Latest news with #UniversalCentury
Hypebeast
9 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Hypebeast
‘Mobile Suit Gundam Hathaway: The Sorcery of Nymph Circe' Will Release Winter 2025
Summary An official teaser has been released for the follow-upanimefilm toMobile Suit Gundam Hathaway. Officially titledMobile Suit Gundam Hathaway: The Sorcery of Nymph Circe, the video offers a first look at the highly anticipated sequel. Building on the critical acclaim of the 2021 film, the teaser signals a bold continuation of the Universal Century saga. Set in the Universal Century timeline, the story follows Hathaway Noa and his ongoing resistance against the Earth Federation. With sweeping visuals of futuristic cityscapes, intense aerial battles and glimpses of new mobile suits, the trailer sets a darker, more urgent tone for the next chapter in Hathaway's rebellion. Alongside familiar faces, the teaser also introduces new characters who appear to deepen the political and emotional complexity of the narrative. With a release window set for winter 2025,The Sorcery of Nymph Circepromises to expand the Hathaway saga with heightened tension and visual spectacle.
Gizmodo
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Gizmodo
There Has Never Been a Better Time to Revisit the Original ‘Gundam'
Gundam has spent nearly 50 years reinventing itself across myriad side stories, new universes, and reimaginings of the story that started it all in the events of the 'Universal Century' that kicked off in the original 1979 series Mobile Suit Gundam. There are so many ways to get into the franchise, newer starting points, perhaps less intimidating starting points than a 43-episode TV series. But there's a reason the original Gundam still endures as one of the best, if not the best, entry points all these years later, especially after Gundam GQuuuuuuX just spent 12 weeks drawing upon and remixing it: not only does the show remain as relevant and poignant as it did all those years ago, visiting it now beyond the context of its legacy is fascinatingly rewarding. Either the original Gundam's compilation trilogy or its TV anime (for what it's worth, it is a larger ask, but the show is worth its runtime) still gives you a fascinating meditation on the impact of war on a generation of young people disenfranchised by the powers and generations that came before them. Its mecha action remains compelling in spite of any perceived 'dated' animation from a 46-year-old cartoon, especially so for the way the series frames the impact of that action on the humans driving it. A show still feeling out the early shapes of the genre it would go on to help define, the original Gundam endures as a classic because its ideas remain so potent; it's no wonder the series has spent the decades since either trying to build on and continue that story or create new imaginings and parallels that exist in conversation with it. GQuuuuuuX represents arguably the apex of that decades-long desire to reflect on the legacy of what Mobile Suit Gundam has come to be in the minds of legions of fans and creatives who have come in its wake. The original show looms large over GQuuuuuuX, not just for the sheer amount of context from it the series ultimately demanded of its audience, but because GQuuuuuuX exists in the context of Mobile Suit Gundam's legacy. Figures like Char are treated less like people within the narrative and more emblematic of their reputations, not just within the universe, but their reputations from years of fascination with these characters and the original series. Even the very act of being a direct, alternative universe remix on the outcome of the original show is an acknowledgement that the reputation of the original Gundam is so vast that the very act of engaging with what it would mean to retell its story is worthy of building an entire series out of. GQuuuuuuX's creatives have not been shy about the aims of the show being not just its own thing, but a way to encourage new generations of audiences to go and explore the original show and see what sparked their own fascinations with it, to see what created the legacy that GQuuuuuuX celebrates. Which is why it's so interesting to go back to that original show and realize that it is a show distinctly removed from the legacy it would go on to attain. The original Gundam was not necessarily made with the future of the franchise in mind—there almost wasn't going to be a franchise, with the show getting its initial runtime reduced and ending with the almost certainty that there would not be more coming. With all these years and images fans and the wider franchise itself have conjured up in their heads about its events and characters through years of revisits and expansions, through years of commentary and conversations across a litany of side stories and other series, there is something remarkably refreshing about experiencing Mobile Suit Gundam when it was just that show and not the herald of one of the most influential series in anime. It allows you to be able to go back in time, in some way, and see when Char and Amuro were not Char Aznable and Amuro Ray yet. Amuro spends most of the first half of the series struggling to survive the horror he is enduring, let alone being shaped into the heroic figure and symbol he eventually becomes, metanarratively or otherwise. Char admittedly does have something of a reputation even upon first meeting him in comparison (half the cast of the show, ally or enemy, won't stop gasping about 'The Red Comet' and his ace piloting skills), but not so much that the show isn't scared of humbling him or moving focus away from him, as it does so for a good chunk of the series' middle act. At the end of the day, they're simply just the people they were, characters allowed to grow and develop, to be flawed and to be challenged, instead of the subjects of Gundam's entire legacy. It's remarkable to watch them be humanized in this way, instead of held up as almost-untouchable figureheads. In the original Gundam, its world and its characters are not yet beholden to legacy and just simply… are. Whether it would be the first time you're seeing it or you're a Gundam diehard revisiting for the umpteenth time, it's important to be reminded of what Mobile Suit Gundam was before all that. Even without the context of its legacy, it endures as a remarkable show. Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what's next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
Gizmodo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Gizmodo
The Specter Hanging Over the Nostalgic Climax of ‘Gundam GQuuuuuuX'
The final episode of Gundam GQuuuuuuX asks its characters, new generations and remixes of familiar faces alike, to imagine new possibilities and futures for themselves free from the established ideas and histories of the Gundam shows that came before them. But while doing so, one nostalgic allowance exposes that GQuuuuuuX itself was unable to let go of that past in a singularly damning 12th and final episode of Gundam GQuuuuuuX is largely built on the revelation that its entire setting, a re-imagined vision of Gundam's Universal Century setting, has been made by a version of the Newtype Lalah Sune from a reality where she was saved from death in battle against the Gundam by the sacrifice of her version of Char Aznable, sending her into a despair that shattered reality, as she mentally searched for, and created, timelines that tried to imagine a possibility where Char survived. Already itself an alternate imagining of similar events in the original 1979 anime, where Lalah perishes at the Gundam and its pilot Amuro Ray's hands, this information is relayed to the audience and GQuuuuuuX's young protagonist Machu alike by a psionic flashback in the form of a modern yet retro recreation of scenes from the 41st episode of the original show, 'A Cosmic Glow.' As the recreation of Char, Amuro, and Lalah's battle plays out, familiar voices fill in their roles: Char and Lalah are once again voiced by their original actors from Mobile Suit Gundam, Shuichi Ikeda and Keiko Han, respectively, but Amuro is left oddly silent. (In a fun twist for the English-language dub, Keith Silverstein and Lipica Shah, who voiced Char and Lalah in the adaptation of Gundam: The Origin, briefly reprise their roles for this sequence.) That is, until later on in the climax of the episode, where Tōru Furuya—who has played Amuro across anime, films, games, and more for 46 years—reprised his role once more. It's for a singular line of dialogue, acting as the spiritual voice of the titular Gundam GQuuuuuuX to express its desire to not see Lalah suffer any further. But regardless, it's new material from the original voice of Amuro Ray. At one point, that might have been a triumphant huzzah, but in 2025, hearing Furuya having recorded new material strikes a much more complicated tone for Gundam fans. In May 2024, in an interview with the Japanese tabloid Shūkan Bunshun, Furuya (who was 70 at the time) revealed that he had engaged in an extramarital affair for four and a half years with a woman almost 40 years his junior. In the same interview, he also admitted getting into a physical altercation with the woman, as well as pressuring her into terminating a pregnancy during the course of their relationship. The reaction to the scandal in Japan was immediate. Furuya is perhaps one of the most famous voice actors in the country, known for his role not just as Amuro, but also as Sailor Moon's Tuxedo Mask, Dragon Ball's Yamcha, Sabo in One Piece, Pegasus Seiya in Saint Seiya, Rei Furuya in Detective Conan, and many more roles in a career that spanned almost six decades of work. Within a month of the release of the interview and Furuya's public apology on Twitter (which has since been locked), the actor had been dropped from a role in the then-upcoming Atlus RPG Metaphor Re:Fantazio, and Furuya announced that he would step down from his roles in One Piece and Detective Conan. Later that same year, Toei announced that Ryōta Suzuki would replace Furuya as Yamcha in Dragon Ball: Daima. But Bandai Namco, the owner of Gundam studio Sunrise, stayed quiet over whether or not Furuya would continue to voice Amuro Ray, as he had across dozens of Gundam works. In June 2024, the company sent a statement to Yahoo Japan's Meikou Kawamura stating that the company was undergoing 'a careful consideration to deal with [the situation around Furuya],' declining to comment further. In October that year, Bandai announced that Furuya would reprise his role as Amuro alongside Ikeda's Char once more in Gundam ALC Encounter, a short film to be broadcast as a special wall projection by the life-sized statue of the Nu Gundam in Fukuoka. GQuuuuuuX had been in development for several years before Furuya's scandal had emerged—planning on the series, in collaboration with Evangelion studio Khara, began as early as 2018, potentially even before Furuya's affair had even begun. It's likewise difficult to know if any part of the series was rewritten to move focus away from Amuro appearing in any capacity: the character is explicitly absent from GQuuuuuuX's remix of the events of the original Gundam and never actually named when allusions are made to the character, only referred to in passing as the pilot of the Federation's white Mobile Suit, while GQuuuuuuX focuses instead on Char and Lalah as its primary legacy characters. And again, even when Amuro would've naturally had dialogue in the finale's recreation of the events of 'A Cosmic Glow' alongside Ikeda and Han's return as Char and Lalah, the character is silent. But from what's publicly known about the development of the series at this point, we can't definitively say if these were intentional creative choices or necessities born out of attempting to distance from Furuya. But if they even were the latter, it would make little sense to then bring Furuya back to provide a single line of dialogue anyway. The new versions of Char and Lalah in GQuuuuuuX recast new actors in place of Ikeda and Han, and, with Furuya's scandal breaking months before GQuuuuuuX had been publicly announced, there was plenty of time between it and the final episode's broadcast to cast a replacement actor, even if it needed to be a soundalike to still communicate to audiences the connection to Amuro and the original Gundam. Was that connection so vital that there was no other choice? It seems simply instead that, unlike other studios, Bandai was simply unwilling to let go of Furuya's link to the legacy of Gundam yet—in spite of GQuuuuuuX's own thematic messages about the need to move on and imagine new possibilities for the series' past and future, leaving a conflicting mark on an otherwise forward-looking end to the series. Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what's next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
Gizmodo
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Gizmodo
The ‘GQuuuuuuX' Finale Might Be One of the Most Hopeful ‘Gundam' Endings in Years
So much of Gundam GQuuuuuuX's riffing on the legacy of the 1979 original across its 12 episodes has been almost about a yearning sense of inevitability that it could only end in one way—a retread of what came before narratively, and a continuation of the cycle of conflict that has broadly defined the franchise at large and the Universal Century setting that GQuuuuuuX played with in particular. But in its final episode, GQuuuuuuX played with its nostalgic sensibilities one last time to imagine for itself a future that broke the cycle of Gundam, and the thrall of its past self.A lot happens in 'That's Why I,' the 12th and seemingly final episode of Gundam GQuuuuuuX on its road to imagining that future—much of it grappling with that question about the inevitability of the show's remixing and obsession with the events of the original Mobile Suit Gundam. The final battle between Machu, Nyaan, and Shuji (and Challia and Char, the adult spectators to the conflict of a generation beyond them, dealing with the scars of their own conflicts) largely becomes driven by a revelation made early on by Shuji. The Lalah Sune inside the Rose of Sharon is from a reality where Char died at the hands of Amuro Ray in the One Year War, sacrificing himself to save her, and he has been chasing her across endless realities in that moment ever since, as she desperately tries to find one where Char survives. But she never does, recreating her despair that sundered reality in the first place and distorting those realities beyond existence. In order to stop Lalah from bearing that pain over and over—threatening to bear it once more, should Char reject what she's done—Shuji decides its time to essentially euthanize her, ending this latest reality before she can destroy it and her original one in the fallout. It's perhaps telling at this point that this Lalah, very clearly distinct from the Lalah of the original Gundam, has not been able to create (or even contemplate) a possibility that leads to the events of the original Mobile Suit Gundam, where it's Amuro and Char who survive, and she does not. Even the Lalah of GQuuuuuuX's reality, where Char has survived but doesn't meet her during the war, only had visions of timelines where Char meets his end saving her. The Rose Lalah, the GQuuuuuuX Lalah, there isn't any dream of a happy future for them: it's either the pain of loss or the the pain of never knowing this man she still yet somehow knows thanks to her Newtype connection. In many way it maps to the trajectory of the Universal Century setting as we know it: where the evolution of, deeper connection between, humankind represented by the awakening of Newtypes is constantly cut short by the tragedy of repeating wars between Earth and its colonies. A future where that profound understanding is always marred by a sense of loss, the tragedy what could've been, as that cycle of conflict continues. The very act of Gundam being saved from premature cancellation and its spinning out into one of anime's most enduring franchises almost belies that hope for peace: the hopeful end of the war in the original Gundam gives way to Zeta Gundam's setting where Earth has turned further totalitarian in its oppression of the colonies, sparking a resurgence of Zeon that climaxes in Char's Counterattack. The cycle doesn't stop there, with new wars and new factions emerging across stories like Unicorn, Hathaway, F91, and Victory, and even eventually implied further still in adjacent alternate universes like Reconguista in G and Turn A Gundam. GQuuuuuuX almost makes this literal in having Shuji pilot the image of original Gundam—not remixed, but styled to how it appeared in the original anime—to commit his attempted euthanasia. As Machu and Nyaan battle to stop him, the Gundam blurs reality, growing and transforming into a more literal version of its 'White Devil' moniker, an almost literal specter haunting the people of this so-called-aberrant reality. But ultimately, Machu defies Shuji, not by killing him (although she does get to cathartically slice the Gundam's head off as a finishing flourish, a very potent image given the ideas at play here), but by begging him to break free of this cycle of death and to contemplate a reality where Lalah is allowed to move on from her grief in her own terms. The evolution of Newtypes, as Machu understands it, is in finding strength in the deeper connection it brings, in exploring new potentials and possibilities—that she was made a stronger person in her own evolution as a Newtype in meeting Nyaan and him. In her mind, Lalah can't find that same strength unless she's allowed to confront the loss of her own deeper connection to her Char and move on from it, knowing that there's a world out there where the possibility of them both living lives, albeit separate ones, exists. In making him realize that Lalah has to be allowed the chance to make that realization herself, rather than be protected from it, Machu doesn't just win the day, but galvanizes GQuuuuuuX to deliver a hopeful future for its alternate spin on the Universal Century. Char and Challia part ways, the former promising the latter to make a better life for himself that would make the latter proud, after Challia expresses fears that Char's own loneliness could lead him down a path of self-destruction—as it eventually does in the original setting by Char's Counterattack. That road even starts with this version of Char finally meeting 'his' version of Lalah, giving them both a potential path to a happy ending together. Zeon, free of the fascistic rule of the Zabi family, installs its own version of Char's sister Artesia as its new ruler, imagining a future where her family's ideals for spacenoid independence could live on beyond the usurpation of the Zabi dynasty. The series closes on Nyaan and Machu relaxing on Earth—rebonding after their separation in the climactic episodes of the season—hopeful that that this was not the last time they'll see Shuji, and with Machu even reconnecting with her estranged parents. GQuuuuuuX's ultimate ending—arguably not even that distinct an ending, considering it leaves the door open for further exploration of this vision of the series in ways few might have expected it to—is not that the cycle of Gundam itself must continue, but that a possibility for the series to imagine new potentials, new visions of even its most sacred aspects. A possibility where this earned peace is not temporary, but sustained—and that Gundam can still be Gundam if it imagines itself contexts and futures beyond that cyclical conflict. It's a poignantly hopeful denouement to a show that has largely defined itself through an obsessive remix of Gundam's past to gift the idea that it does not have to be forever beholden to it. Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what's next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
Gizmodo
18-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Gizmodo
The ‘GQuuuuuuX' Endgame Is About the Messiest Relationship in All of ‘Gundam'
What is Mobile Suit Gundam about? Sometimes, it's about cool robots. Sometimes, it's about the horrors of war. Sometimes, it's about the balance of power, and the exploitation of have-nots by the haves, a cycle of class conflict that is inextricably interwoven through the cycle of military conflict. But really, a lot of the time–especially in the series' foundational Universal Century setting–Gundam is a story about the two most divorced people to have ever not been married. And now Gundam GQuuuuuuX, in its own remixing of that timeline, is seemingly going to close out being about Char Aznable and Amuro Ray too. I've written before that GQuuuuuuX's narrative has been haunted from the very beginning by the 1979 anime's main characters. Char has been the most present of those specters, both in how the series has repeatedly flashed back to his exploits in the One Year War, to the man himself lurking in the background waiting for pieces of his plan to fall into place. Now, in GQuuuuuuX's penultimate episode, Char begins making his moves in the open, casting off his 'disguise' as Shirouzu as he makes clear to everyone around him his aims: to stop the Rose of Sharon and its mysterious alternate Lalah from inadvertently destroying reality as this 'remix' of the Universal Century has come to know it. Char and our heroes alike, however, find themselves at odds. Machu can only see the struggles of the Lalah she encountered on Earth in this trapped alternate version of her, and so Char's desire to save the world by destroying her sees Machu race to stop him. It further turns out that Shuji, making his grand return to the story after mysteriously vanishing a few weeks ago, is by her side against Char: purportedly first as an extension of the dormant Lalah's psionic will, but then, in a climactic heel turn, through a revelation that he too is from the same reality as Lalah… pulled into this aberrant timeline in an attempt to erase it. How Shuji intends to do that, and why, is left unclear, save for GQuuuuuuX's most audacious twist in the episode's final moments: emerging beyond the Rose of Sharon's psionic gateway to another world comes a Gundam. The Gundam. Not the re-imagined Mobile Suit we've seen in the show's prior re-imagining of the One Year War; there is no lanky, skeletal, almost Evangelion-esque frame here. This is the RX-78-2, as seen in the classic Mobile Suit Gundam—and, presumably, inside it is some version of Amuro Ray. That bit remains uncertain, to be fair. Perhaps the reality Shuji is from is one where he is the pilot of the first Gundam, perhaps, just as Char said of Lalah, he is using his vast powers as a Newtype to somehow possess Amuro and fling him at his new foes like an attack dog. Perhaps it's someone else in there entirely, or no one, and it's the Gundam itself being puppeteered by Shuji. For what it's worth, GQuuuuuuX's invocation of 'Beyond the Time' in this episode, the rock-ballad anthem that acts as the ending theme of Char's Counterattack, almost feels like it has to be Amuro in some form or another, rather than a fake out. We already know Lalah has seen visions of other worlds that play out the fateful encounter between herself, Char, and Amuro that ended with her sacrifice in the original series over and over in infinite combinations. Surely now then, it is time to see that battle play out again, but this time with the fate of a universe at stake. Because after all what is the story of the Universal Century if not that of Char Aznable and Amuro Ray? The evolution of Char and Amuro from wartime rivals to uncertain allies, to once-again foes yearning to understand their confounding connection to each other, is one that plays out across Gundam as a series for the best part of its first decade. Bonded by Lalah and the emergence of them both as Newtypes—capable of this heightened connection and understanding, but forever only on the brink of actually understanding each other and their visions for the world they fight for—the cycle of Gundam, in the Universal Century at least, is largely defined by the relationship between these two men. We haven't seen a GQuuuuuuX version of Amuro throughout the series so far—his role in the alternate version of past events is left pointedly out of the picture. Perhaps that's the true aberration Shuji speaks of in the creation of this world is, in some ways, that there could be some version of Char's story without him, one that lacks this fundamental figure that defines so much of it in the original Gundam. If GQuuuuuuX is going to make reframing and remixing the original Gundam its defining trait, there's probably no other way it could've ended than Char and Amuro, in some form or another, making their deal the whole universe's problem.
