Five years after the Principality of Zeon won the One Year, human settled space is getting used to the post-war chaos. Gundam, enormous mechanical warsuits, are everywhere and so are at least two versions of humanity. On a space colony, high school student Amate Yuzuriha runs into Nyaan, a war refugee working as a courier. Together the two become involved with a mysterious new Gundam suit, the illegal Gundam combat sport of Clan Battle and the nagging sense that something is… wrong…

Pronounced ‘GeeQwux’, Gundam GQuuuuuuX is an immensely complex show in an immensely complex franchise. There’s a very lightly sketched in romance between Amate and Nyaan, a less sketched in love triangle with fellow pilot Shuji and a detailed look at Clan Battle as a sport and a culture. As the show goes on, this expands into a look at post-war life, the emergent ‘NewType’ evolution of humanity at the core of the show, the politics of this new timeline and its relationship to the original timeline. There are also multiple types of Gundam, a constantly expanding cast and a major plot involving just how this timeline came to pass and whether or not it should exist.

This leads to the show essentially being three stories in one, complicating further each time it changes gear. The first act is all about Clan Battle, the second expands into a political and industrial thriller and the third goes full on multiverse. If you’re rolling your eyes after years of this being so many franchise’s go-to, I don’t blame you. Here at least, the reason for it is buried deep inside Gundam lore and feels both very personal and earned. This is a series where the enormous mech suit battle are always crunchy, often brutal and always grounded in the emotional lives of the pilots.

For all that though, this is the least newcomer friendly show you could possibly imagine. Almost every character is a reference to a previous show. The last two episodes are all but impossible to understand if you don’t have years of previous series to hand. The emotional heart of the show is understandable without it but it’s very hard not to look at the show as being fundamentally insular and inward facing. This is the most recent incarnation of an anime legend and it doesn’t seem to care about anyone who isn’t already in the party. That’s a problem across every axis of fandom right now but it’s especially egregious here, where the entire third act of the show is a string of reveals that will mean much less to viewers who started here than anywhere else.

Verdict: Gundam GQuuuuuuX is technically brilliant, always exciting and often very hard to care about. If you’re a Gundam fan, it’s a much different, and much better show. If you’re not, then start with either Witch of Mercury or recent Netflix show, Requiem for Vengeance. Both of them will give you different, more accessible inroads into the show. 7/10

Alasdair Stuart