From Losers to Glory-A Gundam Wing Special-Part 13

Previously:

Trowa showed back up again, just as amnesia ridden as he was in the show.  But he got to ride his Heavyarms one more time and give it a legit reason to be given the redesign it’s deserved…Sandrock got the same but Trowa’s battle was more important.  But now that Heero, Duo, Trowa, Quatre and Wufei are all gathered, the band is back together.  Now comes the calm before the storm in Mobile Suit Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz-Glory of the Losers.  Let’s see what other tweeks lie in store.

Vol.13 (Episodes 44-45)

In the Anime:

The Gundam pilots have a hard time working together after so much fighting themselves.  Dorothy Catalonia arrives on Libra, along with Relena, and is granted the use of the Mobile Doll central control system to use in battle against the Gundams.  Heero gifts the Zero System to Quatre, urging him to use it to become the official team leader.  On Libra, Hilde infiltrates White Fang to retrieve valuable intel to pass onto Duo.  During her escape, she is intercepted by the Mercurius and Veyate, rebuilt as Mobile Dolls with Heero and Trowa’s combat data.  Duo manages to rescue Hilde and destroy both suits.  Duo passes along to Heero that Relena is aboard Libra.

In the Manga:

• Howard completes the upgrades to all five Gundams.  Everyone now has their Endless Waltz design, plus Wing Zero Custom now has a shield similar to it’s original counterpart and Sandrock Custom Kai has an additional mega cannon for long range combat.
• The newly minted “G Team” is placed under the command of Wufei, with Quatre as his advisor.  In the Anime, Quatre is eventually named the unofficial Leader of the five pilots because of his tactical skills with and without the Zero System.
• Dorothy brings Relena to the Mobile Doll Control Center in Libra and challenges her to stop the fighting by killing Dorothy. 
• Dorothy discovers Zechs programed the Mobile Dolls to not attack Noin.  Relena comes close to shooting Dorothy when the latter threatens to delete the order, but she is stopped by an arriving Hilde, who had slipped into White Fang as a spy.  Before they escape, Hilde sabotages the Zero System, briefly disabling it.
• Epyon is now equipped with a Defensor System, similar to the ones used by the Virgo Mobile Dolls.
• When Dorothy uses the Zero System to force Libra to fire it’s main cannon, Quatre attempts to sacrifice himself to destroy the battleship.  This act triggers Trowas full memory restoration and he talks Quatre out of it.
• The Tallgeese II, piloted by Treize, appears with a special Heat Saber, similar to the Lance used by the first Tallgeese earlier in the series. 

Ok so not quite as “calm before the storm” as one would expect.  We had a pretty big battle to warm things up before the final showdown we’ll see in the next volume.  I wonder why Wufei was chosen to lead the G Team instead of Quatre…I guess because everyone else has gotten something substantial to do and he hasn’t really in a while?  Making Quatre leader made sense given he could be both a master tactician and handle the Zero System’s influence and managed to merge those into one unique asset.  Relena having more of a face off with Doroty here was well done also.  Having the two of them verbally spar and challenge each others philosophies inside the Mobile Doll Control Center was a fitting background and Dorothy certainly asserted herself as the Anti Relena when she used Noin as the button to nearly get Relena to kill her.  Although, awwww Zechs made sure his Skynet babies didn’t hurt his Noin…that’s kind of touching.  But my favorite moment of the volume ironically enough had to do with Trowa.  In the Anime, the Zero System seemed to be the answer to everyones problems, hell it cured Trowa’s amnesia because shut up.  Shocking his mind with the sight of Quatre ready to make the sacrifice play as he did was pretty brilliant and it should have been done this way in the Anime, not through some wacky ex machina means.  Also hi Hilde…guess she’s being spared some nasty battle wounds by sneaking Relena off of Libra.  Guess this means no Relena reunion with Heero and no scene of them confronting Zechs on Libra before the Eve Wars kick off…bummer.

 

What isn’t a bummer is that the next and final entry of From Losers to Glory: A Gundam Wing Special, should be up in a few moments so you can head on over and see how it all ends…though somehow I don’t imagine it’ll be anything different from what we saw in the Anime.  Hey who knows, I could be wrong.  I guess we’ll find out.  The final volume awaits, check it out right here: http://gundamanimeblog.blogspot.com/2020/06/from-losers-to-glory-gundam-wing_7.html