Anime Review: Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury
The year is 122 Ad Stella, presumably counting from the establishment of the first permanent space colony. Various corporations were quick to expand their presence, and with the discovery of the miracle substance Permet, the various space nations became more powerful than Earth. The Benerit Group of companies runs the Asticassia School of Technology, where the children of many of their top executives go to learn giant robot piloting, mechanics, and management skills. In the middle of the year, Suletta Mercury, a peppy but naive girl from the isolated mining colony on the planet Mercury, transfers in.
As she approaches, Suletta sees what looks like a person in a spacesuit stranded too far from the space station to get back under their own power. Suletta saves that person with her customized mecha suit, Aerial. The rescuee, Miorine Rembran, is ungrateful. She was attempting to escape from the school to somehow get to Earth. Miorine’s school life is made unbearable by the fact that her arrogant father, Delling Rembran, head of the Benerit Group, has declared that her spouse will be the heir to his company. And Miorine isn’t getting to choose who that will be.
Instead, her fiancé is whoever is the current champion of the school’s mecha dueling club, the “Holder.” The current Holder is Guel Jeturk, an arrogant jerk who is unspeakably rude to his “fiancée.” Suletta is outraged, and winds up challenging Guel to a duel to get him to apologize to Miorine. Suletta isn’t really thinking things through, and when she wins is gobsmacked to discover that she is now the Holder, and engaged to Miorine! Plus of course, the new target for the duelists.
Witch from Mercury is the latest iteration of the venerable Mobile Suit Gundam series of mecha action shows, airing from 2022-23. There’s a prologue set some years before the events at Asticassia to introduce the setting. You could skip that, especially as it takes a while for the events in it to fit together with the present day, but I would not recommend that. It combines the mecha action of previous installments and mixes it with inspiration from Revolutionary Girl Utena (engagement duels and lesbian overtones), William Shakespeare’s The Tempest (general plot structure and the final fate of some characters) and The Red Witch of Mercury (red-haired heroine with seemingly unnatural abilities.)
In this continuity, Gundams are a forbidden kind of mecha. They were created by weaponizing GUND technology originally meant for mentally controlling artificial limbs and other medical uses. This allows greater control of the combat suits, but as the synchronization rate rises, a data storm can cause nerve damage and eventually kill the user if they push it to the full. Aerial is a Gundam, but Suletta is unaware of this (her mother Prospera Mercury specifically lied to her on that point) and how she can pilot the suit without harming herself is one of the series’ mysteries.
There are three major corporations within the Benerit Group that are the primary contenders for the engagement and trying to take over the conglomerate. Guel Jeturk is the representative of the Jeturk group, the cold and aloof Elan Ceres pilots for the Peil Group, and prince-like Shaddiq Zenelli is the adopted son of the president of the Grassley Group. Unwanted in any of these factions, Suletta finds herself bunking with Earth House, mostly scholarship students from the impoverished Terran nations. The most outspoken of these is Chuatury “Chuchu” Panlunch, a feisty young woman who makes no bones about returning the contempt that Spacians heap upon Earthians. Miorine also allies with Earth House later after a bit of character development.
Good: As always for this franchise, fun giant robot combat. Interestingly for the “war is bad/wow, cool robots” franchise, the emphasis is on preventing a war from breaking out rather than finishing an existing war. The school’s duels have rules that should prevent the students from killing each other. But there’s always the possibility of cheating.
There are plenty of little mysteries and interesting twists. Why doesn’t the timeline seem to match up at first? What is Lady Prospera really up to? Why is Elan suddenly acting out of character, or was that his real personality all along? Some of the characters get good development, especially Guel, who learns from his many defeats.
Good animation, excellent music.
Less good: The writers had to pack what was at least a three-cour plotline into only two thirteen-week cours. This means that several characters didn’t get full subplot arcs who should have had them (Elan’s connection to a certain character came on at mach speed.) A couple of obvious missing “filler” episode stories are skipped. And the ending is very rushed to get all the vital plot points in.
The central romance kind of skips some important development (but this is endemic to action shows so not as rough a knock as it would be for a romance genre show.) Some viewers may be infuriated by certain characters getting way too nice an ending.
Content note: This series is heavy on the bad parents, so there’s neglect, emotional abuse and physical abuse. Several characters die, one in a particularly upsetting way. “Police” brutality and terrorism. The strife between Spacians and Earthians may remind viewers of current-day ethnic prejudice. Sensitive younger viewers might want to skip this one or have guidance from a guardian.
This is a good jumping on point for new anime fans who haven’t seen previous Gundam series and aren’t ready for the heavy continuity of some of them. Most recommended for older teens who will enjoy the more modern take.
