#Addressing the Troubles

[tinyozlion]

Addressing the Troubles: Part 3 / 3

English Dubs and the Early Years of Figuring Out Anime:

Back in the 00’s, the television industry was still figuring out anime. At the time, there was still a general prevailing attitude in North America that cartoons on TV were for children– even the more “mature” cartoons of the 90's like Batman: The Animated Series, Reboot, Gargoyles (actually, the Gargoyles voice acting fuckin' ruled), Beast Wars, etc., as a loose tendency, were the realm of bombastic voices and over-the-top, scenery-chewing performances. And god bless those performances! Where would we be as a nation, as a culture, if not for Mark Hamill’s Skeletor, his Joker? 

But this approach was less suited for dubbing anime. Sure, if you put that kind of sauce on a Sailor Moon villain, or a fun little DBZ alien guy, it works out okay! But it falls apart when you get to the serious stuff, and even the average 90’s goofball anime had *serious stuff*. When those moments weren’t given the requisite amount of sobriety, the dub very quickly became a disservice to the spirit of the original, and even young audiences could tell. 

Different studios took different approaches of course, and some of them caught on more quickly than others-- but in a large number of cases, the Japanese voice acting was just guaranteed to be better. They had an industry of professionals that took that job very, very seriously, and for the most part Western shows hadn’t gotten that degree of legitimacy yet.

There's a massive divide between Japanese and English drama-- separated not just by language, but by hundreds of years of theatrical traditions that share no common ancestor. There are whole character archetypes we don't have a direct equivalent for in the West, levels of intonation that don't translate, portrayals of sexuality and gender expression that we had no cultural context for, types of dramatic timing we had no idea what to do with for a couple decades. North American television studios simply didn’t have enough experience with those cultural and theatrical differences to handle the conversion well. There are plenty of famous examples of early dubs trying and failing to find substitutes for Japanese terms, idioms, honorifics, foods (“donut” from “onigiri”, and so forth).

These were the years when the “dub vs. sub” war had any kind substance to it– because kids, you only got to buy whatever language was on the VHS tape that Suncoast or Blockbuster was selling. And if you didn’t show up for the subbed version of an anime, the less likely you were to ever get it. DVD’s, with their selectable audio options and subtitle tracks, were still on the horizon. 

This is also why fan-subs started showing up, because the kids were smart and wanted a better understanding of their favorite shows; they were fed up with these butchered attempts at localization. “All according to *keikaku… *Keikaku means: Plan” is hilarious in retrospect, but it was proof that you could show new words and concepts to English-speaking audiences, and they would learn and appreciate them rather than changing the channel. Fans were dedicated enough to the source material that they were doing this shit themselves– literally making blurry VHS copies with their dubs and distributing them like mix-tapes. It created an underground fan culture of anime in the USA that became a substantive market for less tampered-with Japanese media, and I don’t know what the media landscape would look like today if that hadn’t happened.

--Voice actors work with what they're given; sometimes, that’s limited to just what’s in the script of the day, and in the early years of American localization, it would probably NOT have included any background from an untranslated manga, or the original director’s notes, or from cultural inference that was lost on unfamiliar Western listeners at the time.  So they’d be left to their own devices when it came to choosing character voice and intonation and what to do with pauses and interjections, and they’d be doing it without the benefit of the original cultural framework or context from the adapted source material. Then of course, there is the ubiquitous challenge of ADR: matching syllables to lip-flaps and the timing of a given scene, which I can only imagine has improved with more modern software.

All this lead to some memorably wild and incongruous readings that today strain belief, are unintentionally humorous, or in worst cases, ruin a scene. 

--This is the landscape we find ourselves in with early dubs. One's expectations must be modified to suit the medium and the times. It's all part of the challenge, the experience, the charm, the je-ne-sais-que of early dubs. It is the spice of life. Sometimes we all need a weird little background guy with a stupid voice to say the dumbest shit you ever heard. I find joy in this.

The English localization team on Gundam Wing was working with a very limited crew; almost everyone pulled double duty, and most “additional voices" are just the main actors wearing different hats. This led to some real big swings with the one-off character voices– because there are only so many ways to shout “IT’S A GUNDAM!”, and sometimes you gotta put some extra mustard on OZ Grunt #47 so you can tell him apart from OZ Grunt #46.

They were trying their very hardest to make it seem like there were more than twelve people inhabiting the universe, and the results… were mixed. But the effort was admirable.

My Humble Defense of the English Dub:

Okay so listen-- I’m not gonna force anyone to listen to the English dub. Your mileage and tolerance for all of the dislocated strangeness and over-the-topness mentioned above may vary. And obviously, the original Japanese audio has artistic authenticity and charisma of its own.

-- SO ALL I’M GONNA SAY IS: if you tap out early, you’re gonna miss out on some of the rawest, coolest, emotionally pitch-perfect deliveries of all time.

Brian Drummond is absolutely heart-stopping as Zechs; it’s one of my favorite VA performances of all time. Enuka Okuma is by turns a chilling, ferocious, and sympathetic Lady Une. Mark Hildreth’s Heero Yuy conceals a depth of nuance and attention to detail beneath his superficial monotone. Kirby Morrow’s Trowa is a well of quiet empathy, his stoicism sometimes the vehicle for a tinder-dry sense of humor. Lisa Ann Beley as Relena runs the full dramatic range between naivety, to heartbreak, to conviction. Saffron Henderson’s Noin has a smoky sensuality that overlays her formidable competence, and moments of incredibly touching vulnerability. Michael Dobson’s cold eloquence as Duke Dremail brings the amount of aristocratic dignity and arrogance needed to lend legitimacy to the Romefeller Foundation and its terrifying power. And of course, Scott McNeil as Duo is utterly indispensable, a bright, bouncing point of contrast in a grim troupe, with the deftness of touch to deliver glimpses into the nihilism, the weary kindness, that his up-beat attitude belies. 

I could continue to embarrass myself and go on this way about the whole cast. I love the English dub very much-- I also, truly, deeply, understand that it is wacky as hell. But I still believe it's worth grinning and bearing the NPCs and occasional dud lines to get to the good stuff. And sometimes, honestly, the good stuff IS the wacky stuff.

 Side note: a fun game I like to play is Spot That Voice Actor! Take a drink every time you identify one of the main cast in a secret, secondary role! Take a drink every time you catch one of them putting some extra English on an unnamed character who dies immediately after they speak! Expire from alcohol poisoning by episode 20! Example: Did you know that Brian Drummond voiced both Zechs AND Doctor G? Now you know! And you can't unknow it! Ha ha! I've done this to you!

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

why aren't there more mysteries that take place in nursing homes & retirement communities. i want to watch a group of deranged retirees-cum-amateur-detectives combine their powers of:

decades of life experience

boredom-fueled busybody shamelessness

access to the most gossipy next-door-neighbors in existence

"I am too old to be arrested and/or give a shit" attitude

and solve crimes. this should be an enormous subgenre.

[zylphiacrowley]

Code Blood pt.2

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[tojosuggestionbox]

[dramatic-dolphin]

Oh man, I am waaay on the other side of the "pronounce names correctly" debate. Not because I don't think you should, in general, attempt to pronounce names correctly, I do. But I'm trying to get people to stop trying to pronounce my name correctly.

I happen to have a name that's (for foreigners) Hungarian on Hard Mode. I'm talking umlauts, digraphs with y, just all the good phonemes that don't exist in most other languages. I've spent a lot of time abroad with people from various parts of the world, and I can tell you from hard empirical data: nobody can say it. And I'm cool with it! I just tell them the English equivalent and it's fine.

Mostly. Some people, especially those who are trying to be culturally sensitive, have a Really Hard Time™️ accepting that a) they are not getting it right b) continue to not get it right despite asking me to demonstrate over and over. And I appreciated it at first! How thoughtful, this attempt to engage with my culture. Cue several months of unsuccessful attempts, at the end of which they were (mostly jokingly) accusing me of faking it. Almost verbatim: "if we recorded you saying your own name and played it back to you, you would say it's incorrect".

(I get it though, the pop sci explanation that I've never bothered to fact check is that as you grow up, you're more attuned to characteristic frequencies of your mother tongue, so when another language comes along with different frequencies, you are quite literally incapable of distinguishing them. So their attempts may sound the same to them, but it sure doesn't to me. I tell them I have this with "bet" and "bat", and that sometimes puts an end to it.)

So yeah, attempt to pronounce everyone's name correctly. Unless they have asked you multiple times not to.

YES YES YES. sometimes you don't want to hear your name butchered over and over and again. like it can be funny when the entertainment is the hungarian gyöngyi and the czech přemysl trying to pronounce each other's name (actual thing that happened at an event my mom was at, everyone thought it was hilarious), but like. at some point it gets TIRING.

god do i hate those people who are like "well at the introduction i wouldn't stop trying until i could pronounce their name correctly!!" newsflash you were not pronouncing it correctly unless you also did a deepdive into the phonology of the language right there. what actually happened was that scene went on for so long and got so awkward they said "haha yeah that's correct!" to stop you from trying again. PLEASE stop. it is very awkward.

the pop sci explanation is sorrrrt of right, you're not really ever incapable of distinguishing phonemes, or phonologists would be out of a job! but your brain does become attuned to the subtleties that are important in your language and discards other phoneme differences that aren't used in your language because who even needs that. it's possible to learn to speak a language like a native and understand all the subtle differences so deeply that they come as instinct. it just takes a LOT of work.

(but- learning your native language took even more work. you're at an 8yr old's level of umderstanding in the language you're learning? well, how long do you think it took the 8yr old?)

also, relatedly, if someone - usually someone who's chinese in my experience - tells you their name, and then adds "but you can call me [english name/name in another language]!" it tends to be because they LIKE being called that name and possibly even prefer it to you butchering their name. they understand that you will butcher their name, because the language - which may or may not be chinese - is notoriously hard for outsiders.

[passingthetime]

Just a thing I'm curious about, would appreciate reblogs for sample size!

[codenamesazanka]

Shigaraki/Tenko wanting to destroy the false sense of peace All Might and Heroes created

.⬇️.

Shigaraki/Tenko wanting to destroy everything that lead to the existence of that house, which he conceptualizes as the embodiment of rejection and injustice in the world. Be a Hero for the Villains.

.⬇️.

AFO basically literally created that house

.⬇️.

Shigaraki/Tenko helps defeat AFO

.⬇️.

Deku telling him 'you already destroyed it' is... apparently Shigaraki/Tenko having finally gotten rid of the true cause of (his) rejection and injustice? main antagonist's big problem that represents an overarching major issue of the story/in-universe society... solved? (main antagonist's big problem that represents an overarching major issue of the story/in-universe society not actually being the problem he thought it was but now also solved?)

.⬇️.

No longer a need for there to be a Hero for the Villains, Shigaraki/Tenko dies.

.⬇️.

Heroes not to be blamed in the first place. also fuck everyone else and all other 'actual' outcasts I guess.

[furubaycrossing]

the island of milky by @peko--peko ☁️🎐🌾🌸

da-9016-1954-0173

[theabyssalorange]

Hey, EarthSpark? Hey, hello, how you doing? Hey, wasn't keeping all the Decepticons imprisoned presented as a bad thing the villains did in season 1? And in season 3 the good guys kept all the Decepticons in the prison dome?? Where are you going!? You come back here right now!!

[herrscherofmagic]

i've spent nearly 47 hours over the last ten days drawing nothing but kiana (and hov)

yeah.

anyways, since I've had about enough of drawing Kiana for the rest of my life (/hj) I'm gonna put a pause on this project; but I'll turn it from a sprint into a marathon and try and work on it occasionally instead of all at once

I want to draw other things again x-x

Close-ups of the drawings below, as well as the reference image set, and some other misc. thoughts

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Portraits drawn from imagination

Started the process by trying to draw Kiana's head from imagination; then after each drawing I'd pause, look at some references, see what mistakes I made, then put away the references and drew from imagination (and referring to previous drawings) again. I also took breaks at two points to practice drawing eyes & hair before going back to drawing Kiana

For the last 4 portraits, I'd draw a head from imagination as a warm-up to a drawing session, and then do another head much later on instead of doing it immediately. Around halfway through this "phase" I started the other phases at random points, and finished this portion of the process in the first ~10-15 hours of drawing time. The rest of the time was split across the other exercises

Also I gave her an angry expression because I felt it was the easiest for me to do from memory since I've drawn HoV more than just "Kiana" herself. I also used a boring level 3/4 view without much perspective because it forced me to really make sure I was doing everything accurately and with care.

Basically my thinking was that if I could make a boring level 3/4 portrait look good enough, then I'd have no trouble getting it to look good in other perspectives. That seemed to be true when I got to the stage where I was doing expression practice and had to deal with more head tilt and other perspectives, lol

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Studies of still images from screenshots of gameplay, character art, and stills from animated shorts

Did rough sketches first, then drew with solid color over the sketches on a separate layer. not much else to say here, lol

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Full-bodies

Started with an anatomy model loosely based on the proportions of Kiana's in-game model, and then two attempts at doing full-body drawings from imagination before realizing that it's bloody insane to try and do that much detail from imagination and I have much better things to do with my life than that x-x

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Color studies

yaaaay color! yippee!

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Action sketches/"gesture" drawings

"Gesture" is in quotes because I was way too slow with these for it to really count as proper gesture drawing, imo. But the intention was to start with gesture, and I got closer to that as I went on.

It's way too tempting to start adding detail so I had to metaphysically slap myself with a frying pan to keep myself from getting derailed by that >.>

To get references for this, I did screen recording of gameplay on the PC with OBS studios, then used DaVinci Resolve to play back the recordings.

On PC, when using the mouse controls you can hold the camera fairly still when doing an attack sequence, making it awesome for getting unique angles. For instance, when I recorded Void Drifter's attacks, I was able to get at least 4 different PoVs of her attacks: from the left, the right, behind & above, and in front & below.

Unfortunately, though, it was a bit of a hassle to get good recordings because I had to go into an actual combat stage to record it instead of being able to use an empty testing stage.

With DaVinci Resolve I could "split" clips to make cuts in the timeline that let me easily mark the spots where different attack sequences started, and I could also easily play it in .5x speed to help me figure out how the animations were going from one set of frames to another.

Plus if you close the program after saving, when you open it up again it remembers which frame you were last on and takes you straight there, making it easy to continue from one day to another.

I used White Comet, Herrscher of the Void, and Void Drifter attack animations here, but I also did recordings of Knight Moonbeam and Herrscher of Flamescion, and I might give those a try someday.

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Facial expressions practice

Started with the set of rough sketches (first image), then did some expression practice from imagination (second and third images) to try and get used to how the proportions of the face change slightly with movement of the eyebrows/eyelids/jaw, since the shape of the eyes and mouth is especially important when doing stylized faces (like the anime style that HI3rd uses)

Then this morning I started working through the original rough sketches and developing them one-by-one, getting through 8 before I decided to call it quits and wrap up the project for now

So the facial expression practice pretty much the culmination of all my practice. All the practice with proportions, the contours & forms of the hair, monochromatic shading, line quality, shape design, etc.

This was also one of the few times I've ever taken stylized references and actually adapted them to some extent instead of directly copying them!

This is especially noticeable in the hair, where I used a more standard style for the hair, in contrast with the variety of hairstyles and shapes used in the various manga references (i.e. black-and-white Escape from Nagazora Kiana's messy hair vs the neat and solid hair in the colored Gratitude Arc, AE Invasion, and Moon Shadow Kiana)

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Reference images

[jingerpi]

to be clear to my Marxist followers, while I stand by the quotes in my pinned, do not worry I am not out here judging people for if they have enough "love". correct understanding of the world comes first always, they're mostly there to calm the scared liberals and also express that despite not being concerned with bourgeois morality, Marxism is still an ideology that can be filled with love and wonderful things.

Marxism has a bit of a reputation for being the brutal man ideology (anti communism woo) and I want to fight against that a bit, because I do genuinely think it is deeply compatible with compassion and care, as one of it's central truths is the unity of our class in a collective struggle... its just not that compassion and care is what makes Marxism correct, and it's not bad (perhaps even good) if you're a Marxist because it makes scientific sense and you're not all lovecoded hippie posting, that's totally fine (Marxism primarily informs my love, not vice versa)

I'm a bit of a weird one with how I see emotions as informed by social positions and as such I see love as deeply related to solidarity and class struggle, but I do also understand emotions are fickle and may not correctly line up with class interests for everyone for example. I do actually think emotions can be correct or incorrect in a way, like pretty much anything else, it's just quite a bit more complex to understand them than other things, they function as guidelines and it's important to work to have those guidelines be actually helpful and correct, but that's a whole different conversation with a lot of difficulties and nuances, so I'll leave it here for now.

[tinyozlion]

Addressing the Troubles: Part 2 / 3

A Brief History of Gundam in Japan and the USA:

Here is my go-to analogy: The Gundam franchise is to Japan what Star Trek is to America. And Gundam Wing is to the Gundam franchise what Deep Space 9 is to the rest of Star Trek.

Wing was part of an experimental phase in the franchise’s history; when they were intentionally trying to break away from the usual modus operandi. Wing, along with the earlier G Gundam, was intended to boost flagging viewership and sell model kits– like, expressly, openly, just to sell model kits. The plan was to start from a blank slate that would allow new viewers to hop on board, without having to be caught up on the sprawling canon of the UC timeline (Universal Century).

In Japan, audiences were already familiar with the general premise of A Gundam Show; rather than spend any extra time re-establishing details that an already Gundam-savvy audience would know, it skipped right to explaining on how this particular series was departing from the established material. In this case, the noteworthy information was that Wing takes place in the After Colony timeline, and is set wholly in its own universe– we have a different sinister organization with a ‘Z’ in its name, a different mysterious blond man who wears a mask, a different conflict between Earth and Space, and no mention of Newtypes. 

Perhaps the most significant difference between Wing and its predecessor was its tonal shift. In the original Mobile Suit Gundam (if seasoned fans will pardon my oversimplification), the good guys are a relatively wholesome bunch or reluctant civilian heroes coming together to survive, a found-family supporting each other and trying their best to protect the vulnerable. It’s just ONE Gundam, and a crew of overworked, under-supplied misfits. It’s still very much a complex narrative about the horrors of war, but like, there’s a goofy side-kick robot! Kids run around White Base causing shenanigans! The more the UC timeline progresses, the more complicated it gets, but the point is, it’s a different style of complicated. There's a relatable and familiar flavor to its protagonists and their struggles. 

Pan over to Wing, where we are served right away with the spiciest plate of the spiciest feral murder boys, possibly the LEAST reluctant people ever to get in a mecha and cause harm.

The protagonist pilots are remorseless teenagers who were robbed of their adolescence before the show even began, and thrown into the meatgrinder of revolutionary violence– not the most relatable bunch, and not one audience surrogate amongst them (that honor goes to Relena). None of them work together, everyone is morally ambiguous, and they’re all hyper-competent elite soldiers from the get-go. In MS Gundam, Amuro spends his first fight in the Gundam trying to learn to walk and shoot using a manual. 

Some Gundam fans were quite put off by this change, but in the USA, we had no basis for comparison. Gundam Wing was the only Gundam show we had, and furthermore, it was one of the first “serious” “cartoons” introduced to mainstream television. And it blew. Our. Fucking. Minds.

--I cannot stress enough how influential that early 2000’s Toonami programming block was in introducing anime to American audiences, and by extension, American television producers and toy companies. I recommend checking out this IGN article about the history of GW’s debut on Cartoon Network, and the effect it had on the industry at large: How Gundam Wing Found Its Home On Toonami 20 Years Ago Today . For another take on the phenomenon check out: Found in Translation: How Gundam Wing Became A Global Phenomenon (Opinions are those of the article writer, not mine.) 

For those of you who are of that Toonami-block generation who never encountered the original series: MS Gundam is truly gripping and powerful, and if you’re not already a Gundam fan but found that Wing tickled your fancy, the original line up of shows will probably be right up your alley too. Be prepared for a very different overall experience from Wing though– for one thing, you may be surprised to discover that the original series, with its earlier animation style and dated anime tropes, is absolutely fucking brutal.

Fundamentally, the original Gundam is a series that is steeped to its core in a very somber, distinctly post-war Japanese melancholy that Wing, for all its lofty philosophizing, lacks. I don’t mean to make that a criticism of Wing– it had a much, much shorter run to make its point, and it was intentionally trying to do something different from its parent series.

Gundam Wing may at one point had a reputation for being Gundam’s dark, broody, edgy cousin, but Wing is also as chaste as a Victorian romance novel, and obscures most of its violence in clean, bloodless explosions. In the first episode of MS Gundam you will be treated to first-hand mass civilian death. In the movie and at various points of the shows there are scenes deliberately and uncomfortably reminiscent of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In Zeta Gundam, you'll get to explore a wide selection of Horrible Ways To Die In Space that I suspect would have the same effect on a child as accidentally watching Watership Down (1978) thinking it was a Disney movie. (That's right: It makes you a more interesting person with good taste!) There's also like, nudity. And adults, with messy, adult relationship problems.

The U.C. timeline is just a lot more, I want to say, earthy as a rule. The characters are normal people and they have a wide range of interests and relationships to each other. Even when it’s reaching those philosophical high-notes, the focus is closer to the ground level; you see the day to day struggles of the crew, of civilians, of couples, you see their private lives, watch them evolve over the course of many years, how they fall in love, eat burgers, hook up, make friends, and make bad decisions. It’s a rich, diverse world filled with believable, complex people; the world building has more time to fill out, with its roots firmly in the soil of classic science fiction writing and space exploration; and it does what it sets out to do, which is deliver a gut-punch of an anti-war story.

If you take anything away from this, it’s that developing a tolerance for older mediums and long-term relationships with particular stories will give you access to some of the most rewarding experiences possible. And that’s true of many things, but especially of stories that have had lasting cultural impact and serve as time capsules for the struggles of their era. It’s true of The Iliad, it’s true of Lord of the Rings, it’s true of Akira, it’s true of Gundam. 

“Just Make Us Five Gundams” – Wing’s Famously Troubled Production & Why You Should Read Episode Zero

Gundam Wing was created flying by the seat of its pants from start to finish. 

Hideyuki Tomioka, executive producer on Wing, was still early in his career when he was cut loose on a new Gundam series with minimal oversight.

“Just make us a show with FIVE new Gundams”, Bandai said. “It’ll sell model kits!”, they said. “It’ll be fun!”, they said. And they laughed, and laughed. 

But Tomioka agreed, and set out to assemble his creative team– notably, Masashi Ikeda (series director), Katsuyuki Sumisawa (series composition / head scriptwriter), and Shuko Murase (character designer). Many of his chosen production crew had never worked on a Gundam show before, but everyone knew their stuff, and had been selected for their outstanding work or for showing promise in their respective fields. 

--Please, pour one out for them now.

The production schedule for Wing was apparently one of the roughest in Sunrise’s history. In a 2017 interview, producer Tomioka explains: “With Wing, we delivered the episodes to the TV network a week early. All of them. I was told by the producers at the network that there would be hell to pay if this next Gundam wasn’t delivered a week early like clockwork, and I said sure. I also told Mr. Ikeda and the company that we would maintain a one-week-before-air delivery schedule, and we delivered every single episode a week before air.” 

Head scriptwriter Sumisawa recalls camping in the Sunrise studio and working all night without sleeping in order to turn in scripts on time (something I vividly recall doing with my senior thesis). 

Despite the entire staff being burnt out from the continuous workflow, the team apparently met every single deadline, and still consider Gundam Wing to be some of their best work. 

However, Wing’s trouble didn’t end with just the frantic schedule.

Significant, under-the-table leadership changes at the studio level made a bad situation worse. Just before the production of Wing, parent company Sunrise had sold the Gundam franchise to Bandai, apparently in secret, leaving their creatives and producers like Tomioka in a lurch. The sudden change in sponsors led to an attitude change that would filter through the company, causing significant friction and splintering within the organization.

In fact, creative control of the series was tossed in the air at multiple levels:

 When series director Masashi Ikeda was hired for Wing, he was coming off a few rocky dismissals / resignations from earlier projects due to his disagreements with sponsors. He was new to Gundam, but was known for being a talented, if contentious, storyboard artist / director. Right away he took Wing in an unexpected direction, apparently derailing the series from its original trajectory after only 10 episodes. Signing off on these provocative decisions may have painted a target on his back, but it certainly made Wing stand out from its predecessors! Perhaps predictably, Ikeda either “abruptly resigned” or was fired from the project after Episode 29, and was substituted by Gundam franchise veteran, Shinji Takamatsu. Takamatsu would ultimately finish directing the remaining half of the series, though he was left uncredited.

Sumisawa too withdrew as a the lead scenario writer. He reports having to cope with curve balls thrown in the script by different writers who hadn’t run their decisions by him first, leaving him to struggle with reworking episodes at the last minute in order to accommodate the unsupervised changes. 

All the crunch and chaos, the impossibly tight schedules, the directorial and creative control changing hands mid-series, led to many of the important plot points and connective tissue that had been slated for reveal at the midpoint of the series being severely truncated, or scrapped entirely.

--And this, friends, is why there are so many instances in the early episodes of Wing where characters make reference to events and concepts that simply never show up in the series– the material got cut for time, and the unexplained anecdotes were left to dangle. 

This includes by far the most unfortunate omission in the series: the pilot backstories. In the postscript of “Gundam Wing: Episode Zero”, the manga prequel released seven years after the series first aired– scriptwriter Sumisawa makes this plea:

“[...] I would like to make a request of those who have read this book. I would like you to watch the entire TV series and Endless Waltz again. By so doing, I think you will be able to fully appreciate the work, Gundam Wing. This series of stories of the past was requested of me by Director Ikeda, and it was supposed to appear in the to the p20the TV series after episode 27. However, it was pigeonholed roduction schedule being the worst ever, and the fact that I withdrew ws scenarist. When I returned to the show, there was no chance to fit in the past, and we had no choice but to table it indefinitely (though we did try in episode 31, The Glass Kingdom). It was able to become a graphic novel through the kindness of the editors at Anime V Magazine and Mr. Kanbe's (artist) cooperation. As one of the co-creators, I am extremely grateful, and this has become a very emotional work.”

In one interview, Sumisawa laments: “Nobody wants to write recap episodes. Episodes 27 and 28 were recap episodes.” Producer Tomioka notes that “Everybody worked some serious miracles for part two. We never would have been able to do part two [of the series] if we hadn’t put in those recap episodes. It really was rough.” 

--This Is why I recommend that people read Episode Zero around the time they get to the mid-series point in the anime, where the backstories were always meant to go. Many, MANY questions and frustrations that I hear from first-time watchers will be cleared up.

It’s a damn good collection of stories, too! As you can see, my own copy is nearing a level of decrepitude that ought to make it Nursery Real at this point. I took it everywhere with me in my school bag as a comfort item.

–A link to the manga can be found in the Bookshelf section!

[lethal-spaceship]

Damn bitches really act as if when they say "zadr bad" under my posts I will immediately recognize the errors of my ways delete all of my art and go directly to the nearest church to confess all of my sins in hopes of starting a new life. Brother I have already went through my anti-zadr phase your attempts at converting me are futile and frankly you anti-zadr people are GIANT fucking assholes. Get a life. Even when I was 15 and had no friends I wasn't as terminally online as some zadr antis are. You and me have block buttons for a reason.

[zylphiacrowley]

Let me face your fears

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[marbleboa]

Out of all the possible options for Sakurai post-Claw I am always absolutely delighted by the comedy in the Smilemart decision. Just like. Imagine you are the manager at this convenience store. Many of your previous hires are older teens or college students just looking to make some money part time. The most severe looking man in a suit walks in for an interview like he took a wrong turn on the way to the corporate office.

He opens his very official looking briefcase retrieve his resume, upon catching a glimpse of the inside you see that was the only thing in there. The resume in question is well laid out design-wise but after a moment you realize there is just a single job listed. When asked he provides a well-spoken response on his focused work ethic and experience in a position of management—however, it’s so vague you still can’t quite figure out what exactly this job was. He apparently never finished middle school. Strange as the whole situation seems to be you give him a shot and even while he never loses that odd intensity of his he quickly ends up being the most hard working employee you’ve ever had.

[dykedvonte]

Preston x Danse is the only companion ship I think would actually work because Preston’s inner turmoil is sort of a loss of faith in himself due to the traumatic experiences he’s faced while Danse is looking for something to have faith in and would find the fact that despite the desire to give up Preston held out so long not just for the honor of the Minutemen but because he had some hope.

It would 100% start off as a lotta unhealthy on Danse’s side as I believe he completely lacks the emotional intelligence (due to a combination of factors) to recognize the he’s feelings as anything but a sort of respect for a superior along with leaning too much into Preston as a substitute for the BoS. Preston may not really have a title but he’s like THE Lieutenant of the Minutemen. Realistically he’s the only companion Danse would probably be comfortable taking instructions from especially for how trusted Preston is by the Sole Survivor and his adherence to military standards despite how unstructured the Minutemen are. It would be him waiting for orders, approval, anything from Preston and he thinks it’s just the desire to have the regiment of the BoS again but he also like when Preston compliments him on being useful or resourceful. He likes the stories of Minuteman glory days and he trades the stories of the BoS that don’t hurt to talk about. He likes the familiarity Preston would provide and he’d be oblivious that it’s not just new found loyalty to the Minutemen.

Yet Preston explains it himself that he’s not a natural leader. He’s not an instructor. He helps manage what the General has put in place and he content on doing that. He relays what needs to be done and does major upkeep but I don’t think he’d know what to do with this guy this literally marches up to him and practically begs for a mission that doesn’t exist. Like the formality and respect is nice but he can tell it’s covering something even if Danse doesn’t.

Danse could go to Sturges for the many repair and upkeep assignments he gives him and has the freedom to go straight to the Castle if he really wants a big mission, but he chooses to come to him everytime. He’s aware enough that Danse only trusts him out of all of the Generals confidantes but it would take a bit for him to understand why. If anything Danse should be strategizing with him as equals seeing as he almost got the Minuteme wiped out and Danse was a Paladin for the Brotherhood with many successes under his belt before Preston even led his first scouting mission. It’s like he sees him as some figure of hope, some one who can come in and add stability. Someone with a fresh outlook who can provide a new perspective for him.

It’s like he sees him like he saw/sees the Sole Survivor but that would be crazy because that would also mean… and then oh, it clicks.

The revelation is both flattering and he doesn’t know what to do with it cause how do you address “I know you respect me but is that the only feeling you have for me?” To the guy who like refuses to rest unless you tell him at ease? He has to reevaluate his whole manner of interaction with Danse cause this is a very slippery slope that he’s sliding down and it’s even more perilous due to Danse’s repressed emotions regarding… everything. There’s an equal chance Danse will try to open up as completely shut down and he’s not just concerned about it cause Sole Survivor cares for him but because he has grown to care for the guy too. It’s not like he doesn’t also enjoy Danse’s company and value as a Minuteman member. He’s not a love at first sight guy but he’s played with the idea, anyone would when you’ve spent nights trading stories, historical facts and beers by the fire in a little home you’ve carved for yourself through literal blood, sweat and tears.

I think it’s one of those cases where it’s agonizingly slow to the actual relationship but neither part are anguished about that. If anything happened to soon Danse would be too dependent and Preston not equipped to handle it. It’s a case where I genuinely think they’d bring out the best in each other cause theyd want to figure out what is best for the other and not just apply what they think is the best. It’s the care that Preston would ask Danse what he wants to do and encourage it and at the same time Danse would be incredulous everytime Preston second guesses himself.

Long story short it’s a good ship to me because it’s just two guys with broken confidences and faith in their roles being each other’s hype man and kissin a little about it.