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Bandai Namco Filmworks Pulls All the Stops for Gundam Rising Panel

The highly anticipated panel for Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX opened to a welcoming Anime Expo Day 1 at the Peacock Theater. As an out-of-the-convention-center panel, there were understandable technical troubles. For a three hour panel with a movie screening, a Q&A, freebies, and a concert, the panel felt like a standalone event all on its own. Given how the anime just wrapped up, the enthusiasm from the fandom for GQuuuuuuX was at an all time high.

To keep the panel entertained in the meantime, several insert songs, including “HALO” and others, played on loop as the panel continued to face delays for up to twenty minutes. The fans kept themselves entertained by chanting “GQuuuuuuX” and waving light sticks when certain songs played in the background.

Around 11:50AM, with an original start time of 11:30AM, a Gundam commercial and the MV of Kenshi Yonezu's “Plazma” kept the mood upbeat. However, once more commercials for the trading card game came up as the clock was nearing 12PM, fans grew weary. Luckily, a special message from Machu played before the screening and announced a countdown before the start of the of a “special re-edited theatrical version” of “Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX -Beginning-“ began to play.

During the screening, fans cheered loudly and changed the color of their light sticks to the key character shown on screen. After the credits rolled, the cast and crew made their way to center stage. Executive Producer Naohiro Ogata, Series and Script Composer Yōji Enokido, Director Kazuya Tsurumaki, Tomoyo Kurosawa (Amate Yuzuriha), Shimba Tsuchiya (Shuji Ito), Shinji Kawada (Challia Bull), and Shin Yuuki (Char Aznable). The entirety of this segment as well as the surprise performance of NOMELON NOLEMON were live-streamed on several platforms.

Some of the highlights of the Q&A session were the ability to hear from the staff and see the voice actors perform live voice acting. As they were making their introductions, Shinji Kawada's humorous reference to his character's affectionate nickname from both the Japanese and English speaking fans: “I am Green Guy. I am hige (beard) man. I am Challia Bull!” Although Yui Ishikawa, the voice of Nyaan, wasn't able to be part of the panel, the staff made sure to address her character. “We started with this project because the UC timeline is full of war and has characters that appear and die,” said Director Tsurumaki. “In this storyline, we decided we wanted the characters to survive and create a new history. Machu, Shuji, and Nyaan are building something that we think is more interesting. We want it to be a fascinating and encouraging ending.”

When asked about the three characters' relationship to each other, he explained how he wanted to depict a love triangle between the three of them. “I made sure to pay homage to the close homage between to the two women in this film as well. As far as Shuji goes, he's a mysterious character but he has this heroine side to him.” Just as Director Tsurumaki mentioned that, Tsuchiya gave his best cutesy heroine face.

Scriptwriter Enokido shared his impression of Machu on paper compared to how she is in the series, which was that Kurosawa brings the cute side of her to life. “When I saw the film, I thought this was a character that's more eccentric than what was on the script. She's also a cute character and that's because of Kurosawa's voice acting.” As for Challia Bull, he believes Challia became more fascinating than Enokido originally intended to write him as, in no short part because of Kawada's charm.

Wrapping up the Q&A, the panel quickly transitioned to sharing Kenshi Yonezu's and hololive's Suisei's personalized message for the Anime Expo audience. Then, NOMELON NOLEMON took to the stage to perform a three set performance: “Midnight Refrain,” “Kienai,” and “HALO.” As a surprise, composer Tsumiki brought out an acoustic guitar to play onstage beside MIKIMARIA for “Kienai.” They wrapped up their performance with a brief Q&A, and thanked the crowd for a great welcome.

“This was our first concert abroad, but I wonder what Director Tsurumaki thinks about our MAV,” smiled Tsumiki. Overall, the panel was an intense three hours full of activities that would make any GQuuuuuuX fan jealous. For an Anime Expo attendee, the excursion may have been overwhelming but a great place to spend three hours in the hottest part of the day. Perhaps the next big panel from Bandai Namco Filmworks could be a separate event entirely as the content from the panel is a high production, self contained experience.

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ANN's coverage of Anime Expo 2025 is sponsored by Yen Press and Ize Press!