In the early hours of July 24, production was officially announced on a brand-new entry in the Mobile Suit Gundam franchise, Mobile Suit Gundam RG XARX-ZERO (pronounced “Alex Zero”), with the project set to begin rolling out in 2027. Kenji Kamiyama will serve as both director and series composer, immediately giving Gundam fans plenty to look forward to.
The anime will share its setting with the game GUNDAM ROGUE ORBIT. The wider multimedia initiative connecting the anime and game has been dubbed the “RG Project,” raising plenty of questions about how this new Gundam universe will develop. Japanese outlet AUTOMATON recently interviewed director Kenji Kamiyama about the impact Gundam has had on his creative career and how the new world of the RG Project came together.
Mobile Suit Gundam RG XARX-ZERO is part of the cross-media “RG Project.” Set in an entirely new post-apocalyptic Gundam universe, the anime will also function as a prequel to the upcoming game GUNDAM ROGUE ORBIT.
The story takes place in the new A.A. (After Apocalypse) era and follows Ray Azumi, a war orphan who pilots Gundam ZERO into battle. Decades earlier, an alien object arriving from deep space brought revolutionary new technologies to humanity. That technology, however, eventually transformed into an aggressively self-replicating ecosystem hostile to humankind. Humanity came to call it the “Apocalypse.” Forced to abandon Earth, civilization entered a new age, and generation after generation has since grown up in a world under the constant threat of the Apocalypse.
This new setting was created by acclaimed science-fiction anime director and screenwriter Kenji Kamiyama, best known for the Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex series, together with author Toh EnJoe. Here are the highlights from the Q&A:
Q: I believe this is your first time working on the Gundam franchise. How did you become involved with the project?
Kenji Kamiyama: I was approached and asked whether I would be interested in directing a new anime built around Gundam, but set in a completely new continuity—neither the Universal Century nor the Anno Domini timeline. The project was being developed alongside a game at the time. I thought about it for quite a while, but eventually I found myself thinking, “Getting the chance in the Reiwa era to create my own take on the Gundam I love from scratch—how great is that?” That was when I decided to accept the offer.
Q: How would you describe the new Mobile Suit Gundam RG XARX-ZERO and the broader world being built around it?
Kenji Kamiyama: It is a story about humanity's war against an autonomous interstellar object that arrives from beyond the solar system. The object eventually becomes known as the Apocalypse, and humanity fights it for the right to continue living on Earth. Against the backdrop of that larger conflict, the story also follows the struggles and growth of a group of young men and women.
▼ The Apocalypse has already appeared in the first official teaser PV
Q: What are your personal impressions of the Gundam titles that have come before? What do you see as the franchise's greatest appeal, and are there any entries you particularly love?
Kenji Kamiyama: Mobile Suit Gundam was, in my view, the first work in the history of Japanese animation to make an ordinary, everyday boy its protagonist. When it first aired, I was around the same age as Amuro, so I remember projecting a lot of my own feelings onto the character.
It was the first work that made me realize animation could be a medium capable of expressing emotions with that much depth. It is an extremely special title to me. For that reason, the original 1979 Mobile Suit Gundam has always remained at the very heart of what Gundam means to me.
Q: In creating an entirely new universe for the Gundam franchise, how did you balance the themes and traditions inherited from previous entries with the new ideas you wanted to introduce?
Kenji Kamiyama: The things I believe a Gundam needs in order to be Gundam are: the solar system as its setting, a protagonist who pilots a three-colored robot—or MS, and that protagonist becoming caught up in a war between human beings. Those were elements I felt absolutely could not be left out. To me, they form the foundation of the entire franchise, and those ideas will remain at the core of this project as we bring it to completion.
Q: The new anime takes place in the same universe as the upcoming action game GUNDAM ROGUE ORBIT, but 100 years before the game's story. How closely connected will the two works actually be?
Kenji Kamiyama: Fundamentally, both works are built on the same core setting that we developed together: an autonomous interstellar object that travels to Earth, later comes to be known as the Apocalypse, and humanity's struggle against it. That said, I don't think the two narratives will connect directly. The game side also appears to be developing a story of its own.
Q: How closely did the anime and game development teams work together while creating this shared universe?
Kenji Kamiyama: At the beginning, the game team proposed the basic idea of a Gundam fighting enormous, space-monster-like mecha. From there, the anime team expanded the worldbuilding, including the true nature of the enemy and the structure of the conflict taking place in this world, before developing the anime's own story on top of those ideas.
The game team then took those shared concepts and used them to build its own setting and story taking place 100 years later.
Q: Many fans were surprised to see an extraterrestrial threat positioned as humanity's enemy in GUNDAM ROGUE ORBIT. Will the new anime also center on this conflict? If so, why did the team choose to go in this direction?
Kenji Kamiyama: Yes, that conflict will also be depicted in the anime. But first, we established a shared concept for the “enemy” based on ideas that originated from the game's controls and gameplay. From there, each team chose the setting details and storytelling methods best suited to its respective medium.
Q: Did you make any particular requests regarding the mechanical designs of the Gundam and other mobile suits in the new anime? Were there any design concepts shaped by the roles they play in the story?
Kenji Kamiyama: I didn't make any especially specific requests. However, I think there has always been a tradition within the Gundam franchise where each creator carries forward the classic design through their own interpretation, then adds something uniquely their own. I believe that's part of what fans look forward to seeing.
So while retaining the Gundam elements that fans expect, we've also introduced a distinct sense of something “organic” into the finer details. I think that idea will become clearer as more information about the project is revealed.
Q: What kind of audience do you hope this new series will reach?
Kenji Kamiyama: I hope it reaches people who have never watched a Gundam title before.
Q: At this stage, what is the one thing you most want fans to know about this new project?
Kenji Kamiyama: We've only just announced it, so there is still a great deal about the world and the direction of the story that we can't reveal yet. For now, I hope everyone will look forward to seeing more as we gradually show what makes Mobile Suit Gundam RG XARX-ZERO such a different kind of Gundam project.
via： AUTOMATON