Dialogue Changes

• Title: The Japanese title, "Shinigami to Yobareru Gandamu" translates to "The Gundam Called God of Death." I guess they just decided to put what the Gundam really is called instead of what Duo calls it (and himself o_O;;) rather than deal with this little "problem" now...They deal with it later and, boy...argh, I'll talk about it when I get to the episode where it's first mentioned in the show. I'll have some things to say, believe me ^_^

• Captain of ship, to Zechs: "It's none of your damn business!"--This was shortened to "It's none of your business!" in the cut version. This is the line which quickly answered my question of whether there was going to be any swearing in the uncut version. I was surprised and pleased at the same time when I found out the answer was yes. Thank you, nameless captain. Now people besides 13x6 fans have a reason to love you (This guy's line in the original "What does Treize's boy want?" is certainly a favorite among fans of that relationship...err, relating this to the dub, that line became "Treize's little pawn", which isn't quite as suggestive, but still interesting ^_^)

• Captain of ship, to Zechs: "Damn you!"--(My, this guy doesn't really like Zechs, does he?). This became "Blast you!" Get ready for a lot of these, people. "Damn" is replaced with "blast" just about as much as "kill" is replaced with "destroy" in the cut version :P

• Duo: "You'll all die."--This became "You'll be destroyed." This is the first time I've seen "die" be replaced with "destroy." From what I can figure out, "die" is replaced if it's being used as a threat to someone, such as in the line above. At least, that's the case most of the time...Sometimes (one example is in episode 9) it's being used in a non-threatening way and it's changed for reasons unknown to me. Ah, the inconsistencies of dubbing...how I love them making this harder ^_^;;

• OZ soldier: "Damn!"--This changed to "Blast!" Told you there's going to be a lot of these ^_^

• Duo: "Dammit...he knows Gundanium's impact tolerance."--The first part was changed to "Oh, man." Well, at least it's a bit different than "blast" ^_^

Edits

• Blood on Heero's arm from first bullet, hole in shorts and blood on leg from second bullet: Well, this is the first edit of the series...and, frankly, I was a bit confused by this. It seems like, once again, we're being returned to the early Dragonball Z dub days when blood wasn't allowed. And, once again, I have to wonder, "why?" Why is blood OK in every other show, but not Gundam Wing? Gundam Wing rarely has a lot of blood, anyway (The only episodes with scenes that actually have a lot of blood, as in big pools of it, are episode 10 and OAV episode 3...) so what's the point of cutting out the little amount there is? It's interesting how even the cut version of Gundam Wing is defining how anime airing on TV should be done translation-wise, yet at the same time it's taking huge steps backwards by reverting back to things that weren't OK before but are now in other shows. But hey, given the choice between seeing a little blood or having a good translation, I'd pick the good translation any day, which Gundam Wing definitely has. So what I'm saying is, while I don't really mind these little edits, I still don't understand why they're being done, especially since other cartoons have blood all the time.

Voices

• "Better than the original?!": I just have to say that I thought that some of the voices done in this episode were very effective, perhaps even more so than the original. I'm referring to the soldiers who were helping Zechs look for the Gundam. I thought that they sounded so young and eager, and I actually felt sorry for them when they died! I was a bit surprised by this, since I don't remember feeling too sorry for them in the original. But I think the way the voices were done effectively portrays the kind of people in the OZ organization: It's mostly made up of eager young men, many not even out of their teens, who are willing to fight for a cause they think is worthy. It's things like this which make me love this series so much; it's hard to find characters who you could actually call "evil," and even those who may be considered "bad guys" are hard to hate (Hey, the only character I hate is a "good" character...die, Relena, DIE!). Anyway, this is another example of Gundam Wing's good dubbing, which I hope will keep up throughout the series...after all, there are some old man characters later (i.e., the five scientists who created the Gundams), and we all know how dubbers seem to love giving those types of characters squeaky old man voices. *shudder*

In General

• "How'd they get away with that?": OK, we know now that the dubbers of Gundam Wing have a problem with the word "kill" However, for some reason, Relena uses it twice in this episode, and both times it remaines unchanged in the cut version. She said it when she was wondering about Heero ("That's why he's going to kill me!"), and we hear her thinking it later in the episode after she left her party ("Who are you going to kill?"). I don't know if this was a mistake or what, but it's there both times, when it's been changed before and after this point. Strange...

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