It’s Better Than Bad, It’s Gundam

By Joseph A

That’s right, kids, a new and improved anime called Gundam Wing, or Gundam W to its fans, has hit Cartoon Network and impressed the crap out of me. So I’m here to tell you about how great it is and what an improvement over Dragonball Z it is (though DBZ is still good).

Well, first I think I should start off with a synopsis of what I know. Gundam Wing is an anime that takes place in the future in the year A.C. 195. Wars are now fought with machines piloted by humans called mobile suits. People have left (but not abandoned) Earth to begin anew in space colonies. The Earth Sphere Alliance, the dominating government, soon takes control of the colonies and exerts despotic control over the denizens. The colonies build five super mobile suits called Gundams. The five pilots are Heero Yuy (the best damn anime character in the world), Duo Maxwell, Trowa Barton, Quatre Raberba Winner, and Chang Wufei (contrary to the dub, which says that he is Wufei Chang). These five young men set out to destroy the Alliance, but the secret organization, OZ, gets to it first. Therefore, the Gundams must now destroy OZ. The plot unfolds and it is revealed that OZ is actually governed by an even higher-up society, known as the Romefeller Foundation. The Romefeller Foundation is comprised of old European aristocracy that believe that power and rule should be restored to them. From there the plot and characters become too confusing. For more information, visit www.geocities.com/aftercol.

This anime has dizzying highs and no foreseeable lows. The original soundtrack has been left intact (something FUNimation should do), and the dialogue has remained the same, except for some minor swearing, and even that is virtually seamless. I can’t recall a single instance where the characters have said darn or shoot. Also, except for some almost nonexistent blood, there is almost no censoring. It’s so beautiful, I almost cried. Just kidding. But seriously. It is beautiful, and superior to DBZ in many ways that FUNimation could very easily correct.

FUNimation could just start leaving in the original soundtrack. How hard is that? Gundam lacks the hideous attempts at humor that DBZ has all over the place. FUNi could just skip the humor. And the dialogue, my God, the dialogue. Just leave it and fix the swearing. Damn, how hard is that?

Just goes to show you that there is a good anime out there. FUNimation is ok, don’t get me wrong, but they can be awfully lazy sometimes. But still, for those of you that haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it. It’s on Toonami right after DBZ, so it’s not much of an inconvenience. Also, there’s an added bonus. Unedited Gundam is on at midnight, Eastern time.

So dig it people. Dig it.

Joseph A

PS: another good Gundam site is www.shinigami.org.