Thoughts on Gundam Wing? Mission Accepted!

Back at the start of my teenage years, I was wowed by the new cartoon block on Cartoon Network known as Toonami.  It tapped into my childhood as it brought me Thundercats and Voltron.  It also brought me more Jonny Quest, but I didn’t have to watch that.  I did take it upon myself to watch other super adventures like the Impossibles, Space Ghost, Birdman, and the like, that would appear on the cartoon block.  What more could they have done for me?  Enter 1998.  Toonami would be the home of Dragon Ball Z.  After getting a first taste of it on broadcast television, I was now getting it on cable, after its broadcast cancellation.  Not only that, but for the first time since making it to television, Toonami would continue where the series left off.  Joy!   What more could I possibly want?  After the DBZ season ended, I saw a commercial for something new.  It was random images of people, soldiers, guns, and then, giant robots.  These weren’t like Voltron or anything of the Sentai variety.  These were fully functioning giant mechs carrying large guns and laser swords cutting through other mechs of different varieties.  After that plethora of footage was over, I was shown the title.  It was Gundam W, which translated to Gundam Wing.  I heard some rumblings about this when I asked friends about anime and manga, along with seeing some magazines.  Anime became one of the hottest properties in America at the time, especially with teenagers.  I attributed that to the advent of such events like the midnight anime block shown on English cable television for the first time, the expansion of the internet, and even the retail sales of anime movies and television about popular commodities (my first full entrance into anime, I believe started with Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie, and continued with Fatal Fury: The Motion Picture).  Toonami had given me Voltron, which at the time, I wasn’t aware that it was anime.  I only knew of what I first encountered when anime was brought into conversations.  Then, it became easy to decipher which was and wasn’t anime.  But, now, here I was, about 16 or so years old, about to watch a new series that I was completely unfamiliar with.  I knew about robots through Transformers and Voltron.  I knew about anime through Dragon Ball Z, the aforementioned movies, the cable television anime blocks (thank you Sci-Fi channel), and even Sailor Moon (which I never watched nor liked, so buzz off).  I didn’t know where to start with this.  I was definitely intrigued.  And at the end of the journey, I couldn’t have been happier!

Here’s a quick synopsis of the Gundam series storyline.  The main story follows the war between humans and aliens in space and on earth.   This all took place in the distant future, when colonies and space stations would be made for habitation, and the new form of battlements came in the form of mobile suits.   That’s what a Gundam was, in essence.  It was a giant robotic battle suit, where the soldier acted as a pilot, controlling its movements in battle.  This was reminiscent to the originator of giant mech anime, Gigantor.  However, instead of one robot versus an army of evil creatures, you have many people piloting giant robots against other giant robots in armed warfare.  The shows would also tackle the idea of war, government, peace, and general issues about humanity during the times of armed warfare.  Due to the popularity of the first series, Mobile Suit Gundam, various sequels, prequels, and spin-off series were made in its stead.  Where does Gundam Wing stand?  It’s actually an alternate universe spin-off series that, for the most part, plays out as an homage to the original series.  You can definitely see similarities between certain characters as well as Gundams in both series.  It was also made as an anniversary tribute of sorts to the release of the very first series.  Now, for the meat and potatoes of what makes Gundam Wing so special. 

The year is A.C. (After Colony) 195.  Humanity’s next great venture lies in space colonization where the people of Earth set out to live in space as the new frontier.  However, a powerful group was formed known as the Earth Sphere Alliance in an attempt to maintain peace between the colonies and Earth.  In turn, they used their power to unjustly rule over the colonies mercilessly, not to mention the Earthlings.  In an attempt to bring them down, a plan was formed known as, “Operation: Meteor”.  Five colonies would bring about five different intelligent leaders to help manufacture powerful mobile suits, known as Gundams.  These were made of an alloy known as “Gundanium”, a powerful metal capable of withstanding all forms of armaments from any military force.  Once finished, they were to select five different youths to pilot these Gundams with strict training and regimented behavior to pull off the operation.  However, once the five leaders learned of the true intentions of the operation, they re-instructed the youths with a different plan.  Instead of crashing to Earth and enslaving the people of Earth through the destruction of the ESA, they were to crash to Earth and earn the trust of the people of Earth by defeating the ESA’s forces.  Sounds simple, right?  It gets better.  As episodes went on, I was treated to five different story arcs, showcasing the changes in life during war through the tactics of those in power.  Soon enough, the ESA was no longer the threat, as arms manufacturers and dealers became the governing force through use of their own private armaments and corruption within the ESA.  Also, the people of the colonies and of Earth would make the necessary moves to rebel later on due to the changes.  Governments and sovereignties shifted, destruction was abound, and more powerful suits were made, be it suits acting as battle drones (“The Mobile Dolls”) or even gigantic Gundams made with powerful battle systems that pushed the limits of the pilot’s potential to either the brink of death or the apex of battle victory (“The Zero System”, found in Epyon and Wing Zero). 

The series lasted for 49 episodes, with a 3 part miniseries to follow it, along with a full-length film, giving a decisive epilogue to the entire series.   Fans clamored to this series like mad and as expected, merchandise followed.  T-shirts were sold by the bunch, and even a few video games were made, but the two biggest selling points of this series were the model kits of each Gundam shown in this and other series, and the home video market.   Once Gundam Wing was a success, fans looked to collect as many resin kits of Gundams and mobile suits they could find.  With some resin, plastic parts, and a lot of free time, you could make your very own Gundam model to detailed perfection.  It was a pretty addictive hobby, but one’s fandom would not be denied.  As for the home video market, the entire series of Gundam Wing was released on DVD about a year or so after its complete run on Toonami.  The show was a success on Cartoon Network as it opened the door for other anime shows to come forth in hopes to mimic its success.  It also opened the door for more Gundam series to come forth, including Gundam 0080, Gundam 0079, Gundam ZZ, Gundam X, 08^th MS Gundam Team, and even Mobile fighter G Gundam with Gundams that did battle in competition like Street Fighter.  There were three types of DVDs sold for Gundam Wing.  You had a DVD that carried 5 episodes each, which were sold seasonally, totaling 10 DVDs.  After that, you had the full-length film on DVD as well.  After all were released, you had the Complete Operations Boxed Set which was all 11 DVDs mentioned in one set.  To this day, the set still remains high in cost.  Initially, it cost close to 200 dollars, but after time and depreciation, it only dropped 50 dollars or so.  In a retrospective move for fans who haven’t received the series, they re-released Gundam Wing as part of the Anime Legends line where the first 25 episodes were released in Volume 1 and Volume 2 had the remaining episodes and the movie.  These are also still in circulation, and the prices of both are decidedly less than the complete box set, but it all depends on where you buy it.  That’s the long and short of what Gundam Wing entails on a general basis.  That said, there are some elephants in the room that need to be considered, and as a fan, I’d be foolish to not point them out. 

First off, when it comes to the longevity of Gundam Wing, it sadly only lasted for about 5 or 6 years after its release in North America.  Having mentioned that, the video distribution of said show has had its issues.  Bandai Entertainment is responsible for the distribution of Gundam Wing on DVD and VHS and has been until they stopped circulating.  That’s right.  If you don’t have Gundam Wing on DVD or VHS, you’re late to the party.  If you want to secure it, better hope for a flea market or swap meet that has those copies.  I say this because if you rely on finding it in person at a major retailer, you will be out of luck.  Amazon and EBay are not very helpful either, as re-sellers are looking to charge something close to the original price of the given videos.  Sometimes, you will have to pay even more.  Then, we come to actually owning the series.  Upon seeing reviews, recent and within 5 years of 2013, I’ve come to learn that the compilation sets are wrought with issues.  Various people have said that the initial disks on the first volumes of the box sets skip around, lose audio synch, or even cut off parts of episodes to a large variety.  This has been the biggest problem with the complete box set.  And for a hefty price tag, it’s not worth it.  When replacements were demanded, the same problems occurred.  In fact, some replacements were never even given.  The safest bet:  find the individual operation disks (all 10 of them) and buy them.  But, be careful.  The prices will vary heavily, along with the availability of said disks.  Oh, and I almost forgot.  In some of these boxed sets, the disks are placed improperly, allowing for scratches and damage, hence rendering the DVDs unwatchable.  This happened to a few based on review, and lo and behold, they got a replacement…only it was missing some episodes as the disk or disks in question were improperly reproduced.  So much money wasted on shoddy reproduction.

Then, we have the Hong Kong bootlegs.  With no copyrights to follow in Hong Kong, the entire run of episodes was released unauthorized by various companies for a surprisingly low price.  The drawbacks:  the sound quality, the visual quality, and of course, the legal and ethical issues behind buying them.  Now, one would say that buying them now would not be damaging as Bandai no longer distributes Gundam Wing for home video of any kind any longer, as some would think.  I emailed Bandai and have received no response on this whatsoever, so I can’t confirm this.  At this time, if you do find the DVDs, you’ll see them either sold by an actual retailer of a smaller variety if not big, or re-sold by someone else.  That said, when it comes to the bootlegs, what they promise you is actually DVD rips of the actual episodes from the actual DVDs themselves.  You see, they secure a copy of the entire run of a television anime and burn the episodes to blank DVDs to varying quality.  These DVDs are playable on virtually any DVD player all over the world.  However, when it comes to the content of said DVD, you will pretty much get what you’d see on the retail DVD.  If there are any extras, it would be from any varying sources, like television (look for any logos on the screen), or even video tape.  In the case of Gundam Wing, the bootlegs are a box set with 6 DVDs in one box, and one DVD in another box.  The real DVDs have 5 episodes per disk.  These have 8 episodes on one disk.  Now, if we know anything about recording, we know that the slowest or so speeds of playback carry the best quality.  The fastest speeds sacrifice quality for faster playback and more storage.  Bye-bye, digital and surround sound.  Hello stereo.  Oh, and if you follow Gundam Wing’s history on episode releases, you know that there’s a 3-part special cataloguing Operation: Meteor and the 5 Gundam Pilots.  It was never released in America.  So, if you found it on these disks, odds are, they were copied specifically from a Japanese DVD set or such, and the quality is vastly different.  If there are subtitles for any, it may or may not have been fan-subbed by fans of the series, with bad translations.  The craziest part about all of this is that these bootlegs are in heavy circulation, coming from places within the U.S. and parts of Asia outside of Japan.  According to some reviews, the quality was perfect for all episodes.  Yet some complained that the quality was not to their liking.  One review was glaringly against the bootlegs on a legal and ethical level.  The biggest issue:  if Bandai is no longer making them and the only way to secure these is second-hand from a small retailer or individual, is it really still frowned upon?  You be the judge.  It’s all up to your prerogative.  Heck, if you wanted, you could find every episode online and watch them yourself, cutting out the middle man of home video and saving them yourself.  But again, it depends entirely on you.

Well, that was a mouthful of video talk.  Where do we go from here?  Ah, yes.  Let’s talk about cultural impact.  Gundam Wing covers a wide range of ideas pertaining to war and its effect on the world.  Some topics covered include the “child soldier” issue (since all the Gundam Pilots are in their teens), the involvement of corporations in the war effort and how they could assume more control of the situation through business deals and hostile takeovers, the potential of a soldier pushed to the limit when simulating or actually taking part in combat, the response and alignment of the people in subjugation when coerced to support one who was once the enemy, and even the possibility of robots without human soldiers piloting them (kind of how drone strikes work, in a way) and the effect this will have on the usefulness of human armed forces.  These are some very thought-provoking ideas, especially considering that this show was made in Japan.  Being a country at war on multiple occasions, it is interesting to see their mindset on these ideas.  I wouldn’t be surprised if they had considered these technological advancements well before America.   Anyway, these story ideas were compelling enough to maintain the strong fan base behind the show as some found them to be the best parts of the show, let alone the battles.  In my eyes, it’s what makes Gundam Wing one of my all-time favorite anime shows.  Thus, we come to another show that showcases giant robots and the youth that pilot them: Neon Genesis Evangelion. 

I can’t say much about the series as I have only heard about it second-hand through reviews and through friends.  Upon seeing the models of these robots, I was not intrigued in the least.  The designs were too abstract for me to get behind.   Then, we get to the show itself.  To sum it up as best as I can, Evangelion is about a few teenagers chosen to pilot robots called “Evas” in order to suppress an incoming threat from robots called “Angels”.  The main protagonist, Shinji, is always seen as a depressed, conflicted, and rather angst-ridden teen.  The attempt was to make him resemble that of an actual teenager going through life interacting with others around him.  The common complaint is that he whines too much and is rather insufferable, through his actions.  The other characters have their flaws as well (one female is overly arrogant, loud, and obnoxious, while hiding her vulnerabilities under this façade), but the real talking point of the show is the heavy-handed religious symbolism.  Over the course of the show, you’ll see how the developer of this show utilized many references on a religious standpoint artistically to either show his range, or, according to some reviewers, to show how crazy he can be.  This is of course due to what some would find to be pretty sacrilegious in these episodes.  Nonetheless, when it comes to the series, the common consensus is that you either love it or hate it.  I can’t say either, since I’ve never seen it, and only go by what I hear.  When it comes to Gundam Wing, this show definitely obtained some fans of anime showcasing giant robots.  These fans either enjoyed this show, or despised it for whatever reasons.  However, on the level of cultural impact, Evangelion ranks up there with Gundam Wing, as many a debate may have been had over which is better.  And now that we’re on the subject of debate, we come to what today’s fans think. 

When I read some reviews about Gundam Wing, they have been heavily scathing, calling the show slow-paced and heavy handed with all the talk about war.  The terms “overrated” and “not as good as some people say” are always thrown around.  Yet, if there is one thing that remains almost always prevalent when it comes to these reviews, it’s the fact that these reviewers are fans of today’s anime, to the same effect of what older fans were of older anime.  To them, the big three anime are Naruto, Bleach, and One Piece.  They will debate to the grave on how these are the best animes in history.  Yet, older fans are quick to point out how these shows may lack the same quality as older anime does.  In fact, if a Naruto fan were to walk into a convention extoling the virtues of Naruto above and beyond all else, I can imagine a slew of Dragon Ball Z fans stepping in and chastising said fan, with the obvious statement that Naruto is no different from DBZ in its execution or its character types, or even its series’ length.  The original run of DBZ was about close to 300 episodes, something Naruto is close to doing, if not done already.  And, just like DBZ, they have long, drawn-out battles and issues where the protagonists find their power levels tested by stronger opponents.  In short, the argument was that Naruto is either a “DBZ clone” or a show that “borrows” heavily from DBZ.  Without DBZ, there can be no Naruto.  And, there’s no point in comparing the two, since they are very much alike.  I’m smart enough to avoid these debates as the vitriol spewed would be or is destructively strong.  I just stopped following Naruto in manga form and didn’t bother with the anime because I did this once before with DBZ.  I don’t have it in me to do it again.  But, I digress.  I feel that today’s fan may give an unfair shake to older anime, placing a lot of stock in the newer stuff, especially if the newer stuff drew heavily from older anime.  To say Gundam Wing is overrated means you would have to compare it to something like it.  I don’t know of any of today’s anime that has giant robots, but if there are any that don’t say Gundam on it, then you would have to compare it to them.  In fact, you can compare today’s Gundam stuff to the previous stuff, but the argument may just fall short, referencing back to the old “if it weren’t for the original, we would not have what we have now” statement.   Actually, Gundam Wing falls into that problem when comparing it to the very first Gundam series, with varying responses.  However, I feel that, qualitatively, Gundam still holds up pretty well, even against the supposed “big 3” of today.  But to be honest, if you were to put the big 3 of today against the big 3 of yesteryear (which I’d think was DBZ, Cowboy Bebop, and any 3^rd anime series that stands out as a ground-breaking series), it would be no contest.  However, that’s just my opinion.  And when it comes to Gundam Wing, I don’t find it overrated and still as good as it ever was. 

Gundam Wing was my second anime series to experience in full episodic glory as I have seen every episode and the movie, Endless Waltz.  I have yet to see the unreleased 3 episode special about Operation: Meteor, but I’m pretty sure I would enjoy it.  I’m a bit disheartened that the longevity of this anime when it comes to home viewing is marred with touch-and-go quality.  It also doesn’t help that there are no longer any video stores that carry this or any other animes exclusively as most of them are now out of business, or swallowed up by bigger store chains.  Regardless, the experience I had with this show was amazing and would love to see it again, if I had the chance and according to my prerogative.  Right now, I think I will wait until I find a good deal in person, if that, and focus more on owning Mobile Fighter G Gundam, which may be much harder to come by, than that of Gundam Wing, but it will be worth it to me.  Also, with all the talk about war in Gundam Wing and the robots that fight them, I’m surprised no one pitched it for a full-length live-action feature film, to be shown in theaters.  There has been a film made for home viewing, with mixed to negative reviews.  To me, I’m surprised Michael Bay hasn’t been pitched this idea, but then again, we don’t need another Transformers, now do we?  If you haven’t done so already, check out Gundam Wing.  For 49 episodes and a movie, it’s totally worth the watch.