Over-powered mobile suits that can annihilate entire armies - Check! Weapons that hardly need to be aimed and still annihilate everything - Check! Mobile suits based on angels - Check!

OK - its a Gundam series. This one, Gundam Wing, has good character development, real-world complexity, interesting ideas and some pretty eye-candy.

With characters, the initially weak Relena Dorlan (later Peacecraft, then back to Dorlan) gets stronger and more independent (although is still absolutely besotted with Heero Yuy, the series main character). The aforementioned Heero, initially a cold, hard butcherer, becomes more and more human, while still remaining in-character. And seeing the lost Millardo Peacecraft (whos nomm de guerre is Zechs Marquise) float between OZ, freelance, and command of White Fang shows how some people can really lose themselves in their own creations.

The complexity of the political and military situation is also quite good - reflecting how the real world works. However, in 49 half-hour episodes, it does become a bit of a liability in that this complexity isn't used to its full potential.

The ideas at the core of the series - the necessity of fighting, the desire for peace, etc - are ones that resonate even today. In retrospect, the series was ahead of its time, what with the "War on Terrorism" and all. But its exploration of these ideas, the monologues, especially those of Treize Kushrenada, is an incredible dramatic piece, forming some of the best writing in the series.

But that sometimes good writing is also sometimes extremely poor, which dramatically causes it to lose some of its edge.

In terms of eye-candy, which is what this one has in bucketloads, everything from the mobile suits to the battleship Libra (No not the tampons you idiot!) is wells designed, and explodes in big balls of orange (which is bad, because better animation would've had better explosions). But who cares?! Stuff explodes, and thats all that matters.

In short though, the sheer complexity of the series means that if you miss out on a few episodes, you've missed out on a lot. The poor writing can leave you cringing, and sometimes the animation makes you go "WTF?!?!" But this is made up for in its classic animation style, its scale, sparks of incredible dialogue, and its more mature exploration that one expects of such Japenese animations.
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