Mobile Suit Gundam Wing/Trivia

• Anime First
• Beam Me Up, Scotty: For some reason, the video games love to do this... but Heero never pulls apart the Twin Buster Rifles, fires, and starts spinning. Yes, it would be a wave of devastation, but by the time he gets Wing Zero he actually gives a damn about civilian casualties, and the Buster Rifles sure as HELL don't discriminate.
  • To clarify, that scene actually happens in the series, but Heero wasn't the one in the mecha at the time. In fact, all other 6 of the 7 people who pilot the Wing Zero execute this little trick, the odd one out of course being Heero.
  • Possibly a justified usage. In the video games, there is no risk of civilian casualties to speak of; it's giant robots only. And it is quite the powerful attack, so there's no reason for him NOT to do it. Just because his progression through the anime makes him more...Heeroic...it doesn't mean he wouldn't use the attack if he could get away with the whole "no innocents" thing.
  • Furthermore, splitting the rifle and going to town simply isn't Heero's combat style, notably enough he only seems to fire the rifle when it counts.
• Celebrity Voice Actor: Heero Yuy's voice actor Mark Hildreth is a well known T.V actor. Unfortunately, he won't return to the role (or, more likely, he doesn't want to) due to some reception issues.
• Cross-Dressing Voices: Quatre's Japanese seiyuu Ai Orikasa is a woman. Generally averted in the dubs except probably the Filipino dub. Also averted in the English dub for Noin's voice actress Saffron Henderson who is primarily notable in anime fandom for playing little boy roles like Sota in Inuyasha, but did get to play a woman in this series.
• The Danza: Catherine Bloom voiced by Cathy Weseluck in English, her full name's Catherine. This won't be her last.
• Enforced Method Acting: In the English dub, Scott McNeil's Big "NO!" was achieved when he thought back to the most painful moment in his life, when his wife accidentally knocked over his motorcycle with the family minivan.
• Fan Nickname: "Mini-Noin" for Hilde, because she almost looks like Noin, and how she could be mistaken for Noin's little sister. Hilariously, Episode Zero shows us a 12-year-old Noin. She looks exactly like Hilde in her OZ cadet uniform, only more stoic and formal.
• Fountain of Expies: Relena would later serve as the inspiration for Dianna Soreil, Lacus Clyne, Cagalli Yula Athha, Princess Rele and Marina Ismail, and outside of Gundam, Nunnally Lamperouge and Euphemia Li Brittania.
• Hey, It's That Voice!: The first of many Gundam dubs by The Ocean Group, the voice actors would be used in other Gundam, anime, and western cartoons. And being one of the first, this is were many fans have heard the VA's before.
  • One can't help but expect Trowa to ask all the girls to bear his children...
  • Or Treize Khushrenada to bust out the Bakusaiga.
  • Or Duo to start throwing superspeed demon punches.
  • Or Catherine Bloom to start chucking sacred arrows. There are a lot of these, aren't there?
  • Or Zechs to get upset that the Gundams power level is OVER 9000!!!
  • Dorothy is either an awesome Colonel or a baby dragon.
  • Quatre goes on to play several major roles in the Gundam franchise, and latter as Kira (Not the Gundam one).
• Name's the Same: Quatre's name almost sounds similar to Quattro Bajeena, despite not being the resident Char Clone of the series. This came about because the names have the same numerical origin (the name "Quattro" comes from the fact that it's Char's fourth alias).
• The Other Darrin: Catherine Bloom and Sally Po's dub actress was replaced changed after the first 13 episodes.
• Playing Against Type:
  • Voiced by Chisa Yokoyama. Yes, THAT Chisa Yokoyama.
  • Dorothy Catalonia's English VA Cathy Weseluck is better known for using her calm, gentle voice to portray kind, motherly characters such as the original Mobile Suit Gundam's Mirai Yashima. Her Japanese VA Naoko Matsui tends to voice heroic Action Girls or sassy Plucky Girls with few to hide, rather than sneaky Ladies of War.
• Relationship Voice Actor: Some of the voice actors in Japanese will later voice characters in Sengoku Basara. Namely, Wu Fei's, Trowa's and Treize's voice actors.
  • Heero is Hikaru Midorikawa, Zechs is Takehito Koyasu. Do the math.
  • Also, Akiko Yajima is Relena, and Naoko Matsui is Dorothy. Watch Idol Densetsu Eriko, and you'll understand.
    • Cathy Weseluck (Dorothy's VA) and Lisa Ann Beley (Relena's VA) worked together again in Gundam 00.
• Star-Making Role: This show pretty much launched the careers for Hikaru Midorikawa (Heero), Toshihiko Seki (Duo) and Ryotaro Okiayu (Treize) into great stardom-to-legend status.
• What Could Have Been:
  • In a 2005 interview with the creators:
    • Series composer Katsuyuki Sumizawa said on-record that in various planning stages, Wu Fei was going to be African and/or a Newtype with the power to Detect Evil. Some early merchandise, such as pencil boards, still lists him as a Newtype.
    • Noin was originally a male, and was going to be the Garma Zabi to Zechs's Char.
    • Lady Une was originally conceived as a naive country girl who fell in love with Treize; additionally, Treize's early character designs made him look a lot like Gihren Zabi.
• Word of God: Director Masashi Ikeda, in an interview with Animerica, said that he didn't intend on a romantic relationship between Heero and Relena because he thought that the political and symbolic relationships between the two were much more important. Yaoi Fangirls love to cite this interview as proof that Heero's gay, Quote Mining it (accidentally or intentionally) to remove the other things Ikeda said. Like the fact that he didn't intend on any romance (straight, gay or whatever), or him saying it's only due to his own inability to write "boy-girl romance", or him saying that that doesn't mean Heero and Relena will never ever become a couple (he even admitted he could see it happening somewhere down the line).