Mobile Suit Gundam Wing (TV) – My Review - 7/10

SOME UNMARKED SPOILERS WITHIN - BE CAREFUL

TV series only. I haven’t watched Endless Waltz yet or read any supplemental material.)

I ended Gundam Wing with a 'smiley face' - which is honestly the best way to sum it up. I liked it. Not in a “this is flawless” way, but in a “this drove me insane sometimes and I still had a good time” way. Wing is gorgeous, weird, ambitious, frequently confusing, and occasionally accidentally hilarious. It also has moments where it absolutely nails what it’s going for, and moments where it sprints and meanders at the exact same time, which I didn’t know was possible until now.
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What I liked
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The art style is beautiful.

The environments have this lovely painted look, and I’m a huge fan of the minimal shading on the characters. It’s charming and clean, and then when the show decides to “badass up” the animation for a mech moment or a big character beat, it really hits. Wing can look unbelievably good when it wants to.

Queen Relena was a masterpiece arc.

Watching Duke Dermail screw himself by putting Relena in charge and then immediately losing control of his own room was so sick. “Day 1: I’m still in charge!” and the council going “uhh… Queen Relena is in charge, not you?” absolutely destroyed him. Political slapstick, but in the best way. It really showed that Duke Dermail's ways were probably starting to waver within the Romefeller Federation as well, and this was the push they needed.

The boys won me over. All of them.

Even Wufei. Yes, I will give him shit, but by the end I liked the whole team. They’ve all got such distinct energy, and when the show lets them bounce off each other (or react to the madness around them), it’s great.

Mech design was consistently strong.

There honestly isn’t a single design I disliked. The core Gundams are excellent, and Epyon is iconic. I wasn’t too fond of either Tallgeese (sorry ?), but enemy suit standouts for me were Mercurius, Vayeate, and Virgo. Overall, the mechanical design work is one of the show’s most reliable pleasures.

The doctors were a neat moral grey.

I liked that the show didn’t make them saints or cartoon villains. They clearly care about the boys, but they’re also… not exactly righteous. That tension worked.

OPs/EDs are great.

Rhythm Emotion is a banger, but it taking ages to fully show up feels like the show trolling me. ESPECIALLY when they were teasing it as an insert song. Then when it DOES become the show's OP and it's... not finished yet, but they've laid the groundwork but it's still just: “Here’s the full OP!” (with like two episodes left.)

Also, It’s Just Love as an ED is funny and cute. Relena in those mundane “photobook” moments while still looking sharp the whole time really works.

What I didn’t like
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Pacing. Pacing. Pacing.

This is my biggest issue. Wing will spend episodes doing almost nothing, even though it’s juggling a whole pot of factions that could be used for character work or political clarity. Then it piles even more factions on, and somehow consolidates everything near the end.
It also skips the kind of episodes that should exist, the “pilot backstory deep dive” episodes, and instead we get this weird feeling of: meandering + rushing at the same time. I don’t know how it pulls that off, but it does.

Treize is my personal nemesis.

I get what he’s doing. I get the plan. I even get why he’s compelling to people.
But I hate how much time he spends speaking in flowery nonsense prose that feels like it means nothing half the time. It’s hard to take a character seriously when every conversation is a poetic riddle. Also, his death was… too funny to me. I’m sorry. I couldn’t emotionally land it.

Relena’s momentum gets shunted.

The Sanc Kingdom arc into Queen Relena arc is such a strong stretch for her, and then she starts taking a backseat. It sometimes feels like she drifts toward the early-series role again: “please stop fighting” while nobody listens. That’s frustrating because her growth was one of the most interesting parts of the show, and it feels like the story doesn’t always know what to do with her after her peak.

The ending wraps up fast.

The doctors die with Quinze, peace is achieved, Relena becomes Vice Minister, new Earth Sphere Alliance formed. Happy end, sure. But it feels like we got there too quickly for how much chaos the show spent time setting up. It lands emotionally in places, but structurally it’s abrupt.

Epyon action gets repetitive.

I understand the point (demonstrate speed/power), but “red blur streaks through → Mobile Dolls explode” happens a lot. It looks cool, but it starts to feel like the show found one animation trick and used it as much as possible. It’s especially noticeable once you hit the Heero vs Zechs stretch.

ZERO / Epyon System feels too magic-button.

I know it’s not literally magic, but it’s treated like a future/decision cheat device in a way that sometimes feels like the writers using it to shortcut character logic. It’s a cool concept that can feel like a narrative “because the system said so” lever.

Quatre’s implied Newtype-ish vibes go nowhere.

The show hints at something, doesn’t develop it, and then just moves on. I wanted it to matter, even a little. It doesn’t. Not really.

Standout characters

Dorothy: incredible. A perfect foil to Relena. She’s funny, she’s cruel, she’s kind of right in the worst way, and her grief makes her understandable even when she’s being awful. Also, her and Relena’s dynamic? Yim yum. It was also so fun they put her in an actual physical battle with Quatre, and someone who WILL challenge her 'war is awesome' point of view.

Relena: probably the standout of the series. I just wish she got to do more consistently after her strongest stretch.

Noin: I loved her, which is why her “back to Zechs” trajectory left me conflicted. I get it, I get the logic, but emotionally it felt like a step back after how much she grew.

Lady Une: amazing, and early Une is genuinely hilarious in how brutal she is. The “smile more” → split-in-two arc is genuinely sad. She probably should’ve died when she got shot, but then she comes back to miraculously save Treize, and it’s hard not to side-eye the plot armor.

Trowa: unbelievably cool. Heavyarms is my second favourite unit. But I’m torn. The amnesia arc is both sad and… not good, and I kind of feel like he should’ve died when Quatre “killed him” to give the story more weight. Same problem as Une, honestly.

Catherine Bloom: that’s my wife.

Heero: the show can be wishy-washy with him, but I can see the story it’s aiming for. A boy-soldier who doesn’t know how to feel, slowly learning how to be human. By the end, when he tells Relena he’ll protect her with a smile on his face, it genuinely got me. I don’t even ship straight ships often, but Heero/Relena warmed my heart.

Duo: best boy. He brings much-needed grounding, which makes him reacting to the insanity even funnier. And Deathscythe Hell is my number one forever.

Final thoughts

Gundam Wing is messy, rushed, poetic to a fault, and sometimes so contrived it loops back around to being funny, but it also has a ton of charm, striking visuals, and characters I ended up caring about. I can’t pretend it’s tightly written, but I had fun and I’m glad I watched it.

Now I just need to see if Endless Waltz!