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Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz
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Title Info
- seen: 1-3 of 3
- type: OAV
- grade: watchable
- genre: mecha
- made: unknown
- Review created: Sun Oct 8 13:20:24 EST 2000
- mod: none
This is almost entirely an `encore' for gundam wing. So if you haven't seen that series, or didn't like it, you probably don't have to bother with this. The series is set one year after gundam wing, where peace has returned to the world and most of the weapons (including the Gundams) are being scrapped. But all this is put on hold when a newly constructed colony decides the world would be a better place with it in charge. The figurehead for this revolt being the kawaii, but completely psychopathic, daughter of treize kushrenada. In short order (since this is a short series) their plan is revealed and begins to work...but the gundam pilots are not going to sit around while that happens.
While it is a touch super-compressed this is an impressive piece of work. There is time to develop the `conspiracy' enough that it is sort of believable, to introduce new characters and to include all of the survivors from the first. It is also nice in that the plan includes the `real' operation meteor which allows us to learn some new things about the origin of gundam wing itself. All this and including the required amount of mecha combat in three half hour episdoes has got to be considered an acheivement. And it even has time for some gundam philosophy, pilots personal problems (wufei really is a bit of a nutter), Relena to talk about peace and a dramatic conclusion. This is impressive and tight writing, which makes one wonder if the original would have been better if it was a bit shorter. The main limiting factor is that it assumes you know the setting, characters and situation from gundam wing. Thus it is largely a series extension more than a show in its own right.
Just as the tight writing impresses there is also evidence of some more money in the production. The mecha are still `hero' things, and not too believable, but they look very impressive. Some of the action scenes, especially when the pilots are out of the mecha are very nicely done. Indeed some of the human movement is really impressive. There's also evidence of computer assistance for some large space objects, such as satellites, which simply makes good sense and looks impressive. The mecha and character designs are, of course, those from gundam wing so the originality is not very high. Quite impressive technical production on this well handled addition to the gundam wing story.
Words by Andrew Shelton, Web by Ticti, Last Compile: Wed Aug 5 12:39:19 WST 2009