This month: Gundam sites!

Mobile Suit Gundam. This is an anime I had intended to tackle in my first or second year of this column. I was honestly surprised when I looked back through my archives and found I'd never done the topic. But I was even more surprised when I began browsing. You see, I'd heard of Gundam Wing, but I honestly had no idea just how popular the show is. I'd expected to see sites from the Gundam series I was familiar with, like the original, Z Gundam, 0080, or 0083. Instead I found site after site after site devoted to Gundam Wing. In fact, judging by how Gundam Wing sites so outnumber all other Gundam sites, it's clear Gundam Wing introduced a large number of new fans to the Gundam universe.

But we'll get back to Gundam Wing later. Let's start off with some general Gundam sites.

Gundam.Com: Anaheim Electronics Online is one place to start. It's an nicely designed site, with plenty of information. The suit datafile is especially impressive, an interactive display of mobile suits, pilots, and weapons. The timeline is worth checking out as well, with its search engine, but I'd like to see the events presented in a more compact fashion, rather a graphic frame around each sentence. The site also offers postcards, and you can vote for your favorite series (Wing not eligible).

The Gundam Project is a site rich in information about every Gundam anime, as well as novels, comics, and video games. Pages are devoted to the incredible variety of Gundam models. It's a great resource for fans, if you can get in. As I write this, the site is having problems, and I'm having severe difficulty getting any of the pages to load. One of the frustrations of writing this column is finding a great site during the initial research which won't respond when I do the actual writing. I think it's reasonable, though, to hope that the site will be healthy again once the column is published.

isn't very encyclopedic, but I especially like the detailed map of lunar orbit in the Universal Century era, showing the positions of the space colonies.

If you're a mobile suit nut, check out . This site contains what appears to be an image and data for every mobile suit in every Gundam story, including manga side stories. I'm not knowledgeable enough about Gundam to know if it is indeed a complete collection, but the number of suits listed is so overwhelming to me, I'd find it hard to believe there could be any more.

What most impressed me about was the extensive coverage of Gundam video games. The site holds FAQs for over 20 games on five different gaming systems. A selection of screensavers is also offered, as well as a page of RealAudio and RealVideo clips.

Model building has always been an important part of Gundam fandom, as mecha are always central to the plot. The documents one individual's collection of Gundam models with a gallery of photographs, very well-taken photographs I might add. (Is "well-taken" a word?) To see the astounding extents model collectors will go to in order to create the perfect custom model, visit the "In Progress" section. takes a slightly different approach, reviewing nine different model kits which were assembled by the site author or a friend. The photo gallery contains some cleverly posed photographs of the models.

Okay, back to Gundam Wing. As I stated earlier, this is a very popular series. As with most popular series, it generates a plethora of sites, most by fans whose enthusiasm for the series or a particular character outpaces their skill in web design. As you browse, you encounter site after site that are basically the same, more or less the same basic data presented in the same basic way. As usual, however, there are gems to be found.

One such gem is . This supposedly "simple" site is actually one of the best introductions to Gundam Wing I could find. The main feature of this site is a set of in-depth character descriptions of the six major characters from the show, including tactical analysis of each pilot's mobile suit. Check out the "Miscellaneous" section for other data, including the show's storyline (taken from Gundam Project, but I can load this page...).

Click past the broken image on the front page, and you'll find , a nice little site with an attractive design. The "Computer Lab" has the basic data for the major characters. "Homework" has fan-fiction and fan-art. The "Music Room" is home to a collection of MP3 files. All in all, the content isn't that different from other fan sites, but it scores big on the presentation.

A character shrine I quite liked was , a site devoted to Trowa Barton, one of the pretty-boy pilots from Gundam Wing. The site is dark and moody, which fits the character perfectly, if I understand right. The "etc." page has wallpaper images, all available in each of the three most common display sizes, and a collection of icons.

I'd like to highlight two interesting fanfic-related sites, as they illustrate two sides of a controversial topic. boasts sixteen fan fictions for the series, each labelled by category to help you find the type of story you like. There are seven continuing "story games", where you can contribute to ongoing fics. The site also offers writing tips, and a list of people willing to proofread your stories. However, one thing the site does not offer, in fact, explicitly forbids, is "yaoi" fics.

"Yaoi", also known as "shonen ai", refers to stories which pair two male characters in a homosexual relationship. Gundam Wing, with its rather bishonen pilots, resulting in a surprisingly large female following for a mecha anime, understandably inspires a great deal of this type of fiction. If you're curious, you might want to visit , a nice-looking site devoted to one particular such pairing. A justification is offered for the likeliness of the pairing, as well as (of course) fan-fiction devoted to the idea.

While I'm at it, I'd appreciate it if someone could remind me what "yaoi" means. I seem to remember hearing that it's actually an acronym created by an American fan, standing for four Japanese words.

A few more Gundam Wing sites of note:

And last but not least, a few more miscellaneous Gundam sites.

And that's pretty much it. Now for some mail...