From Losers to Glory-A Gundam Wing Special-Part 5

Previously:

For whatever reason, Square Enix decided to push back its release of Final Fantasy VII Remake by a month and disrupt this special, forcing me to start it in March, instead of April, so it could run uninterrupted.  But now that the Final Fantasy Friday Retrospective is complete, we can get back to the big Gundam Wing Project…right…that was more “real world” stuff than where we actually left off.  Let’s see um…right, Heero blew himself up in an act of defiance and we left Glory of the Losers on a bit of an ironic cliffhanger.  So now that Heero’s had about a month to rest, let’s see what he and the others have gotten themselves into in the next chapter of Mobile Suit Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz-Glory of the Losers.

Vol.5 (Episodes 11-17)

In the Anime:

The Gundam pilots go into hiding with OZ holding the Colonies virtually hostage.  Duo and Quatre briefly hide with the Maguanac Corps before going their own way.  Meanwhile Wufei teams up with ex-Alliance Major Sally Po and reignites his will to fight.  Heero is recovered by Trowa and brought back to Trowas circus troupe to recover.  After Trowa blows his cover destroying an OZ base the Circus is performing at, he and Heero ride off.  Noin, at the request of Zechs, tracks the two young men down and convinces them to travel with her to Antarctica, where Zechs is waiting to duel Heero with a fully repaired Wing Gundam.  Zechs’ actions attract the attention of OZ’s benefactor, the Romafeller Foundation and the send as task force to eliminate Zechs.  Heero and Zechs have their duel but it is interrupted by the arrival of Relena, who has just learned from Noin that she is Zechs’ sister, and the Romafeller Task Force.  Relena escapes with Noin and Heero escapes with Trowa while Zechs holds Romafeller off.  In Space, Lady Une begins a goodwill tour of the Colonies on OZ’s behalf.  To show the true colors of the organization, Duo and Quatre decide to return to space with their Gundams.

 In the Manga:

• When Heero awakens following Wing’s self destruction, he is onboard an OZ carrier being watched over by Trowa, who has already infiltrated OZ in the month long interim.  Trowa still catches Heero up to speed on what’s happened while he was unconscious.  Also, their carrier is bound for Antarctica, where Zechs is waiting with an almost repaired Wing Gundam.  They’re being pursued by Inspector Acht.
• Despite having joined up with OZ, Trowa has kept his Heavyarms Gundam hidden on the carrier.  As in the Anime, he uses it to rescue Noin from Acht. 
• The events of Episode 16 and 18 are fused together.  Heero and Zechs’ duel is interrupted by the enormous Romafeller search party.  Trowa and Heero depart as in the Anime (with Trowa resigning from Noin’s unit).  Zechs, however, stays behind while Noin and the rest of their unit evacuate.  Zechs asks Noin to go to the Sanc Kingdom to protect Relena.  Zechs fights off the Romafeller forces and speaks with Treize via radio.  As in the Anime, Zechs declares their friendship will only last so long as his mask is intact, just before it breaks. 
• Quatre’s Endless Waltz flashback is seen, no doubt setting up his use of Sandrock’s self destruct system in next volume.
• While we do see Duo has been hanging out with Quatre, we see only see a brief image of Wufei traveling with Sally Po in China.  Otherwise Wufei is entirely absent from this volume.

Wow, we really did have a one month time skip.  Also, not quite how I expected things to continue.  We veered quite a bit away from the Anime by jettisoning what some might consider “filler” episodes.  Comes at a cost though since Wufei’s completely gone and that’s a shame since he had more reason to have an episode than anyone other than Heero.  Fighting alongside Sally relit his warrior spirit and got him to stop mopping about.  Also kind of shocking to see Duo get sidelined for so long since he seemed to be the second most favorite character to focus on next to Heero.  But no, this is Heero and Trowa’s volume, which means their multipart storyline from the Anime gets top priority.  It’s not all bad: the duel between Zechs and Heero is still pretty epic, if not more epic than before, and it was nice they inserted Quatre’s Endless Waltz flashback to better set up his Gundams sacrifice.   But this is the first volume where I felt the ends didn’t justify the means.  Trowa being an OZ mole with a Gundam he’s managed to keep hidden in an OZ ship is stretching things as it is and is done with less explanation than how he joins up with OZ in the Anime.  Also Zech’s storyline’s been advanced with two of his major battles merged into one.  Will he be taking a break next volume?

This was a uncertain volume with the first few, questionable changes to the Wing story so far.  We’re on a rapid pace to get to the halfway point of the Anime but we’re still two volumes away from the halfway mark of the Manga.  More changes and more notes on these developments to come next Friday.  And FYI, no more interruptions: From Losers to Glory continues from this point to its conclusion in early July.