When I first heard that Gundam Wing was coming to America, I was thrilled. I had heard about “Gundam” from a friend though I was never really interested in it. Gundam Wing was a great show to me, but a friend of mine insisted that the older series from the 70s and 80s, or the ones that were not Gundam Wing related, were infinitely better. He was right. I am now a total UC Gundam Fan and may remain that way for time to come. But unfortunately, many Americans, like myself, fail to see how the other Gundam series are much better. Yet, the Gundam Wing fanaticism spreads like wild fire, and the older and infinitely better shows are being overlooked. I recently saw an episode of Gundam Wing and was apalled. It was terrible! How could anyone like this crap more than UC Gundam? Well, here are my reasons why UC Gundam is so much better than AC. (Gundam Wing is... Gundam Wing and MS Gundam is original)
Mechanical designs. Gundam Wing has it’s nice share of decent mechanical designs, but the Gundams are pathetic. First of all, in Mobile Suit Gundam, there was 1 Gundam, not 5, and it was basically a decent mobile suit. In Gundam Wing, there are 5 Gundams, that all seem to be invincible. The Duchy of Zeon managed to make PLENTY of mobile suits that can easily take the Gundam down, and the only reason that the Gundam survived was by his teammates or the pilot, not an invincible mobile suit. In Gundam Wing, most mobile suits are military use and mass production, everything is just a big piece of crap to be blown up by a Gundam. The Wing Gundam can transform into a bird mode that is used for quicker flight and atmosphere re-entry. HELLO?!? They made an entire Gundam series about a Gundam that could transform and re-enter the atmosphere without re-entry packs. I think it was called... Zeta Gundam?? Oh, it’s only one of the most epic and hard hitting anime series ever made, that’s all. Plus don’t get me started on the Buster Rifle, a single weapon that fires a beam that wipes out an entire army of Mobile suits. Jesus! Where the hell did they get this? In mobile suit Gundam, even the most simple mobile suit pilot would learn to get the hell out of the beam’s way, but in Wing, a pilot sees his doom and sits there shooting. BORING. Also, an ACE pilot, meaning an incredibly good pilot would be fortunate to shoot down 1 enemy, here we have a homicidal 15 year old wiping out everyone with one shot. Let’s get something interesting in, 4 more mobile suits that can take down an entire army by themselves.
HeavyArms, loaded with tons of weapons and is invincible,
SandRock, loaded with 2 little blade things that kill anything in one touch and is invincible
DeathScythe, armed with a thermal beam scythe a tiny shield and is invincible
Shenlong, armed with a beam glaive, an extendable Dragon Hang, flame throwers, and is invincible.
Sound fun? Well it is! 5 kids running around and killing hopeless Mobile Suit pilots in invincible Gundams for no good reason. Then a few of them get upgraded, making them even more powerful and wiping out an entire fleet of Mobile Suits in one episode. In Mobile Suit Gundam, the Gundam was not of all incredible unstoppable power (but it does sorta become that way, only from the pilot), it’s just another mobile suit used in a war, that has just as much of a chance of killing a generic pilot, as the generic pilot has of killing him. That’s incredibly much more War like, Gundam Wing is like a Video Game with a Game Genie turned on. Also, on the note of these signature weapons that everyone has, why?! No one was ever issued into World War II with and fought through the war carrying a big scythe, that’s so completely ridiculous. Mobile Suit Gundam’s MSs had all the same kinda weapons as one another, the Gundam’s Beam Rifle is the same as a Gelgoog’s, a mass production Mobile suit. What’s the deal huh? MS Gundam is more war like. Ok, now we’ve determined that the Mobile suits in Gundam are better than Gundam Wing’s, now let’s move on.
Story. Well this shouldn’t take long. The plots are about the same. The Colonies in space do not declare themselves part of Earth, so they rebel and start a war for freedom from the Earth. However in Gundam Wing they had to make this much more confusing. First, it’s the colonies vs. OZ, then it’s Gundam’s vs. OZ, then it’s White Fang vs. OZ, then it’s Colonies vs. White Fang, then it’s OZ vs. White Fang with the Gundams sitting and watching idly. You get all that? Well neither did I, what’s worse is they throw in some crap about the Sanq Kingdom, and world peace, then a bunch of other wierd crap. Why can’t it just have a greatly involved, yet simply linear plot like MS Gundam? Because it sucks, that’s why. Plus, the sequel to Gundam Wing is still about the Colonies declaring freedom, in the sequel to MS Gundam, it’s about a group of people called the Titans taking over Earth, and the Colonies are trying to prove the Earth that the Titan’s ideas are wrong, then all the sequels to Gundam have different plots, and they move on to bigger and better things than colonies declaring freedom.
Characters. UWAHAHAHA! This is the fun part! The characters! The Characters in Gundam Wing are HORRIBLE. The WORST I have EVER seen in ANY entertainment program of ANY sort... Let's start from the top. Heero Yuy. Ok, he's 15 years old, anti-social and a homicidal maniac. He's supposed to be an assassin, but the people he's tried to assassinate lived, except for the scientists, but he didn't kill them. Not very efficient, eh? But then we have 4 other characters: Quatre, oh the girls love him, but GW seems to depict him in the show as a homosexual. He's TOTALLY obsessed with Trowa, and he looks and sounds like a girl. He's also the sensitive one and apologizes to those he kills. Why does he then? Because he, like the others, are homicidal. There's also Trowa... who, by UC standards is a horrible, horrible pilot. He sits and wastes all his ammo without moving at all. He woulda got his ass killed in a second in UC Gundam. Then Duo, the comic relief of the show. An obsessed Christian (which personally annoys the crap out of me considering my totally-anti-religion ethics, but that's another story) He's also too arrogant and kills basically defenseless people despite how Un-God-like that is (Sorry if that offends anyone... I guess) Then Wu-Fei. He takes up the bulk of the WORST characters I've EVER seen in ANY entertainment of ANY sort. He's an ok pilot, only because Nataku looks really cool when dueling... but that's in Endless Waltz. But the character is so stupid, it makes me cry. He's obsessed with Justice and Killing. If that's not a paradox I don't know what is, because he only joins the Marimeia army to kill stuff, but NO, you CAN'T have a big colony in space with too many weapons. There's no need for that in space. Did he forget that there's a war raging in the background? What a moron. All the pilots are suicidal. I quote from Endless Waltz:
Quatre: "Try not to kill any of the serpent pilots" (or something like that)
Duo: "Let's try and keep the casualties to just ourselves"
What?! Do these people have anything to go back to?! They have no depth! They're nothing! You have no idea how badly that line pissed me off. I tend to remember from 08th MS team and Saving Private Ryan (strange comparison, huh?) that people in a war have families and lives and want to make it through a war so they can be united with the ones they love. Quatre has a family. Does he give a damn? Probably not. When his dad died, all the thought about was revenge, not so much his dad. Plus his dad died really stupidly. Hate to say it, but he did. Mikhail and Eledore are on the verge of crying in 08th MS team when they're to be assassinated. They had lives, they wanted to be something. the G-Boys just decided, "what the hell, we'll do what we need to, then die" I don't find that honorable at all. If you die defending your nation, that's one thing, if you kill yourself in war just for the hell of it, that's lame. Oy, ok. Now with the G-Boys aside, we move on to the other characters. If no one noticed that Zechs Marquise is a blatant rip-off of the coolest Ace Pilot ever, here's why: Zechs and Char are the Lightning count and Red Comet respectively. Zechs wore a mask like Char. Zechs being the son of the Sanq kingdom's leader (They musta mentioned his real name once, I never got it) is just the same as Char being the son of Zeon Zum Daikun. Zechs and Relena being brother and sister is the same as Char and Sayla. Except in GW, they took Sayla, made her REALLY annoying, toned down her hotness (or whatever) and made her preach endlessly about peace and obsess over Heero (too bad he's gay!... sorry, had to be said) Basically, it's Sayla only useless. Relena is another horrible Wing Character. But I already mentioned most of her faults. Tifa Adiel is very Relena like in appearance, but she's cool. Mostly because she's not whiny and... she's a newtype! You gotta love that! Trieze is crappy. It's a super advanced technological age, and he worries about having nobility and sword duels. Get with it, Trieze, get some guns and kill stuff. Finally, the G-Boys are NOT Newtypes!! I've heard that SO much and it is neither true nor logical. How could they be newtypes if they can't handle the Zero System? (Which is yet another blatant rip-off from MS Gundam, the PsyCommu, but everyone's heard that) Oooooh, Quatre is a newtype, it just so happened that his encounter with the Zero System killed MULTIPLE COLONIES! Oooh so many people wasted because of a pansy who can't handle a Zero System. Sure, some colonies may have seen it and evacuated, but you know not all of them saw it coming. Beautiful... They're not Newtypes.
Well, my go-nowhere rantings end for now. I may continue this later when I find MORE faults or get really bored. I know I may have mentioned a few aspects over and over, only because I wrote this over a time period of ... well, a while, so I sorta forgot what I wrote before. I'll revise it later. Also, I didn't know as much about Gundam then than I do now, so if info is inaccurate, that's understandable, right?
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Well, I must add that not all Gundam Wing is bad. The mecha designs are quite nice, but what annoys me most about Gundam Wing is it's spreading fanatacism. People don't seem to realize that there is more than one Gundam series besides Gundam Wing. The other series are much better, and Gundam Wing is merely a rip-off of the other series. Gundam Wing's animation is ok, but the same 3 fighting scenes over and over tend to get redundant, and they try their best to cover it up by adding a new background. And does everything in GW have to die? It doesn't seem very fair. When Epyon was first released it went rampant and so much as a touch to those Leos and they combusted! Those poor pilots didn't have a chance... Whenever a character in GW gets any development what so ever, a bishounen moron comes rushing in and kill him. Has Gundam Wing heard of ace pilots? Maybe? No, the inner senshi, or whatever they're called, the G-Boys, are not aces. They had no prior experience to mobile suits, so it suggests that their "perfected" killing skills are based entirely on their suit. P.S. I finished this while listening to the opening song to Victory Gundam, "Stand up to the Victory" Which has GOT to be the coolest song ever.
