After Working On ‘Evangelion’, ‘Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX’ Director Wanted Series Protagonist To Be Opposite Of “Nervous” And “Introverted” Shinji Ikari
Apparently tired of waiting for the Third Child to get in the robot, Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX director Kazuya Tsurumaki says that when it came to fleshing out series protagonist Amate ‘Machu’ Yuzuriha, his main creative objective was to make a character that was the complete opposite of Neon Genesis Evangelion‘s Shinji Ikari.
Tsurumaki, who prior to his work on the latest Gundam entry served as the assistant director on the original Neon Genesis Evangelion anime before eventually being placed at the helm of FLCL and the four-part Rebuild of Evangelion film series, provided this insight into the red-headed pilot’s background during a recent interview with editor Nicolo Manaloto of the Philippines-based nerd news outlet UnGeek.
Asked by Manaloto as to how his prior work with Asuka, Rei, and Shinji influenced his alternate-timeline take on the Universal Century, the director asserted, “The protagonist in Evangelion was a somewhat nervous kind of person. He was also an introverted kind of person. So, I think that this time, I wanted to make the protagonist much more proactive, much more dynamic, and bold.”
And sure enough, as viewers who have watched both respective series can attest, Tsurumaki was successful in his mission.
From the very second her phone is damaged and she takes it upon herself to get what she’s owed from the girl who caused it, Machu is shown to be brash and impulsive, often diving head first into a situation and expecting to get it through it based solely on her instincts and in-the-moment thinking.
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Contrast her with the aforementioned Shinji, who due to his abandonment issues and own eventual traumas (like watching Kaworu’s head explode right in front of him) finds himself frozen with fear every time he’s asked to pilot his EVA unit in defense of humanity, only eventually doing so after a third-party reassures him (sometimes truthfully, sometimes simply to manipulate him) of his own capabilities.
Admittedly, it’d be unfair to make a direct comparison between the two young pilots given the drastic differences in tone, philosophy, and narrative direction seen between GQuuuuuuX and Evangelion, but at the very least one can see how Machu at the very least gives Tsurumaki a completely different archetype to explore on screen.
Further, while not directly related to either Machu or Shinji, when asked the same question the same question regarding Evangelion‘s possible influence on GQuuuuuuX during a separate interview with the recently-sold-and-likely-soon-to-be-defunct Polygon, Tsurumarki confirmed that while not explicitly, the series’ concept of Clan Battles, 2-on-2 battle format primarily seen in underground mobile suit fighting rings, did have its roots in one of the former series’ particularly famous scenes.
“The idea of Clan Battles [a ] was not directly influenced by Evangelion,” said the director. “However, in Neon Genesis Evangelion, there was an episode where Shinji and Asuka had to synchronize to attack Angels, and in Evangelion: New Theatrical Edition [the Japanese name for the Rebuild quadrilogy], there was an episode featuring a double entry plug system where two pilots had to synchronize to operate one Evangelion unit together. When depicting characters in battle stories, I found the idea of two characters having to cooperate interesting, so I’m now using that concept in Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX.“
At current, new episodes of Mobile Suit Gundam GquuuuuuX – and for those curious, that’s a total of six ‘u’s – simulcasts every Thursday at 9 AM PST / 12 Noon EST exclusively on Amazon Prime.
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