Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury Faces the End of Hope

Welcome to this week’s installment of ANIWIRE! This time, we are covering the 20th episode of Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury, the hit new Gundam series. This piece assumes that you have been keeping up with the show so far, so bear in mind that there will be spoilers.

Before that, though, here’s the news from the past week.

News

· The newest (and last?) film directed by Hayao Miyazaki, How Do You Live?, will not be receiving another teaser or poster until its release, says Ghibli producer Toshio Suzuki. Unusual choice, but okay!

· A new trailer was released for this fall’s Production IG film, The Concierge at Hokkyoku Department Store. The film is based on a comic by Tsuchika Nishimura that won the Excellence Award at Japan Media Arts Festival in 2022. It’s directed by Yoshimi Itazu, and features character design and animation direction by Chiyo Morita. Definitely a film to keep an eye on.

· The team that made Pompo: The Cinephile has a new film in production known as “Wasted Chef.” This includes direction by Takayuki Hirao (a master from ufotable’s early experimental period) and character designs from Shingo Adachi (who directed his first anime series last year with Lycoris Recoil.)

· Another Macross series is in production, courtesy of…Sunrise?! Recent series productions have been made at Satelight, so this is unexpected.

· Meanwhile, Kentaro Yabuki’s manga series Black Cat is being adapted into anime, again. A new Twitter account has been made to provide news on the project. Yabuki’s recent work includes Ayakashi Triangle as well as handling art duties for To Love Ru.

Bookmarks

Here’s some great pieces other folks have written from the past week if you’re looking for something to read.

· At Anime News Network, Lynzee Loveridge and Jacki Jing have been chronicling their trip to Japan.

· Monique Thomas and Steve Jones covered shocking new developments in Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury.

· At Anime Herald, Nikola Teodosić discussed how the Chainsaw Man anime adaptation transforms the source through camera angles and realistic detail.

· At Anime Feminist, Alexis Sara discussed polyamorous relationships in yuri (girl’s love) manga.

· At Sakuga Blog, Kevin Cirugeda covered the new season of Uma Musume, and the breakthrough it represents for Cygames Pictures. (For those not in the know, this is the much-better-than-expected anime/game franchise about horse girls.)

· Caribou-kun went on a journey to the wild world of folk tale anime in his newest video, where he digs into a fascinating and fatally compromised Madhouse collaboration.

Now, to the episode coverage. There will be spoilers after this point.

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury is a series that takes great pleasure in ambushing its audience. Last week, Earth House resident and side character Martin unexpectedly found the thesis statement of the episode in an off-hand line of dialogue. This week was the turn of the “detention room.” Three characters (Norea the terrorist, Elan the substitute and Nika the double agent) have spent the past several weeks locked in a room together by Grassley. Each week, Norea became angrier and angrier, filling her sketchbook with images of skulls and dead birds. Each week, Elan grew closer to her, and Nika became increasingly confused. This week, with Guel’s return to Asticassia imminent, Shaddiq finally released the delinquent trio from confinement. In a happier world, they might have joined forces with Suletta and her Earth House friends. Instead, an enraged Norea declared war on the school. The showdown between Guel and Shaddiq in “The End of Hope” is just the B-plot. The real meat of the episode is the school shooting.

School shootings remain a frequent occurrence in the United States. Per Education Week, there were at least seven just last month. Expand from school shootings to children killed by gun violence and the numbers increase even further. Some children have even endured multiple school shootings throughout their lives. The fact that the US government would rather let children be shot to death than regulate guns in the country is one of the nastiest of its many cruel policy choices. School shootings are much rarer elsewhere in the world, and nearly unheard of in Japan. Witch From Mercury is playing with fire by making a school shooting a major turning point in its story. But then again, terrorist attacks and the thought processes behind shocking acts of violence has always interested Ichiro Okouchi, the show’s leading scriptwriter. Planetes, Code Geass and even Guilty Crown grappled with this material.

As I’ve said earlier though, Witch From Mercury sets up its nastiest twists far in advance. We first met Norea and Sophie in the ruins of a school on Earth.  Its fading signs, peeling walls and gaping windows were the opposite of pristine Asticassia. Norea and Sophie don’t just live on a different planet than Suletta and her friends. They live in a different reality. When Norea begins her attack on Asticassia, and we see Suletta’s classroom transformed into a ruin, the two realities collide. Asticassia has always been a beautiful, sterile lie built on the bodies of the Earthian people. Now we see the reality, bodies under rubble.  Promise, fulfillment. This is the unavoidable outcome of Suletta’s “school life” that her mother Prospera believed was enough for her.

“The End of Hope” takes great pleasure in destroying Asticassia landmarks the audience has taken for granted. Sometimes deliberately, as when Norea obliterates Earth House with a laser blast. Other times, the destruction is an off-hand visual joke. A robot falls from the sky and crushes one of Miorine’s greenhouses, an injustice that nobody is around to notice. If I have a complaint, it’s that the lighting throughout this sequence is just the same as it is elsewhere in the series. A shocking sequence like this might have lent itself to impressionistic lighting and color design, which Witch From Mercury doesn’t even attempt. Then again, it’s true that the sky is just as blue during real world violence as it is at any other time. Whether the choice was made for artistic purposes or production realities, it’s certainly defensible.

“The End of Hope” continues to flesh out the side cast of Witch From Mercury. Felsi, one of Guel’s earlier hangers-on, boards a mobile suit to defend Asticassia from attack. She ends up fighting alongside Chuchu in order to keep her classmates safe. Secelia and Rouji return, hilariously using their Haro as a hypnosis device to extort information from Martin (who is, of course, immune.) Rouji reveals deep technical knowledge of engineering, which may or may not be relevant in a few episodes. Secelia grants Chuchu a cool new robot, proving her worth on the team. Best of all is Petra. Once just another lackey of Guel, she offers Suletta her notes in class. It’s Petra who takes charge when the attack begins on Asticassia, rushing Suletta out of the school building as she carries the body of another classmate on her back. She encourages Suletta to think about what she wants to do in the future so that she has a reason to live. Of course, it’s Petra who is crushed under rubble at the end of the episode while Suletta lives. Witch From Mercury has always been utilitarian in its character choices.

Through it all, Guel and Shaddiq duel in the skies over Asticassia. You may ask yourself: why does Guel rush to take revenge on Shaddiq rather than secure Sarius as evidence? Why does Shaddiq welcome the chance to destroy Guel rather than play the situation to his advantage? Well, they are teenagers. Guel is driven by family baggage, and Shaddiq blames him for disgracing (?) Miorine. Just as Suletta and Miorine have been conditioned by their parents to make the same mistakes, Guel and Shaddiq follow what they have been taught. Even Shaddiq, who works behind the scenes to create a better world, can’t help but perpetuate the cycle of violence. But these kids can learn from their mistakes. Guel wins his duel with Shaddiq, at the expense of his powerful Darilbalde, because he’s now willing to take risks and throw away his pride if it means protecting those he cares about. He’s grown so much from the beginning of the series even if he remains the most embarrassing person of all time.

“The End of Hope” has its rough patches, as did previous episodes. While the “detention room” arc steadily built the relationship between Elan and Norea, his confession to her at the episode’s climax felt unearned. I can see what the show’s staff were going for: Elan understands Norea’s desire to live because he too is an expendable body.  It’s a relationship built on mutual selfishness rather than selflessness, a good match for their respective characters. But this Elan has spent so much time being a tool that his sincerity here didn’t land for me. Similarly, while Guel and Shaddiq’s space battle had plenty of fun details (I particularly liked the use and destruction of shields in battle) I thought the episode’s animation overall was threadbare at times. There are noticeable animation shortcuts and poor drawings that distract from what should otherwise be the crux of the story. Even the robots themselves are jumbled on screen at times.

Still, Witch From Mercury understands in its bones what makes Gundam work. Elan tries to talk Norea down from piloting a Gundam at the start of the episode, knowing the toll it will take on her body. Norea recognizes that she may not survive to see Earth again. But she gets in the robot anyway because she has her principles. Two people on opposite sides of the conflict, who share interests but could never reconcile each other’s point of view: that’s Gundam. At the end of the episode, Suletta lifts rubble with her bare hands to rescue fellow students rather than ride into war in a mobile suit: that’s also Gundam, which at its best values physical connection over stylish machines.  The Witch From Mercury may or may not survive its frantic rush to the finish line. But its heart has always been where it needs to be.

This week’s addendum

The Suletta and Petra Power Hour: Will Petra’s example inspire Suletta to go on a date with Miorine at this late stage in the game? All signs point to yes.

The Robot Corner: This week saw the introduction of the Demi Barding, a powerful prototype unit and Chuchu’s new ride. I don’t appreciate that Chuchu’s custom-made robot was destroyed in Norea’s attack on the school, but if that’s the price she had to pay for an end-of-show upgrade, so be it.

Earth House Watch: Plenty of great moments with Earth House this week, including chickens and a goat. Personally I liked Lilique finally losing her patience with Miorine. “Leave it to the President!” she says. “I don’t care anymore!”

Remembering Norea: As folks have pointed out, Norea has been wearing the bracelet Sophie gave her after all this time.

Friends of Gundam: Have some more Gundam fan art.

And finally, your moment of zen.