Chang Wufei

Chang Wufei (張 五飛, Ūfei Chan'?, Hanyu Pinyin: Wǔfēi Zhāng, Wufei Zhang in the original Japanese version) is a fictional character from the anime series Mobile Suit Gundam Wing. He is a central character of the anime and several of the derivative works that make up the After Colony fictional universe. He is the pilot of XXXG-01S Shenlong Gundam and its upgraded form the XXXG-01S2 Altron Gundam. Wufei is voiced by Ryuuzou Ishino in Japanese and Ted Cole in English.

Personality & Character
Wufei is a conflicted character. While he remains calm in many situations that would concern his fellows, he's also prone to angry emotional outbursts in response to many things, such as conflict idealogies and the gender of his opponents. He tends not to care what others think of him or his ideas and takes direct action even when he is uncertain.

Wufei is a fierce warrior descended from a long, proud clan of Chinese warriors, and thus despises weakness in character and body, in others and in himself. He has a particular and strict sense of honor, as is seen when he agreed to exit his Gundam and duel Treize on his vessel, a vessel he easily could have destroyed from a distance. When defeated, he admitted this and did not use his Gundam to kill the man who had bested him.

As evidenced in Episode Zero, when he was younger he was calmer and much more cerebral, but his unwillingness to fight resulted in the death of his wife Meilan, a strong girl who took the responsibility of protecting the colony (and the newly-built Shenlong Gundam) onto herself and was killed in battle. Wufei then chose to carry out her path of justice in honor of her sacrifice.

Wufei refuses to fight those he sees as weak, such as pacifists, women and children.

While all the pilots turned against the original Operation Meteor, Wufei is the only one who was not assisted by his respective scientist, Master O, rebelling against his clan's elders on his own, for what he saw as an injustice, claiming he could take down all the evil in space by himself.

Skills & Abilities
Ground Zero's write up of the Wufei lists him as an expert at "close-in" fighting and hand-to-hand combat. Additionally, when debriefing OZ soldiers about the various skillsets of the Gundam pilots at the beginning of the series, Lady Une orders her men to avoid combat with 05 Gundam entirely, saying that they'll overwhelm him with numbers with the time is right, which seems to suggest that he's very skilled at one-on-one combat within his Gundam, as well.

Wufei is described as brainy and scholarly in Episode Zero, the end notes saying that if the war hadn't happened he might have become a mad scientist that rivals the likes of Master O, which suggests some level of intelligence and aptitude in sciences. This may be evidenced in how Wufei tends to be a step or two ahead of his fellow Gundam pilots, despite primarily working alone.

History
Wufei grew up as an heir of the Long Clan in Colony A0206. The Chinese government feared the strength of the clan and exiled them to the aging colony.

At the age of 14, as per clan custom, he married Master Long's (an elder clan member) granddaughter, Meiran, who was also an heir. Wufei and his wife did not get along as Meiran did not feel Wufei was fit to carry on the clan's name due to his preference for book-study over fighting. Wufei on the other hand, didn't think Meiran deserved to call herself "Nataku"(a Chinese deity).

Episode Zero
One day, the United Earth Sphere Alliance, led by General Septum, attacked Wufei's colony with the intent to kill its inhabitants using germ weapons. Also organizing an attack was OZ's Treize Khushrenada, who wanted to capture the colony using mobile suits. Meiran charged into the battle using a OZ-00MS Tallgeese prototype Gundam Engineer Master O had designed. Wufei went after her in his still incomplete Shenlong Gundam. He was able to defeat several OZ-06MS Leos until his beam saber ran out energy and Meiran charged into an oncoming Leo causing an explosion that left her severely wounded. After taking her back to a field of flowers in the colony, Meiran died from her injuries.

Determined to avenge his wife, Wufei took on her fight for justice, renamed his Gundam "Nataku" in her honor and joined Operation Meteor.

Gundam Wing
In AC 195, Wufei was sent to Earth in the Shenlong Gundam as part of Operation Meteor. His objectives were to destroy OZ in retaliation for the assassination of the pacifist political leader Heero Yuy. One of Wufei's first missions was to destroy the space Taurus mobile suits at the Lake Victoria Base. There, Wufei encountered Lieutenant Lucrezia Noin, who was a mobile suit pilot instructor. Seeing how young Wufei was, Noin hesitated long enough for Chang to escape and enter his Gundam. After quickly disabling Noin's mobile suit and destroying two others, Wufei used an space cannon to shoot down an OZ transport plane that had been loaded with Tauruses. He chided Noin for her hesitation, but did not killer her.

Wufei eventually met up with the other four other Gundam pilots(Heero Yuy, Duo Maxwell , Quatre Raberba Winner and Trowa Barton ) at the New Edwards Base but was too late to inform them that they had been used by Treize Khushrenada to kill the United Earth Sphere Alliance's pacifist leaders. Along with Trowa, he pursued Treize and engaged in a dueled with the OZ founder aboard his Naval command ship. Treize bested him and left Wufei to doubt his abilities as a soldier. Defeated, he traveled to China where he encountered Sally Po leading a band of rebels against the Alliance military leader Colonel Bundt. Sally helped Wufei overcome his insecurities and he used his Shenlong to defeat OZ and slay Bundt(who had handed over military control to OZ in exchange for his promotion to Head of State).

With OZ liberating the colonies from the control of the Earth Sphere Alliance, Wufei and his fellow Gundam pilots were forced to return to space. Wufei then launched a surprise attack on the space fortress Barge but was caught in it's giant beam cannon causing significant damage to his Gundam, which forced him to further damage it with its beam glaive to provide enough propulsion to escape.

His Gundam still damaged, Wufei later tried to assassinate the Romefeller Foundation's Chief Engineer Tsubarov who was en route to the Lunar Base but was quickly subdued and captured. During his time in captivity he learned from Duo Maxwell that his Gundam was being rebuilt and improved by the five Gundam scientists in secret. With Lady Une on Barge, Tsubarov cut the air supply to the prison cells and in what appeared to be his final hours, Wufei spent time familiarizing himself with the schematics of his new Gundam. During the ensuing battle between Lady Une's forces and Tsubarov's Mobile Dolls, Lady Une managed to free the imprisoned pilots as well as the scientists and Wufei made his escape with a semi-completed Altron Gundam.

Wufei returned to his home colony but wasn't there long before OZ tracked him down and attacked. Wufei took the battle outside the colony but watched in horror as Master Long decided to destroy the colony though self-detonation. Sad, angry and confused, Wufei continued to fight the OZ space force until Zechs Merquise in the Wing Zero approached him and proposed they unite to fight OZ and Romefeller. Considering Zechs an untrustworthy traitor, Wufei refused to join him and fought the masked pilot briefly before leaving.

During the White Fang's takeover of the Lunar Base, Wufei staged another guerrilla attack and destroyed a number of Mobile Dolls and disappeared. He continued his one-man crusade to rid outer space of weapons and was soon approached by Noin to join her cause in fighting for peace but turned her down. Wufei then attempted to attack the still-incomplete battleship Libra but was thwarted by a barrage of beam fire. Later, he destroyed a White Fang unit in pursuit of a few former Treize Faction members but again took heavy damage to his mobile suit. Sally Po and fellow Gundam pilot Heero Yuy(now in possession of Wing Zero) picked him up in their shuttle but were quickly surrounded by White Fang reinforcements. Given permission by Heero, Wufei piloted the Wing Zero and thanks to the Zero System, was able to see the White Fang's new leader, Zechs Merquise and the newly-formed Earth Sphere Unified Nation's leader Treize Khushrenada as his enemies.

Wufei, Heero and Sally eventually joined the three other Gundam pilots, Noin and Howard on the battleship Peacemillion and they engaged in several sorties with White Fang troops until the final battle between the ESUN and White Fang. During the battle, Wufei sought out and challenged Treize in his OZ-00MS2 Tallgeese II. After revealing to Wufei that he knew the exact number of soldiers that had died for him and mourned them, Treize charged forward and allowed himself to be impaled on Altron's beam trident. Wufei was wracked with grief, claiming he didn't win the battle.

Soon after that, Wufei retrieved Wing Zero's buster rifle and delivered it to Heero who shot down the final block of Libra that was descending to Earth bringing an end to the conflict.

Endless Waltz
Dissatisfied with the world, Wufei ignored Quatre's plan to send the Gundams into the Sun decided to joined the Mariemaia Army to determine if peace at the expense of lives could truly be called peace.

He tangled with Heero when the latter and Duo attempted to infiltrate Colony X-18999 where Vice Foreign Minister Relena Darlian was being held captive. Their battle was brought to an end when smoke from the nearby battle between Trowa and Duo filled the tunnel allowing Heero to escape.

After escorting Mariemaia and Relena and their shuttle during re-entry to Earth, he fought Heero again who had retrieved the Wing Zero and was attempting to go to Brussels where Mariemaia's forces had taken over the Presidential Residence. The two clashed swords as well as philosophies and Heero eventually made Wufei realize that by continuing to fight, he was increasing the chance of a catastrophic event like his colony's self-destruction happening.

After Heero destroyed the now-fortified Presidential Residence(which left Wing Zero destroyed too), Wufei joined the citizens in his Gundams as they rose up against Mariemaia's army. Seeing the people demand freedom and peace, Wufei bid Treize farewell, his battle now over.

Away from Duo, Quatre and Trowa who had detonated their suits together, Wufei detonated Altron on his own and was recruited by Sally Po to work for the Preventers.

Frozen Teardrop
By M.C. 0022, Wufei has become the head of the Mars Preventer base. He is the direct superior officer of Kathy Po, whom he sends to Earth to meet with President Dorothy Catalonia and get important files in order to enact Operation Mythos. When Kathy arrives back at the base, Wufei uses the files to awaken Heero Yuy from cold sleep. He and Father Maxwell with his son Duo greet Heero once awoken and give him his mission.

When the Lanigreen Republic's Zechs Merquise launches an attack in his Epyon, Master Chang takes off in his self-built Epyon White called 'Nataku' to battle him. While he is able to keep up with Zechs' Epyon for some time, Wufei resorts to using the unit's ZERO System midway through the battle. Once the two are at a stalemate, Heero and Duo arrive in Snow White and Warlock to provide backup against the 4 Virgo-IV mobile dolls Zechs is controlling. Eventually, Wufei, Heero, and Duo retreat as a deployment of Mars Federation suits approach.

Quotes
Quote:Chang Wufei
 * "My name's Wufei. I'm not hiding anywhere."
 * "Fighting a weak enemy always makes me feel so empty afterwards."
 * About Noin "It's a woman? Well that explains it."
 * "I didn't think I'd win."
 * "If you don't kill me right now, I'll keep coming back until I kill you, Treize!"
 * "I've got no right piloting Nataku."
 * To Heero "Are you sure you're doing the right thing?!"
 * "Show me justice!"
 * To Heero "I need to determine for myself whether or not peace at the expense of lives can really be defined as peace. And I will become evil itself to find out!"
 * To Noin "You saw I was a kid and you underestimated me. You're a weak soldier. I don't kill bleeding hearts or women."