Suletta has certainly made a splash in her short time at
Astacassia. She is in possession of a
forbidden Mobile Suit, the Gundam Aeriel.
And she’s become the intended Groom for the beautiful Miorine
Rembran. All eyes fall on this shy and
timid girl from Mercury and her powerful Mobile Suit and some are determined to
get their hands on both, by any means necessary. To protect her Groom to be, Miroine takes a
gamble on a bold declaration to her father and the rest of the Benerit
Group. Meanwhile, Suletta’s mother,
Prospera Mercury, watches with great interest as her own plans begin to fall
into place.
Even though it’s straying away from its more traditional
storytelling structure, I’ve gotta give it to The Witch from Mercury, it’s
fascinating as Hell.
Sure it has the
cute leads and the kick ass Mobile Suit battles and they work as well as ever
for Gundam.
However, much of the best
moments and world building occurred off the battlefield, or rather they took
place on a far different battlefield than the one Gundam is used to showing.
It’s all shaping up to make this one of the
best Alternate Universe Gundam series in a good while.
Let’s get into the shows sophomore set of
episodes.
The “Curse of the Gundam” is constantly brought up in
this set and its an understandable one.
Machines that take the lives of their pilots is bad for any side that
purchases them and the companies that make them.
However, we see that isnt stopping companies
from working to master the Gund system that made the Gundams so deadly in the
first place.
Which brought us to the
concept of “Enhanced Humans” like Elan, or should I call him Elan 4.
He’s a copy of the true Elan Ceres (who like
most upper echelon family members in this series is kind of a jerk) and is
capable of pushing past normal Gund boundaries that we saw practically kill
their pilots in the Prologue.
This isnt
that much different from developing Cyber Newtypes in the Universal Century,
Humans capable of matching the talents of true Newtypes even if they aren’t
natural ones.
Elan 4’s theory that
Suletta might be one such person isnt without merit considering she can pilot
the Aerial without dying in the process, so there’s food for thought there.
Too bad Elan continues the sad tradition of
most Cyber Newtypes of being eliminated when he’s outlived his usefulness (btw
anytime someone talks about or sings Happy Birthday, it’s time to get nervous
cause that means someone in G Witch is about to die).
Expanding on the Business War nature of G Witch, we got
to see the girls attend a special event for potential start up business
ventures within the Benerit Group.
For a
guy who is completely lost when it comes to the financial world, I’ve gotta say
this was a cool angle to explore and even cooler to see Miorine take advantage
of it to save Suletta and the Aerial when both were outed as a Witch and Gundam
by those four old hags from Piel (btw they may have names but I don’t care, I’m
calling them the Bene Gesserit, after the faction from Dune, because of their
holier than thou attitudes and theyre thinking they control virtually
everything behind the scenes).
It was
interesting to see Delling back his daughters proposal and even warn her about
the Gundam Curse after he tried to put Miorine down yet again because “I’m the
King and no ones going to listen to you without me.”
Still, Miorine took Prospera’s advice and
caved in to begging her Father for help, which ended up working out in the
end.
I’m still not sure why Delling is
suddenly going back on his Anti-Gundam stance, then again everyone else is
wondering the same thing.
Speaking of people with hidden agendas, at the top of
that mountain is Suletta’s mother, the former Elnora now going by Prospera
Mercury.
And why wouldn’t she be Queen
of this group? She is rocking a sweet looking Char mask after all.
And she’s not even being that subtle about
having something up her sleeve.
The way
she speaks to Miroine at the Incubation Party is borderline threatening and
Miorine is right to not completely trust her.
Same cant be said for Suletta, who seems to have blind faith in her Mom
and anything she wants her to do.
Prospera seems more than happy to help out with the venture started by
her daughter and Miorine.
But how much
is she willing to share and what the heck does she get out of it?
Is she really ok with Miorine trying to
fulfill Gund’s original purpose of saving lives?
Given how Prospera seems to relish in
rattling the cages of the other Corporations like Jetruk, I doubt she’s nervous
about using underhanded tactics to get what she wants, just like a true Char
would.
The front half of this set of episodes was very action
heavy compared to the more character and exposition driven second half.
It did give us another excellent battle for
the Aerial as Suletta faced Elan 4 and his own Gundam, the Pharact. It was fun
to see the Aerial battle a suit almost it’s equal but clearly there’s still
some elements about the suit that even Suletta is unaware of and Elan 4
glimpsed something that raises a ton of nervous eyebrows.
I should also give a shout out to Guel.
He started the series as a self absorbed ass
but he’s been taken down several pegs since Suletta defeated him.
Yet he’s taking it all in stride: apologizing
to Miorine for his rudeness and even coming to Suletta’s defense when Elan 4
made her cry.
He may be an excellent
pilot but Guel’s been shown a couple of times now that his house is kind of
slacking when it comes to other companies and their far advanced Mobile Suits,
I kind of feel bad for the guy.
I cant
say the same for Shaddiq, I just cant stand him and his determination to make
Miorine and her dreams part of his plan has set the stage for an epic fight
next week.
Lastly, I’ll talk a little about Earth House.
This is Suletta’s White Base
Crew/Tekkadan/Celestial Being/main crew of the series, comprised of students
from Earth.
I’ll admit, while they did
pop up in the premiere in spurts, I didn’t have much to say about them.
I’ve only committed a couple of members names
to memory: Nika, Suletta’s first friend at Astacassia, and Chu Chu…who
basically is loud, obnoxious and would club every Spacian she could get her
hands on if she could.
Chu Chu’s
rudeness is her default setting and it’s a schtick that gets old pretty quickly
(and agrivating when youre watching this show with headphones and she yells
full blast).
Still, making them the
staff of Miorine’s Gund-Arm Inc was a good move.
It allowed them to partake in the discussion
of what to do with this new company and the debate over potentially selling
weapons that could make life on Earth more Hell than it already is.
So yeah, they’re growing on me.
Also, they made a very cute and funny ad with
Suletta and Aerial, so props there.
I never expected to be sucked in to all the business
intrigue that G Witch has chosen to mine but damn I am invested.
Miorine thinks she can break the Gundam Curse
but clearly everyone else wants this too but not for the same noble
ideals.
What kind of trouble can this
new start up company bring Suletta and Miorine?
We’ll find out as we reach the mid series point of Mobile Suit Gundam:
The Witch from Mercury, Next Monday right here at the Gundam Anime Corner.
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