nika1882

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Today’s long haired anime guy of the day, per request, is:

Zechs Merquise

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Stuck in the middle

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Pretty accurate really.

Zechs: mistakes were made.

Relena: by you.

Zechs: and people got hurt.

Relena: by you!

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Zechs: Look, Noin, you have to treat a mobile suit like you treat a woman. Noin: Go on. Zechs: Zechs: … no, I sense I’ve made a mistake of some kind.

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I know the mask is a Gundam staple but… that mask

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I definitely said something similar when I first saw his mask break off.

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Gundam Wing- Zechs Merquise/Milliardo Peacecraft

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When Gundam Wing remembers it has a budget (part 4)

Aside from pretty characters we also get some gorgeous backgrounds and lighting as well. I particularly love the shots of Noin and Heavyarms and Sandrock. Heero also cleans up nicely in the last episodes.

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Noin's face at that joke 👇🏿

Eesh.

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Like, everyone in Gundam Wing is a ridiculously pretty anime boy but Zechs under his mask is like ridiculously pretty even by that standard

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Oof that hurts 😭

It's just Colonel Treize's version of a soldier of the month wall ... Right?

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Nobuyoshi Nishimura (others), Gundam Wing, 1995.

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[nika1882]

Zechs Merquise

Real Name: Milliardo Peacecraft

Origin: Mobile Suit Gundam Wing

Timeline: After Colony (A.C.)

Role: Secondary Antagonist

Affiliations: OZ, Sanc Kingdom, White Fang, Preventer

Pilot Of: Tallgeese, Tallgeese III, Tallgeese Flugel, Gundam Epyon

Age: 19 (Wing), 20 (Endless Waltz)

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Born Milliardo Peacecraft and heir to the Sanc Kingdom throne, Milliardo took on the name Zechs Merquise and joined the OZ army after the destruction of his homeland.

A conflicted character at his core, Zechs is full of guilt, pride and self-loathing; despite having a reputation for being an amazing mobile suit pilot, he feels he's betrayed himself, his father and his homeland by going against their ideals of total pacifism. As such, the name Milliardo Peacecraft comes with great shame for him.

Another internal conflict is between chivalry and the professionalism expected from a soldier of his caliber. This drove his motives as he struggled to find the balance between his former identity, and the uncompromised warrior he felt he needed to become.

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HISTORY

Zechs has his beginnings in A.C. 186, where has chosen from Treize Khushrenada's class of soldiers at the Victoria Academy to take part in a test run of the feasibility of mobile suit corps. He earned a flawless victory at the Battle of Mogadishu, which lead the Alliance to use the Specials (AKA OZ) more often.

In A.C. 191, Zechs was sent on a mission to repress a terrorist organization's attack on the Earth Alliance base. Piloting the then-brand-new Aries mobile suit, Zechs fought back the terrorists in record time, and Treize, who witnessed the battle, commented that he "fights like lightning", giving an origin to the "Lightning Count" nickname Zechs would later be known for.

On April 7, A.C. 195, Zechs encountered Heero Yuy and the Wing Gundam for the very first time during the latter's descent to Earth to commence Operation Meteor. Zechs managed to hold the Wing back and plunge it into the Pacific Ocean by latching his own suit on it. The lack of a mobile suit that could stand on par with the Gundams led to him being introduced to the Tallgeese.

Zechs took part in Operation Daybreak, where OZ overthrew the Alliance. Amidst the coup, Zechs would get his revenge by killing the commanding officer who led the fatal attack on the Sanc Kingdom.

Later, Zechs used the Tallgeese for a rematch against the Wing Gundam in Siberia. Their duel was cut short when Lady Une threatened to shoot down the colonies unless the Gundam pilots surrendered, and so Doctor J did. Heero emerged from his cockpit and self-detonated the Wing Gundam in response to the surrender, and Zechs allowed Trowa to recover Heero's body and escape. Afterwards, Zechs took the Wing Gundam's remains and began to secretly rebuild it under OZ's nose.

A couple months later, Zechs offered Heero yet another rematch in Antartica. It was interrupted once again, this time by Zechs' sister Relena, who had found out Zechs' true identity. OZ's search party descended on them and Zechs fought to allow Relena and the Gundam pilots to escape.

The battle marked the end of Zechs' friendship with Treize and his relationship with OZ. He flew away and met Mike Howard, the designer of the Tallgeese. He then went to space and introduced himself as Milliardo Peacecraft, goodwill ambassador to the Sanc Kingdom.

Zechs soon discovered that OZ was planning to destroy the confiscated Wing Gundam Zero, and self-detonated his critically injured Tallgeese to jump into the Wing Zero instead. He then found out that his sister Relena was dissolving the newly resurrected Sanc Kingdom and surrendering herself to the Romefeller Foundation. Zechs immediately rushed back in the Wing Zero and met Heero, piloting the Gundam Epyon. The two fought a fierce battle to a standstill before giving up under the mental strain of their ZERO Systems and then trading Gundams.

He was then approached by a man named Quinze Quarante who offered him to be the new leader of the colonial rebel group White Fang, which Zechs accepted, and he ironically decided to go by Milliardo Peacecraft as White Fang's leader.

Under Zechs' leadership, the White Fang fought OZ back and eventually fired on Earth as a declaration of war to the recently installed World Nation, led by his former friend Treize. He fought the Gundam pilots in battle, but the ship Peacemillion was rammed into White Fang's battleship. Undaunted, Zechs tried to drop the heavily damaged battleships on Earth to cause an endless winter.

He engaged in a final duel with Heero, in which Heero was victorious. In the aftermath of the battle, Zechs was presumed dead.

On December 24, A.C. 196, Zechs returned to earth as a mobile suit pilot for the Preventers, an elite intelligence agency designed to stop aggressive conflicts before they're executed. He was given the codename Wind, and was there during the attempt to overthrow Earth's government by Mariemaia Khushrenada, Treize's pre-adolescent daughter. He fought Mariemaia's army alongside the Gundam pilots, and disappeared at the end of the conflict for Mars, where his sister had begun a terraformation project.

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Personal Opinion: He was a very confusing character on my first watch of Wing, especially when he became leader of White Fang. That being said, Wing as a whole was very confusing so its whatever lol. I think he's one of my favorite Char clones despite it all, his design is really cool (and handsome tbh), and his character really raises Wing's melodrama to a new level and moves the story forward.