From April to June 2025, I watched Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX(Official), directed by Kazuya Tsurumaki of FLCL and Diebuster. After seeing the theatrical release, Beginning, my expectations were absurdly high—and, for the first time in my life, they were actually met. Looking forward to each episode and spending the week thinking about it made for a very happy spring.
The series reached an excellent conclusion, but some mysteries remain. Here, I want to consider the mystery of Shuji.
Shuji seems to have come from “the other side.” Yet if that means a world where Amuro piloted the Gundam, something does not add up. In the final episode, Shuji hears Amuro’s voice and asks, “Who is that?” He sounds as though he has never heard it before.
Why does Shuji not know the pilot of the White Devil that kept killing Char?
That sense of something being wrong is my starting point for considering who Shuji was and what the story might be saying. First, let us think about Amuro, whose appearance comes only briefly at the end.
*This is a translated version. The original (Japanese) is available here.
- The Mystery of Shuji
I use Shuji’s apparent unfamiliarity with Amuro as a starting point for the theory that Shuji piloted the white mobile suit on “the other side” and the 01 Gundam on “this side.” The argument rests on circumstantial evidence, not conclusive proof. - A Parallel World Distinct from the “Canon”
Lalah’s survival suggests that “the other side” differs from the familiar Universal Century story. My theory is that the Amuro heard at the end is a soul-like presence in an OOPArt—the ν Gundam, or part of it—brought over by the Axis Shock in Char’s Counterattack. - A Story About Creation
If the world from which GQuuuuuuX branches is itself another “what if,” that structure can be read as a picture of creation through successive influences and imitations. A work born on the side of the “fake” can still become something genuinely new and “real.”
On this pageContents
Shuji’s Mystery and the Whereabouts of Amuro Ray
The Persuasive Theory That Amuro Was Already Dead
Part of what made GQuuuuuuX so exciting was trying to predict its next move by comparing it with the familiar Mobile Suit Gundam story.
One question kept coming back: “Where is Amuro Ray?”
Since he had not boarded the white mobile suit at Side 7, I imagined him enjoying life somewhere and assumed he would eventually appear. Other viewers online, though, came up with a persuasive theory: “Amuro piloted the 01 Gundam—the Zero-One Gundam—that fought Char, and he has already been killed.“
They had clear reasons for thinking so:
- The 01 Gundam repeatedly fired a bazooka, a weapon associated with Amuro.
- It evaded Char’s beam-rifle attacks.
- Dr. Flanagan said that the evasion could not be explained by the machine’s performance alone: it was a superhuman feat.
Flanagan’s remark was particularly troubling. It suggested that the 01 Gundam had an exceptional pilot. Among the exceptional Federation pilots from the original series who had not yet appeared, Amuro seemed the obvious candidate.
I love Amuro, so I wanted to refute this deeply persuasive theory. Until the final episode, I could not.
Then one remark from Shuji changed the picture.
Could Amuro Be Absent Even from “The Other Side”?
Near the end, a mysterious presence speaks to Shuji through GQuuuuuuX: “I don’t want to see it anymore—a Gundam killing Lalah again.” The voice is Toru Furuya’s, so I can only hear Amuro. Yet Shuji asks, “Who is that?”
It is possible that Amuro has a different voice on the other side. But we have just heard Shuichi Ikeda’s Char and Keiko Han’s Lalah. After bringing those voices back, changing only Amuro’s would seem odd.
That leads me to conclude that there is no Amuro Ray even on “the other side,” and that the pilot of the 01 Gundam was therefore not Amuro. In that reading, he simply is not there.
Two questions still remain: who piloted the white mobile suit, and who was the Amuro who appeared at the end?
My Theory: Shuji Piloted Both Mobile Suits
My conclusion is that it makes sense to read Shuji as the pilot of the white mobile suit on “the other side” and of the 01 Gundam on “this side.”
Unfortunately, there is no decisive evidence. But several pieces of circumstantial evidence fit:
- Shuji came from “the other side.”
- He boards the white mobile suit from the other side without hesitation.
- Shuji also appeared in Char’s Custom Gundam on this side—the originally white mobile suit.
- He feels love for Lalah.
- People do not feel that much affection for someone they have never met.
- Lalah also loved the white mobile suit’s pilot.
- Despite all this, the name “Amuro Ray” never comes up.
- The giant white mobile suit loses its head, just as the 01 Gundam did when it was shot down.
If Shuji piloted the 01 Gundam, of course, he must have died. But if the white mobile suit killed Char in the various timelines Lalah created, Shuji must also have existed in those timelines.
For now, I think it is reasonable to suppose that he died in the world of GQuuuuuuX. In this reading, that tragedy was not enough to produce another timeline, which shows how deep Lalah’s love for Char was.
If Shuji piloted the white mobile suit on the other side, where did the Amuro who briefly appeared at the end come from?
The Axis Shock as a Possible Explanation
In the final episode, Challia Bull says:
“Like the Rose of Sharon, the Omega Psycommu was made with an OOPArt from the other side.”
Char then responds:
“It was designed as a triggering system to produce a Zeknova in the red Gundam’s place.”
I read the Amuro who appears at the end as something like a soul dwelling in the “OOPArt” from the other side that Challia mentions.
If Challia’s “other side” means the world of the Lalah who created the branching timelines, Amuro would be there after all. But if it means a world other than this one, there need be no contradiction. There is no guarantee that different “other sides” are recognized as distinct worlds.
Char’s remark matters, too. The Alpha Psycommu can cause a Zeknova because it is based on Lalah and the Elmeth—the Rose of Sharon—from which the phenomenon originates. Why, then, can the Omega Psycommu trigger one?
Wouldn’t it make sense for the OOPArt behind the Omega Psycommu to have been involved in a Zeknova-like event? Thinking that through leads me to the Axis Shock.
Could the OOPArt Challia describes be the ν Gundam, or a part of it—perhaps its Psyco-Frame?
Again, there is no decisive evidence for this interpretation, but I think it offers an explanation without contradiction.
Mapping the Familiar Gundam Story and GQuuuuuuX
When Char began talking about “the other side” after being caught in the Zeknova in Beginning, or in television episode 8, Falling to the Moon, perhaps you pictured the relationship between the two worlds as I initially did:
Yet the GQuuuuuuX world’s Elmeth was not shot down by the white mobile suit before coming from the other side. Meanwhile, the OOPArt behind the Omega Psycommu seems to carry the thoughts, feelings, or soul of the Amuro who did shoot it down. I therefore imagine the relationship as follows:
Official setting materials may eventually settle the matter. For now, I think this arrangement provides a workable explanation.
The important question, though, is: “Why make the other side something other than the familiar original Gundam world?” Amuro’s absence is only my theory, but Lalah’s survival means this is not the original story. That is what I want to consider next.
A Story That Gives Form to the Act of Storytelling
The Real vs. The Fake
At a stage appearance for GQuuuuuuX, scriptwriter and series composer Yoji Enokido reportedly said the following:
GQuuuuuuX stage greeting 4 PM session
— Samepa (@samepacola) February 2, 2025
On the theme
Enokido: The world where Zeon won isn’t just a (superficial) motif; it’s a theme of “parallel to the canon world” and “real vs. fake” that runs through the entire story from beginning to end. Real gravity and fake gravity, real pilots and fake pilots, real friends and fake friends…
GQuuuuuuX Stage Greeting (4:00 PM Session)
On the theme:
Enokido: The worldline where Zeon won isn’t just a superficial motif. The entire story is consistently portrayed from beginning to end with the themes of “a parallel to the canon world” and “the real vs. the fake.” Real gravity and fake gravity, real pilots and fake pilots, real friends and fake friends…
The report uses the phrase “parallel to the canon world.” As argued above, I think even the “other side” of GQuuuuuuX is distinct from the familiar original story.
Viewed in those terms, the whole world of GQuuuuuuX, including “the other side,” stands on the side of the “fake.”
One possible reason is that “this allows an alternate story without disturbing the original Gundam as a kind of sacred text.“
Some viewers still regard the original 1979 Mobile Suit Gundam as the only Gundam they can—or want to—accept. It would not be surprising if some people involved in this series felt that way, too. Making the supposed original world another “what if” could then be seen as a precaution.
Another possibility is that Furuya’s troubles during production forced some change. That, too, is speculation, not an established explanation of the story’s structure.
But I find those explanations rather dull. It is more enjoyable to imagine a positive creative intention behind the structure—whether or not that was actually the case.
The Imitation Inherent in Creation
I have seen posts on X expressing the wish that Khara had made a wholly original work instead of GQuuuuuuX.
I was doing a little happy dance each week, declaring that the series was fantastic. Now it is over, though, I can also understand wanting a completely new work with no connection to the original Gundam.
At least in my interpretation, however, GQuuuuuuX is already detached from the original Gundam world: it is not simply a derivative branch. We cannot ultimately know the creators’ intentions, but perhaps its strange structure gives form to the very act of telling a story.
Films and novels are usually called creations, but I doubt there is any work untouched by influence, wanted or unwanted. Some form of imitation is involved. The very methods of making a film or writing a novel are inherited, too.
Even conversations about what we have seen and heard can become the basis for someone’s next work.
In Mobile Suit Gundam, discussions such as “How could Zeon have won?” or “What if Amuro had never piloted the Gundam?” are examples of this.
Those influences and imitations accumulate in layers across generations. What influences one work is itself under the influence of another. In the present, it can become difficult to tell where the chain began.
If we dismiss imitation as “fake,” doesn’t that make almost every creative work a fake?
That goes against our intuition. A work can still be real; calling it fake because it has influences or imitates something seems immature to me. Of course, outright copying is another matter.
From this perspective, even the source world of GQuuuuuuX is a “what if.” Its structure could thus express the long relay of works influencing one another, continuing until the original starting point becomes hard to identify.
As the latest runner holding that baton, GQuuuuuuX is, I think, still real.
Evangelion and GQuuuuuuX: What Are Animation and Creation?
As this is a Khara work, let us also think for a moment about Neon Genesis Evangelion.
The television finale of Evangelion left many viewers behind. Broadly speaking, though, I think it can be read as asking what animation is.
It breaks animation into its components and shows them one after another, as though asking us: “Couldn’t this count as animation, too?“
With GQuuuuuuX, we might read Tsurumaki as asking, rather bluntly: “Isn’t this how creation works?“
In that sense, I think it is a thoroughly fitting work from Khara, led by Hideaki Anno, who created Neon Genesis Evangelion.
Those are my current thoughts on GQuuuuuuX. Put simply, I had a wonderful time. But I enjoy talking about that pleasure in deliberately complicated terms, which is precisely why I bother running a blog.
What did you think of GQuuuuuuX?
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