Gundam Wing, ep. 16-20
I have successfully addicted rachelmanija to Gundam Wing!
GWing was my very first anime ever, and clearly it hooked me for life. I have hesitated to pimp it before because most of my memories of liking it are tied up with the insane emo angstasticness and the multiple attempts at self-destruction. But I find it's holding up well for rewatching!
It probably helps that the plot is so insane and convoluted that it feels like I'm watching for the first time. I keep yelling, "OMG! I forgot about that!"
Rachel's incredibly amusing entries are here. Spoil her, and I will sic an insane and self-destructive Heero on you.
Brief summary: There are five insane pilots of Gundams, superpowered mecha. The Gundams are the bestest and fastest and coolest because this is based off a shounen series. They go around and blow things up.
There's also the Alliance, which rules Earth and the colonies. The colonies want independence. I think. That is what the narrator says in episode 1 at least. In this series, it's a little hard to tell.
There are many coups and rebellions and factions and attempts at coups and explosions and switching of sides. Most of the time, I have no idea what is going on politically, and I have not only seen this series 3 times or so, I have also spent four years of my life attempting to figure out all the factions and politics (possibly this says something about me, but let's not go there!).
I love it to pieces and it gives me great cracktastic joy to rewatch!
Rachel and I watched this disc together over the phone: "Wait! I paused. Did you pause?"
"No! Where are you?"
"Um. So this giant block of ice fell and there's a Gundam on the left side of the screen."
"Ok, I got there!"
"Should I play?"
"Wait, you were still paused?"
"Where are you now?"
I am not quite sure what happened in the past five episodes. My attempt at a somewhat coherent plot summary:
Zechs decides he wants to duel Heero. In Antarctica. We do not ask why.
Noin, who has long ago succumbed to Zechs' insanity field (it's like the Absolute Terror Fields in EVA!), decides to ship (as in transport! Get your minds out of the gutter ^_~) Trowa and Heero over, along with Trowa's Gundam. Heero's left arm is still woefully hurt, but Zechs has repaired Wing for him. For reasons unbeknownst to us, Heero decides not to go with his familiar Gundam and takes Trowa's instead. Rachel attributes this to the desire to share Trowa's Gundam more. I think it is because Zechs took out Heero's self-destruction button and Heero is just that insane.
Much dueling occurs! Zechs pontificates a lot about honor and having no pride. Rachel and I both agree that if he had no pride, he wouldn't have handicapped his Gundam. We both decide that Trowa is so touched by Heero's self-destruction attempts that he's actually rigged his Gundam for Heero, the ultimate gesture of love (up there with getting people to tie your shoelaces for you. Oh wait, different series).
Rachel says, "Hey, Relena hasn't shown up for a while! Maybe she'll try to stop the duel by running between two Gundams 100 times taller than her!"
I snorfle.
On cue, Relena flies into the scene in her private jet (or something). She then opens the door, stands there between two battling Gundams, and tells Heero to stop battling because she has a letter for him.
"What the fuck?" goes Rachel.
"Bwahahaha!" I reply.
Anyway. Noin reveals Zechs' Sekrit Identity to Relena, who is urging Heero to kill Zechs. Zechs flies off ("Run away! Run away!"), though everyone thinks this is very noble of him. Possibly they have all been influenced by his insanity field.
On the other side of the world, Quatre and Duo randomly rappel down a huge cliff! Apparently they're in Singapore! Quatre says they should blow stuff up, as it will convince the other pilots to follow them back into outer space. Rachel and I boggle. The plan works. Rachel and I boggle more. We both forget why Quatre wants everyone back in space.
Wufei randomly shows up and goes with them.
Quatre attempts to self-destruct ("3 of the 5!") and he talks woefully to his Gundam ("Insane!" Rachel says). His Gundam, on its own accord, opens the door to tell Quatre to get out. Quatre thanks his Gundam and gets out ("Um. The Gundams are alive?" Rachel concludes).
And now, if I recap more plot, this entry will be twenty pages long. So instead I will recount my favorite moments!
Lady Une has multiple personalities! She ends up hiring Trowa as a Gundam pilot for their newer, better Gundams, resulting in a very surreal scene in which she looks over Trowa's resume as a pilot and then proceeds to have a mental breakdown. I think it is a job interview from hell.
Later on, we get a voiceover on the horrors of war. "Why can't the voiceovers tell us anything helpful?" Rachel asks. "See, if they had just said OZ had overthrown the Alliance and was mopping up the remainder, that would have been useful!" We then discover that the voiceover is actually Heero, delivering the most inappropriate greeting speech ever to his new classmates! His teacher quickly stops him, probably afraid that he will terrify the class.
Duo has to go around with a bandaid on his nose. Then he gets slashily rescued by Heero, who has gone in to get the captured Duo... to KILL HIM! "What's your escape plan?" Duo sensibly asks Heero. "I didn't have one," Heero replies. "Because he meant to blow himself up!" Rachel and I yell.
Zechs' bird helmet breaks, and he is randomly surrounded by sparkly bits. He also gets to wear the red t-shirt! Alas, he goes back into uniform, but thankfully doesn't don the bird helmet again. Also, he and Treize have either threatened to kill each other, terminated their friendship, attempted to usurp each other, or all of the above. We know this because Treize proclaims he can no longer be Zechs friend while standing on a mobile suit, cape flapping dramatically in the breeze.
Oh! Treize also turns on the Romefeller Foundation, which is a secret organization within OZ, which was a secret organization within the Alliance but is now ruling the world. At least, I think he does. He shoots at them with a mobile suit, then he stops shooting. I'm not quite sure why (for both actions).
Wufei is amazingly not frothingly insane or frothingly misogynistic. Good for him!
Sally Po gets to blow stuff up, and she helps out Quatre's guys steal back his Gundam. Yay for cool women!
Also, Lady Une captures the mad scientists! I have no idea what's going on in any of their scenes because I was too busy laughing at the fake nose! Though I did manage to remember that they build two newer, betterer Gundams (Vayeate and Mercur-something. Too bad it's not Mercutio!). But it turns out that Heero's hijacked one of them, only to be staved off by a circus flipping Trowa!
I think that's where we end, though it's really hard to say, as I have already forgotten most of the plot.
My favorite moments:
Trowa is forced to destroy Duo's Gundam in order to prove his loyalty to OZ. He puts down his gun, apparently signalling that he can't do it -- only to ask for a beam canon instead! Duo is very sad to see his Gundam being blown up, and both of us are very sad for him and his Gundam as well, since clearly the Gundams are capable of a) talking to their pilots, b) feeling for their pilots, and c) preventing their pilots from blowing themselves up. Maybe c) is why all the self-destruction buttons have such a high fail rate. Anyway! Trowa sits in his cockpit and randomly sparkles. Given that Zechs has randomly sparkled before, neither of us are surprised by this.
Until Trowa notices the sparkles. "What are these?" he asks.
"He has gone totally insane!" Rachel says. "Is he seeing his own sparkles?!"
"Are these... tears?" Trowa says unemotionally yet emo-tastically.
"Trowa is very strange," Rachel concludes.
"Yes. Yes, he is." I say.
Second favorite moment: Mobile dolls are shooting at bombs. "Why are they fighting again?" Rachel asks, only to remember two seconds later that it's a training sequence.
"It's entirely understandable, given all the random explosions," I reassure her.
My last favorite moment is when the old Leos and the new Taurus mobile dolls are shooting at each other, and how sad is it that I can still identify which mobile suits are which and on whose side EIGHT YEARS after first seeing the series?!
"Why are they fighting again?" we both ask (this will be a frequent occurence through the series).
Two seconds later, random soldiers on the screen pause and ask, "Why are we fighting again?"
Gundam Wing: the series so insane that even its characters can't keep track of what's going on!
Please put any spoilers beyond ep. 20 in spoiler text, as I've seen the entire thing, but Rachel hasn't.
GWing was my very first anime ever, and clearly it hooked me for life. I have hesitated to pimp it before because most of my memories of liking it are tied up with the insane emo angstasticness and the multiple attempts at self-destruction. But I find it's holding up well for rewatching!
It probably helps that the plot is so insane and convoluted that it feels like I'm watching for the first time. I keep yelling, "OMG! I forgot about that!"
Rachel's incredibly amusing entries are here. Spoil her, and I will sic an insane and self-destructive Heero on you.
Brief summary: There are five insane pilots of Gundams, superpowered mecha. The Gundams are the bestest and fastest and coolest because this is based off a shounen series. They go around and blow things up.
There's also the Alliance, which rules Earth and the colonies. The colonies want independence. I think. That is what the narrator says in episode 1 at least. In this series, it's a little hard to tell.
There are many coups and rebellions and factions and attempts at coups and explosions and switching of sides. Most of the time, I have no idea what is going on politically, and I have not only seen this series 3 times or so, I have also spent four years of my life attempting to figure out all the factions and politics (possibly this says something about me, but let's not go there!).
I love it to pieces and it gives me great cracktastic joy to rewatch!
Rachel and I watched this disc together over the phone: "Wait! I paused. Did you pause?"
"No! Where are you?"
"Um. So this giant block of ice fell and there's a Gundam on the left side of the screen."
"Ok, I got there!"
"Should I play?"
"Wait, you were still paused?"
"Where are you now?"
I am not quite sure what happened in the past five episodes. My attempt at a somewhat coherent plot summary:
Zechs decides he wants to duel Heero. In Antarctica. We do not ask why.
Noin, who has long ago succumbed to Zechs' insanity field (it's like the Absolute Terror Fields in EVA!), decides to ship (as in transport! Get your minds out of the gutter ^_~) Trowa and Heero over, along with Trowa's Gundam. Heero's left arm is still woefully hurt, but Zechs has repaired Wing for him. For reasons unbeknownst to us, Heero decides not to go with his familiar Gundam and takes Trowa's instead. Rachel attributes this to the desire to share Trowa's Gundam more. I think it is because Zechs took out Heero's self-destruction button and Heero is just that insane.
Much dueling occurs! Zechs pontificates a lot about honor and having no pride. Rachel and I both agree that if he had no pride, he wouldn't have handicapped his Gundam. We both decide that Trowa is so touched by Heero's self-destruction attempts that he's actually rigged his Gundam for Heero, the ultimate gesture of love (up there with getting people to tie your shoelaces for you. Oh wait, different series).
Rachel says, "Hey, Relena hasn't shown up for a while! Maybe she'll try to stop the duel by running between two Gundams 100 times taller than her!"
I snorfle.
On cue, Relena flies into the scene in her private jet (or something). She then opens the door, stands there between two battling Gundams, and tells Heero to stop battling because she has a letter for him.
"What the fuck?" goes Rachel.
"Bwahahaha!" I reply.
Anyway. Noin reveals Zechs' Sekrit Identity to Relena, who is urging Heero to kill Zechs. Zechs flies off ("Run away! Run away!"), though everyone thinks this is very noble of him. Possibly they have all been influenced by his insanity field.
On the other side of the world, Quatre and Duo randomly rappel down a huge cliff! Apparently they're in Singapore! Quatre says they should blow stuff up, as it will convince the other pilots to follow them back into outer space. Rachel and I boggle. The plan works. Rachel and I boggle more. We both forget why Quatre wants everyone back in space.
Wufei randomly shows up and goes with them.
Quatre attempts to self-destruct ("3 of the 5!") and he talks woefully to his Gundam ("Insane!" Rachel says). His Gundam, on its own accord, opens the door to tell Quatre to get out. Quatre thanks his Gundam and gets out ("Um. The Gundams are alive?" Rachel concludes).
And now, if I recap more plot, this entry will be twenty pages long. So instead I will recount my favorite moments!
Lady Une has multiple personalities! She ends up hiring Trowa as a Gundam pilot for their newer, better Gundams, resulting in a very surreal scene in which she looks over Trowa's resume as a pilot and then proceeds to have a mental breakdown. I think it is a job interview from hell.
Later on, we get a voiceover on the horrors of war. "Why can't the voiceovers tell us anything helpful?" Rachel asks. "See, if they had just said OZ had overthrown the Alliance and was mopping up the remainder, that would have been useful!" We then discover that the voiceover is actually Heero, delivering the most inappropriate greeting speech ever to his new classmates! His teacher quickly stops him, probably afraid that he will terrify the class.
Duo has to go around with a bandaid on his nose. Then he gets slashily rescued by Heero, who has gone in to get the captured Duo... to KILL HIM! "What's your escape plan?" Duo sensibly asks Heero. "I didn't have one," Heero replies. "Because he meant to blow himself up!" Rachel and I yell.
Zechs' bird helmet breaks, and he is randomly surrounded by sparkly bits. He also gets to wear the red t-shirt! Alas, he goes back into uniform, but thankfully doesn't don the bird helmet again. Also, he and Treize have either threatened to kill each other, terminated their friendship, attempted to usurp each other, or all of the above. We know this because Treize proclaims he can no longer be Zechs friend while standing on a mobile suit, cape flapping dramatically in the breeze.
Oh! Treize also turns on the Romefeller Foundation, which is a secret organization within OZ, which was a secret organization within the Alliance but is now ruling the world. At least, I think he does. He shoots at them with a mobile suit, then he stops shooting. I'm not quite sure why (for both actions).
Wufei is amazingly not frothingly insane or frothingly misogynistic. Good for him!
Sally Po gets to blow stuff up, and she helps out Quatre's guys steal back his Gundam. Yay for cool women!
Also, Lady Une captures the mad scientists! I have no idea what's going on in any of their scenes because I was too busy laughing at the fake nose! Though I did manage to remember that they build two newer, betterer Gundams (Vayeate and Mercur-something. Too bad it's not Mercutio!). But it turns out that Heero's hijacked one of them, only to be staved off by a circus flipping Trowa!
I think that's where we end, though it's really hard to say, as I have already forgotten most of the plot.
My favorite moments:
Trowa is forced to destroy Duo's Gundam in order to prove his loyalty to OZ. He puts down his gun, apparently signalling that he can't do it -- only to ask for a beam canon instead! Duo is very sad to see his Gundam being blown up, and both of us are very sad for him and his Gundam as well, since clearly the Gundams are capable of a) talking to their pilots, b) feeling for their pilots, and c) preventing their pilots from blowing themselves up. Maybe c) is why all the self-destruction buttons have such a high fail rate. Anyway! Trowa sits in his cockpit and randomly sparkles. Given that Zechs has randomly sparkled before, neither of us are surprised by this.
Until Trowa notices the sparkles. "What are these?" he asks.
"He has gone totally insane!" Rachel says. "Is he seeing his own sparkles?!"
"Are these... tears?" Trowa says unemotionally yet emo-tastically.
"Trowa is very strange," Rachel concludes.
"Yes. Yes, he is." I say.
Second favorite moment: Mobile dolls are shooting at bombs. "Why are they fighting again?" Rachel asks, only to remember two seconds later that it's a training sequence.
"It's entirely understandable, given all the random explosions," I reassure her.
My last favorite moment is when the old Leos and the new Taurus mobile dolls are shooting at each other, and how sad is it that I can still identify which mobile suits are which and on whose side EIGHT YEARS after first seeing the series?!
"Why are they fighting again?" we both ask (this will be a frequent occurence through the series).
Two seconds later, random soldiers on the screen pause and ask, "Why are we fighting again?"
Gundam Wing: the series so insane that even its characters can't keep track of what's going on!
Please put any spoilers beyond ep. 20 in spoiler text, as I've seen the entire thing, but Rachel hasn't.