SIMONE MAXWELL: [coughs]
KQ: Boy, you sound like hell.
SM: Yeah, I'm feeling not so sharp. I don't want to catch bronchitis! But that's not what we're here to talk about.
KQ: Okay, then, let's go over the Gundam Wing Language Rules! During daylight hours, the word "kill" is pronounced "destroy." And "execute" becomes "eliminate."
SM: And then there's "death."
KQ: Yeah--"God of Death" becomes "the Great Destroyer." I think those are the only examples...
SM: So far! Are we halfway through the series yet?
KQ: Yesterday was, uh, episode 24, and it went 49. So today is 25. We're at the halfway point.
SM: And yesterday we got to see the "Oz Viewmaster," courtesy of Trowa! [laughter]
KQ: Too bad it wasn't like a real Viewmaster reel, where instead of drawing, like, Yogi Bear and the Road Runner and all, they did them as strange 3-D things--I want to see DS and Altron like that! Were those things clay?
SM: I think they were little dolls, little figures that they photographed. I have the Peanuts reels. I really loved those when I was a little kid.
KQ: They were weird 3-D things!
SM: Yeah! I remember, there was one where Linus and Lucy are making, like, a house of cards, and it gets knocked down, and the cards are, like, suspended in mid-air. And I remember looking at that at the age of 8, and going, "Wow! How did they do that?" Because you know they didn't have Photoshop back then!
Boy, this has sure gone off on a weird tanget. How did we get on that?
KQ: Well, how did they come up with "the Great Destroyer"? I was thinking about that last night. I mean, did they sit around and say, "Okay, well, we can't say 'God of Death,' so what can we say?"
SM: They probably had an executive meeting with Ted Turner and, y'know, Eric Bischof and all these guys sitting around, all these suits from Turner Entertainment, sitting around going, "Hmm. We can't say 'God of Death.' What are we going to say?"
KQ: Wonder what some of the other possibilities were? "Great Mazinger." Oops, that's been taken! [laughter] "Great-Big-Pants Boy"...
SM: He gives you wedgies! Duo's Indian name is "Gives You Wedgies And Runs Away Laughing." [laughter] Bet you didn't know Duo had an Indian name.
KQ: No, I didn't.
SM: My Indian name is "Runs With Scissors." [laughter]
KQ: So Quat shows up with Zero-One...
SM: And Quat has gone bonkers because of the Zero System! Except they haven't shown the Zero System yet...
KQ: But his dad died too.
SM: Yeah. The colonies killed his dad, so of course he's going to be an eensy-weensy bit ticked off at the colonies...
KQ: I was really impressed with the job that the voice actor did with Quat.
SM: I was too.
KQ: And then we went back and watched the Japanese episode yesterday, just to compare, and again they've taken out the blood. There's a little trickle of blood down Trowa's face after Quat nails his 'bot, just this eensy-weensy little trickle of blood--and they can't even show that? "We'll just show him stop and grimace for a moment, no reason"--just like he farted or something! [laughter]
SM: Hey, man, when you fart in a spacesuit, that's pretty serious! [laughter]
KQ: Oh, that's true--it would be!
SM: He was wearin' a spacesuit, man! [fart sound] "Ohhhh, no..."
KQ: It was a silent-but-deadly one!
SM: Heero's like, "Tro-waaa, you've got to stay away from those Oz burritos! They're horrible!" Trowa's like, "I know! But they've got all-you-can-eat chocolate pudding in the cafeteria--I can't stay away! Lady Une was there and I couldn't pretend I'd gone there just for the pudding, so I had a burrito...It was pretty skanky..." [laughter]
See, now, these are the things people never think about. I mean, Oz is a military organization, and military organizations are famous for having really shitty food! My brother had a friend who went into the army, and he told us that the food in the army cafeteria is just like school cafeteria food, only worse--grosser and more stale!
KQ: I liked school cafeteria food. I liked that food product with stripes on it--the "grilled meatloaf du jour"... So what did the Gundam pilots get to eat when they were growing up?
SM: Oh, they had to eat "space sticks."
KQ: "Space sticks"? Like astronaut ice cream?
SM: Yeah, like astronaut ice cream. And Slim Jims. And stuff in a pouch.
KQ: Bleah! Thank you for sharing...[laughter] In going back and looking at episodes 23 and 24 of the Japanese episodes last night, that reminded me--there really seems to be a shift in Duo's personality, somewhat, between the original version and the English one. It's kind of going along with his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles voice in English; he's a lot more sarcastic, as opposed to kind of complaining...
SM: Yeah, but shit is happening to him.
KQ: Yeah, but they have the sarcasto-meter turned way up!
SM: But probably beliefs that he's held for a long time are really being turned upside down, and nobody likes change, not even Duo Maxwell.
KQ: Yeah, but he's being very brashly sarcastic, as opposed to...
SM: He's a 15-year-old. He's entitled to it. It's his coping mechanism.
KQ: So it works okay for you?
SM: Yeah. I was 15 once.
KQ: I never was. I'm still 14. [laughter]
SM: But yeah, it works for me. Surliness in the teenager is not an uncommon thing to find. That's like, you know, a 1950s school film..."Hey, kids..."
KQ: I'm trying to think of a '50s film like that for training Gundam pilots.
SM: Oh, yeah! It would be all grainy, and black-and-white, and there's suddenly a big chunk out of the narration where someone cut, like, 40 feet out of the film to repair it and taped it back together with masking tape...
KQ: "The good Gundam pilot is careful to not shoot his instructor."
SM: "Make sure you have good posture inside your Gundam. Do not place chewing gum under your Gundam's seat; your Gundam doesn't like that. Remember that your Gundam has a personality; treat it with respect, much as you treat any part of your own body. And while we're on the topic of body parts, you might find yourself feeling a little funny..." [laughter]
KQ: [imitating the MST3Ked-Mr. B Natural] "You've got to clean your horn, boy..."
SM: [ditto] "...And wash it every day!" [laughter] How come this always comes back to Mr. B Natural? It always, always comes back to Mr. B Natural! Mr. B Natural is probably just another form of Shiva or something. It's like, everything returns to this one great being at the end of everything...some people might argue that it's Elvis, but some people are cracked--it's Mr. B! [laughter]
And I'm spent.
Go to Chapter 2 "Five Good-Looking Japanese Boys From All Walks Of Life!" (on Romper Room on Speed, Heero and Trowa and Sylvester and Daffy, the Princess Mononoke Press Guide, 'Handing It' To Paul Lynde, and More Praise For Gundam Wing Episode 1)
Go to Chapter 3 "What Were They Thinking?!" (on Bad Accents from Star Blazers to Giant Robo, Tomino's Monkeywrench, Photoshopping Heero's Shorts, the Quest for Two-Flap Swear Words, Duo Gets His Gun, and Gundam Wing Episode 2)
Go to Chapter 4 "'Dickweed' Would Gladden My Heart" (on Duo's Vintage Vocabulary, Heero's Mysterious Dripping, "Instructor Noin" Meets "Inspector Gadget," and Gundam Wing Episode 3)
Go to Chapter 5 "There Should Be About 57 Dots Between the 'Umm' and the 'Okay'..." (on the Appeal of Noin, How Sid & Marty Krofft Swayed Wufei, Crunchy Fruity Rebels, Fear of Freeza, and Gundam Wing Episodes 4, 5 and 6)
Go to Chapter 6 "The Hell With the New Possibilities--She Wants To Plook Heero!" (on the World's Smallest Violin, the Unfortunately-Named General That-Part-Of-Your-Nose, Ringo Starr Meets Turn A Gundam, Memories of Pleading For Heero's Medical Prognosis, and Gundam Wing Episodes 6 and 7)
Go to Chapter 7 "Why Don't You Gundams And The Colonies Get A Frickin' Room?" (on Zechs Failing Shop Class, Quatre Raberba Jonny Quest Winner, Simultaneous Possession By Dr. Evil, Heero's Difficulties With Modern Technology, Pagan's Surfing For Smut, and Gundam Wing Episode 17)
Go to Chapter 7.5 "Silence Nowwwwwwwwwwww!" (on Heero's Holster, Explaining Headcheese, Sally and Cher Po, the Gundam Wing Voice Actors Revealed, Kudos For Correspondents, and Gundam Wing Episode 20)
Go to Chapter 8 "God Forbid Little Kids Get Ideas..." (on the Great Houdini vs. the God of Death, Keeping Duo from Damaging Impressionable Young Minds, Oz Fashion Don'ts, Duo's True-Life Nature Adventure, a Left Turn into Trigun, and Gundam Wing Episode 23)
Go to Chapter 10 "I Don't Usually Use 'Clown' In That Context..." (on Epyon's Sex Appeal, Duo Hitting the [Soy] Sauce, Wasabi Wars, Catherine Gets a Trowagotchi, Evoking Bozo, More Language Rules, and Gundam Wing Episodes 36 and 37)
Go to Chapter 11 "Ralphie Does Not Want To Sit On Santa's Lap Any More..." (on Howdy Doody's Enduring Fashion Influence, the Real Reason the Cartoon Network Wanted Gundam Wing, Duo's Cheeks, Epyon Vs. Sam The Snowman, Feeling Bad For Freeza, Singing the Praises of "Pants," and Gundam Wing Episode 39)
Go to Chapter 12 "He's Not Having Mental Problems--He's Having an Epyon Moment!" (on Push-Up Bras of the Future, More Things To Put In Heero's Pants, Soulmates Zechs and Shatner, Epyon and Secretariat's Love Child, the Nice People at McFarlane Toys, Bandai-ing Dolls About, and Gundam Wing Episode 41)
Return to MIND EDUCATION: Kagenami Q's Gundam Wing Doujinshi Reference Digs
This page was created April 10, 2000. Last updated November 23, 2004.