Gundam Wing #2 Bandai 125 minutes English/Japanese English Subtitles 07/18/2000

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Holy crap, best picture EVAR! Sulky ladies + dress uniforms = OH MAN! Anyway, Gundam Wing. You know, one thing that really got me in the final episode of the previous disc was Relena's return of the compact/bomb to Une like she was a character out of some Three Stooges short. Excuse me? I'm not going to say it's overused in anime because I can't think of any solid examples, but it certainly FEELS like it is. And what's more, what is it doing in something that at least tries to be a serious drama (latent man-love aside)? I mean, it's one thing to see it in Bugs Bunny, or what have you, its another if it happens on something more Law and Order (yeah, right). The existence of this kind of slapstick device crowbared into this show only infuriates me more and I didn't really like it to begin with! Relena, as we've mentioned before, is a stupid character and these actions do nothing but concrete this fact.

Otherwise, I don't know, it's more of the same. The few 'good' factors of this show are a few of its musical tracks and that they don't always crap up the battle choreography, which is hard considering the show type. Hello, I'm a giant robot totally invincible to all methods of attack (Thanks to the magic of GUNDANIUM ALLOY), watch me stand here while all the poorly animated bad guys die in mass numbers. Since that's basically the plate they've laid out for us, it's nice to see stuff like Wing Gundam sliding along the ground with its shield out. Still, it's not out of place to ask how any army can sustain itself when its losing droves, literal DROVES, of its super expensive robots every day. Or every OTHER day because our fifteen year old heroes have lives to live too, you know. Duo and Heero go around proving that Japanese people can dunk (whilst secretly imagining each other naked in the shower) while Trowa does his duty as insane teenager with a death wish. Quatre keeps himself holed up in a mansion all day so he can act like a lady and speak with his clutch of fez wearing menservants. They might've been fezzes anyway, it's not as if I was paying attention.

But what about Wufei! Funny you should ask, Wufei's whole 'thing', if you will, is protecting his honor by letting the leader of the army they're trying to waste catcall him until he gets out of his super invincible robot and goes into a hand to hand duel. What? WHAT?! If I were in that situation it would've went a little more like this 'Forget that! You TASTE MAH HEEL! *splat*', with the "splat" being the sound of me making him 'taste mah heel' and that would've been the end of that army. Wufei doesn't have my resolve though. So, instead of ending the war in a day like was the plan, he ends up getting disgraced and fully intends to spend the rest of his life living under a waterfall and giving grandiose speeches to his robot about how he's disgraced him. Hey, call me crazy, but I think you'd probably get much better results if you... you know, didn't send preteens out to do your dirty work. I have trouble thinking that a grown man would throw a hissy fit like this because he lost some of his precious "honor", but this IS Japan we're talking about. Damn boy, kill yourself or grow a pair and stop whining about everything.

All the while, crazy subterfuge is going on. I'm not really sure what, because the only thing worse than the plot of this show is the English voice acting, or maybe the dub script itself. It's kind of hard to like it already, and not being able to enjoy the recitation of my native language certainly doesn't help matters much. I don't understand the woman who plays Lady Une especially, it's like she's decided that the character doesn't only have a chip on her shoulder the size of a small African nation-state, but she's constantly sleepy AND grumpy. But frankly, what's more is I don't understand Lady Une. I thought the whole idea of army stuff was you were supposed to work together... not 4th grade-style sabotage the efforts of every woman (or man) who might have the eyes for the guy you've got a crush on. So, as has been revealed to us on this disc, even the grown ups in this show are freakin' babies. Someone needs to sit everyone down and have nap time, otherwise this war is likely to never get resolved.