![]() ![]() The characters are on-model and lovingly detailed, even if their expressions are far from the most vivid. Ogasawara has mostly worked on shonen manga and light novel illustrations, but he does a amazingly good job at capturing the look of Gundam Wing. In his attempts to fix the show's problems, the writer somehow made new ones and made some pre-existing ones worse. The show had this problem too, but since this manga condenses these events somewhat, the problem is amplified. ![]() There's simply too many stories going on all at once to keep completely straight and he doesn't so much weave them together as he does shift jarringly from one to the next with little rhyme or reason. Then on top of juggling all of those stories, he has to include the simultaneous plot threads for ace OZ pilot Zechs Marquise, OZ leader Treize Kushrinada and some of the other scientists. ![]() This comes at the expense of the other main characters, as Relena's story is largely relegated to an awkward flashback and the other boys make little more than cameos. By shifting Heero out of that role, he becomes something of a man of mystery, which gives Duo something to focus on in this early part of the story. Duo fits the role so much better than Heero ever did, thanks to his gregarious nature, hot temper, and natural curiosity. There is one change that does work for the better: his choice of protagonist. Depending on how well you remember the show and what you think of those spinoffs, these additions will be baffling at best and infuriating at worst. He also apparently incorporates details from Frozen Teardrop, a sequel novel series written by Sumizawa that was published at the same time, another work with a dubious relation to canon. How can it make it more complicated? Why, by including bits and pieces of both Endless Waltz and some of the spinoffs! It seems I was getting ahead of myself when I said that Episode Zero was completely non-canonical, as Sumizawa shows us brief glimpses of Duo's, Heero's and Relena's backstories from that manga. If anything, he only complicates it more. Surely if anyone could take the overstuffed and needlessly convoluted plot of Gundam Wing and revamp it for a modern audience, it would be the original series composer, right? Sadly, not even he can completely make sense of it. As we follow the charismatic pilot Duo Maxwell, he learns that not only is he not the only Gundam pilot on earth but that their mission will force them to confront some of OZ's most skilled and dangerous pilots. To save themselves and fight back against the Alliance, a group of scientists send down five young pilots in powerful mobile suits to strike fear into the forces of OZ. In the year After Colony 195, the United Earth Sphere Alliance is at war with the space colonies orbiting Earth. ![]()
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