Unlike the Universal Century, the colonies are the protagonists and heroic perspective here, with a group of scientists working together to build five Gundams, powerful mobile suits, and send them to Earth alongside young, specially trained pilots, originally unaware of each other, but dedicated to their mission of liberating the colonies from the yoke of Earth’s militarism at any cost. If G Gundam had extrapolated the franchise to one of its most heightened potentialities, then Wing was intrigued with the more rooted aspects of what had made Gundam in the first place, a story about youth and war, about the politics of peace—and perhaps even further rooted than that, largely eschewing fantastical ideas like the psionics of Newtypism to depict a more grounded reality, but of course one where giant robots shot the ever-loving hell out of each other. Wing instead found its fantasy in the high melodrama of its interpersonal relationships, giving the five members of the Gundam Team—Heero, Quatre, Trowa, Wu Fei, and Duo a feisty, fractured relationships that created plenty of drama (and, inevitably in the vein of fujoshi interest before it with Char and Amuro, plenty of material for a thriving fan shippers—there’s a reason why perhaps Wing more than most Gundam shows has swathes of promotional artwork depicting the cast in slice of life scenarios or in boy bands).
Author: James Whitbrook
Published at: 2025-04-07 21:40:42
Still want to read the full version? Full article
