When I first saw the adds for this show, I remembered thinking it looked like a cross between 'Ronin Warriors' and 'Voltron', because those were really the only two similar things that were airing on American TV at the time.
It turned out to be like something I'd never seen before, but I later found out it was something the Japanese had been seeing for decades. Five children are trained to be expert pilots by a group of rebel space colonies, and then sent to topple the Earth Government using giant robots called 'Gundams'.
This show was much more mature than anything else on Toonami at the time, with a great deal of each episode devoted to character development, and a very complex plot involving future politics. I didn't see every episode, but what I saw, I liked.
That's not to say that the show was perfect, it definitely had some problems. Not the least of which was the abundance of 'angsty' characters. Of the five Gundam Pilots, three of them were quiet, anti-social mopers (Heero, Wu-Fei, Trowa) and one was 'the sensitive guy' (Quatre) leaving only the fifth Gundam pilot Duo to inject some much needed life into the 'Gundam Club'.
The bad guys were actually more likable, and their motivations were a little more understandable. A group of aristocratic soldiers called 'Oz', they were focused on returning power back to the individual countries of Earth, rather than just blowing things up. And unlike the Gundam pilots, members of OZ actually showed remorse after killing someone. Sympathetic villains, almost a first for Cartoon Network's Toonami block.
While the hero characters of most other Gundam series were a little more heroic and a little less wishy washy, this was all we had back in early 2000s America.
As a great action show with plenty of character and philosophy thrown in, Gundam Wing certainly stands the test of time, just don't expect to root for the good guys.
It turned out to be like something I'd never seen before, but I later found out it was something the Japanese had been seeing for decades. Five children are trained to be expert pilots by a group of rebel space colonies, and then sent to topple the Earth Government using giant robots called 'Gundams'.
This show was much more mature than anything else on Toonami at the time, with a great deal of each episode devoted to character development, and a very complex plot involving future politics. I didn't see every episode, but what I saw, I liked.
That's not to say that the show was perfect, it definitely had some problems. Not the least of which was the abundance of 'angsty' characters. Of the five Gundam Pilots, three of them were quiet, anti-social mopers (Heero, Wu-Fei, Trowa) and one was 'the sensitive guy' (Quatre) leaving only the fifth Gundam pilot Duo to inject some much needed life into the 'Gundam Club'.
The bad guys were actually more likable, and their motivations were a little more understandable. A group of aristocratic soldiers called 'Oz', they were focused on returning power back to the individual countries of Earth, rather than just blowing things up. And unlike the Gundam pilots, members of OZ actually showed remorse after killing someone. Sympathetic villains, almost a first for Cartoon Network's Toonami block.
While the hero characters of most other Gundam series were a little more heroic and a little less wishy washy, this was all we had back in early 2000s America.
As a great action show with plenty of character and philosophy thrown in, Gundam Wing certainly stands the test of time, just don't expect to root for the good guys.