Beginning to understand why part of the Gundam Wing fandom separates Glory of the Losers and Frozen Teardrop from the anime.
GotL isn’t bad — I’m enjoying it — and there are elements of FT I like. But while GotL roughly follows the original anime, it shakes things up in ways that genuinely alter character narratives and the overall story. I originally thought it was just a “better” version of the old rushed Gundam Wing manga from way back (the one squashed into three volumes), but it’s becoming clear that GotL is its own beast, built to sit alongside FT rather than retell the anime faithfully.
FT, in my opinion, isn’t a true continuation of Gundam Wing or Endless Waltz. If I treat GotL/FT as an alternate universe — kind of like how the Evangelion Rebuild films sit next to the original anime —everything goes down a lot easier. It feels like a retelling with its own priorities, not a replacement for the canon I grew up with.
Someone pointed out that a lot of resentment toward GotL/FT comes from the sense that it’s trying to overwrite the canon many of us loved as kids with a “this is the real canon now” vibe. Honestly, I completely agree. I’m neurodivergent as fuck and turns out I don’t handle big changes to childhood comfort media very well. That’s a huge part of why I’ve struggled with FT — not enough to drop it completely (I love Gundam Wing so much I’d probably sniff the characters’ farts for extra content, I say lovingly but very sarcastically, please don’t take that seriously), but enough that it’s been a weird tug-of-war in my brain.
I’m sure plenty of people enjoy FT as a sequel, and that’s totally valid. But for me, it tweaks things in ways I never imagined the anime would go, and sometimes outright obliterates the characters' personalities — don’t even get me started on Catherine or Hilde.
Gundam Wing honestly didn’t need a sequel after Endless Waltz. It was already a messy bow on a messy anime. Rewatching as an adult, I can see all the flaws, and part of me wishes we’d had fewer robot fights and less confusing political drama in exchange for deeper character exploration. But childhood me didn’t care; eight-year-old, lonely, neurodivergent me just liked the hot characters, the doki-doki feelings said characters gave me, and the robots kicking the shit out of each other. I was a simple child.
Maybe if I’d read GotL and FT back then, I’d accept them more easily. But I didn’t even know they existed until the 30th Anniversary pulled my special interest back into Gundam Wing. The series has always been this cosy little safety blanket I kept tucked away from online fandom, so suddenly learning about a whole different “canon” has created a huge disconnect between what I knew and what I’m now reading.
So yeah — Gundam Wing and GotL/FT start from the same point, but they diverge enough that I’m comfortable treating them as separate paths. That’s how I’m making peace with it.
Not that anyone asked.