Gundam Wing: Glossary of Miscellany and
Responses to Email Questions
This is a catch-all page for responses to email questions and expansions on
other glossary listings. Most of the information for this glossary page
was taken directly from official sources and observation of the series, but some
comes from other resources as well. Since some of our email comes from gamers
and writers with specific questions about canon-based references, we've included
some unusual listings below. As before, if you find an entry that you believe
has an error in it, please write to us (EPYON@ABOUTGUNDAMWING.COM)
with the correction and your sources, and we will edit the information.
| Animals | Horses, birds and dogs, are all shown on earth. Dogs as well as
the circus animals are shown living on the colonies.
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| Canon | As versus "fanon" (or fan-derived material) or as a subset (Series and EW) or (Series and EW and Episode Zero), few people in the general fandom consider the manga material as a source of canon information since the writers were not the same as those of the television series and the manga are generally considered more in the way of fan works. Last Outpost was publicly stated by the development team as produced in an attempt to expand the lucrative market of the Gundam model kits. The possible exception to this rule is the Episode Zero manga, as opinion differs as to whether it should be considered canon material or not, as portions of it are included in Endless Waltz, and the original intention was to use the material in the series in place of the two re-cap episodes. (See the author's notes in the Episode Zero section.) GundamOffical.com publicly states that they consider all animated material produced for the series to fall within the canon environment, and all sidestory material to fall outside of canon. Your mileage may vary. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Catherine's Soup | Catherine's soup pot has become sort of the running food joke of
the series. Whenever Catherine offers food, it usually seems to take the
form of a nourishing soup or stew. She does this twice at the beginning of
the series, in episodes 9 and 12. After that, we don't see much of the
behind-the-scenes circus life, but she is shown carrying other ingredients
when she finds Trowa later in the series, so it is probably safe to assume
that she can cook more than two stew varieties.
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| Chess | Seems to be popular in the After Colony world.
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| Duo's Lockpicks | A fandom creation that seems to have no basis in either the
series material or Endless Waltz. Apparently derived from the scene in
Endless Waltz where Duo removes a small explosive device that he had
secreted in his hair that he uses to explode the lock on his cell door.
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| Gundam Franchise |
Additional
Notes on Gundam from From
GundamOfficial.com The original Mobile Suit Gundam was an animated science-fiction series which debuted on Japanese television in 1979. Its popularity led to a series of sequels, including nine television series, four video series, ten movies, and countless novels, comics, and original video game adventures which together comprise the epic Gundam saga. Among Japanese fans, the original TV series and its three-part movie adaptation are now fondly referred to as "First Gundam." The name Gundam
also applies to the mobile suit RX-78 Gundam, the humanoid fighting
vehicle which starred in the original TV series. This heroic giant robot,
with its distinctive blue-and-white color scheme and V-shaped antennas,
has been reincarnated in almost every one of the Gundam saga's sequels and
spinoffs. Often, the title of a Gundam story and the name of the featured
Gundam mobile suit are similar or identical, which makes it a little
easier to recall which mobile suit stars in which story. The original Gundam series was produced in 1979 by Japan's Sunrise, Inc. animation studio, then known as Nippon Sunrise. In 1994 Sunrise officially became part of Bandai Co., whose Bandai Entertainment division is now releasing Gundam in North America. The original creators of Gundam were director Yoshiyuki Tomino and the mysterious "Hajime Yatate" (a pen name reflecting the collective contributions of the Sunrise staff). Character designer Yoshikazu Yasuhiko and mechanical designer Kunio Okawara also played a large role in the original series's success, and their participation in subsequent sequels is always cause for celebration among longtime fans. The first few Gundam sequels were all written and directed by Tomino, but in the saga's second decade, Sunrise began inviting other creators to contribute their artistic visions to the Gundam saga. Among the Japanese animation legends who've contributed to the Gundam ethos are top directors like Yasuhiro Imagawa (Giant Robo), Masashi Ikeda (Ronin Warriors), and Takeyuki Kanda (Round Vernian Vifam); writers Ryosuke Takahashi (Armored Trooper Votoms) and Hiroyuki Yamaga (Wings of Honneamise); and character designers such as Haruhiko Mikimoto (Macross), Toshihiro Kawamoto (Cowboy Bebop), Shuko Murase (Gasaraki), and Capcom's Akira Yasuda. The roster of Gundam mechanical designers reads like a virtual who's who of the industry. Past and present mobile suit creators include Shoji Kawamori (Macross, Vision of Escaflowne), Hajime Katoki (Virtual On), Kimitoshi Yamane (Vision of Escaflowne, Cowboy Bebop), Yutaka Izubuchi (Mobile Police Patlabor), Makoto Kobayashi (Giant Robo), Mika Akitaka (Martian Successor Nadesico), Mamoru Nagano (Five Star Stories), and even Syd Mead (Blade Runner, Aliens).
At present, six Gundam worlds have been featured in the animated stories, which we can classify according to the calendar systems they use. In addition to the original Universal Century, we have G Gundam's Future Century and the After Colony setting used in Gundam Wing and Endless Waltz. Gundam X uses the After War calendar, while Gundam Seed, the latest Gundam show, introduces a new world based on the Cosmic Era calendars. The sixth of these worlds is the distant future of Turn A Gundam, a recent sequel which complicates the picture by suggesting that all these Gundam worlds are just different eras in a future history which spans thousands of years. But for all practical purposes, we can regard these worlds as parallel universes, whose inhabitants know nothing of the events of the other stories - which means the viewer doesn't have to know anything about them either. |
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Heero's Laptop |
While Heero does use computers a great deal in both the
series, and is seen in front of a monitor on a number of occasions, laptop
use is not common in the series material. Most of the computers used in
the series are desktop units. Heero uses these at the schools he attends
while undercover on Earth. The "laptop" is actually a link unit hardwired
to the mobile suit. Heero uses this in a few episodes while he is checking
data on his Gundam. In Endless Waltz, computer use is frequent, and Heero
and Wufei (movie version) are both shown using laptop-like units.
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| Mobile Suit Maintenance | For complex pieces of machinery that operate under the high
stress conditions of space, ocean water depths, and Earth's gravity, the
MS in the series seem to receive surprisingly little on-screen maintenance
time.
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| Numbers | Many of the characters in the Gundam Wing universe have names
and surnames derived from numbers (in a variety of languages).
Heero Yuy:
Presumably the "hee" part is Japanese for "one." The last
name "Yuy" is supposedly the kanji of "Yui", which means only. In any
case, both the first name and the last name have the connotation of "one."
Thus as some put it: The one and only. |
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| Number of Fatalities | Treize mentions during his final conversation with Wufei that he
has been keeping track of the number of soldiers that have died during the
war effort. Wufei: How many people
do you think have died for you?! |
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| Studio Statistics |
The production studio released background
information on each of the key characters of the series, including height,
eye color, ethnic origin, etcetera. I've included them here. The colors
listed by the studio for eye and hair refer to paint colors, and are not
necessarily representative of what might be generally thought.
*Ethnic origin and second set of variances all come from the Gundam Wing Technical Manual or the Sunrise Volume 1 support materials. Initial information taken from a translated version of the references sketches available in Gundam Wing: Characters' Collection 2 and verified with a few other translated sources and GundamOfficial.com. |
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Use of English |
The creators of the show went to extremes to use English as
the predominant written language, with sometimes irreverent results. The
overlay text used for the "medical screen" when Sally is reviewing Heero's
condition in episode 3 is a document explaining TWAIN for Photoshop users.
Other examples of English language usage are Querty keyboards, Mrs.
Noventa's letter to Heero (ep15), countless computer monitor screens and
public signage (including emergency signs and propaganda) are displayed in
English. The only other spoken language in the series, other than
Japanese, is Chinese and a handful of English words. In episode 9, Wufei
thanks Trowa for handing him a cup of coffee using Chinese: "Xie xie." At
the end of the Endless Waltz movie, Wufei and Sally are shown using a
computer monitor that uses kanji in its display language. Other languages
do show up in signage and in product usage, so multiple languages do
appear to be in use on the local level, with English as the main
communication language across Earth and the colonies.
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| Voice Talent |
Most of the listing information for this
section was taken directly from official sources, websites, and
observation of the series and support materials. If you find an entry that
you believe has an error in it, please write to us with the correction and
your sources, and we will correct the listing.
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