I’m not one for long-winded, mildly angsty back stories about teenange boys’ childhoods. Gundam Wing’s manga prequel is a decently-executed attempt to establish the series’ background, though. It has the fairly likable characters of the 1995 TV series combined with nice art and nice writing. It is, however, sloppy during key battle scenes, and the whole angsty-bishounen-with-mecha-dorama does get very old after a while. And why the heck did Viz publish this flipped and screw up the sound effects so badly?!

One would expect the story to be coherent as a stand-alone story, since it’s only the backstories of the characters and not a continuation of the original story. The writing is, fortunately, coherent and not ridiculously cliche-riddled as one might pessimistically expect from a Gundam series. However, the artist apparently had issues capturing the mecha battles, and the speech bubbles’ positioning makes it very hard to tell who’s talking sometimes. Anyone who’s reading this for the characters will be fine, but mecha fanboys will be severely disappointed.

The fascinating characters and their stories are what have made me interested in the main story of Gundam Wing, however. Some of the characters have cliched backstories, and some are just plain boring as characters, but overall they’re better than I expected.

First off is Duo Maxwell’s story; despite it’s mildly cliched orphan-loses-everything plot, it has enough twists and random cuteness to keep a non-Gundam fan interested. Duo’s a pretty cool character, as well: he runs around calling himself ‘the god of death’! I’m curious as to what the original Japanese for that was (perhaps shinigami, or maybe just katakana Engrish) but that’s not important. What’s important is that instead of being an annoying angst machine like he could’ve been, Duo’s an oddly GAR kid. (Except when he’s getting chastised by nuns, of course.) I’d watch the original anime just for him.

Heero Yuy, however, fails to impress me. His story is bland, cliched and stoicly portrayed, with the exception of that one random tecchie chick (Noin or whatever.) Granted, he’s the ’son’ of an assassin, but the logic in that just makes it even worse. Why would an assassin ‘adopt’ a kid like that? He used Heero, sure, but he also ended up treating him like a son. That doesn’t make all that much sense to me, though maybe more is revealed in the TV series.

The next story, Trowa Barton’s, makes up for Heero’s lackluster tale. Trowa fits the ’stoic emo soldier’ stereotype, but an encounter with a spy shows a very dark side of the war he’s wrapped up in. We’re also introduced to Trowa’s interesting ’sister,’ Catherine. She shows up in the later stories of the manga as well as the TV series. While the story as a whole isn’t fabulous, it has its moments of intensity that make it a worthwhile read.

Interrupting the mecha pilots’ stories, however, is a bit of background for Relena, a political figure in the anime. Her story adds little to the likability of the book, but it does contribute a bit to Heero. I wish the writing in it was better, though. There’s one part where Relena’s being held captive and she looks up and is randomly like, “Oh… A shooting star…”

Come on, you’re about to be srsly harmed by the guy who just grabbed you, and all you notice is that shooting star?! Believability just went down the drain. The ending was sappy enough to make up for that, though.

Quatre’s story wasn’t believable either; apparently the writer(s) had a bad day and had to meet a deadline, so they came up with cliche-riddled crap for a few backstories. Quatre’s likability helps make up for it, though, as he is held hostage, saves the lives of his captors and discovers a spy among them, and is subsequently proclaimed a hero. Yeah. ‘Nuff said.

The last character to get backstory revealed is Wufei,  this nerdy, apathetic guy who becomes a mecha pilot to avenge someone. Cliched? Yes, but there’s enough likable characters in his story to make it worthwhile. His ‘wife’ in particular is amusingly GAR. The best bit of dialogue was when Wufei said that no matter how apathetic he was, there was no way he was just going to sit there and let his wife fight and possibly die. If you think of it as social commentary, it’s a strangely realistic look at the ‘apathetic youth’ plague that the real world is facing. ^_^;;

After that, there’s a story about the origins of Operation Meteor, and an odd little story called ‘Preventer 5′ that shows the characters preparing to rescue some hostages. Both stories are nice reads, especially since there’s no screwed-up mecha battles in them. Even the characterization is well-done, with Quatre confessing how a desk job doesn’t suit him and Wufei being all cool and crap. Too bad both stories don’t make much sense without knowing the original Gundam Wing’s story.

The art is decent, and does a good job highlighting some of the more dramatic moments. The art style seems similar to the series, so fans of the anime shouldn’t be put off by that. The art totally fails during most of the battle scenes, however. It’s impossible to tell what’s happening without staring at a page for five minutes and attempting to recall every mecha battle scene you’ve ever scene to determine what the ‘bots are doing.

The publishing job on this, however, is what realy annoys me. VIZ Media flipped the manga, as it understandably did with some of its older titles, but the sound effects are atrociously edited: they’re cartoony, sloppy and don’t reflect the mood of the sounds. Also, this manga was rated A (All Ages) despite violence, blood and a fair amount of cursing. If I was the parent of a 9-year-old mechatard who picked up this book on a whim, I’d be pretty pissed at VIZ for making this manga look so innocent. It should’ve been rated T (13+), period.

Despite how bland the story seemed to me on the first read-though, I’ve started to really like it. It’s worth a read for mecha fans, though the actual mecha battles will disappoint. It’s a total must-read for viewers of the original Gundam Wing, with its interesting bits of background and drama. Only purists and shoujotards should keep their distance at any cost.

CJ’s rating: 7.5 out of 10 California rolls

Possibly objectionable content: It’s Gundam, so there’s violence and language as summarized above. 13+ would be my age rating (NOT ‘ALL AGES,’ YOU TWITS)