7/12/2005

Like many of the Gundam series, Wing is an anime that far outshines its manga counterpart, though it is sometimes scorned for being so different from the preceding Gundam shows. Set in the AC (After Colony) universe, the stars are five pilots and their Gundam mechs - Heero, Duo, Trowa, Quatre and Wufei. (The naming scheme of the main and many secondary characters refer to numbers.) They land on Earth separately, each coming from one of the space colonies above, with a common mission - Operation Meteor. Their encounters with each other, however, and with other allies and enemies, will force them to make choices they might have been unprepared for.

The series came to a total of 49 episodes and was very popular when it aired in North America in 2000, dubbed for Cartoon Network and YTV. An OAV (originally in three parts but grafted together for a movie for the English release) was also released, called Endless Waltz and following the pilots after the series end. It starred many famous voice actors (among them Midorikawa Hikaru as Heero, Toshishiko Seki as Duo, and Takehito Koyasu as Zechs) and was a landmark in North America as being the first dubbed series to air on regular cable with an intact, unsubtitled Japanese opening. As a result, Just Communication and the band that performed it, Two-Mix, gained great recognition among Western anime fans.