Hogan Reviews

Well I didn’t expect this to be the next Gundam review that found its way on this blog, but that’s the past two years of my life for you… The Witch From Mercury is the latest Gundam series (that actually debuted back in the autumn and I’m only now getting round to reviewing it, but that’s the last two years for you… again!) and features several departures from the norm, but for the most part these changes have worked really well. Plus the actual animation is top notch! Let’s take a look at the first Season before the second starts already!

While the world set up is familiar to Gundam fans in that humans have moved into space and now there is tension between the “Spacians” and “Earthians” (okay, that lingo is new…) with mobile suits on both sides, but instead of a long-standing war the backstory of this world is very different, at least that we know of. In the special prologue episode we see that a pretty much entirely female group of researchers were creating a new technology they called GUND that would help humanity live in space but it was twisted into military use, including mobile suits they dubbed GUND-Arms, which lets face it is a convoluted way to get to certain suits being called Gundams. Anyway, a gathering of rival mobile suits creators and high-ranking businessmen and politicians led by the “Benerit Group” decide to ban the GUND format due to being “dangerous” and lead an all-out assault on the “Witches” that created it. Only one researcher managed to survive, and that was mostly thanks to her four-year-old daughter who mysteriously managed to communicate with the GUND system on board…

A loving embrace in space! (Well, inside a colony in space, but that doesn’t rhyme as well)

This sets the series up proper as that young girl is now a teenage girl called Suletta Mercury who has spent all her time growing up in a pretty remote space colony over, well, the planet Mercury and who is now attending the Asticassia School of Technology, a massive school that specialises in technology revolving around mobile suits. The rather odd wrinkle to the school is that students can, and often do, challenge each other to mobile suit duels where two of the massive machines do a legit battle that ends when a horn is cut from the top of the suit’s head. Suletta arrives with her custom Gundam Aerial, despite the technology being banned still, though she has been told by her mother that it isn’t a GUND-Arm, so it’s okay… you know, until her first duel where she uses suit’s “Bit Staves” (a.k.a. Funnels) which are a dead give away that it’s using the GUND format. Whoops! A good chunk of these episodes deal with this fallout, but I’ll get to that in a bit.

Suletta is quick to make friends at school, despite being extremely socially awkward, and the main one here is Miorine Rembran, daughter of rich and powerful Delling Rembran. She was set to marry Guel Jeturk, a son of a similarly powerful man who was looking to marry into the Rembrans, but instead Miorine puts herself on the line in a duel between Suletta and Guel and when Suletta wins she becomes her bride to be, which initially confuses Suletta leading to Miorine to remark that “things must be pretty backwards” where she’s from (who would’ve thought a Gundam series would be a rare Japanese straight look at same sex relationships?) Due to being set to wed the two become friends, and together they join Earth House, despite being Spacians, and through that Miorine creates her own company in order to get around Suletta’s GUND-based legal troubles.

Look at all those potential moves to appear in Gundam games for the next few decades…

This is where I felt the series slowed down a bit too much for me, there was an episode based entirely on a business proposal “showdown” with literally zero of anything happening apart from Miorine’s last minute manipulation of her Dad in order to save Suletta’s Aerial / her new company. Not horrible or anything but I did feel it slowed the pace down a bit too much. I guess I’m more used to regular politics in my Gundam rather than business politics. The other members of Earth House are pretty forgettable, though young girl Nika is all smiles and sunshine but seemingly has some backdoor dealings with some dodgy people, and Chuatury is entertaining in her straight forward overly-aggressive personality.

In terms of antagonists the main one I’ll get to in the spoilers section, but we obviously have the already mentioned Guel, though as the series progresses he slowly losing his status and money and becomes a more likeable character, but we also have Elan Ceres, whose school life is actually undertaken by a series of body doubles who have been enhanced to pilot suits with GUND-Format tech. “Number 4” actually ends up being Suletta’s first crush and starts to feel emotions towards her, which the company Peil Technologies behind him aren’t too happy about, leading to them disposing of 4 and putting a new Elan into the school, this time specifically trained to flirt and manipulate Suletta in order to get info on her Gundam. It keeps the story ticking and gives us a slice of mobile suit battling here and there as well, which is handy for a Gundam series!

Overall Thoughts:

Even the enemy suits have great designs this time round!

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury is a strange mix of school life, business politics and mobile suit combat but with a lead character that’s genuinely charming and easy to route for (with the possible exception of the final scene of the series) made for a fun ride. Looking forward to seeing where it goes from here.

So throughout the show a young man named Shaddiq Zenelli is another child of a top business executive family and is in charge of over-seeing all the duels that take place, but as the show progresses the smiley and friendly Shaddiq shows a ruthless side as he wishes to take over his father’s business and generally change the way things are run, eventually okaying the use of a mercenary team called the “Dawn of Fold” to take out Delling Rembran and break up the Benerit Group entirely, allowing his family’s Grassley Defence Systems to take control. Of course wouldn’t you know it Suletta and the Earth House business of “GUND-arm” are visiting the same space colony where Delling is staying just as the attack happens.

Hahaha, such a silly girl… ARGH!

Miorine has something close to a reconciliation with her father as he’s mortally wounded while Suletta meets with her mother, who has not only created a new upgraded Gundam Aerial (dubbed “Aerial Rebuild”) but after gunning down several armed terrorists tells her daughter that killing is okay if its done while protecting someone you love. Suletta seemingly takes this to heart as in a now-infamous scene she spots Miorine about to be shot so slams the Aerial’s hand down on the terrorist, squashing him like a bug and spraying Miorine in blood. Suletta pops out of the Aerial, slips on the puddle of blood and jokingly remarks how she’s “such a clutz” before offering her blood-soaked hand out to her betrothed as she screams and calls Suletta and murderer. Disturbing, and a great cliffhanger too!