Gundam Wing - episodes 31 to 49

It's finally over. Gundam Wing was a series that at times struggled with momentum and pace, resulting in something that wasn't so much epic as it was long.

Things happen so fast and both and slow. A country can be form and dissolved in the space of a few episodes, a character can be crowned Queen and dethroned in less than one, and a character that was shot dead can awake from a coma twenty episodes after the fact. At times, it has been handled as if very little has happened despite the quite serious repercussions frequently effected.
It's not until the episode 42 mark that the Gundam pilots actually form a team and act together, and the previous shifting dynamics become tiresome as Treize changes from "good" to "evil" with alarming frequency.

The final arc, however, fired in a positive way at all times. It was just confusing that Noin chose to dress as a space cowgirl after her previous regal efforts were no longer called for. A nice ending, and also some strong development for Dorothy, who eventually stopped coming across as a hollow villain. Wu Fei changed the least of everyone, however, and was as a result the least interesting up until his final sortie. In 49 episodes he must have received about two or three episodes' worth of screentime: not a lot. Sally Po also had a tendency to disappear ... as with the earlier episodes (and with the nations themselves), the problem had always been the lack of unification. Too much happened in too many different places, and characters presumed dead just suddenly reappeared without explanation. Those scientists, they could be anywhere!

Still, Gundam Wing was enjoyable. Nice performances all around, great costume design, some bland battles with a distinct lack of colour; but still good. The odd thing is that the main criticisms that are levelled against it were fairly invisible; there's very little in the way of angst (some of the pilots drawing blanks a lot of the time) and the yaoi factor was very, very poorly played up - the fangirls had little to draw upon. Gundam Wing has its flaws, but the popular ones aren't it.

It was a long journey, and generally worthwhile (particularly for the price point), but at times Gundam Wing was hard to take and sadly the pilots themselves weren't gifted with too much in the way of character. Still, the secondary cast led rich and interesting lives ... and certainly no one was the same as when the series began.
If you choose to watch two series at once, don't make both of them long.