Mobile Suit Gundam Wing

Mobile Suit Gundam Wing

新機動戦記ガンダムW
1995 -1996 Sunrise TV Asahi 49 episodes Completed
Action Mecha Sci-Fi Political Drama
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Details & Synopsis
After Colony 195. The colonies have had enough of the United Earth Sphere Alliance, so five teenage pilots are sent to Earth in five Gundams as part of Operation Meteor. Heero Yuy, Duo Maxwell, Trowa Barton, Quatre Raberba Winner, and Chang Wufei arrive separately, barely understand the plan, and spend much of the series fighting the same war from five different directions.

Gundam Wing was not the first Gundam series, not the cleanest Gundam series, and definitely not the easiest political plot to explain after missing an episode. It was the one Toonami aired in 2000, which made it the first Gundam for an entire generation of North American viewers. That matters more than any argument about where it ranks now. Wing put mobile suits, colony politics, masked rivals, tragic child soldiers, and Relena Peacecraft on television after school and trusted kids to keep up.

The dub became part of the memory. So did the edited daytime broadcast, the uncut late-night airing, the model kits, and Endless Waltz showing up later with redesigned Gundams that looked impossible and immediately became the versions everyone wanted. You did not need to know Universal Century continuity. You needed to know that Duo called himself the God of Death and Heero could survive almost anything except a normal conversation.

Forty-nine episodes of beautiful boys making catastrophic military decisions. It worked.
Alt Title 新機動戦記ガンダムW
Studio Sunrise
Network TV Asahi
Aired 1995 - 1996
Episodes 49
Genre Action, Mecha, Sci-Fi, Political Drama
Status Completed
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Gundam & Suit Directory

Operation Meteor Gundams

XXXG-01W Wing Gundam

Heero Yuy · Bird Mode · Buster Rifle
Heero's Wing Gundam is the most flight-oriented of the five Operation Meteor machines.

It can transform into Bird Mode for high-speed movement and uses the Buster Rifle for devastating ranged attacks, while its Gundanium construction lets it survive punishment that would destroy ordinary mobile suits.
How you can tell
Wing Gundam fights like an aircraft and a mobile suit sharing the same body. Heero repeatedly uses speed, transformation and a small number of extremely powerful rifle shots rather than treating it as a conventional line unit.

XXXG-01D Gundam Deathscythe

Duo Maxwell · stealth systems · beam scythe
Duo's Deathscythe is built around getting close without giving the enemy an easy chance to respond.

Its jamming equipment disrupts enemy detection while the beam scythe makes the suit lethal once it reaches close range. The Buster Shield gives it another way to strike beyond the scythe itself.
How you can tell
Deathscythe is strongest when an enemy unit realizes Duo is there too late.

XXXG-01H Gundam Heavyarms

Trowa Barton · gatling fire · missiles · army knife
Trowa's Heavyarms carries an enormous amount of built-in ballistic and missile weaponry.

Its signature fights begin with overwhelming volleys from gatling guns, chest weapons and missile launchers. Once that ammunition is spent or an opponent gets too close, Trowa can still fight with the suit's army knife.
How you can tell
Heavyarms turns ammunition management into part of its personality. The spectacle is not infinite firepower. It is watching Trowa use an entire arsenal and then keep fighting after the guns run dry.

XXXG-01SR Gundam Sandrock

Quatre Raberba Winner · heat shotels · Maganac support
Quatre's Sandrock is a heavily armored close-combat Gundam most recognizable by its paired heat shotels.

The machine is also closely associated with Quatre's relationship to the Maganac Corps, making it the original Gundam most naturally shown fighting as part of a larger friendly unit.
How you can tell
Sandrock's battles emphasize durability, close-range cuts and Quatre's tendency to think about the people fighting around him rather than only his own duel.

XXXG-01S Shenlong Gundam

Chang Wufei · Dragon Fang · beam glaive
Wufei's Shenlong Gundam is built for aggressive close-range combat.

Its extendable Dragon Fang arm gives the suit a distinctive reaching attack, while its beam glaive suits Wufei's preference for direct duels.
How you can tell
Shenlong rarely feels like a machine designed to stand back and trade fire. Its weapons pull Wufei toward the kind of personal combat his idea of strength demands.

Prototype & Rival Machines

OZ-00MS Tallgeese

Prototype mobile suit · extreme acceleration · Zechs Merquise
Tallgeese is an early high-performance mobile suit whose design sits behind many of the machines that follow it.

Its acceleration is powerful enough to put severe physical strain on the pilot, making Zechs' attempt to master the machine part of the story rather than a simple equipment upgrade.
Why it matters
Tallgeese gives Zechs a machine capable of meeting the Gundams without simply giving him another Gundam. His rivalry with Heero develops through a prototype that demands almost as much from its pilot as the duel does.

OZ-13MS Gundam Epyon

SPOILER! Treize Khushrenada · ZERO System · close-range weapons
Treize gives Heero Gundam Epyon during the period when both men are questioning what they are actually fighting for.

Epyon carries the ZERO System and is armed around close combat, most notably with its beam sword and heat rod rather than a conventional long-range rifle.
Why it matters
Epyon is a philosophical machine as much as a powerful one. It gives Heero another version of the same problem Wing Zero posed: a system can show routes to victory, but it cannot decide what victory should mean.

Advanced Interface Technology

The ZERO System

SPOILER! Battlefield prediction · possible outcomes · extreme mental pressure
The ZERO System processes battlefield information and presents the pilot with predicted outcomes at a speed and intensity normal decision-making cannot easily match.

Different pilots react to it differently. Quatre is overwhelmed by it, Heero gradually learns to work with it, and Zechs encounters the same danger from another side.
Why it matters
ZERO is not an autopilot telling someone the morally correct move. It is a machine that can make victory look brutally clear while leaving the human being inside the cockpit responsible for deciding whether that victory is worth pursuing.