Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury Gives Fans its Blessing

Welcome to this week’s installment of ANIWIRE! This time, we are covering the 24th and final 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

• Anime Expo is happening as we speak, leading to an avalanche of new announcements.
• As was teased last year, Trigger is bringing back Hiroyuki Imaishi and company’s filthy angel duo Panty & Stocking. The trailer doesn’t have much in the way of new footage, but I’m excited to see what they cook up!
• The remake of Type Moon’s famous early visual novel Tsukihime is set to be localized and released in 2024. This is huge news, and potentially a sign that other titles from the studio like Fate/Stay Night (or even Fate/Extra CCC?) have a chance at being brought to English-speaking audiences. The Tsukihime remake only adapts the first two of the original game’s five routes, but it expands on one of them such that it’s practically a new game. Exciting stuff, even though fans were already translating it themselves.
• The long-rumored adaptation of Naoki Urasawa’s Pluto, a retelling of the classic story arc from Osamu Tezuka’s Astro Boy, is set to air on Netflix on October 26th. It’s produced by the legendary Masao Maruyama (formerly of Madhouse and MAPPA) and directed by Toshio Kawaguchi, a veteran animator who’s worked on films like Akira and Porco Rosso. The series will air in eight hour-long episodes.
• In terms of upcoming anime, the two shows I’m most excited for this winter are Delicious in Dungeon and Metallic Rouge. Delicious in Dungeon adapts the excellent manga by Ryoko Kui, by way of Studio Trigger’s Gridman-trained younger staff. Metallic Rouge is a new show by fan-favorite Studio Bones that features the return of multi-talented industry veteran Yutaka Izubuchi.
• Manga subscription app Azuki licensed a number of series by excellent josei manga artist Moyocco Anno, including Memoirs of Amorous Gentlemen as well as Insufficient Direction. Fingers crossed that we might see Happy Mania and Flowers and Bees on the platform one day, as well!
• Bandai Namco announced two new projects, the international CG work Gundam: Requiem for Vengeance and the continuation film Gundam SEED Freedom. Hopefully they’ll fix the new SEED film in the next Super Robot Wars…?
• Ghibli animator Hitomi Tatemo, together with the studio Sasayuri, is producing an anime based on Machiko Kyo’s manga Cocoon in 2025. Definitely a project to be excited for even if it’s at least two years away.
• A new trailer was released for Madhouse’s adaptation of the hit manga Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End. They also revealed that the first episode will be two hours long, and that the series will be aired on NTV’s “Kinyo Roadshow” block typically dedicated to feature films. Frieren is directed by Keiichiro Satou, who was instrumental to last year’s sleeper hit Bocchi the Rock! With luck we’ll see his crew spread their wings even further on Frieren.
• Discotek licensed the flawed but fascinating 1985 science fiction anime Blue Comet SPT Layzner, a long-running white whale in the fan community. Definitely worth checking out for fans of VOTOMS and SDF Macross!
• They’re remaking Econ 101 anime classic Spice and Wolf from the beginning, for some reason. The crew of the original 2008 series are involved.

Bookmarks

• Caribou-kun profiles the surprisingly excellent video game anime adaptation, Gungrave. Naruto director and animator Toshiyuki Tsuru is famously involved with this one.
• At Full Frontal, Matteo Watzky interviewed legendary character designer Kenichi Yoshida (of Eureka Seven and Gundam: Reconguista in G fame.) Yoshida discusses his experience working on Mitsuo Iso’s recent series The Orbital Children, among other things.
• At The Comics Journal, Tegan O’Neil discusses Minami’s Lover, by comics artist and renaissance woman Shungiku Uchida. Meanwhile, Hagai Palevsky wrote about Masaaki Nakayama’s eerie but repetitive series PTSD Radio.
• Over on Cohost, I’ve been enjoying ex-Kotaku writer Harper Jay’s ongoing blog posts about playing Final Fantasy XVI. They also wrote this great piece on the ending of Tears of the Kingdom, though be wary that there are spoilers galore here.
• Amelie Doree released a video about 2007 shooter/visual novel Gun-Katana, because why not?

AMV of the Week

Here’s bewarethejubjub’s “it’s different for girls.”

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

The grand finale of Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury is simple. Suletta and company retrieve Aerial’s chassis and go parley with her mother Elnora/Prospera. When Elnora requests that Suletta reconnect the Aerial to Quiet Zero, Suletta refuses, and instead communes with the Aerial to add its powers to the Calibarn. With help from the ghost of Elan Number 4 contained within Quiet Zero’s archives, she broadcasts a message across the solar system: that her fiancée Miorine (with the cooperation of Shaddiq, of course) has dissolved the Benerit Group. Its finances are dedicated to Earth’s development. In one fell swoop, Shaddiq achieves his goals, the Dawn of Fold terrorist group retreats in the wake of the Benerit Group’s destruction, and the women at Peil Technologies find to their horror that their investments have gone up in smoke following the Benerit Group’s collapse. Then, Suletta and the Calibarn form a witch’s circle with the other Gundam units, disabling the Space Assembly League’s laser cannon and reviving the ghosts of pilots taken by the “curse of Gundam” through the data storm. Prospera is tempted to join her friends and family in death, but chooses to remain in the world with Suletta. Suletta and Aerial forgive her. All of the Gundams melt away along with Quiet Zero, and Miorine rescues a comatose Suletta drifting among the stars.

All of this is followed by an epilogue devoted to fulfilling the wishes of the fanbase. Three years later: Nika has a cool new haircut! Petra has mechanical legs courtesy of GUND, and is going out with Lauda. Guel is Jeturk’s new CEO, but he is dunked on every single day by secretary Secelia and the original Elan. Elan Number 5 is following in Norea’s footsteps across Earth. Shaddiq took the fall for Miorine for the Quiet Zero affair, but is perfectly happy to do so as it allows him to play the hero one last time. Miorine herself is working with Shaddiq’s former crew to mend ties between Earth and Space. Meanwhile, Suletta has recovered from the injuries she sustained piloting Calibarn and hopes to start a school on Earth. Her mother is wheelchair-bound but happy. Even Eri (or part of Eri?) has been saved from Aerial’s fate, and bound to Suletta’s accessory. We don’t see Suletta and Miorine’s wedding, but the rings on their fingers mark them as at least engaged.

After everything Suletta and her friends went through, their great achievement is to switch off a space laser introduced in the last two episodes. I can’t help but find this anticlimactic compared to the controlled chaos this series could generate at its best. There’s nothing here as suspenseful as Norea’s raid on Asticassia, Dawn of Fold’s escape from the Benerit Group’s forces, or even last episode’s confrontation between Suletta’s friends and Prospera. The nonviolent resolution achieved through “magical” means, though, is perfectly in keeping with Gundam’s past. A friend of mine pointed out to me that the ending is reminiscent of Char’s Counterattack, where opposing forces came together to save Earth from a falling asteroid. It’s yet another example of Witch From Mercury’s infatuation with UC Gundam, and its ability to repurpose its iconic scenes without necessarily repeating them.

The destruction of the Benerit Group is similarly too neat, as the cast themselves acknowledge. As the last episode reminds us, Miorine’s change of heart doesn’t change the number of people on Earth who died due to exploitation and war partitioning. Not to mention, as Shaddiq’s ally Sabina says, that corporations are already busy scooping up Earth’s newfound wealth for their own purposes. Miorine says in response that she intends to stand on her own two feet and work diligently to help those on Earth, regardless of what may happen in the future. Just as in Witch From Mercury’s other inspiration, Revolutionary Girl Utena, the status quo can be disrupted but not truly defeated. What matters is if Suletta and Miorine can carve out a better world for themselves and their friends within the self-cannibalizing carcass of the old.

The last episode solidifies Witch From Mercury as a series that prioritized character over theme. The series critiqued unchecked corporate power and was willing to empathize with the plight of a younger generation constrained by their old-fashioned parents. But then at every possible opportunity, it watered down that critique to fit the needs of the story. At any point in its last few episodes, the series could have explored Suletta’s dependence, Miorine’s culpability or even Prospera’s vengeful motivations (or whether a character like her should, or even has to, be redeemed.) Instead the show took shortcuts.

Part of this may be due to the show’s length. At 24 rather than 50 episodes, Witch From Mercury only had so much time to wrap up its narrative. Judging from scriptwriter Ichiro Okouchi’s past work, though, I expect that the show’s priorities would have remained the same even if it was longer. Witch From Mercury wouldn’t have been any better if it prioritized themes over character; after all, its vibrant characters are key to its success. But again, there are shows that can do both, including Utena and many other Gundam series. A sequel could nicely complicate the show’s resolution, but we may never see one (although I hope we do.) All in all, I can’t help but see Witch From Mercury as a missed opportunity in this respect.

Then again, it’s remarkable that the series exists at all. The character designer of Witch From Mercury confirmed over Twitter that the staff had just 2-4 weeks to finish each episode over the show’s run. Not to mention that the last episode credited a shocking 94 key animators. At every step along the way, Witch From Mercury has been plagued with difficulties. It couldn’t even air 6 episodes in a row without a break. Bandai Namco and Sunrise should be ashamed that a show with this level of prestige was so badly managed. Still though: there’s not much else these days quite like Witch From Mercury. It wasn’t just an original project (at least within the Gundam franchise) in a sea of adaptations. It was the first Gundam series with a female protagonist, and the Gundam franchise’s biggest hit in years. It’s a moment worth celebrating even though the show’s producers were too cowardly to have Suletta kiss her girlfriend on screen.

I liked Witch From Mercury for the most part, but I loved following it week to week. It was a show designed from the ground up to keep audiences talking. From start to finish fans laughed at Guel’s failures, cheered Chuchu every time she appeared on screen, and debated over whether Suletta and Miorine would or should end up together. Even when those fans figured out key mysteries in advance, like the true nature of Suletta and the Aerial, their reaction was not frustration but joy at spotting the carefully laid clues. Twitter is now overflowing with art of Suletta and Miorine’s marriage, which you can either take as joyous celebration or as proof of Bandai Namco’s cynicism. Why depict gay people on screen when fans will do the work for you?

Witch From Mercury may be the very last anime to hit it big on Twitter, depending on how quickly the website crumbles following recent events. There may never be another opportunity for Japanese and international anime fans to share their passions in the same online space. It's deeply bittersweet to imagine this opportunity slipping away with the site's collapse, even though Twitter at its best was still a hellsite.

I suspect that Witch From Mercury is a transitional work, bridging the past, present and future of Gundam. I don’t know yet whether that is a blessing or a curse (of Gundam.) My feelings towards the show may cool as the years go by and its many missed opportunities become harder to ignore. But I’ll miss seeing these kids every Suletta Sunday. Maybe that’s what’s most important? You win for now, Okouchi and company.

This week’s addendum:

The Suletta and Miorine Power Hour: WE’RE SO BACK!!!!

Suletta’s List: Found a school on Mercury and Earth, check.

Suletta’s Other List: Elan Number 4 returns to help Suletta out one last time, but likely disintegrates along with Quiet Zero and the rest of the Gundams. RIP.

Earth House Watch: I was happy to see everybody from Earth House appear in the epilogue, even though I wish we saw more of Chuchu. Where are their animals, though? I hope they’re doing alright…

Friends of Gundam: With Twitter collapsing, where will all the Gundam fanart go? Who knows. Anyway, here’s some more of it. Does this suffice? Hopefully. Also, keep an eye on Giant Robot FM for the conclusion of their Radio Free Mercury series.

Next week: It's the summer season preview!