[Dr Kain]

Last night we watched 36-45 of Wing and things are getting way overly convoluted. Zechs has gone Char's Counter Attack because... well just because. I am no fan of Char in CCA, but at least he went through all of these personality changes over the course of 14 years. Zechs is going through multiple personality disorder over the course of like 14 weeks. It doesn't make sense. Also, what the hell was the point of Queen Relena? She was queen for like 3 days. That was a total waste of time. The whole White Fang bit doesn't make sense as they just show up out of nowhere and we are supposed to sympathize with them? In fact, the one thing the Gundam series try to do is show us that not everyone on both sides of the war are truly evil, they are just fighting for what they believe in. This show always makes it impossible to see the view point of one of the sides as they are flat out wrong on all accounts and none of their soldiers even question their orders.

Thankfully, some of the episodes themselves are pretty damn awesome like the one where Zechs destroys Space Fortress Barge and the battles are enjoyable. Only four episodes to go and I still know next to nothing about the majority of the Gundam pilots though. Also, it seems like they have nerfed the Zero System because now any one can use it without going crazy even though that is the exact opposite of what was shown before.

EDIT: Yay, thanks to Image Anime, I finally found the last three Unicorn volumes for the prices they were originally on Rightstuf for.



EDIT 2:

And that's a wrap, at least for the TV series itself. Just watched the final volume and my god the last four episodes are nothing but one plot convenience after another. Lady Une just happens to wake up, then steals the Wing Gundam that just happened to be repaired and equipped for space travel, and manages to get to Treize just in the nick of time to save him from the Libra cannon. The scientists just happen to still be alive and on the Libra, who just happen to be found by Duo, and they just happen to know how to stop Libra's decent. I can continue on and on, but you get the point.

Oh, and then we get this interesting comment from Quinze when he confronts the scientists, but nothing is ever explained for it. Now he was in on Operation Meteor too? WTF? YOU CAN'T JUST REVEAL AN IMPORTANT REVELATION LIKE THAT AND NOT GO INTO DETAIL ON IT!!!! It doesn't help matters that Quinze just appeared out of nowhere and was never developed in the slightest.

The final fight between Zechs and Heero was pretty cool though, as was Treize's battle with Wufei. However, Treize is acting like he was all buddy buddy with him, which makes no sense either. In fact, the 48th episode is titled "Takeoff into Confusion" and it lives up to its name.

The epilogue is pretty lackluster too because they didn't even bother to show anyone Heero of the actual main characters, but had no problem spending time on Noin and Dorothy. Speaking of Noin, what the hell was she wearing in the last few episodes? When did she go all hick? How did she go all hick? The clothing was a Victorian style and yet, they have hick clothing lying around? HUH? o_O

I am so sad now because I have been defending this show left and right to the haters and now it turns out the hate was just. How the hell did this happen? It went from being my favorite Gundam series to being closer to 10 on my list.

Once I watch Endless Waltz I am never watching the English dub to this show again. It barely got any better from the beginning and the secondary characters like Rashid and Dr J as their voice actors kept changing their voices for them every time they returned after a long hiatus. It was very distracting. Also, Brian Drummond was an awful Zechs. He rarely ever put any emotion into his performance and he came off as very wooden when he was in charge of the White Fang.

Positives:

Duo & Treize
Gundam designs
Music
Mobile Dolls concept

Negatives:

Lack of character development for pretty much anyone
Plotlines that emerge off screen
Animation looks flat at times
Way too convoluted
Zechs & Relena
Females characters are only there to support their lover
Plot conveniences up the wazoo
Every main character is invincible while everything else is made of tissue paper

I want to also include the amount of stock footage, but this is no stranger to the Gundam franchise, so I'm not.