Shin Matsunaga

A fictional character from the Universal Century timeline of the anime Gundam metaseries.

Background
In the Mobile Suit Gundam fictional world, Shin Matsunaga was a Zeon ace pilot during the One Year War. When his talent was recognized, his mobile suit's head and left shoulder were painted white, thus giving him the nickname The White Wolf (Hakurō 白狼), which was later expanded into "The White Wolf of Solomon" when it became clear the space fortress Solomon was his base of operations. For much of the war Shin served as the bodyguard of Vice Admiral Dozle Zabi, whom he greatly revered, during the Admiral's frontline inspections. His mobile suits included a Zaku II, Gelgoog Jager(Officially he never had a Gelgoog Jager), and a Gyan (Which was never used if he had one at all.). Ironically, he was not at Solomon when the battle occurred, having been recalled to Side-3 shortly before the operation began.

Shin's nickname "White Wolf" came not only from his white colour scheme, but also his preference for close combat. His most well-known tactic was using his Mobile Suit's generally superior thrusters to move in close to a target and then use his Heat Hawk to carve it into pieces. This was very effective against warships, once he was close enough he no longer had to worry about their powerful beam cannons and their close combat weapons were often too weak to do any significant damage.

Shin is also reputed to be a "defensive Newtype", as by record he is the only ace pilot of Zeon who has never take a shot throughout the One Year War.

Gundam Evolve
In Gundam Evolve: 09 there is a character code-named Grey Wolf who pilots a yellow Zeta Gundam. While his name is never specifically stated, his physical appearance matches that of Matsunaga. In addition, he is referred to as a former Zeon ace pilot and a Grey Wolf emblem similar to Matsunaga's White Wolf emblem is located on the Zeta's shield.

The Zeta's yellow colour is the result of being covered in the same anti-beam coating as AEUG's Hyaku Shiki. While understanding the value of such a coating, it does not stop Grey Wolf from complaining that he wanted the Zeta to be coloured Grey.

Interestingly, Grey Wolf does not seem to have strong Newtype abilities; while two other pilots are able to sense the approach of a Psyco-Gundam, he is not. During the subsequent battle, Grey Wolf pilots his Buster Zeta into the mobile armor in an attempt to expose the enemy's movement patterns to White Unicorn, another Zeta pilot.

Two other Zetas in the same movie; one is coloured in the purple-and-white colour scheme of Amuro Ray (and Amuro himself is implied to be the pilot) and the other is painted in the red-and-black colours of Johnny Ridden (though it is a young Newtype girl named Yurii Ajissah who is piloting it).

Trivia
Due to the lack of original material about Matsunaga's background and activity, there are various theory and conflicting information created by fans. Some noticeable suggestion include the following:


 * He is a close friend of Dozle Zabi during his childhood as the two family are closed in business relationship, and Matsunaga family is a firm supporter of Zeon's independent movement.
 * Another version described Matsunaga being a rebellious youth and join the Military opposing his father's order. In this version, Dozle Zabi are the one who notice his talent as a MS pilot during his year in the Military Academic.
 * Various fan work suggest that he do not support the ideology of the Zabi family, and fight only to protect the interest of Spacenoid.
 * Some sources believe that he is the one who evacuate Mineva Lao Zabi to Axis, though other suggest that it is Char Aznable who done this job.
 * Some claim that he served under Anti-Earth Union Group (A.E.U.G.) / Karaba, but the reason why he do not join the Neo Zeon is left unexplained.