Mobile Suit Gundam Wing.
That title might be a bit of a stain on more die hard fans of the Gundam
Franchise. For me, and many others, it
was something else entirely. When it
first debuted in the U.S. in March 2000, it immediately dethroned Dragon Ball Z
for a short period of time as the King of Western Anime. No kid could stop talking about it in school:
the Gundams, the pilots, the twists and turns, if you didn’t catch the most
recent episode, you were out in the cold.
As I celebrate my birthday today, I decided to look back at the series
that not only gives this blog part of it’s namesake but also remains a very
important Anime in my heart. I’m sure
other shows would have made me a bigger fan of Anime down the line, but I’m
really happy Gundam Wing was that series…here’s 5 reasons why.
#5-“Believe in me”
Heero Yuy and Relena Peacecraft. There could not be a more dangerous
combination with these two. Heero is a
freedom fighter who does whatever it takes to get the job done. Relena is the obsessed one who will follow
Heero into hell to be with him, even when he tells her point blank, “I’ll kill
you.” Yet somehow, Relena manages to get
through to Heero and it kind of culminates in her begging him not to go off
after her brother during the final battle of the Eve Wars. Heero doesn’t push her away. He pulls her close and asks Relena to let him
fight. He sound so calm and composed as
opposed to cold and distant. When Relena
pleads one last time, Heero simply tells her to believe in him and pushes her
away. At the time, I wondered why Heero didn’t
just kiss her right there. It also
showed me that in 48 episodes, Heero and Relena had changed as characters,
developing a bond most wont understand.
We’d never see more than this in terms of the two of them being close
(maybe except for Relena holding a weary Heero at the end of Endless
Waltz). But this was the closest we were
ever going to get to hearing Heero tell Relena he loved her…imho anyway.
#4-Wing Gundam
Self Detonates
We saw it in some of the trailers for the show but could
we believe it actually happened at all?
With the Colonies targeted by OZ, Heero complies with Doctor J’s
acceptance of surrender…of the fight but not the Gundams. Defiantly, Heero exits his Gundam, pushes the
red button and accepts his mission. Then
BOOM!!! There formerly shining Wing
Gundam crashes to the ground and Heero is lying in a pool of his own
blood. Was Heero dead? What was the next move for the pilots? What were they going to do when down one
Gundam? So many questions, though most
of mine revolved around Heero’s fate. I couldn’t
believe it when I heard he was alive but then again due to strict homelife forbidding
me from a lot of TV watching during the school week, I could only catch one
episode every Friday, so the whole playing field would have changed and I wouldn’t
know it. It wasn’t until the summer
during the second run of Gundam Wing that I got the full picture…and learned
Gundams can die but seldom stay gone for long.
#3-The Death And Resurrection
of Deathsythe
The destruction of the Wing Gundam was a wake up call for
a lot of us. But then came the last
thing we ever wanted to see. When we saw
the footage of Deathsythe in dire straits, we were concerned. When we saw Trowa forced to flat out destroy
it…how many of us screamed as loud as Duo did?
It was heartbreaking to see our favorite Gundam bite the dust. Gundam Wing doesn’t have too many hopeless
moments, but this was the biggest one.
We didn’t know what was going to happen now, to Duo, to anyone
really. For a couple of days, the world
had been turned upside down. But then…a
miracle. We not only found out that the
5 scientist mentors were building new models of the Deathsythe and Shenlong
Gundams, but two episodes later, we saw Deathsythe Hell roar to life with Duo
back in the saddle. OZ thought they
killed a demon…and they did. But they
also gave it the chance to be reborn, deadlier than ever and reaffirm why Duo Maxwell
and the Gundam Deathsythe (OG, Hell, Hell Custom or otherwise) were the true
heroes of Mobile Suit Gundam Wing.
#2-Wing Gundam
Appears
I never got to see all of the first episode of Gundam
Wing when it first aired (even on a day off from school Math tutoring sought to
make my life hell for an hour). But I did
get to see the very beginning. And that
included witnessing the moment that changed my Anime life forever. Engaged in a fighter jet looking mecha, Heero
Yuy takes a hit as he evades Zechs and his OZ pursuit team. His secret couldn’t stay secret now if he
wanted to survive. He pulls the lever,
the gears turn, the music kicks in and BOOM…there it was. The first Gundam I ever laid eyes on: the
Wing Gundam. It may not have gotten
Zechs, but it did manage to take out two Aeris with a BFG, or a Beam Cannon. History was made…and Gundam had now become a
part of my soul.
#1-FOOLS!!!
Weird isn’t it that my #1 moment has nothing to do with a
Gundam? A little, but really this moment
claims my top spot just because of amazing Zechs is. In this episode, he’s
dealing with two protegee’s of his best friend (and would be love interest),
Noin. Alex and Muller are blood thirsty
and power hungry. Even after the enemy
has clearly been defeated, they don’t stop until every single soul has been
cooked by a rocket. When Zechs witnesses
their tactics first hand, he breaks rank.
He ends Muller pretty fast and then has to take on Alex underwater. Zechs manages to grab Alex from behind and
both lecture and question Alex about his actions. Alex tries to talk tough but Zechs has had
enough of their crap. Screaming “FOOLS!!!”
at the top of his lungs, he tears Alex and his Cancer Mobile Suit in half with
his Tallgeese. Everything about that
scene, the build up, the music involved, the tone of Zech’s voice and how tough
Alex still tried to sound…something was about to happen and it just happened to
be my favorite moment of Gundam Wing EVER…until Endless Waltz and Wing Zero
Custom does it’s grand entrance but that’s Endless Waltz, not the series.
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