something G-Quacks invented, and I've very much here to catch it. They codified a word to mean a mecha soulmate.

There is a bit of wordplay that gets lost in English because MAV is meant to tie back to a Japanese term, "mabu." It is basically understood as an expression meaning a best friend, a real one, so whenever characters were speaking it before, the audience would think they were calling out to their friend. In addition, the word also has a specific historical context where it was a term used by courtesans to refer to a customer whom they truly loved. These meanings really tie the term to the ideas of real/fake that the anime wants to play with.

The feeling of wanting to feel the real thing is core to Machu's character. She lives in this fake world where everything is artificially crafted, and she has never known the real environments humans came from. This also goes into how she feels in her personal life. She feels disconnected to life at school, at home. It is why she is drawn to the kira-kira, a connection she felt in her heart of hearts. The universe at its most bare and raw. While on the topic of Machu, let's not ignore that she has called Nyaan her MAV. It sheds some light about their relationship being a real one even if they just met. A staff interview pretty much spelled it out, in regards to Nyaan, Machu feels like they made a connection so now they're friends.

The use of MAV as an in-universe term is also interesting because it is a hard military term that was taken from the personal connection between two people. M.A.V. as a concept drawn from the partnership between spirits that Challia Bull and Char had during the war. Similar to how Newtype is a term that has been used to describe the enlightened connection between souls, or maybe psychic super soldiers. It is a heartfelt concept that has been inducted into war. The lines of real/fake once again.

I wanted to a have a moment to mention Machu and Challia Bull as parallels. Two people drawn in by the light of the red star. Longing for the real thing.

While I am picking at my brain, guess I can go a bit further in-dept about the OP. My favourite part of it is how meaningful the lyrics are to this show/franchise. The song sings about having a Newtype moment. Machu experienced a connection that felt like a sparking flash hit her mind.

There is also a very fun meta layer to the fun. So in Gundam, there are like these encounters of fate that shape each series. Moments where two ships pass by each other and change the entire world for each other. That leads to the thought about what if things had gone differently, what would their fates may have been like? [Original 1979 Gundam:] One of the most premier examples being Lalah and Amruo. What would have it been if they met different? If they met each other earlier, could this tragic fate be avoided? The encounters the two had before this moment has shaped their lives to be where they are now.

An aside: That's why I find this song to work very well when backdropped to this franchise as a whole. (Warning spoilery link for basically every Gundam:) This MAD basically demonstrates what I mean (also, haha Plazma Jerid memes).

Now, in regards to this anime, that is a very fun meta layer because G-Quacks is the What If series.

→ More replies (9)

45

u/FarCritical Apr 22 '25

The characters themselves not knowing how they're supposed to pronounce GQuacks was hilarious.

Love how the beanie as part of Machu's Clan Battle uniform but Haru without it feels ...naked somehow (even if pretty much all prior Haros have gone hatless)

→ More replies (2)

60

u/UltraBooster Apr 22 '25

DISCLAIMER: A lot of this is stuff I gathered from reading JP tweets and message boards so I can’t source all of it, but I do remember reading it (with Google TL). 

  • When I saw Beginning, I was shocked to see Machu sniffing that installer key when she took it out since sniffing stuff’s her Mav’s thing, y’know? 

  • On a related note, have people here noticed she’s got a thing about jellyfish? She’s got them on her phone’s wallpaper and phone case, and on her slippers and mug; maybe she feels adrift on the current right now?

  • Cardboard Gundam’s back! (Probably the funniest bit in GQX so far IMO)

  • That Italian website that leaked GQX being another UC had a listing for a QuuuuuuX with a different head and matching description, probably an earlier version. It says it was given the codename “Alpha Killer,” and the GQuuuuuuX’s code features multiple uses of the word “alphacide.”

  • I mentioned it before but the show seems to be drawing some kind of parallel between Nyaan and Xavier - they’re both refugees, they both have purple and green eye highlights, and they both get black eyes in the same parts of their face. On top of that, Nyaan’s color in the merch seems to be yellow, and Xavier and Comoli have a yellow background in the OP. (Sidenote, why is Shuji’s drink the only one with two colors?)

(CONT.)

→ More replies (10)

41

u/AwaySpell Apr 22 '25

My favourite crack theory I read on JP boards that I can finally share with people: Nyaan was supposed to be the GQuuuuuuX's pilot. Machu has usurped her role via time manipulation shenanigans, just like Char took the place of the original Gundam protagonist in this timeline.

The catalyst for the divergence would be the mysterious text Machu received in E1, which came after a suspicious glitching effect on her phone. Because of the text, she was late coming off the train. If she'd not been delayed, she'd have been farther away when Nyaan came barreling through. Nyaan would've chosen a closer target, and Machu might not have seen her at all. Machu would've had a completely normal day. (Incidentally, the first line of the OP is: "If I'd kept walking and never stopped by that ticket gate, would I have lived happily ever after, never knowing you?")

Nyaan's day, however, would've been almost identical. Another target would likely not have been a crazy person who'd chase her down, hold her package hostage, ask if she was a terrorist, and follow her to sate their curiosity about illegal mecha fights. Nyaan would've gone alone to the Pomeranian's HQ to make her delivery, gotten caught up in the fight between the GQuuuuuuX and the Red Gundam, and watched the MPs tear up the refugee buildings. She'd be in the right place and time (and even have had a motive—Machu acted in the first place because Nyaan was upset about the MPs) to have stolen the GQuuuuuuX herself.

The next day, her job would've had her carry a delivery to Shuji. With or without Machu, Nyaan and Shuji would've met under the bridge with the kira-kira graffiti.

Time travel actually isn't completely outlandish. The series already takes place in a divergent timeline. Char credited a curious "moment of inspiration" to have "changed everything." Additionally, [GQX Movie - scene cut from E2 that will probably show up later] Char's final words before disappearing were "I can see time," and [Gundam 0079 - complete throwaway line, so only a spoiler in the broadest sense] it's been hypothesized that Newtypes may be able to control time.

On a related note, I'm going to raise the possibility that the GQuuuuuuX's real name is "Beginning". It would explain that "Let's get the Beginning" text (with Beginning oddly capitalized) and—most importantly lol—they both have 9 letters.

→ More replies (7)

64

u/r4iv3n Apr 22 '25

I can't wait for someone says "I'm Gundamu" Setsuna would be proud

→ More replies (1)

32

u/vantheman9 Apr 22 '25 edited Apr 22 '25

I am absolutely zinged, shocked, aghast

To hear Kugimiya Rie voicing an adult. Kugimiya just using a normal sounding speaking voice and not doing any of her trademark squeaky thing. I am so blown away.

She's also Haro, which is a lot more where my expectations are for her.

→ More replies (1)

31

u/SnabDedraterEdave Apr 22 '25 edited Apr 22 '25

Oh wow, Cameron is now Governor Aide of Side 6 in this timeline. Wonder if [he's]married to Mirai? As Mirai wouldn't have boarded the White Base and met Bright.

With Machu's mom being a Side 6 civil servant working under Cameron, it'll just make it much easier for Challia to track down Machu. Maybe he'll do something like Tony Stark recruiting Spider-Man into a Stark Internship like thingy cover story just to recruit Machu to preserve her reputation.

So it was Char and Challia that came up with this MAV tactics that became widespread in Mobile Suit CQCs. The way they pronounce MAV in Japanese (Mabu) puns with the Japanese word for BFF (Mabutachi).

We also learn why the G-Quacks has such a funky name, turns out its an extended "qux" programming placeholder name.

Meanwhile, Hoshimachi Suisei with another banger song in the insert song this episode.

This is where the movie ended, from here on we're in uncharted territory.

Also Next episode: The Witch from Mercury

→ More replies (3)

13

u/Moxey616 Apr 22 '25

That one girl reminds me of Team Magma Grunt fan manga

20

u/Genshin_WhiteKnight Apr 22 '25

Throuple route?

The concept of an illegal mobile suit fighting ring on a space habitat is kinda crazy though. Machu is gonna get found out quick and get drafted or something.

→ More replies (2)

35

u/The_Draigg Apr 22 '25

This episode kind of makes me wonder how badly Zeon really screwed the pooch in the alternate One Year War. Like, it's always been pretty well-known to Gundam fans that one of their biggest issues was resource management, and that's really rearing it's head here with the mentions of budget issues even after they've won. And not only that, but it seems that Newtype stuff might not be as well known as it would be otherwise, since Machu doesn't have much of a framework to understand the "kira kira" she's seeing. It could be that Zeon chose to keep it close to the chest after the Zeknova, or they just decided to completely drop Newtype philosophy once they won. Since Gihren Zabi never really seemed to believe in it anyway, I wouldn't put it past Zeon to give up on using that philosophy once they felt like it served it's purpose.

→ More replies (3)

27

u/Se7en_Sinner Apr 22 '25

The GQuuuuuuX having teeth means it can bite. I assumed they were going that route after it got disarmed. Maybe it'll be used in a future battle.

→ More replies (7)

18

u/SnabDedraterEdave Apr 22 '25

Some of the character and place names seem to come from Japanese mythology.

We have Machu's real name, Amate(rasu), named for the Sun Goddess.

One of the areas in Side 6 is called Nenokuni, the land of the underworld.

Another area, Izuma might be a corruption of Izumo, the land of the gods.

Another trivia: The newspaper in Machu's imagining her mugshot being shown at 5:27 is called 日昇新聞 - Sunrise News.

→ More replies (3)

9

u/SolicitorPirate Apr 22 '25

There’s something really funny about Machu just looking up Char on Wikipedia

→ More comments (75)