The Specter Hanging Over the Nostalgic Climax of ‘Gundam GQuuuuuuX’

The last episode of GUNDAM GU asks his characters, new generations and remixes of familiar faces, to imagine new possibilities and future for themselves ideas and established stories of the established stories Gundam shows that preceded them. But in doing so, a nostalgic allowance exposes that Guuuuurous He himself was unable to let go of this past in a singularly overwhelming way.

The 12th and last episode of GUNDAM GU is largely built on the revelation that its entire framework, a redesigned vision of GundamThe universal framework of the century was carried out by a version of Newtype Lalah Sune From a reality where she was saved from death in the battle against the Gundam by the sacrifice of Its version of Char Azablessending her to despair that broke reality, while she was mentally looking for and created deadlines that tried to imagine a possibility where Char survived.

Already itself an alternative to imagination of similar events in the original anime of 1979, where Lalah perishes at the Gundam and its pilot Amuro Ray, this information is relayed to the public and GuuuuurousThe young protagonist of Machu by a psionic flashback in the form of a modern but retro recreation of scenes from the 41st episode of the original program, “A Cosmic Glow”. While the recreation of Char, Amuro and the Battle of Lalah takes place, familiar voices fill their roles: Char and Lalah are again expressed by their original actors as Gundam mobile costumeShuichi Ikeda and Keiko Han, respectively, but Amuro remains strangely silent. (In a funny turn for the dub in English, Keith Silverstein and Lipica Shah, who expressed Char and Lalah in the adaptation of Gundam: the originbriefly resumed their roles for this sequence.)

In other words, until later in the apogee of the episode, where Tōru Furuya – who played Amuro through anime, films, games and more for 46 years – started his role again. It is for a singular dialogue line, acting as the spiritual voice of the Gundam Gquuuuux holder to express his desire not to see Lalah suffer further. But whatever, it is a new material from the original voice of Amuro Ray. At one point, it could have been a triumphant Huzzah, but in 2025, hearing Furuya having recorded new material strikes a much more complicated tone for Gundam fans.

In May 2024, in an interview with Japanese tabloid Shūkan BunshunFuruya (who was 70 years old at the time) revealed that he had embarked on an extramarital case for four and a half years with a woman almost 40 years his junior. In the same interview, he also admitted having had a physical altercation with the woman, as well as having pressed her to end a pregnancy during their relationship.

The reaction to scandal in Japan was immediate. Furuya is perhaps one of the actors of the most famous voice in the country, known for its role not only as an amuro, but also as SailorSmoking mask, Dragon Ballon‘s yamcha, new One pieceSenie pages is Saint SeiyaRei Furuya Detective ConanAnd many other roles in a career that has lasted nearly six decades of work. In the month following the publication of the interview and the public apologies of Furuya on Twitter (which has Since he was locked), the actor had been abandoned from a role in the next RPG of the upcoming Atlus Metaphor Re: Fantazio,, And Furuya announced That he would leave his roles One piece And Detective Conan. Later of the same year, Toei announced that Ryōta Suzuki would replace Furuya like Yamcha Dragon Ball: Daima.

But Bandai Namco, the owner of Gundam Studio Sunrise, remained silent to know if Furuya would continue to express Amuro Ray because he had through dozens of Gundam works. In June 2024, the company sent a declaration to Meikou Kawamura of Yahoo Japan declaring that the company underwent “a careful consideration to deal [the situation around Furuya]Refusing to comment more. In October of the same year, Bandai announced that Furuya would resume his role as Amuro alongside Char of Ikeda Meeting of Gundam Alca short film to be broadcast as a special wall projection by the Later statue of the nude Gundam In Fukuoku.

Guuuuurous had been in development for several years before the Furuya scandal emerged – plan the series, in collaboration with Evangelier Studio Khara, started as Early 2018Potentially even before the Furuya affair even started. It is also difficult to know if a part of the series has been rewritten to keep the development of the Amuro appearing appearing in any way: the character is explicitly absent from GuuuuurousRemix of the events of the original Gundam and never really named when allusions are made to the character, who qualified only as the pilot of the white mobile combination of the federation, while Guuuuurous Rather focuses on Char and Lalah as the main inherited characters. And again, even when Amuro would have naturally had a dialogue in the recreation by the final of the events of “A Cosmic Glow” alongside the return of Ikeda and Han as Char and Lalah, the character is silent. But from what we know publicly about the development of the series at this stage, we cannot say definitively if they were creative choices or intentional necessities born to have tried to distant themselves from Furuya.

But if they were even the latter, it would be little logical to bring Furuya to provide a single line of dialogue anyway. The new versions of Char and Lalah in Guuuuurous redesign the new actors in place of Ikeda and Han, and, with the Furuya scandal for months before Guuuuurous had been announced publiclyThere was a lot of time between him and the broadcast of the final episode to launch a replacement actor, even if he needed to be a sound to always communicate to the public the connection with Amuro and the original Gundam. Was this connection so vital that there was no other choice?

It simply seems rather that, unlike other studios, Bandai was simply not willing to abandon Furuya’s link with the inheritance of Gundam yet – despite GuuuuurousThe own thematic messages on the need to move on and to imagine new possibilities for the past and the future of the series, leaving a contradictory brand to an end to the series.

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