Mobile Suit Gundam Wing

Writer: Masashi Ikeda
Director: Masashi Ikeda
Production House: Sunrise
Review Type: Anime
Status: Completed
Genre: Mecha

Synopsis

It is the year After Colony 195, and war between the Space Colonies and Earth has begun. To give the colonies an edge, they send 5 young soldiers, trained to perfection, to earth in the most powerful of Mobile Suits-Gundams. With their arrival, the tide of the war changes as they battle against the Earth forces and the Colonies of their origin.

Gundam Wing begins with 'Operation Meteor', which incorporates five young boys handpicked and trained by the 5 scientists who conducted said operation, in the hopes of revenge against the military organization named OZ. The boys then are sent to earth via each of their 5 individual Gundams, Mobile Suits constructed from Gundanium alloy (DUH), and each Gundam is sent from a different colony, subsequently sent to 5 different locations on Earth, with each pilot unaware of the other four's existence.


The plot follows the 5 Gundam pilots, Heero Yuy (Wing Gundam), Duo Maxwell (Gundam Deathscythe), Quatre Raberba Winner (Gundam Sandrock), Chang Wufei (Gundam Shenlong) and Trowa Barton (Gundam Heavyarms) . Each of the pilots' mission is to destroy OZ, and each pilot start out on seperate missions, joining up later while on Earth.

After learning the existence of one another, they joined up and take on various missions in teams. Heero repeatedly encounters Relena Dorlian, who's actual identity is Relena Peacecraft of the Sanc Kingdom. Later on the pilots were shocked to learn that the colonies that sent them have already sided with OZ, who then branded the 5 as rebels. Many tragedies occur during this time, with Wufei and Duo even being imprisoned by OZ. Heero runs into OZ's 'lightning count', Zechs Marquise (Relena's brother, Milliardo Peacecraft). Zechs pilots the Tallgeese in battle against Heero on many occasions, with one battle resulting in Heero's self-destruction of the Wing Gundam, almost taking his own life in the move.

It is during these trying times that a new Gundam was introduced, named the Wing Zero, which in essence looks exactly like the Wing Gundam and armed with the same weaponry, with the exception of the ZERO system installed in the cockpit, that directly interfaced with the pilot's brain, feeding the pilot tactical data during battle. There is one side effect to the ZERO system though, where prolonged exposure caused hallucinations or even insanity in some cases. The Gundam was being piloted by Quatre who used it to destroy a natural resource satellite and a colony. The suit was later used by each of the other 5 pilots, and Zechs Marquise.


The Sanc Kingdom, now governed by Relena Peacecraft, took in Heero and Quatre as refugees. The Sanc Kingdom however is under pressure by the Romafeller Foundation, the group that controls most other countries as well as OZ. OZ's former leader Treize Kushrenada had been confined to Romafeller headquarters, where he built his own Gundam, the Epyon. Treize then gifted the Epyon for Heero to fight with. Much like the Wing Zero, this suit was also equipped with the ZERO system. Heero fought once more against Zechs, who was now piloting the Wing Zero, with the two exchanging Mobile Suits after the battle. It is during this battle that the Sanc Kingdom was subsequently dissolved by Relena after increasing pressure from the Romafeller Foundation. She then became the foundation's chief representative under the designation Queen of the World. Later on Trieze was released from confinement, taking control of the Romafeller Foundation and relieving Relena of her crown. It is also during this time that Zechs, whom had returned to space, founded an organization dubbed the White Fang, under his true identity Miliardo Peacecraft. The military faction then siezed control of a battle station OZ was building for the Romafeller Foundation, dubbed Libra, with the intent of demonstrating its military power. Zechs then proceeded to launch the Libra's main cannon on the Earth, causing massive destruction, which prompted Treize to muster all of the military power from the Earth's forces in retaliation, whilst the Gundams remained neutral. The White Fang continued to its offensive on the Earth forces, taking out the remaining OZ base in space, the Space Fortress Barge. This in turn prompted for the 5 Gundam pilots to rally against the White Fang, with Heero once again in a battle with Zechs, only this time their battle was broadcasted to all of Earth and the Colonies. Upon witnessing the battle, citizens from both sides decided to put aside their differences and formed the Earth Sphere United Nations. This sets up the epic conclusion to the series, where all the loose ends throughout the anime is resolved in the next few episodes following the conclusion of Heero and Zechs' final battle.


Chibi's Winging Comments


Confession time. This was the first Gundam series I ever watched, and was the Gundam saga that got me hooked to the other Universal Century sagas, Seed and Seed Destiny, the OVAs, movies and eventually to Gundam 00. Simply put, I indirectly owe it to Gundam Wing for turning me into such a huge Gundam freak in the first place, so obviously my review for this one will be mostly of singing praises for this show and the awesomeness of everything about it, right?

Wrong. Trying to stay as unbiased as I can in my analysis, I decided to give the series another run through prior to writing. I was totally caught unawares of a lot of elements i did not notice the first time round, and after my second viewing of the show, I can honestly say that Gundam Wing is another mediocre offering at best. Picture this, what happens when you take Yoshyuki Tomino-sensei's epic war drama masterpiece, mix it with a gang of stoic bishounen and what do you get? You get a cliche ridden adventure spawning merchandise galore, along with numerous yaoi fan undertones that more than raises an eyebrow for a typical anime fan (or typical GUNDAM fan, in my case) . The kicker to this is that Gundam Wing was the single Gundam saga that revived the ailing franchise at the time and singlehandedly established the franchise outside of Japan. This just goes to show that a popular anime doesn't necessarily mean a good anime, as we have witnessed too often in the past (Pokemon anyone?).


Apart from the bishounen undertones, everything in this 'breakthrough' installment had been done before, making Gundam Wing another preachy war protest show rather than an epic war drama. Even so, the show hypocritically and repeatedly insults your intelligence whilst solving all problems with explosions and violence, with the characters constantly bellowing out their 'peaceful' ideologies in the midst of battle. It doesn’t help that character development is virtually non-existent in Gundam Wing (ohhh how we love character development), but i guess as consolation the audience gets to watch more fight scenes as a result.

They weren't kidding with the fight scenes. The visuals make one wonder if with each passing Gundam project, an even bigger budget is accumulated. Although the art is considerably prettier, the animation is reminiscent to the first Mobile Suit Gundam or even Zeta Gundam. The sheer lack of detail makes the aforementioned predecessors seem even more graphically groundbreaking, since the gap between Zeta and the original is around 15 years from Gundam Wing. There's also the cost-cutting use of the same amount of animation sequences, which are so often used it's hard not to notice (think Voltron's transformation sequence or any other super robot anime's finishing move). The only thing that sets this saga apart from its predecessors is its modern character designs and catchy soundtrack. With the bishounen character design, the pilots look quite suave, and the catchy tunes helped me through the long-winded fight scenes, making it just a little more bearable to watch.


In conclusion, Gundam Wing is great to watch if you're a casual anime or mecha fan looking to have a taste of what the franchise is all about, or if you're 12. While some parts of this installment are without the shadow of a doubt impressive (the 5 mobile suits are truly a sight to behold), too many aspects of this anime are not. Longtime Gundam followers will be a litte disappointed with the lack of flair or substance to the story and characters, while bishounen (you know who you are) fans would probably enjoy the good-lookingness of the pilots and the yaoi implications. Watch it with a pinch of salt and low enough expectations and you might actually consider this installment enjoyable.

Mobile Suit Gundam Wing was written and directed by Masashi Ikeda and produced by Sunrise. It aired from April 1995 to March 1996, spanning 49 episodes. An OVA was released from April 1996 to October of the same year, spanning 3 episodes, and a movie entitled Mobile Suit Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz released in 1999 (was originally a 3-episode OVA released the previous year).



Chibi's Review



Storyline: 2/5
Character Development: 1/5
Art: 5/5
Originality: 3/5