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EP. REVIEW: Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury

Maybe the real Gundam was the Eri's we made along the way.

I've had the idea bouncing around in my head for a couple weeks now that if rather than this being Gundam-does-Utena or Gundam-does-Evangelion as I've seen people say, what if it's Gundam-does-Pacific Rim? What if the solution to the GUND's datastream problem is that it needs two consciousnesses to handle the load? Going back to the Prologue, Lfrith didn't have a successful callback from layer 33 until Eri and Elenora were BOTH in the cockpit. This would lend credibility to the Eri=Aerial theory - the Aerial being Eri's GUND body being by far the simplest in-universe solution.

I could see this opening the door for an interesting mid-series upgrade where Suletta loses the Aerial and gets a new Gundam with a tandem cockpit where Suletta and Miorine can pilot together.

All pure speculation and wishful thinking, but why not.

Looking at the news reports shown in the prologue, I'm pretty sure there's extensive documented proof of the side effects that Gundam pilots suffered from. I don't think Miorine has any doubts about that. The issue is that both Peil and Shin Sei claim to have fixed that flaw. We know that Peil is straight up lying, and we don't know if whatever is going on under Aerial's hood is ethical/repeatable either. My question is if Miorine wants her company to go back to the medical application of the tech instead of the industrial/military applications why do they need to build their own mobile suits again?

I also don't think the Gun-format side effects are something that kills you after just a few runs, unless you just jump in and crank the sync rate up to max. It's something that deteriorates your health over time. I think it would be difficult for Gun-Arm co. to accidentally kill a test pilot before realizing something was wrong.

This is a little bit random, but: has the story given us any in-universe reason that witches is gendered? Were the first GUND protocol users all women? I guess the lead inventor was, and a number of the staff, including Prospera. I was going to ask if the protocol itself was only compatible with a female pilot, but the Elan(s) kind of serve as a counterexample there.

So I'm going to finish out this season, but it's doubtful I'll return. This has just been a dreadfully boring show that I dislike. I see that it speaks to other people, but the direction they went is just not what I'm looking for in a Gundam show.

Now I think how this first half will end will be breaking the native of Suletta which is good because it's been dragged out to the point of being obnoxious.
I think Lady Prospera will kill Dieling and take over whatever he's working on. She will reveal herself as the main antagonist and maybe reveal how she does not give a fudge about Suletta. It won't surprise me if she tries to kill her only for Airel to turn aginst her.

I've been told I'm stupid because I don't get the capitalism whatever talk in this show. Whatever I don't care, I don't find it engaging or interesting. I can't stand teens in anime being able to do more beyond their station. And while yes 18 year olds can be enturpenuers, I find it outlandish how these teens behave in regards to the whole company aspect. Almost as outlandish as the duel concept.

It would work with me better if the school was scary and felt threatening as a setting, but it doesn't. Seems like the kids can do anything and really beyond the quite frankly cringe-groom stuff. I think the show has done a poor job really selling the crippling control over most of these characters that I feel the story wants to present.

Yes, the duel reps for the main companies are clearly framed as extensions of what their adults are doing. How they use them is representative of their tactics. Anyone who's experienced anime knows all to well the themes of "adults are bad". It's not compelling here for me. In fact it seems rather stupid. Of course, Shaddiq is adopted which seems like a superfluous anime thing, but also why would his father reveal something rather important to him in front of his harem? Why do all these teenagers have all these connections?

But also most of these characters aren't characters. I hardly know anything about most of the supporting cast. The show has done an awful job giving most of these characters presence and or well character. I don't care that blue haired character is a traitor as I know nothing about her. People say this show has good characters, I don't see it. I don't see interesting dynamics. I don't see interesting conflicts.

Suletta has so little agency in this show it's almost insulting. Mio is just a boring tsundere character and their groomship shit just feels like a cheap very anime way to get these two characters together, because the writing has not yet given me anything really compelling to chew on as to how these characters work together.

I get that I'm in the minority, but I watch this show with my gf and we both sit here just unengaged.
I've shown her Seed, IBO, 08th MS team. Among other anime like Gurren Lagann, Full Metal Alchemist 2003, Macross Plus, Code Geass, and Giant Robo. The Gundam stuff has gone over well because each show has a compelling cast with interesting dynamics and conflicts that grab you. We both feel none of that is in Witch. I wish I could see what people see in this.

This is a little bit random, but: has the story given us any in-universe reason that witches is gendered? Were the first GUND protocol users all women? I guess the lead inventor was, and a number of the staff, including Prospera. I was going to ask if the protocol itself was only compatible with a female pilot, but the Elan(s) kind of serve as a counterexample there.

And while yes 18 year olds can be enturpenuers, I find it outlandish how these teens behave in regards to the whole company aspect. Almost as outlandish as the duel concept.

It would work with me better if the school was scary and felt threatening as a setting, but it doesn't.

Of course, Shaddiq is adopted which seems like a superfluous anime thing

but also why would his father reveal something rather important to him in front of his harem? Why do all these teenagers have all these connections?