Friday, January 14, 2011

Giant Robot On: Gundam Wing


Gundam Wing.  If this was not the coolest thing around when you were a kid, you simply had a wrong childhood.  At least, that's what anyone who was a kid in America in 2000 will tell you; since that's when we first got Gundam Wing.  It, alongside Dragon Ball Z (which was also hot around the same time, thank you Toonami) simply helped reaffirm everything we'd already learned growing up with the Power Rangers.

Fighting is cool.  Giant Robots are cool.  Fighting -in- Giant Robots?  Yeah.  That's where it's at, son.

Squeeeee.

As most, well, cartoons of any sort, all semblance of plot is nonsense, but strong enough to carry a narrative outside of all the awesome battles.  In the future, when mankind has begun sending people into space to live, everyone on Earth sort of bands together into the United Earth Sphere Alliance to create a super-nation across borders, across oceans, promoting peaceful coexisting and the like.  Well, more like, they stopped fighting each other, because they took to picking on the people living in the Space Colonies.  Since the Earth has all the military and the colonists have nothing, it's easy to make sure the colonies do everything the Earth wants and, unsurprisingly, this doesn't sit well.

When their pacifist leader gets assassinated, the space colonists just kind of take it, I guess.  Eventually the Alliance's Elite, The Organization of the Zodiac are created for reasons I can't quite remember.

Or....something like that.

Five scientists.  Five Gundams.  Five pilots.  This is not the best rebel alliance.

Basically, in what amounts to the most un-coordinated Scientific Effort ever, five different scientists agree to create five different Gundams (the giant robots made of Gundanium alloy, which is really durable and apparently in great supply) without any input from one another.  Then they get five different teenaged boys, train them in their own way, and send them down to Earth to attack the Alliance directly, destroying their weapons so they can't fight anymore.  None of the five are informed that there are four more of them working to the same end.  I guess, the scientists figured they might get captured?  Maybe the plan is to make it seem like there's just a lot of them, or something and when the boys can't say there's others because they don't know about it, chaos ensues.  I don't know.

Anyways, the five Gundams fighting with the Organization of the Zodiac is the prime focus anyway; dudes in super impressive Robots fighting other dudes in super impressive robots.  Heero Yuy, Duo Maxwell, Trowa Barton, Quatre Raberba Winner (Nobody called him this.  Why he has more than just 'Quatre' as his name is beyond me.), and Chang Wufei were these five Gundam Pilots sent to fight the entire United Earth Sphere Alliance army by themselves, and every day, we would watch and see their success.

Though memory of the actual show might be fleeting, specific moments will never cease to cause bouts of nostalgia.

Remember the time Heero fell down that cliff, broke his arm and then reset it by himself?


Remember how Zero system drove three different people absolutely crazy when they used it?

Remember when they made DeathScythe -even cooler-?

Remember how Heero and Milliardo always fought, like seriously, all the time?

Yeah.  You remember.

If you don't, by all means, go, see this series, it's only 49 episodes.  That's only about 17 hours of your life.  Think of all the other times you've said, "There's an hour of my life I'll never get back," or, "Why did I sit here and play this for ten hours, I don't even like it".  Don't you wish you could say, "Hey.  Remember that time I watched every single episode of Gundam Wing and had a hella fun time watching Giant Robots fight each other?

Yeah.  Yeah, I do.  Those were good times."

I miss my Epyon model.

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