Gundam Wing - Tumblr Posts
Just a question. Being a die hard GW fan that i am im kind of nervous to check out Frozen Teardrop, would you recommend checking it out or staying away from it?
I think that depends on what you want from it.
Like, if you want a continuation of Gundam Wing - with the same characters you know and love, growing and overcoming new and exciting hardships that develop them as individuals and as friends? Stay away from Frozen Teardrop.
If you want to see 1xR be cemented as canon? Maybe read Frozen Teardrop. They’re endgame, but then you have to ask yourself - was it worth it? Was it really worth the sacrifice of reading this? Are they even Heero and Relena anymore? You just don’t know anymore. Some part of you hopes they’re nanobot clones like fake!Zechs, so that you don’t have to think about what kind of horrible, sick asshole not only thought up the plan of cryogenically freezing a couple traumatized teenagers to use like tools at a later date, but that their loved ones totally agreed with this plan.
If you want to look at pretty art and check out the new Gundam designs? Totally check out Frozen Teardrop. It is pretty. It’s so nice to look at, you almost forgive the fact that they are essentially copying&pasting the same character design over several different characters and handwave it as ‘they’re blood-related.’
I’ve only managed to read half of it, though; the translation I found online only got to Nocturne V. I only know what happens in later chapters through online summaries. If you’re interested in reading it, you can read it here. (If anyone else has links to more chapters in English, please send it my way~)
If you still want to know what kind of happens in Frozen Teardrop but don’t actually want to read it (which is understandable), you can check out @gladyscontrerasart - who did a short comic collection called ‘GW Frozen Teardrop Shenanigans’. It’s hilarious and perfectly captures the GW fandom’s reaction to FT in general.
I look at the angelic wings of the RG Wing Zero and I feel nothing.
I look at the highly detailed verniers of the RG Tallgeese and... I feel.
This makes me unreasonably happy every time I see it
While I do agree with your points about suletta and miorine, particularly their contrasting arcs at the minute, I must confess I’m somewhat lost on your last point.
Maybe it’s just that I haven’t seen Gundam Wing in quite a while, but while Char and Zechs are quite different:
In Aesthetics
In personal connection to the main villains - Zechs and Treize being old friends vs. Char haveing been gunning for the Zabi family since essentially day one.
In the precise details of their nobility - Char being concerned primarily with revenge for the death of his father, whereas Zechs seems to have ambitions to restore the Sanc Kingdom to its former glory, he just thinks that he really isn’t the right guy for the job.
In their arcs- Char goes from Rival to Friend to Villain, whereas Zechs goes Rival to Villain to Friend.
They’re generally pretty similar other than that (A young man heir to a kingdom joins the military in disguise in order to avenge the deaths of his family, rivalling the Gundam pilot and meeting someone else he comes to truly care about in the process).
There’s probably a comparison to be made about Char taking control of Neo Zeon and perpetrating the axis drop, versus Zechs/Milliardo leading White Fang and heading up Barge, but for the life of me I can’t remember why Milliardo does that.
My point is, while Char and Zechs are different enough that the change is noticeable, I’m not really sure how the differences between them apply to Prospera.
I just don’t see what Zechs brings to the table that Char doesn’t.
(I should probably mention that when I talk about Char here, it’s primarily a mix of the cunning manipulator presented in the Original Series and the Origin, and the World-weary charisma machine from Char’s counterattack. While I do very much like Quattro Bajeena, I just don’t think he’s relevant here).
I’ve been wondering just who or what was going to be the Caliban of this show. It’ll be interesting to see just what will happen to Suletta now that she has to rely on her own skills as a pilot, and all the stress it entails. Permet scores and all.
It’s also in character for her to come to terms with who and what she is after all that has transpired. Which is a relieve because I would hate to see it dragged out. Miorine, on the other hand, needs her tanuki, ASAP. And a tomato in these trying times.
Prospera going full steam ahead on crimes is strangely artful. That whole scene with her activating Quiet Zero and annihilating the Assembly fleet gave me chills, and also reminded me of later parts of Gundam Wing. Forget Char, she’s more like Zechs.
Oh, the reason why OZ dress like that is to evoke the look of the nobility and colonial powers who colonised much of the real world, further signifying their relationship with the Space colonies and presenting Operation Meteor as a fight for Colonial Independence from their oppressors.
I just got that. Neat.
I have described at least two three four Gundam characters in roughly similar terms, so I am feeling called out.
Gundam fandoms talking about their favorite characters
How to get into Gundam
Because fuck it, I was gonna do one of these sooner or later anyway.
So you want to know what this Gundam thing’s about, maybe you like the mecha design, maybe you caught part of an episode one time and want to catch up, or maybe you saw a nice piece of Chamuro fanart and want to go to the source.
But there’s so many shows and timelines that it can be quite daunting on first look, so this guide is intended to give a rough overview.
I would however like to stress two four things beforehand however:
This guide is not intended as “The One True Way” or anything. There’s no harm it coming into it a different way, and these are only my own opinions.
There’s nothing stopping you from just watching one show and leaving it there. You don’t have to watch every single show going, even I’ve only seen most of these, not all. Gundam typically has variations on similar themes - it’s very nice watching multiple shows because they complement one another, but it’s not necessarily required.
I am very much an insider looking out here, so let me know if there’s any details I’ve missed.
I’m not gonna recommend these on a “if you like X, then watch Y basis”, mostly because I don’t personally find genre recommendations helpful, so I’d recommend picking based on promotional material (vibes, if you will).
I’ll be using this chart, supplied by the excellent@l-crimson-l, to illustrate everything.
Gundam as a whole can principally be divided into three sections: Universal Century (or UC), the Alternate Universes (AU’s) and the Build Series.
The AU’s are below the light blue line, near the bottom of the Chart, the Build Series is within the bright green line at the top-right corner of the chart and UC is the big line in the middle. We’ll talk about each of them individually.
The AU’s
The Alternate Universes were conceived as a way to get away from the continuity-heavy nature of Universal Century and provide an easy jumping-on point for new fans. The AU’s are standalone and require no prior knowledge, and are thus an excellent place to start. Honestly, I’d recommend quickly searching some promotional materials (like posters) and just going with the one you find most appealing based on that. They are (in production order):
Mobile Fighter G Gundam (1994)
New Mobile Report Gundam Wing (1995)
After War Gundam X (1996)
Turn A Gundam (1999)
Mobile Suit Gundam SEED (2002)
Mobile Suit Gundam 00 (2007)
Mobile Suit Gundam AGE (2011)
Gundam: Reconguista in G (2014)
Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron Blooded Orphans (2015)
Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury (2022)
There’s side series and movies and other things besides, but these are the mainline shows, if you will. I have specific notes on a few of them:
Witch From Mercury - It’s of a shorter length than is usual for mainline shows, so consequently it’s a much smaller time investment than the others.
Mobile Fighter G Gundam - While undeniably rad as hell, I would recommend watching another AU first. G Gundam differs from its stablemates in a few key areas, and I find it helps to have a contrast to fully appreciate those differences.
Gundam AGE - is probably the only one I wouldn’t recommend. I didn’t like the art style and the technical explanations just got on my nerves, so I stopped watching.
Turn A and G-Reconguista are technically part of UC as well, but it’s not really crucial information so don’t feel like you have to watch UC first (I’m only including this detail for completionism).
I’ve found all the AU’s I’ve seen to be pretty good, so I’d say that which one you start with really just comes down to personal taste.
The Build Series
Is just kind of doing its own thing. The Build series is basically Buy Our Toys: the series. It’s got a far lighter tone, and I’ve had cause to compare it to pokemon prior. It’s also chock full of references and in-jokes to the other series.
Build Fighters and Build Fighters Try are the ones I’d recommend - they’ve got actual stakes and the fight scenes are really good.
Build Divers and Build Divers Re:rise I can’t recommend - I just find Build Divers aggressively boring. Build Divers Re:Rise is just okay - neither standout good or particularly bad. Its main flaw is that it’s a sequel to Build Divers.
The OVA’s are pretty much bad across the board - I’d particularly recommend avoiding Gundam Build Metaverse.
Universal Century
Universal Century is the big main timeline of Gundam, and is the timeline the original Mobile Suit Gundam from 1979 takes place in. There’s a tendency among certain fans to place UC as the one-above-all of Gundam, but I wouldn’t really go that far. It’s all pretty good, but I wouldnt really say one timeline is better than another (save personal preference, anyway).
Because UC is so big, it can be subdivided a couple times. The primary division is “Mainline” UC versus everything else. Basically there’s four-five shows in Universal Century from which everything else flows. As long as you know roughly what happens in these shows, then you can watch basically anything else in UC and have a good idea of what’s going on. These are (in order):
Mobile Suit Gundam (1979) - sometimes called Mobile Suit Gundam 0079.
Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam (1985)
Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ (1986)
Mobile Suit Gundam: Char’s Counterattack (1988)
With Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn (2010) as a nominal fifth (honestly I feel like you could argue either way).
The rest of the shows are:
Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket (1989 Three-Episode OVA)
Mobile Suit Gundam F91 (1991 Movie)
Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory (1991 Thirteen-episode OVA)
Mobile Suit Victory Gundam (1993)
Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team (1999 Twelve-episode OVA)
G-Saviour (2000 Live Action Movie) - nobody ever talks about or acknowledges this one, it’s just here for completionism.
Mobile Suit Gundam MS Igloo (2004-2009 Three OVA’s with three Episodes each)
Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin (2015 Six-Episode OVA, adapted from the Manga of the same name)
Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt (2015 Eight-Episode Series, adapted from the Manga of the same name)
Mobile Suit Gundam: Twilight Axis (2017 episode, adapted from a light novel of the same name. Later rereleased as Gundam Twilight Axis Red Trace, with additional footage)
Mobile Suit Gundam Narrative (2018 sequel movie to Gundam Unicorn)
Mobile Suit Gundam Hathaway (2021 ongoing movie series, very much adapted from the novel Hathaway’s Flash)
Most of the other series relate to events in the aforementioned “mainline” shows in some way, but a lot of the sidestories set during the One Year War require very little introduction (Thunderbolt, 0080 and 08th MS Team). Similarly, works set in “Late UC” (F91 and Victory Gundam) carry on from the other series thematically but don’t have any plot connections, so they can all be watched without any background knowledge of the rest of the Universal Century.
Compilation Movies
Just a quick note here - many of the Gundam series have compilation movies, where either a whole series or part of one are compressed down into a movie. While each movie compares differently, they usually boil down to this: Compilation Movies usually have worse pacing, but really nice animation.
One of the great things about Gundam is that different shows offer variations on themes, so seeing how different characters react to similar situations, or how different settings change their approaches can make it incredibly rewarding.
I haven’t seen enough of SD Gundam to make any sort of recommendations there, and Manga is something I might touch on another day.
EDIT: Oh hey also: You can watch a good chunk of these on YouTube, for free, officially. The Official Gundam.Info YouTube channel rotates the series shown on its channel periodically. I think it’s got F91 and SEED on there currently? But it’s had Wing, 00 and Witch From Mercury before. Also all of the Build Fighters series are there.
So yeah, that’s a thing.
I feel like someone could write a 2 hour video essay about the similarities of the Zero System from Gundam Wing and the Gund Format from G Witch.
Huh, there’s an idea. I wonder what the overall casualty rate for Gundam Pilots is?
*The Following Contains Spoilers for pretty much every Gundam series, though I’ll try to keep them non-specific*
I’ll list each series, the number of Gundam’s in that series, and the amount of Gundam pilots that don’t make it to the end of the series. (Watch me regret this when I get to the really Gundam-Heavy series). However, I’m not including:
After War Gundam X and Turn A Gundam - I haven’t seen either of these yet.
G-Saviour
Igloo - No Gundams.
Gundam the Origin - Feels like cheating.
Gundam Thunderbolt - 1 Gundam Pilot in the OVA versus 9 at present in the Manga, which is still ongoing. It feels awkward to qualify.
If a pilot appears in multiple series, I’ll count them separately for each series, but they only get one mobile suit per series. For Example, Kira Yamato appears in Two Series, and has three mobile suits. Thus, he only counts twice.
In regards to what counts as a Gundam -
“Why is that?”
“Because I said so”
Delling Rembran, father of statistics, everyone. “What is a Gundam” is a delightful question, but it isn’t the focus of this exercise. My definitions of “Gundam” and “Gundam Pilot” exist because I needed a metric, they’re not really designed to stand up to much scrutiny. I’ve worked with enough statistics that I’m aware you can usually skew them without too much bother, which is also why I don’t feel too bad about leaving out Turn A and Gundam X.
Lastly, I’ve almost certainly missed something here, so feel free to message me and I’ll adjust it accordingly.
Mobile Suit Gundam 0079 - 1 Gundam (RX-78). 1/1 Pilots Survive - 100% Survival Rate.
Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam - 6 Gundams (Three Mk-II’s, Zeta and Psycho Gundam’s 1&2). 2/5 Pilots Survive - 40% Survival Rate.
Mobile Suit ZZ Gundam - 4 Gundams (ZZ, Zeta, Mk-II and Psycho Gundam Mk-II). 3/4 Pilots Survive - 75% Survival Rate.
Mobile Suit Char’s Counterattack - 1 Gundam (Nu) 0/1 Pilots Survive - 0% Survival Rate.
Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket - 1 Gundam (NT-1 Alex). 1/1 Pilots Survive - 100% Survival Rate.
Mobile Suit Gundam F91 - 1 Gundam (F91). 1/1 Pilots Survive - 100% Survival Rate.
Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory - 3 Gundams (Gp01,2 and 3). 1/2 Pilots Survive - 50% Survival Rate.
Mobile Suit Victory Gundam - Could someone who’s watched Victory lately come back to me with how many Gundam’s are in that series (and their pilots), because I’ve genuinely no clue off the top of my head. I know it’s at least Six (V, V2, Other V2, then at least three Victory Gundam Hexa’s).
Mobile Fighter G Gundam - 50 Gundams (Fuck that). 22/38 Pilots Survive - 57.89% Survival Rate.
New Mobile Report Gundam Wing - 11 Gundams (Wing, Deathscythe, Heavyarms, Sandrock, Shenlong, their upgrades and Epyon). 6/6 Pilots Survive - 100% Survival Rate.
Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz - 5 Gundams (as above, minus Epyon). 5/5 Pilots Survive - 100% Survival Rate.
Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team - 4 Gundams (Three Ground Types and EZ8). 3/3 Pilots Survive - 100% Survival Rate.
Gundam SEED - 11 Gundams (5 first gen, 3 second gen, Providence). 4/9 Pilots Survive - 44.44% Survival Rate.
Gundam SEED Destiny - 11 Gundams. 6/10 Pilots Survive - 60% Survival Rate
Gundam SEED C.E. 73: Stargazer - 4 Gundams. 3/5 Pilots Survive - 60% Survival Rate.
Mobile Suit Gundam 00 - 14 Gundams. 5/11 Pilots Survive - 45.45% Survival Rate.
Mobile Suit Gundam 00: Awakening of the Trailblazer - 4 Gundams (00 Quanta, Zabanya, Harute and Raphael). 5/5 Pilots Survive - 100% Survival Rate.
Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn - 3 Gundams (Unicorn, Banshee and Delta Plus). 2/2 Pilots Survive - 100% Survival Rate.
Mobile Suit Gundam Narrative - 2 Gundams (Phenex and Narrative). 1/2 Pilots Survive - 50% Survival Rate.
Mobile Suit Gundam AGE - 5 Gundams (Four AGE’s and Legillis). 3/5 Pilots Survive - 60% Survival Rate.
Mobile Suit Gundam Twilight Axis - 1 Gundam (Tristan). 1/1 Pilots Survive - 100% Survival Rate.
Mobile Suit Gundam G-Reconguista - 3 Gundams (G-Self, G-Arcane, G-Lucifer) 4/4 Pilots Survive - 100% Survival Rate.
Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron Blooded Orphans - 12 Gundams (Barbatos, Gusion, Kimaris, Flauros and Bael). 1/6 Pilots Survive - 16.67% Survival Rate.
Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury - 10 Gundams (Aerial’s, Lfrith’s, Schwarzette, Pharact and Calibarn). 5/11 Pilots Survive - 45.45% Chance Survival Rate.
Total Number of Gundams - 163
Overall Pilot Survival Rate - 85/138 Pilots Survive- 61.59% Chance Survival Rate.
(As above, not counting Turn A and Gundam X). That is lower than I expected. I believe it’s because most series either lose around half their pilots or few-to none at all. So either the series that keep all or most of their small amount of pilots will push the average up to over halfway, or the series that kill half or more of their pilots will pull the average down.
Highlights and anomalies.
All those odd little decisions that mess with the metrics of this exercise.
Pilot Survivability - Any cases where the survival of a character is ambiguous, but a later work clears it up, I went for the later interpretation, since I’m looking at overall survivability, so Milliardo and CCA Amuro get to count as alive and dead, respectively.
What is survival? - continued sentient existence, flesh not required. I really wasn’t expecting this to come up as much as it did. Tieria Erde (00) and Ericht Samaya (Wfm) both continue living as a virtual consciousness, so are classed as surviving for the purposes of this exercise. In the same vein, Kamille Bidan is counted as surviving (because I’m personally fond of the idea of him getting better).
Best Available Pilots - due to the precise shakedown of pairing pilots to mobile suits, both Lieutenant Quattro Bajeena and Lasse Aeon are on this list, under Zeta and 00, respectively. Quattro because he pilots one of the stolen Gundam Mk-II units briefly, and Lasse because though the 0 Gundam’s “main” pilot to my mind is Ribbons Almark, he already has the Reborns Gundam, and thus Lasse qualifies for the 0 Gundam.
SEED Destiny - I was really bad at remembering how many Gundam’s and how many pilots for this one. I fully forgot about Andrew Waltfeld and Mu La Flaga, and about how many Destroy Gundams the Earth Sphere alliance pulls out later in the series. I eventually just split the difference and added Andrew Waltfeld and a single Destroy Gundam (It was something like a 0.2 percent difference to the overall survival percentage).
Gundam 00 and Innovades - You can single-handedly mess up this entire excercise if you expand your qualification of Gundam to encompass the GNZ suits used by the Innovators in Gundam 00, since that includes the Gaga. You know, the suit that has a 95% casualty rate across literal hundreds of pilots? I’m not saying you should, but it was on my mind as I made this list.
Mobile Fighter G Gundam - was more complicated than expected. I was fully aware SEED Destiny would be tricky, but I forgot about G Gundam in the process. I’m reasonably confident in my count of Gundams - I only counted the Devil Gundam and Master Gundam once, not the Kowloon or Ultimate Gundam, and I didn’t count any of the combined units (like the Grand Master Gundam). I’ll list my Gundam Fighter math in a re-blog, since this is already a bit long.
I truly do not understand where the idea that most Gundam protagonists die came from. I’ve even seen self-proclaimed fans warn newcomers that almost every Gundam protagonist dies, when that is patently not true!
What happens to the Sanc Kingdom Yule Goat
Sumizawa said they have a Yule Goat
Some of the Oz mobile suits from Gundam wing ...
Sketchavember 2012 - Part 1!
I missed doing Inktober because I was super-busy, so I decided to try to ink all my Sketchavember pictures instead. Last year I tried to draw all my characters, in age order, so I picked up where I left off. Then sort of wombled off topic. Anyway these are:
1 - Blackthorn, an elf in the Tolkein mold. I never did much with her but I quite like her design.
2 - Louise! She's got her own tag if you want more pictures of her. She lives in a pre-industrial time and has many encounters with fairies.
3 - Louise again. I was reading Hemlock and tried to draw her in the same style.
4 - And again! I'm not sure what happened to your face here Louise but I promise I'll never do it again! Louise is one of my characters in an arranged marriage, but she and Edward get on quite well. He doesn't believe in magic before they marry, and is much more uncomfortable with magic and the supernatural than she is.
5 - Franz, who doesn't appear very often on account of being hard to draw. He's very proud and hates showing any kind of weakness. He probably checked nobody was watching before blowing on his hands like that.
6 - Jemima, who appears more often on account of being fun to dress up. She has very low self-esteem and is bullied by her 'friends'.
7 - And then it was Friday so I drew Marceline the Vampire Queen!
8 - Lucas didn't come out great last year, so I tried again. This is much more on-model, although I still haven't worked out where his scars go.
9 - This is Lucas's sister, Lena, who has the gift of prophecy.
10 - At this point I'd started watching Gundam Wing, and had to try very hard not to just draw fanart for every subsequent picture. I could not resist drawing everyone's favourite pilot though.
Part 2 next week!
(Yeah yeah I know Sketchavember was months ago, but my scanner is old and senile and it took me a long time to get these onto my laptop.)
Sketchavember 2012 - Part 3!
21 - Meilee, my adorable and awkward factory girl. She always looks pretty gormless, because people leave you alone if they think you're an idiot.
22 - Lin, who came to the same conclusion in the boy's side of the factory. Also has the misfortune of being on the back of Jemima's page, which I shaded with markers.
23 - It got to about 11:30pm and I was falling asleep, then I remembered I hadn't done a picture, so I drew Coda falling asleep.
24 - I almost got through Sketchavember without drawing Duo again. Almost.
25 - Noone, the main character of a graphic novel which I planned and then scrapped. I still want to do something with the characters though.
26 - Haha, I tried to draw a demon but he kept going wrong, so I rubbed him out and drew an angel instead, which was a million times easier. I wonder if that says anything about my psyche.
27 - Ah, here's the demon.
28 - Having developed a character model for Hephzibah, I completely failed to make one for Gorse. Oh well.
29 - A Vrega, having a nice stretch.
30 - Last but not least, Kero. Originally he was some kind of alien that resembled a demon, but I've been thinking I might just make him a sort of feral demon instead.
And that was last year's Sketchavember! I hope you enjoyed this insight into my pathological fear of drawing anything that's not people. XD
28th February 2014
Duo from Gundam Wing.
Surely nobody thought we would get through a fanart challenge without at least one picture of my first love my favourite Gundam pilot. Him and his stupid trousers.
This is also where I'm going to stop doing these daily drawing challenges. I got a stern talking-to* from Sammy about this not being the best use of my time, and she is completely right. (I've already missed about... seven of my self-imposed deadlines this year.) Nobody wants to hear me whine about not getting my portfolios done three years in a row! Perhaps I can pick these up again when my other projects are finished.
* 'a stern talking-to' here meaning 'some gently worded advice'