Toonami is officially celebrating its 25th anniversary. This is an incredible milestone for any property to reach, but as an anime fan, Toonami’s significance is pretty substantial to me. While it technically wasn’t my gateway into anime, it was the way I started to see it on a more consistent basis. Instead of relying on animation blocks that made adults wary of “those weird cartoons” because of the super edgy marketing, or wondering when the next episode of Dragon Ball Z would air the next part of Goku’s arrival on Namek, Toonami was there with a mix of classic cartoons like Thundercats, the continuation of DBZ, seasons of Sailor Moon I didn’t even know existed, and new stuff that ranged from ReBoot to Yu Yu Hakusho.
And it did it on a weekly basis instead of a single Saturday morning!
My memories are full of afterschool anime, cool promo videos, and blank VHS tapes meticulously labeled with specific episodes. There are so many shows I was introduced to thanks to Toonami, but there’s one that holds a special place in my heart… even if my introduction to it was kinda wonky.
Let’s talk about Mobile Suit Gundam Wing.
What even is Gundam Wing?
The story of Gundam Wing begins in the year After Colony 195 with the start of Operation Meteor, five disgruntled scientists’ plan for revenge against the tyrannical OZ military organization for their oppression over the space colonies. The operation involves five young boys who have each been chosen and trained by one of the five rogue scientists, then sent to Earth independently in extremely advanced Mobile Suits, one designed by each of the scientists, known as “Gundams”. Their mobile suits are called Gundams because they are constructed from a rare and astonishingly durable material known as Gundanium Alloy, which can only be created in outer space.
The five Gundam Pilots — Heero Yuy (pilot of the titular Wing Gundam), Duo Maxwell (pilot of the Deathscythe), Trowa Barton (pilot of the Heavyarms), Quatre Raberba Winner (pilot of the Sandrock), and Chang Wufei (pilot of the Shenlong) — originally have no knowledge of each others’ existence. On first meeting any of the other five, each pilot believes the others to be enemy pilots in new OZ mobile suit designs. Once the young pilots realize that they have the same objective of destroying OZ (and in some cases the same mission), they band together to help each other complete their goals – Gundam Wiki
Accidentally starting with the fourth episode was NOT the best move
Gundam Wing premiered on Toonami on March 6th, 2000, and it took over the time slot where Ronin Warriors was. This was in my junior year of high school and around the time when I would have more after-school activities, so I’d often get home late. One day, I got home in enough time to catch the last half hour of Toonami, so I turned it on expecting to see Ronin Warriors, but instead, I got Gundam Wing—not the FIRST episode, but the fourth one.
The fourth episode when you have no context makes for a very “WTF am I watching” experience. We got the female lead, Relena Peacecraft, standing on the edge of a cliff screaming for some guy name Heero to come destroy her (“kill” if you watched the late-night version). That, by the way, is the ONLY scene she’s in during the entire episode, so my impression of her was … not the best. We also have the introduction of Chang Wufei, whose charming character trait in the episode was to mock Lucrezia Noin, the woman he was going up against. He accused her of going soft on him because, quote, “She’s a woman,” I probably would’ve hated him if not for the bizarre moment where he gets so frustrated about fighting a weak enemy that he yells at a pack of hyenas.
Oh, and Treize Khushrenada has his meeting with Lady Une via a bubbling soaking tub, and two Gundam pilots play the violin and flute together because … um … they just … do? Yeah, this was NOT the episode to start this series on. Still, I would go on to love the anime. It helped that I was very much in my “watch ANYTHING that is anime” phase. Oh. And Duo was cute. That helped, too.
Why this series was a big deal for me
Besides the fact that I literally met my wife through Gundam Wing fanfiction, the anime’s airing on Toonami held a lot of firsts for me. It was the first anime series I remember watching that felt adult, and not just because of the ultra-violent, extremely sexual things that would air on the Sci-Fi Channel while my parents slept. Of course, series like Sailor Moon had their own share of serious themes, but Gundam Wing was the first anime I remember seeing that dealt with war, politics, and children becoming soldiers for the sake of peace.
Beyond that, though, Gundam Wing was the first anime series I remember playing its actual Japanese opening. No disrespect to “Rock The Dragon” or the DiC opening to Sailor Moon, but I remember staring at the TV in awe when I heard Two Mix’s “Just Communication” playing instead of an English version made for the U.S. Granted, this may have been during the Toonami Midnight Run, but it was still the first time I saw an anime series keep its anime opening save for ending themes for anime movies on the Sci-Fi Channel (assuming you sat through the credits to listen to them, which I did).
Gundam Wing would also introduce me to the fact that some anime series had been around for a lot longer than I originally thought. Gundam is a franchise with a long, ongoing history, and this was just one of the many stories that centered on pilots operating these mobile suits. While I was very much aware that anime was a decades-old form of media thanks to the likes of Speed Racer and Voltron, I didn’t realize that some series were part of an entire mythos like Gundam is. And yes, I had the same galaxy brain realization with Power Rangers around this time.
Honestly, I never expected to get this much from a series that left me scratching my head about a boy screaming at hyenas in the middle of a grassy plain.
(Image: Yasunao Aoki/Katsuyuki Sumisawa/Sunrise)
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