Gundam Wing – The Appeal

Hate it or love it, Gundam Wing is the series that brought a significant number of North Americans to the Mobile Suit Gundam world. Not long  ago, ‘Wing was a big talking point and for many, their first exposure to Gundam. It has since been eclipsed in popularity (and greatly surpassed in field of pervasively annoying fans) by ‘Seed. With Gundam 00 well and truly here, I wonder, does anyone remember ‘Wing? Well, I do.

First things first, I completely understand and respect your position if you’re a Gundam fan with no taste for OZ, Wing Zero and plastic hair, but hear me out.

We’ve all read rants about how or why Gundam Wing was such a poor series. Let me try and show why, for me, it was actually such good one.

Where to start? How about the over-the-top political banter, in the middle of a battle no less, or the ridiculously extreme characters. How about the over-blown, godlike power that the Gundams in ‘Wing possess.

Some of the most memorable dialogue in the whole of Gundam Wing is, on the surface, just laughable. You can paraphrase just about all of Heero’s dialogue, for example, with phrases like “I’m going to kill you”, which would be delivered completely dead pan.

I seem to remember a scene in which Quatre becomes engaged in a fencing duel against Dorothy Catalonia, inside some space station, outside of which a battle is raging. The two are in a heated fight, all the while their respective friends and peers are fighting and dying outside, and they start debating about the nature of war and peace. In between sword clashes they yell lines like “Is peace attained through war truly peace?!” or “How can you deny soldiers their right to fulfill their destiny, will they be simply cast aside when peace comes!?”.

It was ridiculous. Amuro would have been way over his head. But that was Gundam Wing for you — 17 year-olds debating for their lives about sweepingly grand ideologies and life philosophies.

I may be in the minority here, but I enjoyed the philosophic banter in ‘Wing. It was often injected into scenes where it clearly did not belong, but that was part of the fun. The abstract subjects that were touched on (in very simplistic ways of course) were really food for thought as a young viewer. It was a pleasure to hear two or more somewhat sophisticated political view points instead of the usual “Ah, war is bad, I don’t wanna fight. Oh but I have to.”

Unlike U.C. protagonists who are dripping with angst, After Colony people behave as if they don’t have any emotions at all. You might describe the cast’s over-all vibe as professional in the extreme.

Mechanically, the series had obvious attractions. The animation was, from what I recall, excellent if a little over stylized. The mobile suit designs were fantastic. You have the Gundams, which are all extremely flamboyant looking, highly personalized and given wildly powerful weapons. And then there were the everyday workhorse mobile suits used by militaries and organizations such as OZ. They captured that mass-produced, inhuman sensibility towards design that began with the Zaku way back when. You could not have two more opposing approaches to mechanical design in the same show.

I feel the music is also worth mentioning. Most of the J-Pop they throw on as intro and outro music to various anime isn’t exactly up my alley. That’s a nice way of saying it’s garbage. The Two-Mix tracks that made up most of the series’ musical material seemed like calculated choices, as opposed to random insertions of whatever the producers could get. The two songs (Rhythm Emotion and Just Communication) felt as if they fit the mood of ‘Wing. Perhaps though, it was a fluke.

The wardrobe was another distinctly odd thing. In a show about space colonies and mobile suits, watching people in theatrical looking clothing from the 18th century ride horses at their private prep school is a hell of a trip. For Gundam Wing, a little juxtaposition went a long way.