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And everything happening this week for Future Fest!

So long as there are wars to fight against fascists in space, there will always be a new Mobile Suit Gundam movie in the works. That proves true now, as Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX -Beginning- is about to hit cinemas in North America. The movie is the first collaboration between Sunrise, which has been the home of the Gundam franchise since its beginning, and khara, which is the modern home of the Evangelion series.

Not only is his studio khara involved in the animation of Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX -Beginning- but Hideaki Anno, the creator of Neon Genesis Evangelion, is one of the screenwriters for the film. Kazuya Tsurumaki, who has worked on FLCL and Evangelion in the past, is the film’s director while the screenplay was supervised by Yoji Enokido. Enokido wrote scripts for one of the greatest magical girl anime of all time, Revolutionary Girl Utena.

What is really remarkable about this announcement is that GKIDS is handling the distribution of the film, which will be shown in cinemas in North America on February 28, 2025. In the past, Crunchyroll has handled the licensing of the Gundam series and still has the license to stream most of the series internationally.

Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX -Beginning- is really a warm up act for the next anime series in the Gundam franchise. It consists of footage from the upcoming series that has been re-edited to create a feature-length film. However, it isn’t clear if it will include only the first few episodes (such as what Dan Da Dan did when it got a theatrical debut last year) or if it will try to condense the whole plot into a single two-hour movie.

Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX -Beginning- hits US theaters on February 28, 2025 and includes staff who have worked on the storied Neon Genesis Evangelion series, including Hideaki Anno serving as one of the scriptwriters.

Each week, Popverse's resident anime expert Trent Cannon runs down the latest and, dare we say "greatest," in anime and manga in Popverse Jump. Some recent columns have included... 

• Aggretsuko vs Chainsaw Man: Two Wildly different anine with the same anti-capitalist message
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• How AI translations of manga continues the 'enshitification' of the medium, and why Japanese publishers are "less precious" about it
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• The one thing that Dan Da Dan does better than Demon Slayer ever did
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