Watching Gundam Wing in Your Late 30s: Part 1 – The Hot Stuff

Posted On July 23, 2026

Like many American anime fans of my generation, Gundam Wing airing on Toonami acted as a major gateway to a now decades-spanning fascination with Japanese animation, and Japanese culture on the whole. As documented on this blog, after initially being sucked into anime via Pokemon and Dragon Ball, 12 or 13-year-old wah discovered Gundam via a bootlegged t-shirt my buddy had on at school one day–and luck would have it that Gundam Wing started airing on TV shortly after. “Yo, it’s that thing! On my friend’s t-shirt!” I probably said, pointing at the TV while this ad was playing. So yeah, Gundam Wing was literally the third anime I ever watched. I caught most of the Toonami run^[1]Poor VCR recording technology meant that I missed episodes here and there. and had the first few DVDs of the show, along with Endless Waltz in my then minuscule anime home video collection. With access to anime being scarce at the time, for a few years I had Endless Waltz playing on heavy rotation, and dipped back into those first few DVDs of the TV series time and again. But in the years since, I never went back to watch the entire show.

However, inspiration to dive back into Wing for real hit in December of 2024, when the mecha podcast Giant Robot FM^[2]Listen to them! They’re great! covered Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz for the holiday season. Listening through the account of Wing’s troubled production history on their show made me curious as to how I would feel about watching it as a grown-up, now with years of media literacy under my belt. It took a while, but in August of last year I found a nice-looking torrent of the show, and was off to the races. It also happened to be the 30th anniversary of the show, so the timing was perfect. Concurrently I was also planning to revisit Evangelion for its 30th anniversary… something that never happened due to dramatic events involving my employment^[3]I’ll get to it… likely this year., but I kept on with Wing as it was light enough to keep my mind off what was happening in the real world around me.

I ended up watching through the show on and off, at times taking long-ish breaks, but I finally made it to the end last month, and recently got through both versions of Endless Waltz as well. So in an attempt to keep this blog updated, and also to talk about anime for a change (shock!), here are some jumbled thoughts on Wing, watching it as an old and dying person in their late-30s.

If you’re reading this, I assume you have some experience with Wing. If not, and you feel like reading this post anyway, you can get yourself up to speed here. Also–there will be casual spoilers! 

Anyway, let’s… suit up!

Why Gundam Wing is Still Cool

As mentioned above, Gundam Wing was the third Japanese animated TV show I ever watched, and acted as a gateway to Japanese entertainment and its culture for me. Without Gundam Wing, there’s a chance I may not have ended up living here in Japan. Watching it around 25 years later as a jaded and old person, I was surprised at how much of the show still hits. While I certainly watched it with nostalgia glasses, I do think the show’s high points are legitimately great.

Firstly, allow me to echo the common sentiment that the show’s quality is frontloaded–the first dozen or so episodes are top-notch anime, and I would argue that the quality is still quite good throughout the first half of the show. But that first batch of episodes–damn, so good! Each time you tune in, you either get some cool new character, a shocking new development, or both–it’s simply a rollercoaster. Like, dude–there’s a fucking coup d’etat within the first 10 episodes! It does get a bit more episodic towards the middle, but it remains exciting, and the story keeps on moving at a great pace. 

Wing is also frontloaded with cool. Many of the opening episodes have excellent moments of dynamic action, and cool set pieces. One scene from early on that sticks out is Duo breaking Heero out of the military hospital–Duo facilitates the escape by hurling a grenade at the wall, and then breaks out some weird lightsaber helicopter gadget to fly down, while Heero plummets to his death^[4]Until he realizes he likes A Girl. A few episodes later Lady Une assassinates a bunch of dudes with an explosive makeup powder case, which also owns. And that part where Wufei beats up all those dumb military dudes in that Chinese village–that owns, too! And of course Heero, blowing up his robot, getting hurled through the air, and lifelessly hitting the ground while gushing out blood is the fucking best. I could go on, but suffice it to say, the first half is chock-full of these memorable moments. 

Given how Wing opens with a bang, I did experience some whiplash watching First Gundam for the first time, with its opening set of episodes being comparatively quite slow–which would actually turn out to be the standard for Gundam, as I would come to learn. So in this sense, Wing still feels a bit fresh now that I have a bunch of UC experience under my belt.

The setup for Wing is also cool, and a first^[5]…I think. for the franchise in anime. It focuses on radical activism, with the expected visceral elements associated with the premise, such as sudden terrorist attacks and down-and-dirty guerrilla warfare. As someone who has come to hold a morbid interest in real-life radical activists, I can jive with this vibe even more 25 years later. Hell, perhaps Wing is what planted this seed of interest in me, years ago. While Gundam greatly diversified in the decades since, it’s cool to see them leveraging this angle for the franchise in mainstream anime in as early as the mid-90s. But I suppose what came before was a super robot show, so maybe the sky was the limit. Either way, it’s cool.

Lastly, I just want to make a note of Wing’s technical quality–especially in the first half. While it is indeed a cheap-looking show from the mid-90s, the HD upgrade certainly helps when it comes to appreciating the typically high-quality drawings (even if they are at times not shaded), and in general the mecha action is quite well choreographed and solid (even if they recycle footage here and there). Furthermore, I think the design work is strong, from the cool and sexy traditionally anime-looking boys and girls, to the more grizzled-looking adult side characters–I especially love all the weirdo scientists^[6]Shame they got so little screentime…. I also enjoy a majority of the enemy mech designs, which seem closer to utilitarian fighting machines, as opposed to more variations of the Zaku^[7]And I love me a good Zaku clone, don’t get me wrong. or the kooky mechanical beasts that mobile armors in UC Gundam tend to be.  Meanwhile, Ōtani Kō’s score is awesome, mixing up tracks with spy thriller vibes, Chū-ni guitar solos, and traditional Gundam orchestral sounds. And that sax, baby! It’s so corny! And so GOOD!

…and since I’m already over 1,000 words, I’ll be stopping here for now. Tune in next time for when I examine the… not so hot parts of Wing–which as the record shows, are mostly concentrated to the back-half of the show! I’ll also look at Endless Waltz, as well.

Until next time!