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Please note that this is the Gundam Wiki's article on the TV series, Mobile Suit Gundam Wing; if you are looking for the article on the titular mobile suit of this series then you should head to XXXG-01W Wing Gundam.

Mobile Suit Gundam Wing (新機動戦記ガンダム W Shin Kidō Senki Gandamu Uingu?, lit. New Mobile Report Gundam Wing) is a 1995 anime television series created by Sunrise. It began broadcast in Japan on April 7, 1995 with the original English-language run of the series beginning on March 6, 2000 on the popular Cartoon Network's Toonami programming block in the United States, becoming the first Gundam series to be broadcast on American television. The series is available to be streamed on Crunchyroll, Funimation, and Hulu.

The successor to Mobile Fighter G Gundam, this series combined bishounen character design with more traditional real robot anime to great popularity.

Synopsis[]

The story of Gundam Wing begins in the year After Colony 195 with the start of Operation Meteor, five disgruntled scientists' plan for revenge against the tyrannical OZ military organization for their oppression over the space colonies. The operation involves five young boys who have each been chosen and trained by one of the five rogue scientists, then sent to Earth independently in extremely advanced Mobile Suits, one designed by each of the scientists, known as "Gundams". Their mobile suits are called Gundams because they are constructed from a rare and astonishingly durable material known as Gundanium Alloy, which can only be created in outer space.

The five Gundam PilotsHeero Yuy (pilot of the titular Wing Gundam), Duo Maxwell (pilot of the Deathscythe), Trowa Barton (pilot of the Heavyarms), Quatre Raberba Winner (pilot of the Sandrock), and Chang Wufei (pilot of the Shenlong) — originally have no knowledge of each others' existence. On first meeting any of the other five, each pilot believes the others to be enemy pilots in new OZ mobile suit designs. Once the young pilots realize that they have the same objective of destroying OZ (and in some cases the same mission), they band together to help each other complete their goals.

Episodes[]

# Episode Title Japanese Airdate English Airdate
1 The Shooting Star She Saw 7 April 1995 6 March 2000
2 The Gundam Deathscythe 14 April 1995 7 March 2000
3 Five Gundams Confirmed 21 April 1995 8 March 2000
4 The Victoria Nightmare 28 April 1995 9 March 2000
5 Relena's Secret 5 May 1995 10 March 2000
6 Party Night 12 May 1995 13 March 2000
7 Scenario for Bloodshed 19 May 1995 14 March 2000
8 The Treize Assassination 26 May 1995 15 March 2000
9 Portrait of a Ruined Country 2 June 1995 16 March 2000
10 Heero, Distracted by Defeat 9 June 1995 17 March 2000
11 The Whereabouts of Happiness 16 June 1995 20 March 2000
12 Bewildered Warriors 23 June 1995 21 March 2000
13 Catherine's Tears 30 June 1995 22 March 2000
14 The Order to Destroy 01 7 July 1995 23 March 2000
15 To the Battleground Antarctica 14 July 1995 24 March 2000
16 The Sorrowful Battle 21 July 1995 27 March 2000
17 Betrayed by Home, Far Away 28 July 1995 28 March 2000
18 Tallgeese Destroyed 4 August 1995 29 March 2000
19 Assault on Barge 11 August 1995 30 March 2000
20 The Lunar Base Infiltration 18 August 1995 31 March 2000
21 Grief Stricken Quatre 25 August 1995 3 April 2000
22 The Fight for Independence 1 September 1995 4 April 2000
23 Duo, the God of Death Once Again 8 September 1995 5 April 2000
24 The Gundam They Called Zero 15 September 1995 6 April 2000
25 Quatre VS Heero 22 September 1995 7 April 2000
26 The Eternal Flame of the Shooting Stars 29 September 1995 10 April 2000
27 The Locus of Victory and Defeat 13 October 1995 11 April 2000
28 Passing Destinies 20 October 1995 12 April 2000
29 The Heroine of the Battlefield 27 October 1995 13 April 2000
30 The Reunion with Relena 3 November 1995 14 April 2000
31 The Glass Kingdom 10 November 1995 17 April 2000
32 The God of Death Meets Zero 17 November 1995 18 April 2000
33 The Lonely Battlefield 24 November 1995 19 April 2000
34 And Its Name is Epyon 1 December 1995 20 April 2000
35 The Return of Wufei 8 December 1995 21 April 2000
36 Sanc Kingdom's Collapse 15 December 1995 24 April 2000
37 Zero VS Epyon 22 December 1995 25 April 2000
38 The Birth of Queen Relena 12 January 1996 26 April 2000
39 Trowa's Return to the Battlefield 19 January 1996 27 April 2000
40 A New Leader 26 January 1996 28 April 2000
41 Crossfire at Barge 2 February 1996 1 May 2000
42 Battleship Libra 9 February 1996 2 May 2000
43 Target:Earth 16 February 1996 3 May 2000
44 Go Forth, Gundam Team 23 February 1996 4 May 2000
45 Signs of the Final Battle 1 March 1996 5 May 2000
46 Milliardo's Decision 8 March 1996 8 May 2000
47 Collision in Space 15 March 1996 9 May 2000
48 Takeoff into Confusion 22 March 1996 10 May 2000
49 The Final Victor 29 March 1996 11 May 2000


Characters[]

Gundam Pilots[]

Gundam Supporters[]

  • Relena Darlian: Akiko Yajima (Japanese), Lisa Ann Beley (English)
  • Lucrezia Noin: Chisa Yokoyama (Japanese), Saffron Henderson (English)
  • Sally Po: Yumi Touma (Japanese), Moneca Stori, Samantha Ferris (English)
  • Catherine Bloom: Saori Suzuki (Japanese), Moneca Stori, Cathy Weseluck (English)
  • Hilde Schbeiker: Kae Araki (Japanese), Marcy Goldberg (English)
  • Rashid Kurama: Kazuhiro Nakata (Japanese), Michael Dobson (English)
  • Mike Howard: Hiroshi Ishida (Japanese), Ward Perry (English)

OZ[]

Romefeller Foundation[]

Alliance[]

Civilians[]

White Fang[]

Gundam Scientists[]

  • Doctor J: Minoru Inaba (Japanese), Dave Ward (English)
  • Professor G: Yuzuru Fujimoto (Japanese), Brian Drummond (English)
  • Doctor S: Shinya Ootaki (Japanese), David Mackay (English)
  • Professor H: Takashi Taguchi (Japanese)
  • Master O: Masashi Hirose (Japanese)

Mobile Suits[]

Media[]

Mobile Suit Gundam Wing, known in Japan as New Mobile Report Gundam Wing (新機動戦記ガンダム W Shin Kidō Senki Gandamu Uingu?),[1] is the seventh Gundam TV anime series, and is one of the alternate universe Gundam series, taking place in the After Colony timeline. It is the second alternate universe in the Gundam media franchise, following Mobile Fighter G Gundam. The plot centers around a war between Earth and its colonies in space; however, in contrast to the Universal Century continuity, the Gundams in Wing are more closely allied to each other than they are to any particular side in the conflict unfolding around them.

The series was aired across Japan on the anime satellite television network, Animax, and the terrestrial TV Asahi network. It ran for forty-nine half-hour episodes, beginning on April 7, 1995 and ending on March 29, 1996. Directed by Masashi Ikeda and written by Katsuyuki Sumizawa (Yoroiden Samurai Troopers) with music by Kō Ōtani, the series was loosely based on the original 1979 Mobile Suit Gundam series, created by Yoshiyuki Tomino and Hajime Yatate.

Gundam Wing had a successful run in the U.S. on Cartoon Network's action cartoon/anime block, Toonami, premiering on March 6, 2000 and airing new episodes every weekday afternoon through May 11. The English dub of the series was produced by Ocean Studios (also known as The Ocean Group), which would go on to dub the original Mobile Suit Gundam series and several others in the franchise. Gundam Wing was aired on Cartoon Network as both an edited version shown in the daytime and an uncut version shown after midnight. Examples of the edits included the removal of bloodshed, obscene language, and the word "kill" being replaced by the word "destroy". (This was extended to Duo's nickname, "The God of Death", being changed to "The Great Destroyer", forcing the alteration of two episode titles.) The broadcast shown at midnight was completely unedited, which was a first for anime airing on Cartoon Network at the time.

Due to the popularity of the series, a three-part OVA, Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz, was produced in 1997 as a sequel to the TV series. One of the most notable aspects of the OVA was the massive redesigns each of the Gundams received (such as the Wing Zero's "angel-winged" appearance), courtesy of Hajime Katoki. In 1998, a compilation movie version of Endless Waltz was released, with additional footage, an altered soundtrack and a different ending theme ("Last Impression"). Endless Waltz aired on Cartoon Network on November 10, 2000.

A prequel, detailing the events leading up to the launch of the Gundams to Earth, is Episode Zero. Several sequel manga occurring between Gundam Wing and Endless Waltz have been written, titled Blind Target, Ground Zero and Battlefield of Pacifists. A coincidental storyline is presented in Last Outpost (G-Unit). The Gundam Wing, Battlefield of Pacifists and Endless Waltz manga series were published in English by TOKYOPOP, while Blind Target, Ground Zero and Episode Zero were published by Viz Communications. Another sequel manga detailing the future of the colonies, Tiel's Impulse, was also printed, but not in English. In 2010, as part of the 15th anniversary of Gundam Wing in Japan, a new sequel photo novel titled Frozen Teardrop began publication, along with a stylized manga re-telling of the Gundam Wing series titled Glory of the Losers (with Vertical Comics publishing an English release beginning in 2017).

In 1996, a video game titled Gundam Wing: Endless Duel was released for the Super Famicom in Japan. The game was never released in the United States or Europe, but has gained some popularity through the emulation of older video games. Since then, Gundam Wing had appeared in several entries of the Super Robot Wars series, its number of appearances are second only to the Universal Century. Gundam Wing also appeared in all of the titles of the Another Century's Episode series. In the U.S., Gundam Wing characters and mecha have been featured in games such as the Gundam Battle Assault series and the Dynasty Warriors Gundam series.

Like most works of the franchise, Gundam Wing has also appeared in the SD Gundam sub-franchise. It was the main focus for Musha Senki and the basis for Superior Defender Gundam Force's interpretation of Lacroa, established hub of the Knight Gundam series.

Music[]

Openings
  • Just Communication by Two-Mix (ep. 1-40) (YTV Broadcast: 1-49)
  • Rhythm Emotion by Two-Mix (ep. 41-49)
Ending
  • It's Just Love! by Rumi Onishi (ep. 1-49)
  • Just Communication (Instrumental Version) by Kō Ōtani (Toonami Broadcast, ep. 1-49; the credits aired over an amended version of the show's first opening)
Insert songs
  • Just Communication by Two-Mix (eps. 3 & 49)
  • Rhythm Emotion by Two-Mix (eps. 36, 38, 39, and 41)

Gundam Wing Operation Meteor I & II: Odds & Evens[]

Set chronologically after the Gundam Wing series and before Endless Waltz, these OVAs released in 1996, feature a series of clips, one from each Gundam pilot's point of view, as well as a beginning and ending. The clips give a glimpse into what happened to all five characters in the direct aftermath of the events in the television series. While these OVAs never received an English dub, they were released in the U.S. as part of Right Stuf's 2017 DVD/Blu-ray collector's box set of Gundam Wing.

Notes & Trivia[]

  • Gundam Wing featured an inversion of "side oriented colors". In previous Gundam series, beam weapons such as Beam Sabers used by the protagonists would feature pink-colored energy, whereas beam weapons used by antagonists would feature green or yellow colored energy. In Gundam Wing, the Gundams use beam weapons that emit green-colored energy, whereas enemy mobile suits carry beam weapons that emit pink-colored energy. This trend would continue into After War Gundam X, before returning to the color assignments used by older series once more in Turn A Gundam.
  • The show had 4 different openings throughout it's run, with openings 1 and 2 using "Just Communication", openings 3 and 4 using "Rhythm Emotion".
    • Opening 1: Episodes 1-16
    • Opening 2: Episodes 17-40, with new animation clips compared to opening 1
    • Opening 3: Episodes 41-47
    • Opening 4: Episodes 48-49, with new animation clips compared to opening 3
  • In Episode 3, "Five Gundams Confirmed", when they are showing the computer statistics of Heero's body the text on top of the screen is actually the installation instructions and requirements for "TWAIN Adobe Photoshop".
  • In episode 8, "The Treize Assassination", when Heero is disarming the bombs, the panel he is accessing says "Intel Outside".
  • Many of the characters are named after numerals, particularly French numbers, some of them misspelled: Heero "Yuy" = Lone (Japanese 唯 Yui); "Odin" Lowe = One (Russian один); Lady "Une" = One (French, with pronunciation approximating male form Un); "Duo" Maxwell = Two (with approximately French pronunciation); "Trowa" Barton = Three (French Trois); "Quatre" Raberba Winner = Four (French); "Wu" Fei = Five (Mandarin Chinese 五 Wǔ); "Zechs" Merquise = Six (German Sechs); General "Septum" = Seven (Latin Septem); Lucrezia "Noin" = Nine (German Neun); "Dekim" Barton = Ten (Latin Decem, or rather Latin Decimus - Tenth - minus the -us); "Treize" Khushrenada = Thirteen (French); "Quinze" "Quarante" = Fifteen (French) Forty (French); "Seis" Clark = Sixteen (French Seize); "Trant" Clark = Thirty (French Trente); Field Marshal "Noventa" = Ninety (Spanish and other Iberian languages); "Milliardo" Peacecraft = Milliard (short scale billion).
  • An alternate ending was animated in which Relena reads Heero's letter before calling out to him and tearing it up; screencaps of it can be found floating around the Net.
  • Several references to the Universal Century were hidden in Gundam Wing as "Easter eggs". In one scene, Wing's monitor reads "Charging M-Particles" (a reference to the mega-particles that make up the beam rifle blasts in the Universal Century). Later, when Quatre looks over Sandrock's blueprints, the Gundam is said to possess a Movable Flame (sic), Gundarium Theta, and ALICE Mk-II (a reference to the photonovel Gundam Sentinel).
  • The name OZ stands for "Organization of Zodiac"; this is further evidence by the naming scheme of their weapons: Leo, Aries, Cancer, Pisces, Taurus, Virgo and Libra. The ground-use Tragos stands in for Capricorn ("tragos" is Greek for goat). Subsequent manga stories introduce the Gundam Geminass (Gemini), Hydra and Scorpio, and the G-Generation series of video games introduced the Gundam Aquarius.
  • In the original draft, episodes 27 and 28 would have been flashbacks, revealing important moments from the Gundam pilots' and Relena's pasts. Unfortunately, scheduling conflicts arose which lead to head writer Katsuyuki Sumisawa quitting the series. The episodes were turned into recap episodes, and the backstories were archived in the manga Episode Zero.
  • Scott McNeil thought of the time his wife accidentally ran over his motorcycle to get himself in the proper frame of mind for Duo's infamous scream in the English dub of episode 20, When Duo witnesses the destruction of XXXG-01D Gundam Deathscythe.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam Wing won the second place in Animage's Anime Grand Prix Award in 1995, inferior only to its rival, Neon Genesis Evangelion. In the same year, Duo Maxwell was selected as the favorite male anime character of the year.
  • An ad for Gundam Wing when it was on Toonami aired a few words from a John F. Kennedy speech; "The torch has been passed to a new generation". From his famous speech "Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans--" etc.

Gallery[]

External links[]

References[]

  1. The translation New Mobile Report Gundam Wing is used by the R2 DVD releases in Japan, and thus is used extensively by the English-language fanbase in order to differentiate it from the Universal Century Gundam series. While the use of the term "report" in the title is not necessarily incorrect, it does not convey the full meaning of the original-language terminology. The Japanese word senki (戦記) has a specific meaning of "military history." Some official translations in the past have used the translation New Mobile War Chronicle Gundam Wing as well, and some of the official art uses The New Mobile History Gundam Wing, and at least one Japanese book has used Mobile Suit Gundam Wing.
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