Spring 2025’s Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX transported viewers to a different Universal Century, one where Amuro never got in the Gundam and Zeon won the One-Year War. After experiencing its reveals, conflicts, and “Beyond the Time,” we had the chance to briefly catch up with director Kazuya Tsurumaki and series composer Yoji Enokido at Anime Expo 2025 to talk about the setting, the mesmerizing visualization of the “kira-kira” Newtype phenomenon, and Episode 4’s Shiiko Sugai.
This interview was conducted via interpreter and has been edited for clarity. Interview conducted by James Mizutani and Audrey Im; questions submitted by Melvyn Tan.
Anime Trending: Thank you very much for interviewing with us! This first question is for Enokido-san. When you first joined the production, what was your initial reaction to the setting and concept envisioned for GquuuuuuX? Did that reaction change or evolve by the time the series composition was completed?
Yoji Enokido: The main characteristic of the GquuuuuuX title is that it’s a departure from the original Gundam series. It’s actually a parallel world. From the get-go, [it was] part of the project description as given to me by director Tsurumaki. When I received the offer, that was already a part of it, and part of me said, “Sure, let’s do this.”
Initially, I was very surprised and thought, “This is really interesting.” The Gundam story has been around for 45 years, and it’s a series that’s been going on for a really long time. The series is really divided into two main lines. One is the Universal Century line, where you have the shared world and everything that goes along with the Universal Century. And then the other one is not in the Universal Century — it’s like an alternative world that’s completely different. It is one series in and of itself of Gundam.
I’m a huge Gundam fan myself, and when I look at a Gundam show or title, the first thing I ask is, “Is this part of the UC? Or is this the Alternative series or timeline?” So for GQuuuuuuX, we were thinking that it’s part of the shared world; however, it’s not shared. There’s a major difference there. And that for me sounded really interesting. So that’s why we took that direction.
That excitement about this alternative world and series has never changed since the moment I joined the project.
Shiiko Sugai, The Witch, appears in just one episode, but manages to leave a huge impression on the fans, leading to all sorts of fan art. Can you tell us about the creation of that character and the decision to include her in the story?
Kazuya Tsurumaki: Honestly, from the very outset of the project planning documents, Shiiko Sugai was part of this. In fact, even before we decided whether we were going to include Char Aznable or not, she was part of it. Shiiko is actually a very fundamental and instrumental part of this story, especially in terms of depicting Machu’s growth and change. Of course, when we started the project and all of our blueprints for the story, we knew that Shiiko was going to die, but even then, we knew she was going to be a very important person in this story. So I’m glad that we were able to depict her in a way that was really interesting to people.
Yoji Enokido: In this series, the protagonist is Machu, and she has to grow; she has to change during this story. She is the main [focus of the] storyline, of course, that doesn’t change. But in order for her to do that, it was instrumental for her to meet several different women who were instrumental in her growth as a character. That was a fundamental part of the concept. It was a strategy that was part of the director’s thinking and filmmaking. In that sense, Shiiko Sugai is a really important character. She shouldn’t be considered a secondary character.
Kazuya Tsurumaki: I remember specifically having some discussions that slightly changed the direction that we took her character. At first, when I was reading Enokido-san’s script, Shiiko Sugai was going to be like this tomboy, woman warrior. She was going to be this really strong-willed woman with a warrior side to her. Then, when we went back and looked at the story, I said, “You know what? Honestly, I think she’s more like a mother.” She has this motherly side to her, but when she gets in a mobile suit and she goes to war, she’s going to kick ass.
She’s super strong and super resilient, but that comes from her motherly side, not just because she’s a woman warrior. When we had this discussion, I requested that we make some changes in that direction, and that all led to the character that eventually became Sugai.
This question is for Tsurumaki-san. Another notable aspect of the show is the “kira-kira” phenomenon that happens when some of the pilots are piloting the Gundam. What inspired its visual design, as well as its intoxicating effect on some of the Newtype characters?
Kazuya Tsurumaki: During the original Gundam, there was the Hikaru Uchu episode — [which means] “Shining Universe”— in that episode, there’s this experience that Amuro and Lalah have. Because they are Newtype humans, they have these sensations and feelings that normal humans don’t have. So they’re feeling these sensations and having this experience that’s really different, fascinating, and intoxicating.
In this series, one of our main topics is the Newtype, or Newtype characters and Newtype humans. Of course, we knew we needed to write that in there. We wanted to maybe use, I don’t know if [it’s] like “expressionism,” like expressionist techniques or get inspired by that to write or depict that experience. But in any case, my thinking was, “Okay, in the original Gundam anime, I would’ve liked to have seen that experience be depicted in more of a modern way or another better way with CGI and digital animation.”
At that time, Sunrise did the best they could with what they had, but I thought [the team at Studio Khara] could do better these days with some of the techniques that we have. So we wanted to give it this modern expression. That was kind of a challenge we had: how can we take that special moment and make it even more interesting using these modern techniques?
We could have done CGI with that, but we decided actually not to. Part of our challenge was how to do that better, but without CGI. The technique that we ended up using was actually an old French technique called moiré, which is taking different shapes and overlapping them on the screen so that they can give you this sparkly effect. But it’s also a little bit unpredictable and uncontrollable. It ends up giving you this colorful, kind of chaotic, kind of brilliant, kind of shiny, but kind of bizarre feel to it. And we felt like that was perfect for this.
So the old-style techniques, is that kind of like cel animation, or something else?
Kazuya Tsurumaki: Well, it’s different, actually, from cel animation. That said, this same technique was also used in the cel animation era. You have two different layers over [each] other, and you would just take the overlapping portions or the interfering portions. Then you would extract that and use that as a completely different image or illustration. So, it’s different from your manual or hand-drawn animation. It gives you this kind of bizarre, weird vibe that’s a product of coincidence. You actually can’t control it very well. This coincidence leads you to surprising effects that you maybe weren’t planning on getting, but it leads you to this vibe that we thought was perfect for this.
So that means the shots that are in the show are kind of one-in-a-million. That’s the time it happened, and you can’t recreate that.
Kazuya Tsurumaki: Exactly.
That’s super cool!
Kazuya Tsurumaki: If you think about it, in live-action film, you also have things that you can’t ever reproduce. Like, the way that the wind is blowing through the trees on that particular day — you can never get that again. Or the way the waves crashed on that one particular moment with that one actor. You have these things that you cannot predict, recreate, or control.
In anime, you can’t really do that, but we thought, “How can we do something like that, to recreate what you see in a real, live-action film that can only happen once, and you capture the moment, and you’ve got it?” And that’s what led us to this. What ends up happening is coincidental, but we did it on purpose. This was the technique we decided we wanted to use, and to do this, you have to use something that you don’t have control over.
As the storyboard artist and co-episode director of the finale, as well as the series director, what was the highlight of the last episode for you?
Kazuya Tsurumaki: For me, the part that I’m the biggest fan of is actually in the epilogue — you have like the opening credits and all these different scenes that are there. There’s this scene where Machu’s mother receives a message, and she cries. I personally am a fan of that particular part of the last episode.
We see Challia and Kycilia scheming and fighting for their respective ideas of the future, and involving young civilians like Machu and Nyaan in the process. How did that side of the story come to be, and what do you find to be the most appealing aspect of it?
Yoji Enokido: One of the main themes that we had, basically starting in episode 8, is this competition between Challia and Machu, and Kycilia and Nyaan. These two teams are competing with each other, and I wanted to keep the continuation of that competition, but I wanted to use them as a tool to compare a couple of different things. I wanted the comparison to be symmetrical, to be apples to apples.
The way that I did that was, I had Challia and Kycilia hand over a pistol to Machu and Nyaan [respectively]. Of course, they’re different pistols. They look the same, but they mean two different things. For example, there’s the pistol scene with Amuro Ray, where he gives the pistol to a young boy named Katz, and it has this meaning of him inheriting, or continuing, something. In Kycilia’s case, the pistol that she hands over actually means power, strength, and fight. You have to fight without waiting, without hesitation. When you need to fight, you gotta fight.
However, in Challia Bull’s case, it means something different. It actually is the pistol that he was about to commit suicide with, though he ended up deciding not to commit suicide. So this pistol means death is always there. You can always choose it, but you shouldn’t choose it. That was the symbolism of that pistol. Death is always there, but instead of choosing death, choose life. Two different pistols, two different meanings, but there’s a continuation.
Thank you very much for your time!
