Gundam: Kenji Kamiyama Talks Creating New AA Universe, And How It Will Change The Franchise
The Gundam franchise might have first started in the 1970s, but the mech universe has continued thanks to its versatility. While the original Universal Century storyline introduced viewers to the war between the Earth Federation and the Principality of Zeon, countless other stories have emerged. Gundam Wing, The Witch From Mercury, G Gundam, and Gundam GQuuuuuuX all take place in different timelines and realities, but there has nothing quite like the next anime chapter. Recently, we here at ComicBook.com were able to talk with creator Kenji Kamiyama about his new Gundam series and how it will differ from its predecessors.
Kamiyama might be best known for his work on anime properties such as The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045, and Star Wars: Visions Presents The Ninth Jedi. In building this new universe, Kenji spoke of how he hopes his new universe stands apart from the Gundam anime of the past: “This project actually was offered as a transmedia project along with the video game, Gundam: Rogue Orbit, and it’s quite a huge undertaking. The offer was to create a brand new universe. Generally speaking, the mainstay of the Gundam universe is actually the Universal Century storyline, but for this project, we had to build an entire new universe and timeline. The series usually revolves around human conflict and war, but in this story, we start with an alien life form, a silicon-based life form that actually comes to Earth.”
Kenji explains that while this confrontation won’t be man versus man, it will still have the elements of war attached: “This is humanity’s conflict with that organism and how that leads into another human conflict. We had to build whole new rules and the universe for both the anime and the game to work.”
An Apocalyptic Gundam World
Kenji further fleshed out the idea that while things might change in this new series, various elements will stay the same, “This title deals with something different, as a ‘typical’ Gundam story would usually revolve around a theme of war, anti-war message, and you know, people’s egos. This needs to be set up differently for our new anime since we have a different type of enemy for this one. You’ve got to have the same code, however, that’s consistent in all the Gundam, and that’s the Mobile Suits. For the design, you need to have the antenna and the traditional Gundam color, and you have to have a pilot who pilots it. It’s important to send a message that this is a Gundam we have done.”
Another major change for Mobile Suit Gundam RG XARX-ZERO isn’t just the inclusion of alien lifeforms, but also its lead, according to Kamiyama, “In most Gundam series, the protagonist is usually an ordinary boy who gets pulled into this huge war that he didn’t want to be a part of. Then you follow how that ordinary person discovers his special skill to play a critical part in the conflict. So we set this character as an orphan of a war and he’s in this conflict by his own will. It’s not something that he’s willing to take on actively, but the circumstances of war and what he needs to do for those around him is mired in the war more and more. Then we explored that character and how he responds. We try to strike a balance of what’s unique and what’s actually consistent with the Gundam universe.”
Mobile Suit Gundam RG: XARX-Zero is slated for a 2027 release, and we here at ComicBook.com will let you more details as we get closer to this mech anime’s official release.
