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billveusay · 14 days ago

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I just watched Gundam Wing and...

Man. Oh man, that was so much fun.

First off, if you didn't know, I liveblogged the whole thing to @theotherwesley, and reposted a bunch of screencaps (413 of them) everyday by servings of 10 for the last few weeks. You can find the first one here, and the index post listing them all, as well as my other reviews and various Gundam stuff here. Now, onto the subject matter:

I remember saying beforehand that even if I didn't expect to find it good, I at least expected to enjoy it very much, because I had seen the scene™ and I live for that cheesiness and melodrama. And I was right, this show delivered beyond my expectations on that level, but it was also actually really good on many others. Not flawless, far from it, but the vast majority of the flaws made it more fun anyway. It's in the delicious sweet spot where there's no gap between unironic and ironic enjoyment, so you're left with nothing but a pleasant experience.

But because a fun mess is still a mess, it's hard to know where to start. So let's stick to tradition and begin with the pacing. It's wild. I'm thinking back to Zeta and Turn A, in which the general situation barely evolves in the first half. Meanwhile in Wing, during the same time frame, the Gundams attack the earth, the world government is overthrown in a coup, the colonies capitulate, the Wing Gundam is blown up, Zechs gets a heel-face turn, everyone moves into space, Sandrock is blown up, Lady Une is revealed to have two personalities, Trowa goes undercover, Deathscythe is blown up, Quatre (momentarily) turns evil, Trowa is apparently dead, Lady Une gets shot, Treize retires... Gundam Wing takes the notion of status quo, shoves it into a rocket and fires it into the sun. In another show, this would probably turn into meaningless noise, but because these constant curveballs work as pretty organic repercussions of preceding events (and curveballs) that are then followed through with subsequent consequences (and curveballs), the plot maintains a sense of flow. Plus the theatricality of it all puts you in the right mindset for expecting wild shit to hit the fan every alternate episode, so it takes effort to be bored.

But that probably would not have carried the show if the characters hadn't been so delightful. I don't think there's a single one I actively dislike, they all range from "Genuine love" to "Fun to poke with a stick" (again, either ironic or unironic entertainment, no unenjoyable in-between), with some of them being a tad forgettable at worse (sorry Quinze). Even putting aside the crazy, they're all pretty well rounded, and the writers are very good at writing fun dynamics and chemistry between them. But I think one of the most brilliant piece of writing is to keep them separated for most of the story. It's the kind of genius idea that sounds deceptively simple and counter-intuitive on paper, but brings a plethora of qualities. It allows the story to go deeper into the dynamics between two characters by letting them be alone with each other for a while, it makes the viewer look forward to new pairings, it ensures that the story always has something interesting to cut to and when they all assemble towards the end, it feels impactful. One of the best example if the way they start off with Heero and Duo's vitriolic dynamic. They let us enjoy the banter for 9 episodes, and then, before it gets repetitive, they split them off so Duo can hang out with Quatre, and Heero with Trowa. Immediately, you can feel that they and their new buddies are much more on the same wavelength, and it gives them and the audience a nice breather after the roller-coaster of the previous episodes. And then after a dozen episodes, Heero saves Duo from execution, they instantly start clapping back at each other and you realise how much you missed it. Great stuff!

But as I said, it has flaws. First off, it's still derivative. Granted, some of the recurring elements are an inversion or a deconstruction of elements from the original timeline, but there are also many places where I wish they took a bit more distance from it, especially when it comes to Zechs. Secondly, it's hard to follow, between the dodgy translation, crazy characters and breakneck speed of the plot, I often found myself pretty lost (the pinnacle of this was the confrontation between Treize and Heero. I completely gave up on trying to understand what these two were on about). I had also heard about the issue of redundancy within the quintet prior to watching the show, with three of them being broody loners. And I agree with that, but it ended up being less of a problem than I initially thought thanks to the aforementioned good character dynamics. And finally... boy do they treat the mass murders over the shoulder. I feel like that could be the deal-breaker for many people since by the end, the number of characters without unaddressed innocent blood on their hands could be counted on the fingers of Daryl Lorenz's hands.

Going back to qualities, I really liked how you could feel that each mobile suit worked differently and varied in danger factor. Most main line Gundam shows will introduce a new one every other episode, but 60% of the time it won't feel that different from previous suits. They will have distinct designs, and maybe induce slight variations in the choreography, but it mostly won't seem like it makes a difference. Here, especially in the first half, the feeling and stakes of a fight scene are very different depending on whether they are fighting a Leo, an Aries, a Taurus or a Virgo, and that makes it much more interesting.

Side note before I do the usual character round-up: The more time passes, the less well-disposed I find myself towards Gundam 00, and watching this didn't help. I can handle derivative, this is the 18th piece of Gundam media I watched, but the madness of Wing also threw the genericness (is that a word?) of 00 in sharp relief. And there are some things that they really shouldn't have brought over, like ruining one of my favourite character with additional, allegedly "nice" personalities that are much less interesting than the mean one (I can accept it for Wing but I'm still genuinely mad at what they did to Soma Peries).

Now for the character round-up:

Heero Yuy. Very much in the "fun to poke at category", but he ended up growing on me. And after reading a few essays on the characters, I agree that he does have some depth and interesting ideas behind him. However, the way everyone latches onto him despite him acting like a feral kitten is a bit weird. Especially Relena, but she's as crazy as he is.

Not only is Duo best boy, I think he does more for the show than people think. A grounded character can work wonders in helping a viewer engage with a story that has weird or hard-to-follow elements. This is why I still (mostly) like Bioshock Infinite, the appealing relationship between the two leads who are as lost and confused as the player most of the time, despite the rest of the story being bonkers and completely up itself. And while Duo is still crazy, he provides some much needed "what the hell are you two on about?" when Heero and Relena are doing their thing.

Trowa is definitely the blandest of the quintet, not helped by his generic amnesia in the middle of the show, but he also grew on me and his undercover arc was very fun, if a tad shaky. Everyone clocked him as a Gundam pilot minute one except for lady Une, because the sharpness of her clothing sadly does not extend to her intellect.

Quatre is a very sweet boy, and I love an uncomplicated likeable character, at least when the rest of the cast provides enough nuance and variety. His wild ride in Wing Zero goes a bit unaddressed (he did blow up a whole colony) but that's in line with most killings being glossed over so I won't lose sleep over it.

Wufei is... I didn't really get his deal, even after reading an essay on the character kindly provided by my liveblogging partner. He is entertaining enough, and has some great moments, but he's still my least favourite of the five.

Next is Relena "Come closer, I am a generic love-interest princess-HEERO WILL YOU SHOOT ME IN THE FACE ALREADY?!" Peacecraft. Not my favourite character either, it does feel like she latches on to Heero because meeting a dark, mysterious and handsome assassin targeting her is the most exciting thing that happened in her boring life of luxury, but she also has great moments, like her cute silent reunion with Heero at the Sanc airport.

Zechs is... well he started the tradition of the Char-clones, but I can't even be mad at him because he also started the sub-tradition of having fun with Char-clones by one upping the dramatic bitch aspect of the character (see also Harry Ord and Graham Acker). He definitely is still the most derivative of the bunch, especially in the final third where he goes full CCA, but he was enjoyable nonetheless, and without him we wouldn't have had...

Click... click... click...

Noin is <3. She's gorgeous, she's adorable, she could kick my ass, I love her.

Treize is a lot. I also had to read an essay to understand his deal (cut me some slack, I'm a Frenchman watching a Japanese show poorly subbed in English), but I think I got a better idea of the character. And even if I had trouble grasping the meaning of his monologues on the nature of humanity (beyond "I love it when people fight, as long as it's done with gusto. And I want Zechs to fuck me"), he was a very enjoyable antagonist.

Lady Une in the first half is in the same family tree as Poe Ajie and Iok Kujan that was started by Jerid Messa (I.E, incompetents fuckups from middle management in the villain hierarchy) but where I forgave the former two because their incompetence was an intentional part of the story, here I mostly forgave her because she's fun to watch and that icy glare could ironically melt my heart. Really could have done without the split-personality though. Not only did it age poorly, but while both personalities are intentionally caricatural, an exaggerated "evil" persona is fun, and an exaggerated "nice" persona tends to be aggravating. And then when the two combine, the result is sadly a character with less personality than the sum of her parts. But it's alright, her bespectacled identity is still great, so much so that I might have accidentally drawn pin-up illustrations of her- whoops, who said that.

Dorothy Catalonia. Wow. She's the biggest nutcase in the whole Gundam franchise, despite some steep competition, and as I mentioned in my liveblog, she's so aggravating that she comes back around to being fun somehow. She also probably emits the same pheromones as Heero Yuy, because I still can't fathom why most people just let this unhinged gremlin hang around and hold positions of authority.

And finally, the Science Polycule. I like them, I like how expressive their designs are, and I mostly mentioned them because I love calling them the Science Polycule.

Onto the animation. Frankly, it might be the most beautiful of the 40+ episodes TV shows I watched. It does use a lot of recycled footage, but I can easily forgive it because the rest of the production value is so high, with fluid animation, dynamic cinematography and lighting, and a bunch of Gundam silhouettes backlit by explosions. On a less technical side, it also has one of the best character designs of the franchise. I could tell because there was only one time where I didn't recognise a character who wore a space helmet. They're all full of personality, distinct, appealing, and a bunch of them are very very pretty. Costume design is also great, from the spacesuits to the fancy uniforms, Heero just needs to put on some real pants. I'm a tad more mixed on the mechanical design for the suits. They're great, but some of them just feel a bit too toyetic for my personal taste, like Shenlong. The Aries and Virgos are great however.

Next Endless Waltz. It did feel like an addition rather than a conclusion or a continuation, if that makes sense. Probably because the movie ends with basically the same status quo as the beginning, as opposed to something like CCA and A Wakening of the Trailblazer (which both ended with drastic game changers to the global situation), or Narrative (which ended with a return to status quo, but featured a different cast). Though to be honest, that didn't really bother me, because of the very character-focused nature of Wing. And even if the global situation didn't change much once the dust settled, most characters evolved in interesting ways, especially Heero and Wufei (at least I think so for the latter, I still don't understand his deal but I trust my friend's opinion and analysis). Story-wise, it's feels a bit rushed, bloated and confusing, but frankly that's the norm for Gundam movies at this point, save for AWatT which I remember being pretty well-paced. I'm just mad about the whole "Redesigns? What redesigns? These Gundams have always looked like this". Animation is stellar though.

And to conclude, an obligatory big-up to the music. Kow Otani's score is great, obviously, he is the composer of Shadow of the Colossus, but most of all...

JUST

WILD

BEAT

COMMUNICAAAAAAAAATION!

Phew, this post took a while to write, and even still, I feel like I didn't write enough to do justice to this show. See you next time for Twilight Axis. I won't lie, I'm very much looking forward to something short and uncomplicated right now.

Gundam Reviews :

> Hathaway's Spark > Mobile Suit Gundam > Gundam Zeta > 0083: Stardust Memory > 0080: War in the Pocket > 8th MS Team > The Witch from Mercury > Gundam Thunderbolt > The Origin > Turn A Gundam > F91 > Gundam Unicorn > Gundam 00 > MS IGLOO > Gundam Narrative > Iron-Blooded Orphans > Gundam Wing

#gundam #mobile suit gundam #gundam wing #mobile suit gundam wing #endless waltz #heero yuy #duo maxwell #trowa barton #quatre winner #chang wufei #relena peacecraft #zechs merquise #lucrezia noin #treize kushrenada #lady une

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