Abbreviations used:

• GW=Gundam Wing (TV series as opposed to OVA, AC timeline)
• EW=Endless Waltz (Gundam Wing OVA series/movie, AC timeline)
• 0080=Gundam 0080 (original flavor Gundam, UC timeline)
• 0083=Gundam 0083 (original flavor Gundam, UC timeline)
• Anipike=Anime Web Turnpike (http://www.anipike.com)
• YYH=Yuu Yuu Hakusho
• CN=Cartoon Network
• OVA=Original Video Animation
• AU=Alternate Universe
• MS=Mobile Suit(s)

A while back, my boyfriend introduced me to Gundam. No, not GW...I've been into that for nearly two years now, which is a really frightening when you think about it. I mean real Gundam, as in the original series and its many descendants and side stories, often called UC Gundam, for Universal Century.

It all started when he pulled out his copy of the Gundam Encyclopedia and allowed me to drool on its many pages of MS, then loaned me his tapes of 0080 and 0083, which I have still not given back to him. (Almost a year later ^^;;;) I've just been doing some thinking, always a dangerous idea, and come to the big conclusion that of all the Gundam series, GW is probably one of the suckiest.

Bunker gear? Check. Heat shield? Check. Asbestos underwear? Check. Ok, ready to run with this subject now.

Let's begin at the beginning. The reason I got into GW wasn't because of the series itself, or even the pictures of the cute pilots...it was the fact that I was surfing out on the net one night instead of working like I was supposed to be, and I was checking around for Yu Yu Hakusho fanfiction. I ran across the Death Arc site, which, for those of you who might not have heard of it, is a YYH/GW crossover universe. I was absolutely fascinated and read the whole thing in two nights. Since the Death Arc page I'd ended up on was the one based on Talya Firedancer's site (which is now no longer open) I checked out the rest of it and read my way through all of her fanfiction. By the time I was done, GW had nearly replaced YYH as my favorite series. It's rather silly when you think about it--what made me fall in love with Duo and the rest of the boys was their characterization by a fan writer, rather than how they were originally written. It's a real tribute to Talya's awesome writing style, I think.

I was hooked. I found every bit of GW fanfiction that I could and read it. Up until that point, the only fanficcing I'd done was Rurouni Kenshin comedy, some Final Fantasy VII, and a bunch of Fushigi Yuugi filks-- but suddenly, I wanted to fic GW so bad I could taste it. However, instead of jumping the gun and running right into it, I ordered the entire series from a fansub (this was before GW was on CN, please calm down) distro'er, and waited for it to arrive.* And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited some more. And then came the most wonderful day when I got home and discovered a huge box sitting on my bed. I ripped into it and started watching, and...

...geeze...I waited all that time for THIS?

I discovered, to my dismay, that the series itself wasn't nearly as good as the fanfiction. There are so many differences that I won't even start to list them now...that's a topic for another time. (Disgree with me if you like. This is my opinion after all.) Really, when you compared the series and what I'd been expecting it to be, it not only didn't meet my expectations, it downright sucked. While *most* of the characters were pretty damn cool (I won't name the exceptions, since I've probably pissed off enough people for today) the story wasn't anything like I'd hoped it would be, and was fairly confusing and downright boring in some places. It was often a struggle to keep myself from fast forwarding through episodes, and I took copious notes as I watched the series through, to ensure that I would never have to watch it beginning to end again.

Still, I stayed happy because I got what I needed out of it...I had the real characterizations and events of the universe to base fics off of, so I could start writing. No matter how much I diss GW as an actual series, it's given me more material to write fanfiction on than anything else out there. Most of the characters are absolutely wonderful and a joy to write--though a great deal of that is due to my own interpretations of them. It's the story itself where the series falls flat on its ass. Perhaps it's a function of the less than best of all possible plotlines that's given the GW fandom so much to write about--there are so many things in GW that were never used or explored effectively that there's enough material to keep even the most prolific ficcer busy 'til Sydney gets a colony dropped on it. (More on that later.) That in itself shows that the series was the victim of sloppy writing; there were so many loose ends that it's often a wonder to me that the series had an coherency at all.

I've always felt that GW wasn't all that it could have been. The relationships between the characters weren't explored at all, which is bad for GW as a series but good for those of us that write. The story itself even prevented a great deal of character development because of the extremely isolationist behavior of all of the pilots. Also, the wishy washiness of the creators on the yaoi/non-yaoi stance, while once again a great thing for the ficcers out there, removed the possibility of the romantic relationships that added to the overall emotional feel of Gundam. The biggest single problem with the story, however, was the fact that the series was quite frankly not long enough for the events that the writers were trying to portray in it. The story (what there was of it) completely crowded out character development instead of supplementing and facilitating it--which has got to be one of THE biggest writing no-nos out there. Events were too complicated for the length of time given to explain them, and there were far too many different sides for the characters to take. So, my conclusion--the principles and elements the story was founded on were alright, but the execution was terrible.

Let it be noted that there's one exception to my bashing of GW's story--that's Endless Waltz, the GW OVA. I think EW was just incredible. The story was clear, concise, and just the right size for three OVA episodes/a movie.

Now that I'm done with my initial bashing of GW, I'd like to explain my original intention when I started writing this. Because it's being shown on CN, GW has suddenly developed a huge following in a short amount of time, and most of the fans out there (even quite a few of the older fans from the fansub days) have an absolutely frightening amount of enthusiasm about Gundams, without ever having experienced the series that GW sprang from.

So, once again pulling myself back to the original topic...GW and Gundam are two very different series, and it seems to be causing a bit of confusion with newer fans that have never seen Gundam. So here goes...

To begin with, GW is an AU of Gundam. An AU shares common concepts with the universe that it's based off of, but there are so many large changes to it that it ends up VERY different. The timelines and stories of an AU and the original usually bear no real resemblance. GW takes the following basic concepts from Gundam and builds its AU on them:

• The Gundams themselves, as well as the MS and similar technology (aka the "giant fighting robots.") Gundam was (as far as I know) the original Japanese "giant fighting robots" series. For the most part, GW's mech designs are very true to the original concepts as far as specs and armaments go. They even share the same angular/boxy appearence that most MS in Gundam have. (With the major exception of the Turn A Gundam MS, which are designed very differently...but Turn A is an AU as well [as far as I know], so we won't get picky.)

• The colonies, built in stable gravitational points orbiting around the earth, which are known as LaGrange points in the case of GW. The colonies are populated by the lower classes for the most part, forcibly evacuated from the earth by the elite.

• The earth is now oppressively ruling the colonies, making the colonies wish for independence.

• Because of this, a civil war between the colonies and the Earth breaks out.

• The colonies attempt to drop something really, really big, namely a colony, on the earth at some point.

So that's what I would consider to be the main similarities between the series...now for the big part--what's different. I'm going to assume, here, that everyone reading this is fairly familiar with GW, since GW is being shown on CN. So...

• Just as a starting point, remember how I said that the colonies try to drop something big on the Earth? In Gundam, they succeed in dropping a colony on Australia. As a result, Sidney is now one big damn pot hole. In GW, while the colonies do try to do something similar, they never succeed all the way.

• The manner in which the colonies rebel is different. In GW, Operation Meteor is supposedly a plot by the colonial governments, but in the end, the pilots get sent to Earth by their respective scientists and the colonies get to maintain their easily changed stance on independence. In Gundam, one of the colonies actually secedes, declaring itself the Duchy of Zion, and takes several more colonies with it.

• The way the war is conducted is different. In Gundam, there is an extremely intense, nasty war for one year where both sides are using nukes and worse, causing billions of civillians to die. At the end of the one year war, a treaty is signed prohibiting the use of such weapons, and after that, the fighting becomes slightly more...well, civilized is not really the word I'm looking for, but it's the best I can do. The war in GW is just...well...rather bland, as far as I'm concerned. I suppose the biggest difference between the two is the fact that there are not nearly as many civillian casualties or brutal tactics used in GW...or, as my [adopted] big brother puts it "GW is a nice, happy, touchy-feely Star Trek kind of war."

• Which defeats the purpose of the entire series in relation to Gundam. As big brother expressed best, "Gundam is about just how much war sucks. It's a human drama." The toned down fighting of GW removes any teeth that point may have had...if that was the intention at all to begin with. Gundam has always had a highly philosophical bent about war and the role that man takes in space, as well as the effect of space on man--and while GW did have smatterings of it, it's not nearly as thought provoking or able to drive its point home.

• In GW, out of all of the main characters, one of them dies. In Gundam, it is beyond unusual for a character to manage to survive the complete run of episodes. In 0080, for example (this one's freshest in my mind) out of six main characters, two survive in the end, and one of them has probably been psycholigically scarred for life. In Zeta Gundam, three or four of the main characters survive, and one of them has had his brain effectively fried. While there are usually happy endings of some sort in Gundam, they are always laced with an almost melancholy, "real" edge that is completely lacking in GW.

• Gundam itself is more violent than GW. I suppose this was one of the facotrs taken into consideration when choosing GW to air on CN. GW is an inferior story, but it's much more acceptable for general audiences by the estimation of the American media thought police.

• Newtypes were not used at all in GW. While there is speculation that Quatre may be one, Newtypes are never once mentioned in the series. I thought that Newtypes were an important part of Gundam--to me, they raised questions about the true nature of man living in space and the effects thereof, adding to the overall philosophical nature of Gundam. Also, Newtypes play an important role in battles--there are even mobile armors built specifically for them.

• This is one my adopted big brother pointed out as well--while the basic idea of the Gundam is the same in both GW and Gundam, the Gundams themselves were never mass produced. Every Gundam was a prototype of some sort, as opposed to GW where the Gundams are built as stand alone, non-prototype machines, then upgraded and upgraded some more.

• While not a big difference, this is something I've noted--GW has no mobile armors in it at all. As far as I know, they don't even exist in GW, which is a shame because they were cool.

• In Gundam, there are characters that could be considered bishounen. However, they are not nearly as...prolific as they are in GW. In GW, ALL of the [male] main characters are, while not necessarily classic bishounen, at the least very pretty. (More on this in my theories about GW's popularity.) Zechs Merquise, who I have seen many fangirls swooning over, is actually a clone of Char Aznable that apparently fell into a vat of Pantene shampoo. Yes, that's right--Zechs is not original or new by any stretch of the imagination. The entire mask and ace pilot bit was done by Char Aznable long before Zechs was even thought of, and Char had style.

• There are no real romantic relationships in GW, at least none that are conclusively cannon. (Let's not get started.) Part of what added the drama to Gundam was the romantic relationships that occured between the characters, whether on the same sides or different. I'm talking about two-sided, acknowledge love here. Relena's weird obsession with Heero does not count. About the closest things get in GW are the relationships between Lady Une and Treize or Noin and Zechs, which are about as clear as mud.

Now that I've explained why I don't like GW as a series that much any more, and highlighted the differences, where do I get off saying the Gundam is better? Simply put, it has everything that GW does not--well developed characters and well written plot. That is what makes a series.

GW was one of three series that were brought out for the fifteenth birthday of Gundam; the other two were G Gundam and Gundam X. All three of these series are AU--they don't take place during either the One Year War or in the Universal Century and have no bearing on the Gundam timeline. GW is really the first true attempt to bring women into Gundam fandom, which is perhaps one of the reasons for its immense popularity despite its inferior story and character development.

I base my comment about women in the fandom on the fact that for the most part, Gundam is a shounen series, meaning it is aimed at men and boys. There are giant fighting robots, lots of explosions, honor, [beam]sword fights, violence, death, blood, etc--all classic shounen elements. GW was a departure from the normal trend. While it still had many of the shounen elements in it, such as the giant fighting robots and explosions, the violence and death were toned down a great deal, and, more notably, bishounen were added to the mix. While there have been Gundam characters before now that could be considered bishounen, none of them can hold a candle to any of the pretty, overly angsty boys from GW. Also, in my opinion, romantic relationships in shounen series tend to be somewhat clear cut and simple. In GW, there is no way the relationships could be any more confusing and nebulous. All of these factors served to draw women toward GW fandom.

And what a rabid fandom GW has!** GW fans are some of the most active on the net--as well as the most intractible, obsessive, short-tempered, and hostile. What I find most amazing is that the hostility and nastiness is almost always directed at other GW fans! Why is this? The answer is fairly simple--the fandom feeds itself. The way most fans view their favorite characters is heavily influenced by fanfiction as well as doujinshi, both things that have absolutely no bearing on the real character. I myself became a GW fan because of how Duo was written in a fanfiction, and my view of him has since been colored by that, so that I tend to interpret everything that he says or does in the real story so that it supports the image of him that I hold in my mind. Because everyone has their own very personal views of the characters, they tend to become very focused on them, and dislike anything that doesn't fit in with their specific image. (As in, I really can't stand anything that has Duo characterized as an idiot, because I can't bring myself to believe that he is.)

The fan obsession with particular characters is quite frightening at times. I've encountered countless people on the net that either claim to BE a character, related to a character, or a character's significant other. I've lost count of the number of "back off, bitch, he's mine" mail I've gotten in regards to Duo. I can't help but wonder how it's failed to occur to these people that GW is a TV series, and these characters are NOT REAL. I've never run into a problem like that with Gundam, and I am fairly certain I never will; the series doesn't encourage that level of absolute obsession with a single character.

The thing that has GW fans in hysterics the most are romantic pairings. Once again, this is something that is inflamed by fanfiction and doujinshi, and divides the fan community in an unbelievable number of ways. Because the relationship in GW are so nebulous, almost any interpretation can be made...so thus, the first split occurs; yaoi and non-yaoi. There are hints on both sides dropped, so that fans may believe whichever they wish. Then, there's the number of pairings, who with who, who's on top, and so on and so on ad nauseum. It wouldn't be so bad if fans were content to live and let live...but flame wars occur on this subject distressingly often.

On what do I base my estimation that GW is more popular than its parent series? I've had to go by a pole of webpages. My source is the Anipike since it's the most widely used anime source on the net. If you go there and check out the page of Gundam links (which is, at the time of this writing, in the top ten most popular anime series and has been since CN started showing it), you will notice that a good 95% maybe more are for GW webpages. All three mailing lists present are GW. There is ONE non-GW character shrine, dedicated to Char Aznable. Of all the fanfiction links, only two are non-GW. (This, I can kind of understand...while I like Gundam a lot better than GW, it hasn't inspired me to write at all.) There is a Gundam pole page, and most of the questions on it are GW based (to the frustration of the Gundam fans out there who don't particularly care for GW). Plus, there's the personal experience factor. Now, for the most part, if you say "Gundam" to someone that's not an "old guard" anime fan, they'll say something to the effect of "Oh yeah, I've seen that! Isn't Deathscythe awesome?" or some other similarly GW related statement. While there's nothing wrong with Deathscythe being awesome, it's a little bit discouraging.*** At a recent anime club meeting, my boyfriend was having a hell of a time trying to make a new fan understand that not all Gundam is GW. It's a very frustrating experience that I've run into myself a number of times.

Because of all of this...fan participation, for lack of a better term, GW is incredibly popular in the US, more so than any other Gundam series...or, to put it more accurately since we can't really ask every anime fan in the US, GW fans are more obsessive, prolific, and louder than fans of Gundam.

This seems to be annoying a great many Gundam fans, which is understandable. There is a large rift in the fan community caused by GW. Hardcore Gundam fans tend to dislike the show, since it's often seen as everything Gundam ISN'T. They are for the most part extremely sick of hearing about it...and it's only gotten worse since GW started showing on CN. GW fans react to the frustration of Gundam fans very negatively, and have been known to state that UC Gundam sucks--without actually having seen any themselves. Things just go downhill from there.

As far as I'm concerned, neither side is right; more understanding needs to be extended all around, and many fans of either series need to react reasonably, rather than with a knee jerk "Oh yeah? Well [insert series here] sucks!"

So speaks the Gundam Weenie with the Zion flag hanging in her living room.

To come to the final point--what was my purpose again? First, I wish to extend my sympathy and empathy to Gundam fans that are sick of hearing about GW. Then I'd like to give a little sympathy to GW fans that are confused by the dislike of GW. Mostly, though, I wish to point out to GW fans that Gundam is out there, it's a better series and story overall than GW, and that you should be prepared for a shock if you watch it because it's quite different.

There is more to life--and Gundam--than Gundam Wing.