[TRANSCRIPT] EPISODE 18: BIG TROUBLE IN SPACE CHINA
[A midi of Just Communication plays and then fades]
Hello and welcome back to Untitled Tallgeese podcast, a podcast where four old friends rewatch and discuss Gundam Wing. I'm Cathy, your host for today and I'm joined as always by Kat, Mallory and Caitlin. This week we start off with Episode 35: The Return of Wufei where, of all the rainy streets, in all the rainy towns, an amnesiac Trowa just happens to bump into Catherine, who is out getting her groceries. She instantly realizes that something is wrong with him. But instead of getting him any professional help, she brings him back to the circus, where he meekly helps her put away her sexy knife-throwing outfits. As the title indicates, this is the episode where the show remembers that Wufei is one of the Gundam pilots and that we haven't heard from him in a while. [laughter] It turns out that he's back in his hometown of Colony L5, which is under the leadership of his clan patriarch Master Long, Master Long gives Wufei a new invigorated definition of justice, which is like just being true to oneself or something, I guess? Just in time for the Romefeller Foundation to attack. Fearing capture, Master Long blows up all of L5, while Wufei watches, making this either the most or second most traumatic Gundam pilot homecoming we've seen in this series. All the explosions draw the attention of Zechs Merquise, who rides in on Wing Zero and the Peacemillion, hoping Wufei will ally with him. But Wufei, as you may expect, tells Zechs he'll only listen if Zechs fights him in a Gundam duel, which is extremely stupid, but okay. They make out like an epic 1v1 in a Gundam fighting game, before the Zero System overwhelms Zechs' pretty boy nerves, and he has to take some smelling salts in the form of Howard yelling at him over the intercom.
New ships, old ships and a partially built battleship are the stars of Episode 36. If there was ever an episode that could have been inducted into the 4x9 nine canon, this would be it. In the last episode, we got a flashback of Quatre, leaving the Sanc Kingdom after bidding a fond farewell to Noin. He needs to find the remains of Sandrock which, remember, walked off after Quatre's ill-fated attempt at pulling a Heero. After faking his own death to distract some Romefeller soldiers, Quatre attempts to cross the desert before collapsing in his very own Lawrence of Arabia LARP session, facedown in the sand. But worry not -- he's right where he needs to be, just in time to jump into a restored Sandrock and rescue the Maguanacs. They have a touching reunion, but alas, a Maguanac's duty is never over. And that's because Duke Dermail is finally ready to take over the Sanc Kingdom. Relena, to Noin's dismay, is insistent on a position of total pacifism. Heero is, of course, no help at all, and Noin is left wishing for Quatre's return. Which he does! Again, just in time to jump in on Sandrock and fight against the overwhelming Romefeller mobile dolls and mobile suits. Even with the added manpower, it's clear that the Sanc Kingdom won't last.
Dorothy, ignoring Relena's order to evacuate, plays frontline war fujoshi, ultimately strengthening Relena's resolve to do what she believes is the only right answer: renounce sovereignty and dissolve the Sanc Kingdom in order to stop the fighting. Where's Heero in all this? Rollerblading on Epyon through the Romefeller mobile suits. And finally, we catch up with Duo and Hilde, who have been sussing out whether Duo should ally with independent rebel forces. Sensing Duo’s frustration with garbage adults who refuse to do anything, Hilde takes them to the only natural place for a date: Trowa's circus, which just happens to be in town. Duo, not realizing that Trowa has progressed to the equivalent of an anime six year old, asks Trowa where the other pilots are. But Catherine indignantly asks him to leave. Good! Maybe we are finally done with the circus!
We will never be done with the circus.
I don't want to be done with a circus.
I am stunned that there is as much circus in the show as there is. [laughs]
Of all the things that I thought my memory had lied to me about, I thought that the circus being a [laughter] really prominent part of Gundam Wing was a lie that I told myself.
It's funny. No, in fact, the circus comes up every couple of episodes. This is like the homecoming episodes for a lot of them, and that Trowa's home is the circus.
It is. He returns to his now-sister question mark, but I really need to know how the circus got the elephant and the lion into space.
They make spaceships that big.
That elephant did not look healthy.
They make spaceships that big, I don't know. That doesn't shock me,
If Gundams can get into space then elephants can get into space.
I just feel like the point is that there would be a lot of money that would need to be spent on like, pressurizing the elephant, depressurizing the elephant?
I think it would cost way too much to ship some wild animals to space.
They must be used to shipping large cargo to space because they built these colonies already. And so probably the circus just, just piggybacked on some other shipment.
But that's not living cargo.
So, here's the thing. This is why I wish that the circus would go away, because now I have to talk about something about the circus, which is that I didn't understand the appeal of the circus when we were on Earth. But now that it's in the colonies, I'm like, oh, maybe it's such a big deal because these people don't normally see elephants and lions and stuff. So like, this is really exciting for them.
Most people on Earth are also not seeing elephants and lions
But like they could go to a zoo.
I haven't seen an elephant or a lion in ages.
if you like grew up on a space colony,
Maybe you've never seen them.
Well. Maybe they have zoos. Maybe that's when they learned how to ship elephants to space when they set up all the colony zoos.
Okay this is enough about circuses. I am putting my foot down no more circus talk
We are bread and circuses. [laughter]
We are done with circuses. Okay, I want to talk about one of the most prominent things to me about this, which is episode 35 is clearly Wufei's homecoming episode. So he turns out to be at L5. We meet his clan leader Master Long, who I just want to put in here. The voice of the Japanese version is a little confusing, because it, it does not seem obviously an old man voice and it's the first time that I think we meet an old man character who does not have an obvious anime old man voice.
Wait, I thought it was an old woman.
Yes. And I'm pretty sure Master Long is not [crosstalk]
I think, no, I think she might be a woman. Right? But I've been debating this so who knows
Master Long has a male voice for the dub. It felt really weird there too -- like the voice was equally weird in the dub as it was in the Japanese. [Ivy cat meows]
So I'm bringing this up because I wonder if Master Long was supposed to be like, a eunuch, because Master Long is also wearing an outfit that, if this was a period drama, in like a Chinese period drama, he's wearing what looks like a eunuch outfit. So I am just calling that because so much of the like, Wufei identifiers in this anime are so very, very, very Chinese, [laughs] but like old Chinese. So I just thought that was really strange like it. That's when it came off to me immediately. And I wasn't sure if you guys had the same associations or if that was even meant to be the association.
I was thinking it was a woman but I wasn't sure. And I was also thinking that there was something on Wikipedia about like Meilan's grandmother. I was wondering if this was a relative of her in some way. I really couldn't tell.
I mean, I guess I just assumed this is like, anime voice actor roles where you, anytime you have someone who isn't traditionally masculine, you know, a female voice actress could play that character, like with Quatre's voice actor, right. So that's kind of that's just sort of how my brain like, elided over that.
I was thinking, like you, Caitlin. I was like, well, Master Long is a woman that, that's probably like, related to, like original Nataku Meilan.
I mean she's definitely related, it's the same last name, right?
Yeah, yeah, they're all definitely part. I think Meilan is supposed to be a granddaughter of Master Long. I actually think Wufei is supposed to be part of the same family line too. But obviously, he has a different name, so maybe he married in?
Okay, the name is Long Shiran, literally nothing on the internet [laughter] indicates like a gender. And as you know, Japanese doesn't really require gender markers in its sentences, so I have no idea.
So I guess moving on from this, you know, Master Long blows up, L5.
I had a couple of questions about this, which is one. So this is just one colony in an L5 cluster, right? It's like 02-00.
And two, are there civilians on this colony? [laughter] Because we get
Yeah that's a good question
I thought that something that she, that they said implied that they had gotten people off the colony, but I, I really wasn't sure.
So the colony is failing. But yeah, I was sort of like well, you probably could have evacuated some of those civilians if the, the people that we saw running from the Romefeller troops were civilians. Unclear.
I mean yeah, I guess I was thinking that they weren't civilians at this point, that they were, I don't know, tasked to be part of whatever Master Long's entourages, but in plain clothes, who knows?
I also don't understand why the colony is failing. Can someone explain to me [laughter] explain me why colony fail?
I wasn't sure if it was connected to how the, like, making the Space Battleship is like taking all the resources and they've already taken all the resources to make all the mobile dolls and stuff.
I do think it probably has to do something with resources to make Mobile Dolls. It can't be the spaceship because Tsuberov doesn't give the order -- well, okay, Gundam Wing has weird chronology but let's assume I think that Tsuberov doesn't get the order to make the second battleship until after this.
So I don't think it's that, but I do agree -- I couldn't really figure out what Master Long was saying about why, why it was failing. Like was it because like young people had moved out like Wufei, like because obviously all the heirs are gone, the young heirs -- Meilan is dead, Wufei is a Gundam pilot. I think though it makes sense thematically that it's tied to this mining of whatever space resource they need to build a mobile suits and the battleship.
I think we also get a little in Episode Zero about the backstory, like they're not in a good colony because they were like politically excised from China.
Yeah, they're, they're weird holdovers from like older Chinese customs. And I think that's probably the show trying to excuse why they have all this like mix of period costumes. [laughter]
So when Master Long is explaining why the colony is on a path of extinction, he says, "We have fought the evils of outer space." And I thought evils was an interesting choice of words. And I wasn't sure if he was actually using the word evil in Japanese.
He uses aku. They say aku (悪) a lot, which is like, bad badness, but it's used for evil. It's like an akuma. I think, I think Wufei says akuma at one point, which is demon. One thing is that I think good and evil has a much stronger, like Christian connotation in English than aku and, and the opposite has in Japanese.
So maybe it's like the hardship of living in outer space or whatever. Like, it also kind of sounded like they were referring to this kind of push and pull of how the colonies have to depend on so many other resources in order to survive. And after a while, that's just not sustainable. And they're sort of reaching the end of whatever resources they have available to them.
That makes sense, because the resource satellites were like a big thing with Quatre's dad. And like those episodes, really early on, were showing us how difficult the system, the whole system of colonies are.
But yeah, I think it's -- like all of that stuff is like sort of implied. It's not really clear from like the actual text.
There's also like the very strange theorisation of justice in this section where Master, Master Long basically says, You are the you are the arbiter of justice. Justice is what you decide. Your enemies aren't evil because they're evil, they're evil because they're your enemies or something, or maybe it's the opposite of that.
So he's saying, like, you're not going to defeat like evil. And to me, I thought of that as like ultimate like capital E, Evil, you will not defeat all of evil, but your enemies are the enemies you are defeating are evil. So like you can feel unburdened in your conscience.
The other thing is that we had a request from a listener at one point to talk more about race and racism in the fandom. And we were thinking about this maybe it was one venue where we could talk about that. This is like a wild depiction of ancient, ancient Chinese practices in this very, like modern colony setting. Cathy, [meow] is this an accurate depiction of Chinese culture?
Yeah, this is exactly what China is like. [laughter] Um, you know, it's actually really interesting to me to see these episodes because [Ivy meows] I know I've talked about this before, I think in context of maybe the prequel manga? Everything about Wufei's whole clan just reads like a Chinese period drama to me. And I would be more offended by it if they also didn't do the same weirdness with Quatre?
So I think like these, these two things are the clearly racialized in a way that I think anybody watching it would, would pick up on those indicators. Like Quatre is clearly supposed to be this fictional, Middle Eastern, you know, [cat meows] whatever, whatever area, they will, [crosstalk] yeah, Arabic Middle Eastern concepts. And Wufei is also just like, you know, cheongsams and what I read to be a eunuch, and then also these ancient pagodas in the middle of otherwise downtown area. So.
The mixture of like this old space within this new space is kind of a cool choice. Like and so even though it's like, oh, stereotypical, China, we have to include a pagoda
I still think it is a really interesting idea that to have like a very modern colony landscape, and then the culture has brought with them some fake old thing or like some some semblance of a, it's Earth history in order to create a space that suits them in this mechanical world.
The fact that they have this like lush courtyard and everything signifies to me that they are the leaders of this colony, or they're at least the kind of like cultural leaders where they're given this the respect of being in a position where you can take up all this space.
So the thing that this made me think of a lot is, there is a movement in China right now, where younger people are getting really into traditional Chinese clothes, they're called hanfu. And so this made me think of this made me think of if you are moving to, you know, you're moving all your people into outer space. Who knows where the Long Clan is from, like, maybe they're also taking in a whole bunch of people from all different places on Earth China. And so this is reversion to traditional concepts, like very obviously Chinese very obviously, like Han Chinese indicators may be a way of them, you know, bonding and like showing their culture in a really strong way that I think makes sense too in, in real life instead of just in anime. So I, I guess this is an instance where I feel like I'm reading really deeply into Gundam Wing in a way that they don't intend. Because if you look at Shanghai, like there are areas where they've tried to maintain traditional buildings and traditional infrastructures and made it new and shiny,
but also interesting. So that we protect that cultural resonance that that those places have. So I don't think that's necessarily what was intended. I think the creators just wanted to make Wufei seem really, really Chinese. Clearly why, but,
When you're talking about that, when I was looking at it, I was thinking a little bit about Chinatown gates, but also how this contrast to what Cathy, you called "Chinaworld" in a previous episode. [laughter] To me this, this is more like a Disneyfied like, idea of like this aesthetic, and sort of the contrasts that they're giving us between this sort of like Chinese cultural hub in space versus what's actually happening on Earth. And like, I don't know what it's saying about like, how we would retain that culture in space or if that culture has been wiped, like from parts of China that we've seen or what but I thought it was interesting.
I could see them thinking of how Chinese immigrants create these Chinatown spaces that are Chinese themed, Chinese influenced. I could see the animators having that reference in mind.
I do want to say one thing about Master Long in this exchange and scene -- I really liked that we heard Master Long say things like, "I'm positive Altron will welcome you" and "It's what Altron wants." Like they are clearly setting Wufei up for success in a way I don't know if I remember seeing the other Gundam pilots being set up for success.
Particularly in receiving new Gundam
He has more support than the other Gundams period.
I was like this is the most emotional training or guidance any of the pilots have received thus far, [laughs] which is really sad because a lot of it is like nonsense and is just believe in yourself and you will find justice.
That new Gundam is so cool. I love it's color scheme
I love its sticky thing, its point- pointy thing. I love everything about it
it's got weird weird little wings. love 'em
I really like the green color palette.
I believe Altron is based off the idea of the Chinese word èr tóu (二头) which means two heads. And that's because Altron, unlike Shenlong, has two of those extendable dragon fang things so he is an èr -- he is an èr tóu lóng (二头龙), as like two-headed dragon as opposed to Shénlóng (神龙), like God Dragon, which is what Shenlong Gundam is based off of.
You should -- that's excellent information.
Anyway, moving on to another highly racialized presence in our series. I want to talk about Quatre. I really want to talk about Quatre/Noin, but I must say that I know that we talked about how he's Lawrence of Arabia -- like we talk about him in these two episodes? [laughs]
I was like for /real/ Lawrence of Arabia.
we need to have -- some of these shots are, I think are almost exactly from Lawrence of Arabia.
Not to mention like, then him finding the Maguanacs, like that is just Lawrence of Arabia. Isn't that just the movie?
Yes! He gets adopted by, he gets adopted by some sexy Arabs. That's the plot.
Wasn't that already Quatre's backstory?
It was, but this is, so this is like the flip around where he gets to rescue the sexy Arabs
I honestly did not remember Quatre having this much of a relationship with Noin until this rewatch. There is more to this relationship than I remembered. And I think Quatre is doing the thing that he does with everybody in the show, which he seems to have like a really strong relationship with anybody he interacts with. And especially at the end of 36, where Noin asks him if he'll go to outer space with her. And he's basically like, yes, like, I mean, Noin has a lot of simps in Gundam Wing, but this was like, like, a big Quatre simping for Noin moment. [crosstalk]
I mean she inspires loyalty!
I don't think it was Quatre simping for Noin. I think they have a have a good, equal relationship. They mutually simp.
Yes, well okay there's a mutual simp.
There's a degree of of mutual sympathy.
Of course, Quatre's gonna to say yes to going to space because space is where his boyfriend is. Who, well, his boyfriend who he doesn't know is amnesiac. Like, I figure he's, maybe he's not thinking about it, like right then and there. But he's like, at the end when he talks with the Maguanacs, he's like, I've got other things to do. And then he looks to, he literally looks to space and then Trowa shows up. So I sort of feel like
Oooh, he's longing for his lost love.
It's just there subconsciously. And he's like, of course, I'm going to go to space because space is the last place that I know where Trowa was.
Yeah, I also think Quatre just goes, like switches from Earth to space Earth to space at other people's, like, suggestion.
He's also gonna follow any strong lady who like, brings him under her wing. So Relena, he was like, instantly loyal to Relena and now Noin.
But yeah I really liked their little, their, their relationship. I mean, Zechs is in space as well. So, you know, they both have that sort of star-crossed lover thing going on, too.
But Noin knows exactly where Zechs is
Yeah, and I'm pretty sure Zechs being in space is tactically why Noin suggested they go to space, not like emotionally like that's, like like she has a logical reason to go regroup and join up with Zechs.
Well, because she's, she's a lesbian, and she's in love with Relena now, and Sally Po. So she can't she can't be in love with Zechs. I'm sorry. It's over.
I like the Sally Po name drop.
Yeah, to be fair, it's sort of like what else is she going to do? Right, there is no more Sanc Kingdom. Relena has been taken by Dorothy to the Romefeller Foundation. She needs to do something. And I think, you know, it makes sense for her to go rejoin with Zechs. Mallory, I like that you bring back the Quatre/Trowa relationship. Because jumping ahead to when Duo first meets Trowa he immediately asks, "Where's Heero?"
And I was thinking, oh okay, the show has decided we have to go back to our original pairs
We've reaffirmed the relationships.
too much wandering around.
But Duo thinks that Trowa would would know where Heero is, which means that in the back of Duo's mind, he's also like, oh 1x3, that exists.
Yeah, he knows that Heero and Trowa have been on a road trip apology tour, and that there's some intimacy that happened, but he's not going to question it too much.
Meanwhile, everybody forgets about Wufei. Where is Wufei!?
Wufei is dueling with Zechs, which I -- you know, again, this this is part of the original pairing because Wufei's part of the Zechs/Treize triangle.
He's part of the, the adults triad.
We were just wondering last episode about where the 5x6 comes in, and I was like, Ah, it's this episode. It's literally this.
Yeah, 5x6 is very much the like, we both wanted to bang/were banging/were banged by Treize couple. [laughter]
Yes. Also, their battle is kind of like, like Zechs is like, "Don't fight me! We could be friends!" [laughter] And like, I get that from the perspective of the show, like it's better if the team up, but I wouldn't trust Zechs either. Wufei is right to just try to try to blow this guy up.
Yeah, I love how Zechs was like, "How can I get you to listen?" and he goes, "By beating me, nyah!"
Like, yeah, and then Zechs is like, but I've left OZ and and Romefeller and the Earth Alliance and Wufei's like, but that just makes you a traitor! [laughter] He's he's right.
He's right, but also I was just like, You're right. But you shouldn't say it Wufei like, what do you want from this man? He's trying so hard.
I like that Zechs was like like, Oh, that is an answer that a Gundam pilot would give me. [laughter] Like, of course.
Yeah I don't know what Zechs expected. This also made me think what's Wufei like in the Zero System, because he's so clear about his enemies. Maybe he, maybe he's in the Zero System later and I can't remember.
Maybe the Zero Systems just gives up on him. He's like, go on.
Yeah the Zero System's just like, you just do whatever you want.
I mean, this episode kind of felt like his time in space crazy mode. Like watching his colony blow up. Then he just goes apeshit and everyone is his enemy and everyone he sees is evil. And it's sort of like, yes, most of those things that he saw are mobile dolls and Romefeller Foundation things, but like, you could kind of see him edging in the same direction that Zero System took other pilots.
[whispered] Yes I support Wufei
[laughing] I mean, you're not wrong.
Have we talked about how Wufei was originally going to be the character from Africa? that would have been interesting. Instead, they went with fake China. It also speaks to how like, you can just replace Africa with China in like the animator mindset. And all it means is that you have a little bit more context for like Chinese customs, and the character's still marginalized within the series.
Yeah, I definitely think that was a replacement, because -- this is my headcanon. They were like, we actually don't know that much about Africa.
Right? They wouldn't, they wouldn't be able to draw like, seven different period time periods of African clothing.
Were like, the dudes in the room just like, but I watched Chinese dramas with my wife, so.
They were, like we got, we know what these people look like, yeah.
But that is like, I mean, that's still such a huge hole and sort of the world building. Because there there are African bases, but like, we meet, like, maybe two Black characters so far?
And they're all evilish. And,
Then I think the other major point that is brought up, you know, flushed out a lot in Episode 36 is Relena's total pacifism, her approach, her ending up, basically reneging on all of the Sanc Kingdom, because to her, that's the only way this radical surrender essentially, of herself and Sanc Kingdom turns out to be the only solution she can think of to stop fighting. The thing that I wanted to bring up is, I felt like in episodes 35 and 36, and even before that, when Quatre was still at the Sanc Kingdom, the three of them are sort of all dancing around the fact that they are concerned about how total pacifism will play out and how the Sanc Kingdom will enforce it and what's Relena's game plan. But they never really bring it up with Relena. Like Noin does, but to a certain extent Noin has this subordinate relationship with Relena as her like, essentially captain of the palace guard. So when she brings it up, it's not really like she's challenging it, so they just end up like dancing around. And there's a lot of bits in Episodes 35 and 36, where Heero and Noin are sort of just kind of like griping behind Relena's back about their confusion about this policy. And it takes Dorothy, basically while they're being attacked, about to get blown up by the Romefeller Foundation to actually confront Relena about it. Of course, she does it in her own Dorothy way, which is like, you know, war fujoshi. But I thought that was a really resonant part of Dorothy's characterization, that she's the only one of these people who actually comes out and forces Relena to describe what she wants to do and how she's going to get there.
Relena. is. so. hot! Sorry. [laughter] I just want to put that out there. You talked a lot about serious things. I think sexy, I am like Dorothy, I'm like, Okay, I'm still gonna call you sama even though you've even though absolved
You are so beautiful. You're so beautiful when you talk about your ideals!
I am even more obsessed with Relena than I ever was. I think that surrendering was the right choice. I would think
like if you truly believe in total pacifism, which I'm not sure I do. But theoretically, if I truly believe in something totally, the correct thing to do is to continue not to fight no matter what.
So I love this as a parallel to self-destructing? It's like the same thing, but completely opposite at the same time. It's like the only way to end fighting is to destroy myself or to destroy this Gundam, or to dissolve this Kingdom, because it's what's bringing the fighting here. And I love that. And I also love getting the perspective from everybody who is involved, like Noin is kind of just taking her tacit approval to, to just build a secret army. Heero doesn't believe in it at all, but thinks it's like, theoretically useful.
Yeah, I think that self-destruction comparison is really good because Heero seems to self-destruct because he, like, was taught somehow that that's what you're supposed to do when you lose and like, that's the way to like, prevent your enemies from getting the Gundam or whatever, it doesn't really matter that much. So he tries to do it all the time, and we all make fun of him. But Relena's self-destruction here is like a very deliberate choice. It's a self-destruction in service of something bigger.
And it's like more tactical.
It's not like truly [crosstalk] truly a destruction. Yeah.
Well, I want to jump in actually there is a tactical time where Heero self-destructs, that's when Lady Une was threatening to blow up the colonies remember? And that's like his big self-destruction. And at that point, I don't think he comes up with it on his own because Dr. J actually is there sort of hinting that that's the answer, but I agree totally with the comparison of self-destruction and what Relena does here, but because I'm thinking of that moment, he takes the players off the board as it were by self-destructing the Gundam the same way Relena does by just giving up Sanc Kingdom.
And the same way that Master Long does with 0200, because that way Wufei doesn't even have to make a choice.
Yeah. And the sense is that the, in a battle, you assume the one thing that your enemy doesn't want to do is die. And so you base your tactics around that. If that's off the table, if your enemy will destroy itself, then you then it sort of puts you out of a mode where you can predict their actions.
Yeah, and I just have always loved Relena as this symbol of hope, right? We've talked about how she doesn't pilot because in a sense that that's her role in this [cell phone rings] show is to not ever pilot or fight. So I just love the progression of episodes 35 and 36 because she goes from standing in front of all these old men and grandstanding, but also feeling conflicted that she doesn't know what action she can take, to the end of 36, where she essentially orders Dorothy to turn over everybody's private cell phone numbers so that she could [laughs] announce this thing.
So Cathy, I really liked that you brought up hope because Heero says something similar to that. He says something like, total pacifism is what people hope for. And then he says, like, I'll fight to keep that hope alive. And I felt like that was a really striking evolution of Heero's feelings toward pacifism and like his idea of what pacifism is, from I'm a fighter, what use to I have for peace? I feel like he's now come around to well, pacifism is this idea that gives people hope and that is worth fighting for, which I thought was really a nice little moment.
I wanted to talk about a little bit about Heero, we're like looping around. And I think, Cathy, you mentioned Wufei trying to figure out who his enemy is and how these all tell you about your enemy. And I think we see Heero really come to a -- like he's still plagued by Epyon, but when he's talking to Noin, he says, "I only want to fight against those who try to conquer," which I think is probably the clearest, like articulation of how he feels about fighting and like who he is starting to frame his enemy as.
So that felt like, important to to me.
He's starting to develop an ideology, yeah.
Yes. And I feel like that was a really big indictment, whether he meant it or not to be one of Treize, because that was Treize's whole dynamic up until I guess he met the Gundam pilots, is that he felt like those who wanted war are meant to I don't know, whatever it was that he meant, but it felt like it felt like it was a subtweet about Treize.
Hello? Did I -- Oh, yeah. I really feel that too, though. I love I love Heero's new ideology.
Yeah. And it it sort of makes sense that he's like being more successful in Epyon like he's learning how to deal with that system. Right? I'm not making that up?
he's at least aware that it's happening. And I think we're, I mean, I felt like I was starting to see him figure out how to deal with it in the way that like Zechs was doing where he was like, oh, something's wrong, this isn't the enemy I should be fighting. Where he's able to kind of talk or reason himself out of it, and I felt like maybe Heero was getting to, is maybe starting to possibly get to that point. [laughs]
I'm very excited to hear what you think of that later, Mallory. I'm not going to spoil it for you. But there's a lot about Epyon and Heero and Zero that I'm very excited to get your take on. The only last thing I want to add is, I make fun of Heero a lot these two episodes because he isn't doing much. And the Epyon movements really do look like rollerblading. But I want to call out that at the very end we hear a snippet of Rhythm Emotion.
It's coming, it's coming!!
as Heero continues to mow down these randos. So we've turned over a new leaf on this series, we're getting into Rhythm Emotion. This is the part where I think Gundam Wing just goes buck wild with what peace means and what war means.
Oh has it not already been buckwild? [laughs]
...it gets a little bit more buckwild [laughter]
I gotta tell you, I heard that song start and I was like, What's this? [insert song] [insert song] Rhythm Emotion! We're here.
Rhythm Emotion! So today's fandom artifact -- I wish I could give you more of a provenance for what it is. But what I really have of it are some translations of what is labeled the Gundam Wing cassette tape collection.
Gundam Wing Cassette Snippet 35:24
せーのー！アニメートウ！ヴォイスカセット新機動戦記ガンダムウイング
Quatre: ALL TOGETHER, THEN –
Everyone: ANIMATE, VOICE CASSETE: NEW MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM WING!
These translations are brought to us courtesy of two different Tumblrs; one is Uchuu no Kokoro (https://uchuunokokoro.tumblr.com/post/149906282779/gw-voice-collection-a-side)l. And the other is When-Will-Mail-Come (https://when-will-mail-come.tumblr.com/post/174154092781/gundam-wing-voice-collection-cassette-book). These appear to be sort of audio drama type things where they had gathered the seiyuus of the Gundam Wing pilots, and had them just do things? So the Uchuu no Kokoro collection, the things that they did were more roleplay ish, tiny mini scenarios where they were acting out AUs basically.
The ones that I assigned you guys to read, these were like, each of the pilots were tasked with doing voicemails, or morning wake up calls.
Gundam Wing Cassette Snippet 36:18
[happy morning music with strings plays] おはよう。こちらヒーロユイ。起きろ。時間だ。
Good morning. This is Heero Yuy. Wake up, it’s time.
[volume on Heero lowers, he keeps talking] It's not canonical, but it's also not so non canonical in terms of what they talk about and how they interact. So I'm just gonna open it up, we'd love to hear what you guys thought about it.
I've been thinking of it as extra canonical, but still in character.
Right? I was just gonna say they're really well characterized and the translator's notes for the one with the voicemails, the one that we we all read, notes, Oh, there are some things about characterization here that foreshadow aspects of Frozen Teardrop and
I don't think that's a deliberate foreshadowing, I think that that is simply they are well characterized in these joke audio plays, which I don't find the provenance too mysterious, I don't know exactly where they come from. But these are pretty common, extra series type things to do.
And can you explain this as like a fan item, like are the voicemails and stuff common?
Oh, I'm nowadays that sort of thing I think would come more as like, like an extra audio thing that you might find that you might get online.
Talking about this as a fan item. I know we had mentioned before character songs, when we talked about the music of Gundam Wing, and the extras that I see in both the first collection, which we didn't read, and then these voicemails are similar to the extra tracks that you might get on a character song CD. So my experience with those usually are that you have a character song and then you have some, like longer tracks where the seiyuu will maybe talk out of character about their experience, but they also have like a radio play, where it's either them or other characters, or just them alone, talking about something that's extra canonical. So that's kind of what I see this being like. So I say that the provenance is mysterious, because I don't know what the cassette tape collection is. I don't know if the only thing that was on here were these audio dramas, or if there was more, but I could see these -- If Gundam Wing was to come out today, I could see these voicemail things being tacked onto the end of the character songs' CD collections, and then that's how you might buy them. Or it would be like a radio thing or broadcast like Caitlin was saying maybe they would have some sort of fan event and then the seiyuus would go and they would do this thing, usually off the cuff which is quite surprising for how in-character everything is.
Gundam Wing has like an actual radio drama, though, right? Like an audio drama.
Yeah. Because when you sent the email, I was like, Ooh, I never managed to get find something like a translation of Blind Target when I was at my peak, but it was not this. So this, to me was like totally surprising as a fan artifact.
It's funny, it's funny because the audio dramas are something that's often very inaccessible to international fans, partly because they are on a physical media that you have to buy. Fans don't like to share these. There's, in Japanese fandom there's a lot of stigma against like, uploading things illegally. And international fans just often don't have them. There's no visual components to help you understand. So you have to have like a 100% understanding of Japanese...
...in order to get through it.
Yeah. At my peak Gundam Wing like fandom, I managed to find the, like, audio for something, like one of these audio dramas and just listened to them because they were fun to, to listen to but I didn't understand a single word that was being said. So it would, it will be fun to kind of go back and find this and maybe someone who's translated it somewhere.
[music starts playing, two characters are speaking] I will just say, Duo and Quatre are really funny. Duo is exactly how you would imagine. You know the translator notes say that his womanizing side doesn't really come out as much in the show but it was clearly meant to be part of his character and it really comes out here
His womanizing side [laughs]
Gundam Wing Cassette Snippet 40:28
Duo: ええ？体が動かない？ 何や甘えてるんだよ。そんなこと言ってると添い寝しちゃうぜ。ほらほら起きた起きた！
Ahh? You can’t get up? Whaddaya sayin’? Keep on saying that and I won’t be able to resist snuggling with you–Ahh, that’s it! You’ve done it!
[Duo continues speaking but fades out] I was like, Oh, this audio drama is written like all the crack fic that I have exed out of. But it's fun because I can hear like the voice actors' characterizations.
Honestly, this is characterized like so many crack fics I read though too
like this sort of exaggeration, and like the third [Ed.'s note: fourth] wall meta breaks.
I love when Wufei gives his love call
Gundam Wing Cassette Snippet 40:57
[romantic piano music] Wufei: だからお前にはっきり言う。一度しか言わないからな。俺はお前が好き。
Wufei: That’s why I’m going to tell you clearly how I feel. I’m only going to say this once… I love you.
And then all the pilots are noted as whispering about it. That felt extremely fanfic-y. yes
Gundam Wing Cassette Snippet 41:16
Duo: そうだね。ラブコールを私物化するほど思ってたとわな
Heero: 愛には色々形がある。これもカミングアウトとかいうのか
QUATRE: [WHISPERING] Hey, Duo, Duo, Duo?
Duo: [WHISPERING] What, what?
Quatre: [WHISPERING] This is, probably, about Nataku right?
Duo: [WHISPERING] Yeah, possibly. But to go out all the way to make a love call personal…
Trowa: [HUSHED] There are many forms of love.
Heero: [HUSHED]…Is this also what’s considered as “coming out”?
It's so rude because Wufei's the only one of them who has canonically been with a woman [laughter]
It's true, probably, it's true.
I would think that Duo in this characterization isn't going to count Wufei's past.
Wufei's arranged marriage? Yeah.
Because that's an arranged marriage. And it's not Wufei like seducing a woman like Duo is clearly trying to do
Trying to pretend like he knows how to do.
The showering, the showering one [laughs]
Yes, I love that. Yeah, wouldn’t that work?
Gundam Wing Cassette Snippet 41:54
[shower noises] Duo: はい、デゥオマクスウェルです。ちょうど今、シャワー中でさあ、一緒に入れればいいんだけど、そういうわけにもいけないだろう。
Yep, this is Duo Maxwell here. I’m actually showering right now, and I’d love it if you could join me here but that isn’t going to happen, is it?
I love Duo being like, it's all fanservice and you know fanservice? [laughter] just in case you didn't know?
Can I also add that I love Trowa in this [laughs]? And he's like a mysterious poet. Like he just says like, such like weird things.
I like that Quatre and Trowa are in love or flirting with each other and trying to figure out that they’re in love.
Gundam Wing Cassette Snippet 42:32
Quatre: きゃああ、いいな、いいな。なんだか、トロワの優しさを感じるなあ
Trowa: いや、カトルに比べたら、大したことはない。
Quatre: Wow… That was good, really good. What is it, I could feel Trowa’s kindness.
Trowa: Nonsense, compared to Quatre it was nothing.
Quatre's definitely like, well, I think it's indicative of Trowa's kindness, heart eyes [laughter] blink blink, you know?
They're so annoying. I do not want to know them. I also love the Wake Up Calls, I kind of want to record the Wake Up Calls and put them up as my alarms. I want Trowa's wake up call where he's like, it's fine if you don't wake up.
Gundam Wing Cassette Snippet 42:57
Trowa: 朝。一日の始まり。だが、朝だから必ず起きなければいけないというわけではない。昼に起きよう、夜に起きよう、個人の勝手だ。俺に強制することができない
Morning… the beginning of a whole day. However… It doesn’t mean that you have to wake up just because it’s morning. Whether you wake up at noon or night is none of my concern. I can’t force you.
Just like the contrast between the tone of this and the tone of the series. Where like you you sort of need to have this extra canonical like fun goofy character times in order to balance out the like, really depressing series.
I wish Quatre was a shady bitch in canon.
Wait can we, can we discuss -- I know that this wasn't, this wasn't assigned, but in the in the other plotline. There's a subplot about them all thinking Quatre is a girl?
And it is like this is like some weird gender shit. Where, where like Heero's like, I looked at the files and all of all of Quatre's siblings are women and so he's probably a woman posed as a boy.
No, it's just it's really funny 'cause Duo at one point is like oh, you know, like in manga, where families have lots of girls and then they won't stop trying, [laughter] so they just make their last one grow up as a boy,
Which then brings up the question, does manga exist in the Gundam Wing universe?
Duo definitely reads manga, like this is, it's not even a question. Like if you go if you go into the Deathscythe cockpit [laughter] there is like a floating issue of Shonen Jump somewhere [laughs]
Look, it is a universal idea that asshole American guys who think they're good with women will read like a bunch of manga okay.
Like I feel like every like that happens in every universe.
I was thinking about those society for like character purity groups and stuff. When I got to the part where Trowa asks Duo what host club he learned all this from?
Gundam Wing Cassette Snippet 44:57
Trowa: 一体どこのホストクラブにみにつけたんだ。
Trowa: In what host club did you learn all that?
Duo: ARE YOU STUPID!? As if I would even work there!
Quatre: Uh, what’s a “host club”?
And then Quatre asks what a host club is and then nobody wants to tell him. [;aughs]
Everyone's like, Oh honey.
Oh my god and Quatre has the line about having a fax machine in their house and everybody's like wow rich people really live different. [laughter]
I love that Duo hates rich people.
And then the translator and then the translator is like, oh wow fax, it's a real blast from the past. But fax machines are still really common in Japan. [laughs]
I love where after Heero's encouragement message and Quatre tells him like, Oh, that was really good. You're always,"I'll self destruct!”
Gundam Wing Cassette Snippet 45:42
Quatre: うんうん、すごくよかったよ。「自爆する」や「お前を殺す」だけじゃないんだね
Mh-hm, it was really good! You’re always “I’ll self-destruct”, no, “I’ll kill you” but that’s not all there is to you, was it!
Then Heero's like, are you complimenting me or making fun of me. And I love that, I am here for everyone making fun of Heero self-destructing.
And Quatre, Quatre is canonically shady as hell but I don't know where that impression comes from. Like, like, I've always accepted that as my canon. And a lot of fanfics also picked up on it. Just something about him is clear that he is going to like, kill you with kindness. And then also like, talk shit about you. Yeah.
So I guess I have a question, sort of like is stuff like the morning call and like voicemail messages like is that kind of normal fandom meta, because it really feels a lot like reader fic, to me, like listening to it. And I know that's not like a new thing. But it's sort of like a newish trend currently happening on AO3, so.
I don't think that's too unusual. The voicemail message, I think that's pretty common.
Now it's, it's, it's common to have, for example, you have like that one, it's an alarm clock/smart home device. And it ties in with an app and she's a girl, you can get a bunch of anime girl versions. And she like, wakes you up in the morning. And she sends you encouraging text messages while you're at work. And she asks you what you want for dinner, that sort of thing. It's like you pretend to have a girlfriend in your house. This is a version of that concept. Even though that's a much more modern, technological edition.
I was really into The King's Avatar, which is a web novel, a Chinese webnovel about e-sports players actually. And they for like Lunar. Lunar New Year and stuff would record essentially messages to you like wishing you a Happy Lunar New Year and hoping that you go see your parents. And then it's also quite common for there to be Valentine's Day content or Singles Day content where they're like presenting chocolate to you, or you're giving them chocolate and they're you know, saying something, whatever is in character. So similar roleplay where essentially they're responding to the reader or listener or watcher insert, as if they were your boyfriend, is still pretty common.
So this is all sort of new ish to me, but like this blast one the past cassette tape, it was cool.
Yeah, I just wonder how you get, I guess what the voicemail you could literally put the voice, you could literally record the voicemail message onto your thing. Yeah, if you wanted to. But how do you get an alarm clock to play? I mean, did they make alarm clocks that could record sound?
Probably ones that you could put a tape into?
Yeah, there probably were ones where you could queue up the tape and then have it play.
That's nice. [Just Communication begins to play]
That morning wake up call. Well, this is Cathy, this has been Untitled Tallgeese Podcast, thanks a bunch!
Tell us what you thought of these episodes. You can find us on Twitter at Tallgeesepod. We also have full transcriptions on our Tumblr, UntitledTallgeesePodcast.tumblr.com. And follow us on Instagram at UntitledTallgeesePodcast for fandom artifacts, sneak peeks and more. Until next time!
