Watching any anime?

[NotMiki]

Rewatching Gundam Wing. ah, so good!  Released concurrently with Eva, it was, in some ways, the last hurrah of the strong male lead.    Heero is everything Shinji and his wussified spawn (see also: Gundam SEED) aren't: manly, determined, and stioc.  Sure, he's depressed, but he doesn't waste time whining about it.  Bonus: though women are always unaccountaby attracted to male leads, Heero is at least the kind of guy women are ALWAYS unaccountably attracted to.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

It's kinda ironic considering all the yaoi.

[Hunter Sopko]

Rewatching Gundam Wing. ah, so good!  Released concurrently with Eva, it was, in some ways, the last hurrah of the strong male lead.    Heero is everything Shinji and his wussified spawn (see also: Gundam SEED) aren't: manly, determined, and stioc.  Sure, he's depressed, but he doesn't waste time whining about it.  Bonus: though women are always unaccountaby attracted to male leads, Heero is at least the kind of guy women are ALWAYS unaccountably attracted to.

Uh. I hope you mean "the last hurrah of the strong male lead in Gundam.", because a lot of characters would like to have a word with you otherwise.

[Ultradude]

Not many strong male leads in the real robot genre in general, from what I've seen, since then.

This guy wasn't so bad though, from what I remember.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Heero is a violent, asshole punk who made Gundam Wing unwatchable to me. Gah, hate that style of anime lead. And sadly, no, GW was not the last anime to make use of one.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Heero is hardly the only thing that makes Gundam Wing fail, truth be told. Between Relena being vapid, Duo being Otter and Wufei being... well... Wufei, we've got a real short bus darkness assembly going in that thing. Dear god, GW cast for the lose.

[Dark Holy Elf]

I've forgotten the rest, but I remember Relena failing. God.

[Cmdr_King]

I thought the best way to go about Gundam Wing was to skip straight to Endless Waltz and go "oooohh, Wing Zero Custom is preeeetttyyyy~ ^.^"

[Hunter Sopko]

First time I've really seen Duo hate. Not surprised on the Heero, Relena and Wufei fronts though. I never did really like Quatre though, and Heero and Relena were at least passable to me. Wufei was generally fine until his WTF behavior in the movie.

The series did have some decent characters though. Noin foremost among them. Gotta respect someone who can last through the entire show (and the movie) in only a Taurus. Sally Po was also kind of cool, if a non-entity beyond the beginning.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

I thought the best way to go about Gundam Wing was to skip straight to Endless Waltz and go "oooohh, Wing Zero Custom is preeeetttyyyy~ ^.^"

You can apply that to any mech in the entirety of the series, in fairness. Zero Custom is just the one to which the clause applies the most.

[Hunter Sopko]

Oh. As a side note, Gundam Wing was the first anime to really suffer the "In the Japanese version..." syndrome. The stuff they said about Sailor Moon and DBZ at the time were, in general, true. However, Gundam Wing had amazing rumors like "Quatre and Trowa get married in the middle of the Japanese version!"

I really wish I was making this up.

Of course, nowadays people are more informed before things come over, but it wasn't the case back then.

[Niu]

I am the person who was hoping "Quatre and Trowa get married in the middle of the Japanese version!" is true despite knowing it is flase before hand.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

I am the person who was hoping "Quatre and Trowa get married in the middle of the Japanese version!" is true despite knowing it is flase before hand.

Saw that coming.

[Xeroma]

I'll give GW the credit of making giant robots popular in America after a hiatus, but the series itself is honestly rather crappy. The plot's rather not there, the cast is poorly written and annoying overall, and.... uh, I guess it has good mech designs, but that's not enough to hold up a series about giant robots.

[Hunter Sopko]

Naruto Shippuden movie- Meh. The usual shounen movie stuff. Worth it though for the ending, in which Naruto essentially agrees to father the priestess' child. Shame it's not canon, as she's actually a better match for him than any of the females in the series.

Though, I suppose that could be said of a lot of females that appear in shounen movie adaptations ::Looks at the Bleach movie::

EDIT: Oh. Also gets points for Love-Love Rasengan. G-Gundam's memory lives on...

[Ultradude]

Ending sounds worth it. Will watch. Fists burning red with anger and such, G Gundam might have been the best Gundam series.

I plan on borrowing either Hellsing Ultimate, Chobits, or Girls Bravo from my friend sometime soon. All totally different types of shows, so I'm probably just going to pick based on what genre I'm in the mood for, unless I get any emphatic suggestions.

[NotMiki]

Uh. I hope you mean "the last hurrah of the strong male lead in Gundam.", because a lot of characters would like to have a word with you otherwise.

Gundam X and 08th MS team both have decent leads, but I take your point.

I guess I'm just getting nostalgic.  I can see why the DL core hates the characters, because they don't stand up at all to overanalysis; frankly, they're not just immature but nonsensical as well.  What I enjoy the pacing and writ large-ness of GW.  Not much introspection from the mains, and what is there is informative (mostly Zechs' frame of mind).  As for pacing, things just take as long as they take, for instance Wu Fei's duel with Treize, which has long-lasting consequences but lasts about 30 seconds.  As for why I like GW, it reminds me of other stories where characters do things for sweeping reasons of emotion and duty that are tenuous when you take the characters as rational actors, like the Odyssey and Aeneid.

By the way, Kev, which main characters do you have in mind when you say that? (I mean, obviously, you're right, there are plenty.)  I hope you're not referring to Bleach or Naruto.

P.S. whatever you all think of Heero and Relena, I hope none of you will deny that they deserve each other.

[Hunter Sopko]

Scryed's main, for one. Onizuka from GTO. Sousuke from Full Metal Panic (well, you could argue he's a parody of Heero), Dai-Guard's main, Kekkaishi's main, Last Exile's main... fuck, even Now & Then, Here & There's Shu mans up and he's subjected to possibly the worst conditions out of all of these characters. This is just what I can think of offhand by looking at my collection too.

EDIT: I will admit I like GW and it has more going for it than people like to admit, but I think you're also looking a bit too deeply into it.

[Niu]

Crown Vol.4- I.....I lack words.... This just gets even MORE confusing as it now suddenly got tied into Dream Gold now! Wonderful! Consider Dream Gold was a huge mass in itself. So Konosuke actually borrowed Gray Nine's power? And he is the path split whether Gold Heart could occur or not ten years after Dream Gold?? this is beyond bizzare. And god... Anti System D Machine Rider? They are tossing this out already before explaining whether the current Ark is the original system D or not....
Pretty sure Shingo is the master core of System D. And consider Kentarou is the Last Boss, the logical sense would be Kentarou taking over System D and Konosuke blows him up. But from the look of the novel text, Konosuke is not doing that.... gah, don't tell me this is the making fo a excuse to let Gray Nine appear as Main Character (True) again, especially consider Kamen is the potential evil master mind here. And if Kamen is involved, this would mean Divine Revolution Coalition would be involved as well..... But if take the assumption that Kantarou is the same person as Dr. Kentarou Sigma... the Kentarou=Last Boss might be a total reader's trap like how was Key History back in Dream Gold....
Gah, brain melting.....

[hinode]

I am the person who was hoping "Quatre and Trowa get married in the middle of the Japanese version!" is true despite knowing it is flase before hand.

My favorite was the "Trowa was based on raped Samurai housewives!" rumors, which were so prevelant and bitter that they had entire websites set up to debunking them.

Man, Gundam Wing had the greatest yaoi fanbase ever.

[Hunter Sopko]

I am the person who was hoping "Quatre and Trowa get married in the middle of the Japanese version!" is true despite knowing it is flase before hand.

My favorite was the "Trowa was based on raped Samurai housewives!" rumors, which were so prevelant and bitter that they had entire websites set up to debunking them.

I can't even begin to think of how that's supposed to make sense.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Which is what makes the hoax so beautiful.

[Ultradude]

Scryed's main, for one. Onizuka from GTO. Sousuke from Full Metal Panic (well, you could argue he's a parody of Heero), Dai-Guard's main, Kekkaishi's main, Last Exile's main... fuck, even Now & Then, Here & There's Shu mans up and he's subjected to possibly the worst conditions out of all of these characters. This is just what I can think of offhand by looking at my collection too.

EDIT: I will admit I like GW and it has more going for it than people like to admit, but I think you're also looking a bit too deeply into it.

Kazuma is so hotblooded, he is his own super robot. S-Cry-Ed (the anime, never read the manga) was so much irrational RAWRFIGHTSMASH fun. Plus, it had a pink afro dude, which is pretty amazing. I also really liked Last Exile. In fact, there's a Lavi plushy hanging from my bedpost at this very moment *no comment*.

I'm in a Gundam Wing fan guild on Gaiaonline where there are actually more than a few smart GW fans. Of course, this leads to a little over analysis of the characters, though I guess reading all the canon manga has something to do with that. Apparently, you get quite a bit of character info from them.

So, uh, I kinda like GW. Heero x Relena forever and so on.

[NotMiki]

EDIT: I will admit I like GW and it has more going for it than people like to admit, but I think you're also looking a bit too deeply into it.

I don't intend to overanalyze it, but I like it, and things I like I want to figure out why I like.  Think the opening credits have something to do with it.  Opening credits can really make or break a show for me.

[Soulgain]

I thought the best way to go about Gundam Wing was to skip straight to Endless Waltz and go "oooohh, Wing Zero Custom is preeeetttyyyy~ ^.^"

In Canada they actually did that, they showed Endless Waltz before airing the show.  Needless to say I had no clue what was going on, but it definitely got me interested for when the series actually started.