Gundam Wing: The Endless Waltz

Following the Gundam Wing television series, this was first released in 1997 as a three-part OVA and then assembled in 1998 into a single film with new scenes and an altered ending. In After Colony 196 the war between Earth and the space colonies is over. The Gundam pilots decide their weapons are no longer needed, send their machines into the sun to be destroyed, and try to build civilian lives. Then Relena, now a senior government figure, is abducted, and how fragile the peace is becomes clear. The film's central idea is that ending a war is not the same as building a peace, and the new threat grows out of precisely the part of the old war that was never resolved. The design work sits noticeably above the series standard. Who it's for: Gundam Wing viewers and followers of mecha anime. Who it's not for: anyone who has not seen the series; the film introduces nobody from scratch.