Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury (TV) [Archive]

Ryllharu

Sun, 10-02-2022, 03:23 AM

I just watched the prologue and unless the main show is totally different, this should be a banger. Really liked the grounded presentation of the story; only thing I'm not sure whether it's an issue or not is the linework, the art looks kind of weird in a hard-to-explain way. Also the animation during battles could be smoother.

Which version of the Prologue did you watch? There are three.
AnimeCon (~mid-July), GundamInfo prescreen (9/1), and Official Release (9/25). The official one is completely uncut and has the most polished animation.

The Ad Stella setting is really interesting.

The major conflict is still Spacians vs Earthers, but instead of military and moral stuff the settings normal have. It seems to be centered on rampant Corporate power and monopoly control. Space Faction want to be the only MS makers. I mean, it could do a total tone shift like 00 did at the mid-point, and the series is a split-cour already.

Hopefully, it isn't all loaded with transhumanism like Gundam normally is in terms of genetic superiority and "Childhood's End" type trash that they're always cranking out with the Newtypes, but more protheses and supplemental/replacement organs because the legitimate and very real dangers of space: cosmic rays, radiation, and prolonged zero-G ravage the human body. Stuff we know from science today thanks to all the real-world space agency studies on the long-term effect. WFM is very grounded just talking about that stuff.

The 'danger' came from the Ochs Corporation adapted the GUND-Format into a MS, which as a huge robot, causes significant higher drain on a person's mental faculties unless they are able to sync with it better like Ericht does. What Ericht is doing isn't any different from the younger generation being much more natively tuned to technology of the era. Like a child who very intuitively uses a smartphone. Human-Machine Interface, not Brain-Machine Interface as in IBO or the Innovado bullshit from 00.

Ericht thought of the Lfrith Gundam exactly as the Professor described it, like another child. She spoke to it and personified it. As a result, she didn't struggle to sync with it like her mother and the others do because to some degree they're afraid of it. She jumped right down to the bottom layer of connectivity with it because she treats the technology differently. The way she speaks of the Gundam Aerial in the end of the 2nd trailer convinces me she still thinks of her branch of technology that way.

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edit:
First episode of the main series is out.

Make sure you're using V2 when they're out. Someone botched the subs and they're off by 13 seconds.
And about 8 minutes in they're off by an additional 13.5 seconds, so simple delay retiming won't fix it.

MFauli

Sun, 10-02-2022, 09:54 AM

What I didn't understand: I have watched several Gundam-anime but never heard of that Ochs company. Is this a Gundam-reboot with all new contents or does it fit into the existing shows' timeline?

Ryllharu

Sun, 10-02-2022, 10:37 AM

What I didn't understand: I have watched several Gundam-anime but never heard of that Ochs company. Is this a Gundam-reboot with all new contents or does it fit into the existing shows' timeline?

Witch From Mercury takes place in Ad Stella, which is a new setting entirely.

Universal Century - Numbered Mobile Suit series, Unicorn, Thunderbolt, Hathaway, etc.
Our Century - Build series
Correct Century - Turn A
Anno Domini - Gundam 00
Post Disaster - Iron Blooded Orphans
Future Century - G Gundam
After Colony - Wing
Cosmic Era - SEED
Advanced Generation - Gundam AGE

MFauli

Sun, 10-02-2022, 11:15 AM

Witch From Mercury takes place in Ad Stella, which is a new setting entirely.

Universal Century - Numbered Mobile Suit series, Unicorn, Thunderbolt, Hathaway, etc.
Our Century - Build series
Correct Century - Turn A
Anno Domini - Gundam 00
Post Disaster - Iron Blooded Orphans
Future Century - G Gundam
After Colony - Wing
Cosmic Era - SEED
Advanced Generation - Gundam AGE

So these are all ENTIRELY separate universes? Because some sound like they could follow one another.

But anyway, thx, makes it easier to understand. So this one definitely is a fresh start.

Ryllharu

Sun, 10-02-2022, 11:29 AM

I deliberately left out Mars Century, Late Universal Century, and Regild Century because they are carryovers from one of the others.

MFauli

Mon, 10-03-2022, 01:08 PM

Episode 1:

Unfortunately, I'm not sure I can stomach this. Didn't expect Gundam to become a "women good, men bad" story. Lesbian relationship fron and center with apparently an all-girls school, too. Not sure if it refered to something else, but did the subs use "they" to address Eri? If this is woke-Gundam, I'm out.

Plus, why are we supposed to be in awe of Eri winning the duel? She clearly has an overpowered nextgen-mecha that's several times stronger and more durable than her opponent's. Give both the same Gundam and she's no looker, on top of her opponent shooting dozens of energy blasts left and right of her instead of hitting her while she was just standing in one place. Bad presentation here.

I hope the woke-fest tones down from next episode, but with the whole "you're my husband" bs, I'm not hopeful. Real bummer, because I was looking forward to this anime and the prologue was great.

Ryllharu

Mon, 10-03-2022, 02:26 PM

WTF. I don't know where you got that reaction from. You find it in some Outrage Industry youtuber or the dumbass MAL comments?

The series is very openly making an homage to Revolutionary Girl Utena with how the school setup works and how Miorine is being used by her father's consortium as a trophy to be won. Shots, framing, set-pieces for the dialogues, the entire structure of the whole episode is a very deliberate act to mimic Utena. You completely missed the point that Miorine and the rest of Spacian society don't care about who is her "groom," but that doesn't mean it is a genderless society just from the first episode. It also makes visual references to dozens of other Gundam series that I don't recognize, but super-fans will. Including Miorine spitting up in her own helmet after taking a hit. That level of detail.

And yes, the subs and the Japanese dialogue both refer to Suletta/Ericht as "girl" a lot, so you're just objectively wrong about that last part. All-girls school? I count at least three guys who are named in the main cast, and four girls in the same.

We should be in awe of Suletta winning because she completely overwhelmed the current champion. Doesn't matter that Aerial is very overpowered by being a GUND-ARM in a generation where there are no more of them, and she just placed a monumental target on her back by openly revealing she has one of them. Given the title of episode 2, I expect that issue to be fleshed out next time. The Consortium and its military branch Cathedral (that Miorine's father still runs) is probably going to want her killed and Aerial destroyed.

Deturk gets goaded into missing them because of the broadcasted verbal fight between Suletta and Miorine in the Aerial's cockpit. From his view, a timid and shy girl who hides behind his own lackeys after challenging him just casually called the reigning champion trash. He was toying with Miorine, but Suletta enraged him. So yeah, he missed. Guns are hard to use when you're not calm. Even harder when you're using one via a joystick and the slightest finger twitches from rage are quivering the bead off target. His own brother warns him not to lose his cool, but he does anyway and even throws away his spear. He lost then, regardless of whatever weapon Suletta used on Aerial to respond.

We should also be impressed that she surgically disassembles his mobile suit without killing him or blowing it up. The way her bits work, killing him would be effortless.

And the episode itself reveals that the stupid games the students are playing with each other via this Dueling bullshit they've built for themselves has much wider implications out in the greater solar system. One CEO nearly killed Delling the same way he killed off Ochs/Vanadis in an assassination because his idiot son was at the top of the rankings.

All upturned by an isolated, socially stunted girl with more bravery than self-awareness. Sent to the academy by her mother with no allies aside from an overpowered Mobile Suit that the girl talks about like it is her sister.

And yes, there's even more than that going on. Spoil yourself with the official website (particularly in Japanese?) if you want to know. I regret opening a spoiler post elsewhere and seeing the details.

MFauli

Mon, 10-03-2022, 02:45 PM

Ryll, I'm not "wrong", I ASKED whether the sub as meaning to say that or not. You could have just said "no, must have been a coincidence, Eri is refered to as a girl".

And I haven't seen Utena, so no idea what this anime alludes to.

Ryllharu

Mon, 10-03-2022, 03:09 PM

You don't really have to have seen Utena in full. They're being very deliberate.

https://youtu.be/NKbK9pyhD0o

They're not the first series to make references to Utena, but for real, entire structure of the first episode, including title.

It's a clever way to befuddle the detractors of the first Gundam with a female lead character by fully embracing it to this level.

Buffalobiian

Wed, 10-05-2022, 07:04 AM

The vibe of Prologue and Episode 01 felt so different. There's still the background corporate scheming, but if feels like there's less gravitas because the school environment feels constructed and thus protected - even though you could still get bombed at any time.

I didn't really like how the prize girl controlled the gundam seemingly easily as well - even though she was shit at it.

Ryllharu

Sun, 10-09-2022, 05:54 AM

Episode 2

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To my surprise, they're not fooling anyone on what Aerial appears to be. Immediately brought down Cathedral onto herself, and got imprisoned. I didn't realize that Suletta probably hadn't eaten the entire time she's been at the Academy since she did her EVA rescue on Miorine until the other dueling committee guy brought her some food.

I do wonder what Ericht's mother and the Vanadis survivors did to Aerial to make it appear as a "drone" and not a GUND-ARM.

Then a swift dive into socio-political issues and corporate politics. Terrans are treated like 2nd class citizens, we knew that, but that pervasive dismissiveness extends to their corporate children as well. Chuchu might have been more vocal about it, but it was interesting to me that the one the series is portraying as legitimately furious is Nika, the 2nd year mechanic. Clenching her notebook-phone tight after getting shit from the Academy staff, but also the silent shot of her back as Chuchu couldn't understand why she was taking it from the random students in the cafeteria.

I wonder what Elnora's plan is though. "Lady Prospera" seems more than willing to throw her daughter to wolves to get that opportunity to confront the Benerit Group right away. I'm not sure if she's secretly trying to prove the superiority of GUND-ARM tech by hiding it as "drone" technology and letting the other manufacturers secretly install it in their own Mobile Suit models, or if she's just after ingratiating herself so she can kill them all when the time is right.

Good on Miorine for proving her father is a hypocritical asshole. Saying out loud what all the other business leaders think but are too afraid to say.

The way the OP frames it, I'm honestly kind of wondering if the real villain of the series is going to be Elnora. Delling seems like such a petty and stupid asshole now compared to the Prologue where he was a scheming bastard. He does act like he's a king with more power than strategy at this point. Elnora on the other hand, going full Char/Mr. Bushido with the dumb masks that Gundam loves, is hatching some vicious revenge scheme, using her daughter as a distraction. The pure-hearted daughter who is eager to make some friends and learn about less-dangerous things, since she already has piloting down quite well.

Ryllharu

Sun, 10-16-2022, 04:58 AM

Episode 3

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I honestly deeply enjoy the dichotomy they have with Suletta being very shy socially but cocky and overconfident when it comes to piloting. It makes sense because they've set up the whole background for her to act this way. Her wish list of things to do are all social things that someone with her background never got to experience, and her world has probably been limited to just adults. But whenever it comes to piloting, her attitude shifts. Not in a stark or abrupt manner, but just that she has zero doubts that she and Aerial are the best. Telling Jeturk that her beating him wasn't a fluke with utter confidence in between in stammering and meek other statements was a great example of how they're handling it in an intelligent way. Suletta has been piloting longer than most others have, I suspect, and we know she's up to some seriously deadly activity due to the environment on Mercury.

It also feels like Jeturk didn't actually lose to her this time. The bumbling AI caused most of the damage to their latest gen MS. I wouldn't mind seeing a casual rematch between these two in matching MS units, just to see who's actually better as a pilot.

The duel system is ridiculous, but in a good way. Cheating is allowed as long as it looks like a normal system error, using an entire company's resources is allowed, and it is so overly formalized it feels like stupid kids playing stupid games with each other's livelihoods over completely stupid social infractions. It will be very satisfying to watch Suletta and her allies upend the entire status quo they have going. That stupid bitch claiming the winner will always be the one with the biggest corporate backing is probably due for a major comeuppance by the Earthian crew (the mechanic girl and Chuchu).

And Miorine still can't pilot anything well without slamming into walls. Balance is maintained.

It's also cute the Earthian crew has already claimed Suletta as one of their own despite the fact that she is without doubt a Spacian. If anything, Suletta's link to Ochs Earth is pretty low compared to being part of Vanadis, merger 10 years ago or not.

Her mom is going to be the true villain of the series. 100%.

shinta|hikari

Sun, 10-16-2022, 08:51 AM

It also feels like Jeturk didn't actually lose to her this time. The bumbling AI caused most of the damage to their latest gen MS. I wouldn't mind seeing a casual rematch between these two in matching MS units, just to see who's actually better as a pilot.

I disagree. Without the AI, Jeturk would've been defeated much earlier on. He himself knew he was gonna get hit by the beam rifle near the start of the match, but the AI blocked it. Same with Suletta getting behind him and the AI blocking a shot to the back. The AI might be inferior at noticing distractions, but it was extremely effective at reacting to and defending against Aerial's attacks.

I think it is very clear that Suletta is the better pilot, to the point she can assess that Jeturk is strong, but knows she is still stronger. If she actually thought he was better or equal to her, she wouldn't praise him like that, if only because of her own pilot's pride.

Her mom is going to be the true villain of the series. 100%.

I hope this is not true.

Ryllharu

Sun, 10-16-2022, 09:38 AM

I hope this is not true.
If not, they are telegraphing extremely obviously to eventually subvert it.

They are overtly making a shitload of references to The Tempest (which for the record is an absolutely terrible play, arguably one of Shakespeare's worst).

Image detailing all the parallels so far. Don't click it if you'd rather not know.
https://i.imgur.com/bIp1Fi1.png

shinta|hikari

Sun, 10-16-2022, 10:18 AM

Is Prospero the villain in that play? It's not clear in the image you shared.

Ryllharu

Sun, 10-16-2022, 10:42 AM

Depends on the perspective. He is either listed as "a dark protagonist" by traditionalists or listed among one of the antagonists by those who view the play in a more modern way. He fits both roles depending on how you view the play as a whole and the narrative arcs they go through. The image leaves out how Prospero uses his powers on other characters and the lies he tells throughout the early acts.

It's one of the Late Plays, where it fits as neither a Comedy or a Tragedy archetype as with the other plays.

Ryllharu

Sun, 10-23-2022, 01:45 PM

Eps 04

--------

You know what's refreshing? A native space girl being terrified of her first goat.

And a girl named after a mouse socking a racist bitch in the jaw and knocking her out cold in a single hit.

Buffalobiian

Fri, 10-28-2022, 07:46 AM

The mother does give off villain vibes when she's under the helmet. I know nothing of Tempest and will leave it that way for now.

It'll be some time before Suletta can match that guy in a normal suit. She's reading fundamentals right now in piloting non-telepathic suits.

It's weird that they just keep getting to retry the exam. Punching students sound like grounds for dismissal or heavy penalty. If tampering with the exam is such a no-no that it excuses violence and gives the girls another re-sit of the exam, then the "we don't stop exams because you didn't check your suit properly" excuse doesn't fly.

Ryllharu

Sun, 10-30-2022, 05:50 AM

Eps 05

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Ugh, and I was hoping there wasn't going to be a newtype for once...

At least he's not the main character, and he's already super pissed off and jealous that a non-augmented (as far as he and the audience know) person has the same abilities to sync with a Gundam that he does, without the deeply invasive surgeries he underwent. The also very strange comment that he is, "borrowing someone's face," and wondered if Suletta does too. Elan is an interesting character, to say the least. They normally save the bitter envy for way later, so this is a huge plus.

It would be a huge surprise if Suletta actually lost Aerial temporarily at the end of next episode, but my guess is that she has a tough initial fight followed by a conclusive win due to her better connection to Aerial.

Guel is somewhere still between an asshole (hard to forgive him when he was treating Miorine like his toy), a fool (losing constantly despite his otherwise very high win record and good piloting instincts), and what is hopefully a better man in the end (he went like a jealous lover, but got enraged when he saw that Elan made Suletta cry). Guel's girl sycophants certainly have their cute moments.

On the other hand, I do want to see Dueling Committe resident snarky bitch Secelia put up or shut up at some point in the series. She lounges on the couches and makes verbal jabs all day without consequences or even someone talking back to her. Maybe it's Chuchu and Nika's job to put her in her place.

And of course Miorine still barges in wherever she pleases, hah.

The series is loaded with Shakespeare tropes, character interaction references, and homages all over, which is actually a lot of fun for someone familiar with a lot of the plays. Miorine even addressed it directly with an otherwise throwaway line. A nice wink to the audience.

Buffalobiian

Sun, 10-30-2022, 08:30 AM

The also very strange comment that he is, "borrowing someone's face," and wondered if Suletta does too.

He's an augmented clone of someone else is my guess.

It would be a huge surprise if Suletta actually lost Aerial temporarily at the end of next episode

I struggle to see this happen, because if without Ariel she can't duel, and duelling is the only thing that lets her progress in this school. Given that Peil Technologies is also using GUND Format, they'll probably just stay hushed about Ariel.

shinta|hikari

Tue, 11-01-2022, 10:22 PM

But was Suletta even using the Permet activation? I don't think I've ever seen her use it before, even during tense moments in her duels. It might be a leftover function that she herself has no need of using.

Buffalobiian

Tue, 11-01-2022, 10:43 PM

Suletta never activates it, at least not vocally. The permit activation levels seem to just be gradual activation (?neural link) and a safety measure so you don't fry yourself with too much neural stimulus. Suletta just dives right in, but I think that she still drives it via neurons as opposed to physical input. She was a kid after all when she used this well.

Ryllharu

Wed, 11-02-2022, 03:26 AM

She probably doesn't need to raise the Permet score because she started below Layer 33 and had access to Lfrith's full functionality. Who knows how high she is now with her own sister-mecha Aerial.

Not sure she even activated the Bit Staves using controls in her first fight. They activated on the screens in the background behind Miorine (who caught the notification in the corner of her eye) while Suletta was booting Aerial back up under her control.

David75

Wed, 11-02-2022, 06:01 AM

Suletta is born on Mercury in a permet mining environnement. Her mother probably had all of her pregnancy there. It's even possible she was piloting a gundam or even aerial prototype while pregnant.

I would'nt then be surprised if Suletta has permet in her body and natural permet/neuron connexions.

Ryllharu

Sun, 11-06-2022, 05:37 AM

Episode 6

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That got real dark, real fast.

And it is starting to appear that Aerial is the true ethical nightmare mobile suit, not the similarly terrible stuff the Three Houses are up to.

If the remark at the beginning where it had been 21 years since [cut off by Elnora] is referring to the destruction of Vanadis and not deliberately misleading us by actually referring to an earlier event that occurred between the doctor and Bel, then Eri should be 25, not 17. The biggest grudge in Elnora's life that Bel was referring to has to be losing her husband and the rest of her adoptive family, and the simplest solution for that apparent mismatch in time is that Suletta is a clone.

Elnora is purposefully taunting former colleagues with Aerial and Suletta to draw them out and destroy them for her revenge to be complete.

Worse still, there's absolutely no reason the Bit Staves should manifest as individual Ericht phantoms to someone else deep in Permet synchronization unless there really is something horribly wrong with the way Aerial was built. They've been hinting at Aerial really being a true sibling to Suletta for a while, and Elnora refers to both of them in a kinda off way. As in, which one is really the daughter that she trusts; the girl living out her wishlist or the Gundam. The Bit Staves are "better controlled" than even an engineered cyborg at Permet Score 4 can manage, so maybe the main body isn't the only thing with something inside it, which would explain the phantoms even more.

I didn't want to believe it, but there's a strong possibility now that the "solution" to the data storms was to put a human brain inside a mobile suit to moderate it for the pilot. Maybe the opportunity arose when Ericht got hurt the same way that Elnora is pretending (horrible radiation burns from Mercury's environment) and the two agreed to start their revenge when Ericht was 8 years old.

Or maybe this is further misdirection yet, similar to the real Elan standing in the wings, meaning Ericht is in hiding as well and will appear in 2nd part. If that's the case, maybe Aerial and Suletta are twin clones.

Hard to gauge what the "simplest" answer is.

David75

Sun, 11-06-2022, 06:17 AM

Ryllharu

Sun, 11-06-2022, 06:39 AM

On a simpler level: students building twin vectorial thrusters from that trash and still beating state of the art suit said to be the fastest of the fast... I don't even remember seeing two similar looking thrusters...

Aerial already had drones and now it can also generate a permet jamming wave ? Convenient at this moment of the fight...

It's been somewhat implied that Nika is probably the best engineering maintenance student enrolled at the moment. The innards might be different, but the cowling, paint, and testing/adjustments make them perform as a pair. It got exploded anyway. As for the speed, Suletta started catching up because she used the thrusters on the Bit Staves to meet the Pharact's performance.

The way Aerial uses them really is quite broken. Shield, beam cannon, bits, and thrusters. No wonder the big three wanted to destroy them as a competitor.

I'm not so sure it was a jamming wave so much as flooding the Pharact's systems with its own GUND-ARM connections.

David75

Sun, 11-06-2022, 07:03 AM

Still it would have been a little better if they got thrusters thanks to Guel and Nika had to adapt them. After all, she did that miracle in a very short amount of time which makes it even harder to swallow.

Jamming by overload ? could be. But Elan was not hurt so I'm not that sure.

Buffalobiian

Tue, 11-08-2022, 03:24 AM

Never thought I'd dread hearing the Happy Birthday song.

-------------

Edit:

I went back and watched a few old episodes:

-When Ericht used the Lfrith as a toddler, she exhibited the blue "face rash" as opposed to the red one that the others suffer from data storm. Suletta doesn't exhibit any while piloting Ariel.

-Even back in episode 00, they mentioned stuff like "talk to her" and "waking her up" (referring to Lfrith). The old doctor also said that Lfrith was special, and represents the future of Gundam, and humanity's survival in space - not mere weapons like the other two suits (that got destroyed in battle).

I agree with Ryll that there's reasonable suspicion to think that there's some biological implantations within the special Gundams. One of the critiques if Gund-Arms in episode 00 suggested how unnatural it is for an inorganic machine to be controlled by human brain. What if Gundams were the next evolution of humanity - not just cyborgs but actual human brains implanted in a mobile suit?

We're also now privy of the fact that faceswap technology is perfected in this universe. Look-alikes don't have to be clones. Plastic surgery alone can do this.

Ryllharu

Sun, 11-20-2022, 06:11 PM

Eps - 07

-----

And with that, Elnora/Prospera confirms that the Prologue was 21 years ago, meaning that Ericht should be 25, not 17. Suletta isn't Ericht. Aerial most probably is.

It also means that Miorine's mother wasn't killed by Gundam tech and causing Delling to go on his crusade as a few elsewhere have speculated.

They also injected some very awkward and uncomfortable relation between Shaddiq and Nika. Potential betrayal of Earth House.

But all in all, this was Miorine's episode to shine. Showing off her business acumen, not taking Prospera's bait about completely splintering herself from her father (even though what did happen is probably still somehow exactly what Elnora planned to have happen in some form or another), and even embracing the benefits she has while thematically throwing off the trappings of her social and political advantages...or appearing as such so she could run faster and get him to buy in to her business and trick everyone else present to follow him.

I was pretty satisfied with Miorine's growth here. Disappointed with Suletta's backsliding. But that's why they're paired as wives. Miorine has the backbone and intelligence while Suletta provides the opportunity and heart.

I do have to wonder why the stage operates in a deeply unsafe manner though.

David75

Mon, 11-21-2022, 12:27 AM

Loved the Yoasobi cameo on one of the robots.

fireheart

Mon, 11-21-2022, 09:01 AM

Haven't watched Gundam since Build Fighters and finally started watching this now. Wasn't really expecting that big of a difference in the vibe from the prologue to the main show but overall enjoying how this has played out so far. The lighthearted school part complete with students dueling each other to all the things are going around in the background. Gives off a refreshing feel compared to regular Gundam shows I've watched.

Suletta isn't Ericht. Aerial most probably is.

This theory reminds me a lot of Soukou no Strain where they have an extra brain link up with the mech so that they can control it.

Buffalobiian

Mon, 11-21-2022, 10:56 AM

And with that, Elnora/Prospera confirms that the Prologue was 21 years ago

When did she confirm that the prologue was 21 years ago this episode?

Ryllharu

Mon, 11-21-2022, 04:45 PM

When did she confirm that the prologue was 21 years ago this episode?

8:00. Miorine even confirms the disconnect in response by saying her generation knows nothing of Gundams [they and their technology were banned before she was born].

Matching Elnora's discussion with Bel at 0:35 last episode.

Buffalobiian

Sun, 11-27-2022, 11:14 PM

8:00. Miorine even confirms the disconnect in response by saying her generation knows nothing of Gundams [they and their technology were banned before she was born].

Matching Elnora's discussion with Bel at 0:35 last episode.

I see.

E08

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She does mention "daughters" again here, and that it can't be mass manufactured. I suppose the whole GUND thing is to give people's minds robotic arms and shit, so in a sense if Ericht is the person within Ariel then she's the actual ideal of GUND. For whatever reason they can't get her to move/talk/think independently without a pilot I'm presuming.

MFauli

Mon, 11-28-2022, 08:25 AM

I've stayed out of this thread because apparently everyone thinks this anime is good and that Suletta isn't the worst character ever.

But this episode broke the straw and I must ask: Are we REALLY expected to believe that a bunch of children knows better how to found and manage a company than alllllll the adults in that world?! :/ And that's ignoring the fact that they're actually doing jack shit all themselves, because all the research and production facilities already exist and already are operated by existing teams of scientists and engineers.

I fucking hate Miorine with my guts, the most obnoxious type of character, spoiled, confident, and despite that always getting what she wants.

If making Gund-prosthetics was such a great idea, why did nobody else propose it? This is a rhethorical question, don't answer it, because the answer is: Other people (ADULTS) would have proposed it.

This anime really is one of the worst Gundam-anime I've ever seen, some of the most hateful characters, and its only saving grace is that I'm having fun hating them.

Buffalobiian

Mon, 11-28-2022, 11:47 AM

This isn't the most amazing Gundam, but it's enjoyable enough.

We're not expected to believe that a bunch of children know better about managing or founding companies than other adults.

GUND prosthetics WAS a good idea. It was being developed 21 years ago. Then someone shot them all down and made them forbidden via a multidisciplinary agreement, and no one had the guts to overturn it since. Also, no one had a machine that didn't obvious kill its pilot. Machine superiority was never disputed because even 21 years ago they kicked ass. Gundams did have a major weakness though, and we'll see how they handle against that next episode I suppose.

Ryllharu

Mon, 11-28-2022, 04:07 PM

I've stayed out of this thread because apparently everyone thinks this anime is good and that Suletta isn't the worst character ever.
...
I fucking hate Miorine with my guts, the most obnoxious type of character, spoiled, confident, and despite that always getting what she wants.
...
This anime really is one of the worst Gundam-anime I've ever seen, some of the most hateful characters, and its only saving grace is that I'm having fun hating them.
I'll agree with you partially. Suletta is steadily becoming the worst character in her own series. She had a few moments of early active recovery from her stuttering initial state. But shortly after Elan episode, she reverted to being passive, and I don't mean her personality. I mean her role in the story. She is being dragged through "her" own story which is about the biggest flaw a script can have.

But the framework they have here is good. It feels like you're missing the bigger hints at what the series is actually playing at (though a lot of people are too). [edit: Including me. People have pointed out from the first few episodes that the timelines didn't match and Suletta couldn't possibly be Ericht. They've since been vindicated.] We're watching the POV of the innocent bystanders in Elnora's revenge plot. Like Prospero from the Tempest that they're blatantly referencing, Elnora has all of this plotted out to take revenge on Delling and the rest of Benerit group. She's using her own children and the children of her enemies as pawns in whatever this unrevealed plan happens to be. Probably in an irredeemably unforgiveable way.

Elnora is getting everything she wants. Miorine definitely isn't. In fact, Miorine has made more compromises on her goal than anyone else in the series has so far. She wanted out. She wanted to go to Earth and be a farmer. Now she's stuck in the absolute center of the nightmare that Elnora built for the Benerit Group to fall into. The absolutely last place she ever wanted to be. She just happens to be good at it, since she is her father's daughter as much as she'd prefer to only be her late mother's daughter.

No different from the way many other gundam series handle socio-political stuff. This is corporate infighting and collateral damage toward innocent children (like Miorine pointed out, their entire generation knows nothing about the cause of the whole conflict).

Different strokes for different folks. I like the world-building they've set up with the corporate hellscape politically. They're still teasing out when everything goes belly-up. Many Gundam settings go this route before things go completely upside down. I like G Gundam because of how it removes all the bullshit baggage from the IP and has fun with it. I liked 00 most of the way through until the very end. UC is too lore-heavy for me. I fucking hate Gundam SEED. IBO was very one-dimensional and bored me to tears; I dropped it a little over halfway into the first cour with absolutely no regrets.

And yes, this one is written by the Valvrave guy. A lot of people who hated that hate this. There's plenty of similarities. I liked Valvrave, and I like this. So far it is actually better executed.

GUND prosthetics WAS a good idea. It was being developed 21 years ago. Then someone shot them all down and made them forbidden via a multidisciplinary agreement, and no one had the guts to overturn it since. Also, no one had a machine that didn't obvious kill its pilot. Machine superiority was never disputed because even 21 years ago they kicked ass. Gundams did have a major weakness though, and we'll see how they handle against that next episode I suppose.
Agreed. The point is that the kids need to break the ban on GUND Format, and the result, while well-intentioned, will probably result in an all-out war between the companies and Earth when everyone pulls the Gundam they were developing in secret like Peil out of their asses.

MFauli

Mon, 11-28-2022, 10:47 PM

Ryll, my issue is that unlike Ironblooded Orphans (which I liked), the kids in this series show NONE of the skills that make any comeuppance plausible/believable. When the kids in IBO rebelled (and "kids" meant all the way to young adulthood, really), they had already shown their capabilities to sustain and support themselves. We saw them be active soldiers already, on top of being mechanics and whatever else.

Mercury shows us a bunch of privileged, spoiled children, YOUNG children, some of them being into engineering, but most of them just enjoying the riches their parents gave them. That's why I hate Miorine and can't take seriously your "she wanted to become a farmer on Earth"-argument: THAT Miorine would call for her butler the moment farming got "hard". Farming is nothing like her little garden, and unless she meant "becoming a farmer" in the same way she became a prosthetics manufacturer (by paying other people to do stuff), there's no way she would have succeeded. This Miorine is all about "I deserve it because I am me" and political games that rely on adults in this world being idiots where a 14-year old girl can outwit them.

And if it came to open battle, who would actually fight (and murder) enemy mecha? Stuttering Suletta? Or all the inexperienced students? Fact is these children have no means nor expertise to rebel. That's why everything comes off as children being childish, unlike IBO.

But that's a fundamental issue of this anime to begin with: Somehow children and young adults run everything in this world, with adults being DUMB business men and politicians in the background, only existing to hog money and make dumb decisions that allow the children to present themselves as smarter. sigh :/

I'm still inmidst of watching the first Gundam-anime and it's frustrating how much more mature it is writing-wise.

Buffalobiian

Mon, 11-28-2022, 11:39 PM

While I enjoy watching this Gundam enough, I'm with MFauli about the school situation (though not necessarily about the characters per se).

Episode 0 was quite grounded and serious.

The rest of the series has the serious nature of GUND, corporate sabotage etc in the background while it places the school life in the foreground. It doesn't seem to be a traditional school, but instead is more of a sandbox for IRL+twists where kids get to be presidents, have their own house teams, dual each other for stakes and other shit like that with their parents' backings - all because a guy called The Writers Delling decided that he liked things that way.

It gives the series a light hearted nature which can be enjoyable, but at the same time detracts from the gravity and realism.

It really comes down to the dualing mechanic of the school I think. You have corporations happy to assassinate people or pass regulations unfairly, but Ariel will just dual her way out of it, all because Delling decided that dualing for his daughter and rewards would be a cool concept.

Ryllharu

Tue, 11-29-2022, 03:33 AM

You're both making a lot of assumptions and seeing the surface level stuff, but MFauli wrote more so I'll quote that.

Ryll, my issue is that unlike Ironblooded Orphans (which I liked), the kids in this series show NONE of the skills that make any comeuppance plausible/believable. When the kids in IBO rebelled (and "kids" meant all the way to young adulthood, really), they had already shown their capabilities to sustain and support themselves. We saw them be active soldiers already, on top of being mechanics and whatever else.

Mercury shows us a bunch of privileged, spoiled children, YOUNG children, some of them being into engineering, but most of them just enjoying the riches their parents gave them. That's why I hate Miorine and can't take seriously your "she wanted to become a farmer on Earth"-argument: THAT Miorine would call for her butler the moment farming got "hard". Farming is nothing like her little garden, and unless she meant "becoming a farmer" in the same way she became a prosthetics manufacturer (by paying other people to do stuff), there's no way she would have succeeded. This Miorine is all about "I deserve it because I am me" and political games that rely on adults in this world being idiots where a 14-year old girl can outwit them.

And if it came to open battle, who would actually fight (and murder) enemy mecha? Stuttering Suletta? Or all the inexperienced students? Fact is these children have no means nor expertise to rebel. That's why everything comes off as children being childish, unlike IBO.

But that's a fundamental issue of this anime to begin with: Somehow children and young adults run everything in this world, with adults being DUMB business men and politicians in the background, only existing to hog money and make dumb decisions that allow the children to present themselves as smarter. sigh :/
Of course the setup of IBO was different. They were a PMC of child soldiers used and experimented on.

You're definitely letting your distaste of Miorine blind you from the details about her. Yes, she's a hypocrite for using the things her father's influence awards her. Elnora called her out on it, and it made Miorine furious. But Miorine ultimately decided that she needed to stop being a hypocrite about it and abandoned her personal goal completely. She stopped running from her father (while not really running from him at all).

Nobody else runs Miorine's hydroponics tent. No one. She orders the supplies and has them delivered to the doorstep (you can see the jugs of nutrients in the background shots, and she carried them in the first episode) and grows all the tomatoes herself. She was fully committed to getting smuggled out of the school and emulating her mother on Earth. Suletta rescuing her, and Miorine subsequently having her smugglers turn around a second time set her away from that path for good.

The rest of your paragraph is baseless assumptions. We haven't seen much, but we do know that Miorine was at the top of her Business class. Like I said, she's her father's daughter as much as she loathes the idea. Elnora called her out on that too. Chuchu does too. As does Shaddiq. What we have been shown is that Miorine actually has the brains to back up and would be more than just inheriting a position.

It makes the way her father treats her as an object and not an heir as an insult. But that may have changed since she stopped running and demanded he back her business plan.

Next, let's be absolutely clear. The school is a playground. The duel system is ridiculous. That's the writers playing with the Utena references. Duel systems for plot reasons are almost always stupid. Dueling historically in real life is stupid.

I'll repeat it, we are given a very limited field of view on what's actually going on in Ad Stella's setting. We see the viewpoint of kids in their playground, playing at being business owners, throwing around their wealth as weight. The most contemptable character is Secelia Dote (this bitch (https://anidb.net/character/126132)). She sits on the dueling committee, delivering snark. Never seems to do anything but insult others on the couch. She's the pampered princess you want to believe Miorine is.

Jeturk is constantly scheming to unseat Delling, he fails, because Elnora is constantly manipulating the entire situation. Blackmailing him personally, undermining him when he tries to slip away from her, making backroom deals with Peil and Grassley to collectively try to destroy Elnora's company, etc. We're shown this continually throughout the episodes. It's not the focus, but it is inevitably driving most of the events that are happening to the kids. Jeturk treats his kids like shit. Peil uses children they buy from Earth as slaves as sacrificial pawns for their own heir. Grassley treats his okay but doesn't respect them as individuals (Shaddiq's line revealing that that when he and Miorine did try to make their own way when they were very young and the way you're complaining about, their fathers stopped both of them and coddled them instead).

Shaddiq is being ordered by his father to steal Aerial. Elan #3 was also ordered to do the same. Shaddiq represents the attitude you think is happening, he was ignoring his father to try to get Miorine to ally with him (and then Guel as well) because he does think that their generation should take over now. All kids that age think that everywhere. And he's obviously also in actual love with Miorine in the childhood crush way. Guel was cast aside by his father for an AI because he didn't trust his son to actually win in their top of the line mobile suit.

The kids act like they're running the world because we primarily get their POV, but they're only running the illusion of one within the little garden they're kept in. The Spacian companies directly intervene constantly.

MFauli

Tue, 11-29-2022, 06:41 AM

The kids act like they're running the world because we primarily get their POV, but they're only running the illusion of one within the little garden they're kept in. The Spacian companies directly intervene constantly.

Then I hope we'll get to the point where the illusion flips and reality sets in. Would make things interesting.

Buffalobiian

Tue, 11-29-2022, 12:25 PM

You're both making a lot of assumptions and seeing the surface level stuff

The kids act like they're running the world because we primarily get their POV, but they're only running the illusion of one within the little garden they're kept in. The Spacian companies directly intervene constantly.

I agree with MFauli that the school situation demeans the background corporate stuff, but I know that the kids only act like they run the place. I acknowledged that they were in a sandbox.

As such, I don't actually disagree with Ryll's post either.

I've acknowledged the POV thing above. What assumptions am I making?

The issue regarding "The Spacian companies directly intervene constantly" is the degree to which they'd do it. Where's Delling coming in a squad and taking everything by force? That's the tone of the Episode 0. The closest we got here was Jeturk planning to murder Delling. They also overturned Suletta's first win on the basis that she was pilotting a Gundam, but that's more about saying her mech was illegal than corpo sabotage per se.

Ryllharu

Tue, 11-29-2022, 04:37 PM

The issue regarding "The Spacian companies directly intervene constantly" is the degree to which they'd do it. Where's Delling coming in a squad and taking everything by force? That's the tone of the Episode 0. The closest we got here was Jeturk planning to murder Delling. They also overturned Suletta's first win on the basis that she was pilotting a Gundam, but that's more about saying her mech was illegal than corpo sabotage per se.
Grassley is about to parallel history from the Prologue. He has Shaddiq leading his Harem Squad to steal/destroy Aerial from new company that publicly professes a peaceful use for the GUND Format.

It should be very interesting.

This is what's setting up a rather interesting case. Delling openly rules the consortium as its king, unilaterally saying Gundams are banned. He ordered the extermination mission 21 years ago. But he's letting his daughter try to break the curse in the present day. A daughter that we've generally seen him treat poorly.

Grassley on the other hand, is ready to repeat history (and probably with Peil and Jeturk agreeing to the plan). Grassley pioneered the anti-Gundam tech. Shaddiq has been ordered to use it if he needs to.

And I have very little doubt that Elnora was waiting for this to happen.

Ryllharu

Sun, 12-04-2022, 10:51 AM

Eps 9

------

This is the balance I was looking for. Suletta is a great pilot in her own right, but she's not absurdly special. Aerial is. It's monstrously powerful because of whatever bleak secret it has going on inside itself and the Bits.

Shaddiq's harem squad are very good pilots. They tore most of Earth House apart in seconds, though Chuchu held them off for quite a while, as did Suletta.

This gives us a much better baseline for how Ad Stella pilots perform on average. Untrained or poorly trained pilots aren't worth much, and high-performing pilots surgically destroy average pilots. Even the top performing pilots can't hold off well-trained, synergized teams of pilots used to working with each other like the Harem Squad.

Speaking of the Harem Squad, I liked that they weren't just hanger-on eye candy. They're good pilots, and all have their own fanbases. The one that was the quietest was actually one of the best ones, not the leader one.

And it shouldn't be a surprise to any viewers that whatever Elnora did solved the Anti-GUND format problem. The bits and Aerial network with each other as well as Suletta by a different means.

OST is on point as always. Not just the climatic chanting track we've been hearing since the trailer, but all of it.

edit: And yes, we got additional proof that NOBODY goes in Miorine's greenhouse. She does all her own work. Even back when she still trusted Shaddiq, he wasn't allowed inside.

fireheart

Sun, 12-04-2022, 03:02 PM

Quite enjoy these orchestra recordings

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZwdv8Vq0BQ

MFauli

Mon, 12-05-2022, 06:07 AM

1) I hate Suletta so much. When she did that dance after winning ... I hate it so much. Her a-a-a-a-a-a-attitude.

2) She didn't win on her own. This Gundam anime is so absurd, where its hero doesn't accomplish anything by her own effort. Is this what you want to tell the targeted female audience? "You can always rely on others if things are too hard"? And it just makes fights uninteresting. Everyone's basically fighting some cheating deus-ex-machine mecha that always activates a new trick when necessary.

3) Speaking of "targeted at girls": It must be 5D chess to put a few rare male characters in there that all the girls flock to. Shaddiq is the worst offender here, obviously, literally having his own harem. The whole "targeted at girls" is lead ad absurdum by this. Harem are guy fantasies.

4) What was that fight anyway? The camper won? Wow. In any online shooter, campers are hated, if not outright receiving bans by moderators.

5) "Too little too late" - girl, if you LIKE Shaddiq, tell him, it's not too late. Stop playing childish games. If you like him, it's not to late, and he obviously likes you. That was another low point.

I really hope we get some really Gundam next year. Or even another Build Fighters-season.

Ryllharu

Mon, 12-05-2022, 02:13 PM

1) She did the dance because she had to. They were marketing Gundam, Inc. by streaming the entire duel. She's promoting the company with the campaign they came up with, as embarrassing and cringeworthy as it is.

2) GOOD. Gundams are war machines. It was a team battle, and both sides fought as a team. That's the shit I want. Gundam and Macross both suffer from main lead syndrome, where the lead has perpetual plot armor and there's no tension in the series because of it (it's something 00 did right, as did Macross F tv series). Earth House got their ass handed to them for the majority of the match, but they still won the war simulation. Early Code Geass got that right, and very very few other mecha do. Gunbuster (before the buster machines are revealed) and Martian Successor Nadesico are the only two I can think of, with the latter exploring that entire Team vs Hero Unit dynamic rather thoroughly.

3) In general, I don't think Gundam WfM is targeted at girls. It's not a shoujo mecha (that could maybe be associated with Granbelm, definitely Escaflowne). The goal was to have the series be female-led, and it is...it's just Miorine and not Suletta for the moment.

4) Good. See #2. Thank you for a realistic portrayal of a war encounter. It wasn't camping, by the way, in case you missed the obvious signs. Earth House cobbled together their broken mobile suits and overcharged the remaining part of a laser cannon they had. Slagged the barrel doing so and were helpless after that, but they killed the enemy commander.

5) I think this is another one they did intelligently and naturally. Shaddiq claims he wanted to protect Miorine. They got along really well as kids, she trusted him, they were open and honest with each other. But Shaddiq accidentally betrayed her. The only way that he could think to protect her was to control her, and that's everything she hates about the way people treat her.
Miorine grew up and learned to start trusting other, and Shaddiq didn't. It's nice to see a series address that people can love and care for each other, but when that trust is broken, it could be a very long time for that forgiveness to happen. Miorine demanded a contract from him to not interfere with her business again, that's how harshly he broke her trust.

edit:
Gundam purists will tell anyone who bothers to listen to them that UC is the only setting that matters, and that's gotten power-creeped to hell. And that Gundam has sucked for decades and decades.

Ad Stella has a relatively even skill vs tech level for the moment that I'm happy with.

Buffalobiian

Mon, 12-05-2022, 07:19 PM

5) I think this is another one they did intelligently and naturally. Shaddiq claims he wanted to protect Miorine. They got along really well as kids, she trusted him, they were open and honest with each other. But Shaddiq accidentally betrayed her. The only way that he could think to protect her was to control her, and that's everything she hates about the way people treat her.
Miorine grew up and learned to start trusting other, and Shaddiq didn't. It's nice to see a series address that people can love and care for each other, but when that trust is broken, it could be a very long time for that forgiveness to happen. Miorine demanded a contract from him to not interfere with her business again, that's how harshly he broke her trust.

Yeah, I'm not so sure about that bit about controlling her. He specifically never wanted to duel for her because he felt that was wrong, but now thinks that the way to protect her was to do so like Suletta did - though she did that unknowingly. She only thought winning the duel would give her a say.

He took her company because he was asked by his father to acquire the Gundam. He didn't want to win it with Anti-GN weapons in a duel and tried to absorb her company instead while letting her maintain control. Miorine didn't see that part at all and just thought he wanted her as a symbol.

I don't think Shaddiq played his cards badly. I think his issue is that he is an heir to a main house, and Miorine despises them all. Suletta was apolitical relative to them.

Ryllharu

Tue, 12-06-2022, 03:12 AM

His plan was to make her a figurehead of her own company, it's not something Miorine just imagined. She would in theory control the operations, but in practice Shaddiq and his father would be making all the final calls as the parent company.

Their history was trying to sneak off together and create an independent venture before their fathers both stopped them.

Had he left his father and joined them, Miorine probably would have welcomed him with open arms. But we can see how much of a struggle that is in this setting, even for Guel who has been formally abandoned by his own father.

Buffalobiian

Tue, 12-06-2022, 07:57 AM

His plan was to make her a figurehead of her own company, it's not something Miorine just imagined. She would in theory control the operations, but in practice Shaddiq and his father would be making all the final calls as the parent company.

If that was the case then you'd think that the subsidiary company wouldn't be able to escape the Benerit Group influence like Miorine said it would.

Ryllharu

Sun, 12-11-2022, 06:21 AM

Eps 10

Some melodrama interludes

----------

I say that, but this was a good example of great storyboarding, set up, and payoff. Like the content or not, Witch from Mercury is a very well competently made anime. Even "great" series in other genres stumble at how this is being executed.

It's all Show and not Tell.

They demonstrated to us earlier in the episode that Suletta is being overtaxed in her role. Test pilot, doing PR, the only person that Miorine trusted to take care of her greenhouse without being paid to do it, in addition to all her studies, and trying to branch out in her social life. Suletta got to achieve her goal of telling a pun that everyone laughed at, but it was also showing us that she's forgetting to do things that she needs to be doing. She's fumbling with how much has been placed on her while Miorine is away. They also emphasized that Miorine is also skipping all her classes.

Lastly, Miorine is very well aware of Suletta's bucket list.

So said at the worst possible time and without any explanation, Miorine's attempt to take some of the burden off of Suletta and allow her more freedom to enjoy her own school life while Miorine ramps up their business was twisted into a betrayal. New Clone Pick Up Artist Elan knew that he was being added to the team, so he literally hid in the bushes and took the opportunity to twist the knife and plant the seeds of doubt.

Miorine's only failing was not talking to Suletta as soon as she got back, and it all snowballed from what the others trying to break them apart set up.

Speaking of Miorine, they also showed us a good composition of contrasting the plan to assassinate Delling while bouncing back and forth between Miorine and her father finally reconciling over something. He was impassive, but still quite happy to give her a great deal of business mentoring and reminding her of potential pitfalls. They even capped it off with Miorine giving an expression of conflicted happiness. She hates her father, but she liked the discussions they were having about her work.

Thus, they're setting up for an emotional payoff for when he actually does get killed this time.

So Nika is definitely a terrorist, or at the very least a merc, and quite possibly has blood on her hands already, or at least indirectly. Trinity Sibling spiritual successors.

Final note, Shiraishi Haruka replaced Miyamoto Yume as Nika starting this episode due to the latter's health issues. While she has a great range, she doesn't fit Nika at all, or at least the way they directed her this episode. She almost immediately came off as a different character in a negative way. Maybe they need time to settle her, because from her work history, she absolutely can cover the role in the same pitch and vibe.

Buffalobiian

Sun, 12-11-2022, 07:37 AM

I didn't even realise Jerk Elan was different to Original Elan until they pointed it out. They are indeed both pricks.

MFauli

Tue, 12-20-2022, 12:25 AM

Just watched episode 10. This was another bad episode, but it especially made clear how bad it is when compared to a great Gundam like Iron-Blooded Orphans.

The children in both these anime couldn't be more different. In IBO, it just makes sense that the children are somewhat battle-hardened, that they can compete on par with adults. There is no character that feels out of place, and where the children reach their limit (politics), they find apt aid in the form of, duh, adults that will side with them. In MW, however, there is NO explanation for why all of these children get to play on the real battlefield of economics and politics. No matter how smart they might be, adults would always be smarter and more experienced. Everything these kids do comes off as unearned due to that. Miorine's behavior is the most annoying, because she acts like a know-it-all, yet we even see in the dialogue with her father that she doesn't know it all. If I were an adult in that universe, I absolutely wouldn't do business with such a spoiled child. At best she could spread her legs, considering her beauty is the only objective prowess of hers.

Which brings me to something else: Are the 2 girls with the assassin supposed to be Miorine's clones? Or did the studio run out of budget to design new characters?

Ryllharu

Tue, 12-20-2022, 03:05 AM

This is almost a copy-paste of the post you made for episode 8.

Episode 10 is character-driven, true. But it also feels like you are deliberately ignoring all the background details the series has been shelling out since the prologue.

You're obsessed with the structure of the school and missing the entirety of the setup with the Benerit Group.

If I were an adult in that universe, I absolutely wouldn't do business with such a spoiled child. At best she could spread her legs, considering her beauty is the only objective prowess of hers.

I'm not at all surprised that you have this stance.

MFauli

Tue, 12-20-2022, 01:08 PM

and missing the entirety of the setup with the Benerit Group

I ignore it because so does the anime. In this episode, the tanned blonde boy even wants to give up the duels and an adult tells him to continue doing duels. Like, wtf. If there is any setup for higher tier politics, when will we see it come to fruition? The anime is about to end ...

I'm not at all surprised that you have this stance.

Act appalled all you like, my stance is the more realistic, plausible one. You have this spoiled jailbait-girl walking around in sexy evening dresses, mingling with adults, talking as if she's a big fish. She's not. Or at least she shouldn't be. But I have little hope that this anime will ever show her that.

Ryllharu

Tue, 12-20-2022, 02:39 PM

The series is a split cour.

2nd half starts in April 2023. Expect a nasty climax when this season finishes in early January.

MFauli

Mon, 12-26-2022, 01:23 AM

Episode 11:

Most of the episode was bad-cringe Suletta crap. God, I honestly wonder whether she was written to appeal to whatever demographic OR to be hated by most people, lol. And I SOOOO wish they'd drop the lesbian-pandering bs. I've got nothing against a proper lesbian relationship, but Suletta-Miorine just come as some sort of role play. And stop using "-san", Suletta, when you're that close ...

And who'd have thought: When the anime finally becomes "Gundam" in the last 5 minutes or so, it's actually exciting to watch. The terrorists attacking the station, the Jeturk son on the small ship, the two Earth-twitches, that's fun to watch.

David75

Mon, 12-26-2022, 01:28 AM

I've been wondering for a while, but isn't suletta's stuttering and awkwardness a symptom of her piloting Aerial ?
She keeps calling lady prospera her mom... but I feel like we never had a confirmation.

Ryllharu

Mon, 12-26-2022, 05:50 AM

Prospera has referred to "daughters" in plural across the episodes. Aerial is almost certainly Ericht.

Though, that could be some very cold misdirection since the Bit Staves are also part of the "everyone" that Suletta refers to when talking to her Gundam, but Suletta is also considered her daughter. Stuff like, "It's a call from my daughter."

We're left with Suletta in quite possible the worst situation she could possibly be in at the end of the episode. There's debris everywhere, and she's on the wrong side of an armored airlock with only a window between her and space.

Fun Fact: Suletta is one of the taller Gundam leads. Not Shown is Domon from G Gundam, who is 180cm.
1998

Buffalobiian

Fri, 12-30-2022, 07:13 AM

Fun Fact: Suletta is one of the taller Gundam leads. Not Shown is Domon from G Gundam, who is 180cm.
Click image for larger version. Name: Fkqx-VYakAI6LwP.jpg Views: 5 Size: 171.4 KB ID: 1998

Hah, wow, I didn't know Heero was 157cm-ish.

shinta|hikari

Fri, 12-30-2022, 09:35 PM

I didn't know gundam protags are all hobbits.

MFauli

Sat, 12-31-2022, 10:12 AM

Well, smaller pilot -> smaller cockpit -> more effecient mecha build

Or so ... >_>

Buffalobiian

Sat, 12-31-2022, 12:40 PM

I think it's just that they're all teenage kids. And if we're talking early teenagers, the girls do get their growth spurts first.

Ryllharu

Sat, 12-31-2022, 12:55 PM

Miorine is much shorter. She's 150cm.

shinta|hikari

Sat, 12-31-2022, 03:34 PM

The height gap between Miorine and Suletta is exactly the same as the gap between my wife and I.

MFauli

Sat, 12-31-2022, 03:48 PM

Miorine is 150cm? Well, guess she has ONE positive now ...

The height gap between Miorine and Suletta is exactly the same as the gap between my wife and I.

Nice, well done, shinta.

Ryllharu

Sun, 01-08-2023, 06:48 AM

Eps 12 (season 1 end, resumes in Spring 2023)

---------------

So seriously, fuck the haters of this series, you all have no taste or sense for what's good.

It's the complete package on presentation. The music (or noted scenes of silence) has been phenomenal the entire time at building up specific scenes and amplifying them to the correct tone. The animation has been stellar, consistent, subdued in its intricate detail (seriously, go rewatch some of the character movement on past episodes), and the framing on the action has been some of the best Gundam has offered, on par with some of the best in genre (more like the Macross OVAs and movies is what I'm saying).

As for the writing and characterization? Gundam Witch from Mercury has been one of the more interpersonal-relationship focused mecha and actually done it right.

Organizations and political allegiances are present in the background, but at its core, this has been a series that focuses on the minutiae of vengeance, hate, loathing, regret, and lies (both deliberate and by omission). We see a zoomed-in look at all the horrific suffering of armed conflict and war, scheming, and casual lack of empathy for human life when individual personal gain is on the other side of the equation. Across the entire cast too.

Suletta is fucked up. Her mother raised her that way. She's pragmatic to a complete and disastrous fault.

The scene where Elnora lures Suletta into stepping over the metaphorical line onto the bloody floor with her sweet tone and seductively 'justified' words? Brilliant. Guel killing his father on accident, but in the end his father was relieved to see him safe? That one hurts. Nika getting found out to be a traitor, even though she secured the safety of everyone aligned with Earth House? Tragedy in slow motion. Shaddiq still smiling even though his little operation failed? Ominous. The overall balance between Suletta and Miorine? Perfect and constantly in motion.

What's great about this series is that even now, we still have no idea who is on the "good" side. There probably aren't any.

MFauli

Sun, 01-08-2023, 07:32 PM

FUCK this anime. Ryll is wrong 120% lol

This was a GOOD episode. This is what the epilogue episode had promised and it is what I expect from a good Gundam-anime.

So WHY DID IT TAKE AN ENTIRE SEASON TO GET THERE?!

There's not much to talk, really, because we're now at the starting line from where HOPEFULLY a good, meaningfull story can grow. We have the Jeturk-boy lose his father, experience trauma, and probably grow as a result. We have Miorine who's also about to lose her father. We have Suletta who continues to be the worst character, but at least now she's a hilarious psycho. :D

Bummer that we have to wait for season 2, because I'm really excited for next episode :D

Ryllharu

Sun, 01-08-2023, 08:37 PM

Because your takes are unerringly shallow and as usual with any anime, you missed all the development that wasn't overt and explicit.

The entire season was littered with details that led up to almost everything that happened this episode.

Buffalobiian

Tue, 01-10-2023, 09:32 PM

The scene where Elnora lures Suletta into stepping over the metaphorical line onto the bloody floor with her sweet tone and seductively 'justified' words? Brilliant

Yep. Nothing wrong with any of that actually. Once you get over the "kill or be killed" idea, decision making is pretty straight forward.

shinta|hikari

Wed, 01-11-2023, 11:16 AM

Miorine is a bitch. You and your dad was just saved and you call your savior a murderer lol.

Ryllharu

Wed, 01-11-2023, 05:01 PM

Yep. Nothing wrong with any of that actually. Once you get over the "kill or be killed" idea, decision making is pretty straight forward.

Not what Suletta did. What Elnora has constantly been doing to her the whole season. There's something very wrong about what's going on there.

Even the VAs for Suletta and Miorine (who don't have knowledge of the plot for S2 at this point) brought up how creepily manipulative Elnora is to Suletta.

shinta|hikari

Wed, 01-11-2023, 05:16 PM

Elnora sounds like she is manipulating everybody, and I honestly wanna be surprised that isn't the case, and that even if Aerial is her first daughter, she ended up that way due to an accident, so Elnora is just trying to make best use of what is left for her.

MFauli

Thu, 01-12-2023, 06:35 AM

Elnora speaks so devoid of honest emotion that I wouldn't be surprised if her body and mind had long been overtaken by a Gundam-AI, maybe she's the Aerial's true conscious or something like that. She's been creepy from the start (but not during the epilogue).

shinta|hikari

Thu, 01-12-2023, 11:54 AM

Do you mean prologue?

MFauli

Thu, 01-12-2023, 01:07 PM

Do you mean prologue?

yes

12345667

Buffalobiian

Fri, 01-13-2023, 05:07 AM

Elnora is manipulative, but what how Suletta ended up (being able to kill a terrorist) and what she did (killed a terrorist) isn't wrong. Sure, the mental steps she took to get there were shortcutted by the whole "gain 2 if you advance" stuff her mum spouts, but it got her to where she needed to be (to be able to kill terrorists).

Miorine will hopefully get there too, but now we have to watch her bitch about Suletta being murderer for however many episodes it takes for her to concede that it was necessary.

shinta|hikari

Fri, 01-13-2023, 01:37 PM

Hopefully it doesn't even take one episode and she realizes she was cruel for what she said to Suletta. Whether that fixes the damage she did to Suletta is another story.

MFauli

Fri, 01-13-2023, 05:50 PM

Hopefully it doesn't even take one episode and she realizes she was cruel for what she said to Suletta. Whether that fixes the damage she did to Suletta is another story.

Total opposite: I hope this causes a permanent rift between the two and Suletta joins the Earth witches, becoming a terrorist. Meanwhile Miorine at long last grows up a bit due to her father's death and turns into a proper leader. The anime ends with both trying to kill each other.

shinta|hikari

Fri, 01-13-2023, 06:26 PM

That development is so overdone in Gundam though. The friends eventually becoming enemies is a Gundam cliche.

MFauli

Fri, 01-13-2023, 07:56 PM

That development is so overdone in Gundam though. The friends eventually becoming enemies is a Gundam cliche.

Really? With 2 young girls in the main role?

Ryllharu

Sat, 01-14-2023, 04:50 AM

That development is so overdone in Gundam though. The friends eventually becoming enemies is a Gundam cliche.

Really? With 2 young girls in the main role?

They've already shown to some degree that they're willing to avoid that annoying mainstay of Gundam (and much of anime in general). Miorine and Suletta have had rifts before and Miorine has been the one to force the discussion and quickly mend things before they fester.

I would assume this time would be Suletta's turn since she, "did the wrong."

Suletta takes a more active role in the combat-centric and otherwise action stuff (regardless of how passive she comes off, she does in fact drive all the major story elements), while Miorine take the lead in the social, business, and negotiation table. It's been consistent thus far. Now Suletta has to step up and make a real advancement in the social sphere to fix this.

Ryllharu

Sun, 04-16-2023, 06:17 AM

WfM - 14

-----------

There's your escalation episode.

The cockpit targeting lock sensor is a cool feature of mobile suits in this setting. Sunrise, both for Gundam and Code Geass, understand that it is a good element to mecha combat in fiction to focus on the difference in limbs that can be sacrificed, or cockpits that can be explicitly targeted. Putting a sensor and warning that specifically tracks target locks on the vulnerable cockpit is really cool.

The theme that Suletta is becoming someone that horrifies everyone because she doesn't die from the data storms is a good contrast to the other parts of the show. She's apparently the least human out of everyone but acts the most civilized and has the biggest heart out of the entire cast. Most others are showing the flavors of what being human truly means.

Buffalobiian

Sun, 04-16-2023, 08:14 AM

I'd forgotten that Elan was back to being another "dispensable face-changed person" instead of the actual aristocrat version.

Weapon output being regulated makes a lot of sense actually, given the whole "our shields make this duel very safe" premise.

Given the name Quiet Zero and that the datastorm is can control/communicate, I'm guessing we're back to the staple "Hivemind for universal peace" concept of peace that these guys are striving for.

shinta|hikari

Mon, 04-17-2023, 05:46 PM

I wish it were different, like some sort of universal watchdog that will surveil everyone and pawn you if you try something funny. Like Psycho Pass.

Ryllharu

Sun, 04-23-2023, 07:55 AM

Eps 15

-----------

A decent or even good vignette episode full of well-executed cliche plot turns.

The main action aside that I have no real complaints about, I'll bring up the other stuff. It wasn't that obvious because they did skim over it really fast with Shaqqiq and his father and Miorine and the Cathedra dude, "Where's the war?" has been answered. It's all the time, whenever they feel like it, generally on Earth. The Benerit Group partitioned (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_(politics)) up resources across the solar system to themselves, including carving up Earth's resources to fund their ongoing development of space. They re-partition it when the resources start to get uneven or the corporate power balance has gotten out of date with what they allocated out (i.e. which company is on top in terms of shares). Fight a little war, expel whoever is living in a spot they want, repeat.

They justify keeping the agreement under the guise of "protecting Earth's biosphere." Shaddiq wants to flip the ownership to Earth, but he still really means he wants a monopoly because he stupidly thinks he knows better than everyone.

Miorine rejected his request for her to join him back in season 1 because he is still playing in the corporate kindergarten and doesn't know it, while she's been subjected to result of the backroom deals all these years. Ones that she's now finding out are hiding the actual goal: Quiet Zero.

Batshit insane technology that her mother hypothesized was possible, her father is scrambling to create in her memory, and Elnora wants to steal for her own personal ends.

Destroying the Gundams before was a means her father decided on to put a damper on the war casualties. Like we saw with Sophie, the GUND-ARM tech will kill the pilots, but the Gundam is still ready to use again by the next disposable pilot.

Buffalobiian

Mon, 04-24-2023, 12:24 PM

I'm glad they cleared up a few things.

First bit was why the school was set up the way it is - now it makes sense (besides paying homage).

The next bit that I was confused about was why Delling was so hell-bent on wiping out Gundams when he actually embraces it. Exactly when he started becoming interested is uncertain, and how did Earth get Gundams anyway? Suletta's mum is one answer, though any other "witches" would be the other answer - since that's what they're calling all the ex-biotechs from the original prosthesis tech company.

Buffalobiian

Sun, 04-30-2023, 07:23 AM

E16

------------------

I'm quite impressed at Suletta's logic. It's true that everything her mother's advised her to do so far has worked out, and given that she acknowledges that she knows a lot less, she's accepting her mother's guidance 100% right now even if it means murder. Hard to argue with 100% success rate from her perspective.

I don't get why Elan is going to report the tech. The only thing she's hidden is perhaps her origin. Her actual work on experimental humans and gundams is obvious. Of course they would have read between the lines and knew of her connection to the original Vanadis Institute.

Eri going GTFO was pretty cool. I wonder if Suletta gets to visualise Eri as well - so far I've assumed it was just voices.

Ryllharu

Sun, 04-30-2023, 07:47 AM

I'm quite impressed at Suletta's logic. It's true that everything her mother's advised her to do so far has worked out, and given that she acknowledges that she knows a lot less, she's accepting her mother's guidance 100% right now even if it means murder. Hard to argue with 100% success rate from her perspective.

Nah, Suletta is warped very badly by Elnora, and Miorine caught on immediately. They've established across the last few episodes that while Elnora has two daughters...she's mostly focused on her first. Suletta is a means to an end, and it's becoming more clear that Elnora is grooming Suletta to be the trigger for Quiet Zero and her revenge. Probably sacrificially. The first daughter she loves, but the second daughter, she raised to OBEY. Suletta has led a very isolated and dangerous life if you read the prologue short story from Ericht's perspective on their website (https://en.gundam.info/about-gundam/series-pages/witch/music/novel/). Suletta has been piloting Aerial since she was a very small child. She's good at it because she never once thinks about herself, she just implicitly trusts the people close to her. She never realizes when she's being lied to. Also seen with the way she interacts with the three Elans.

Eri cares for Suletta. Eri does still want revenge along with her mother. But Eri does not want Suletta to pay the price for that "Circle of Sin."

I don't get why Elan is going to report the tech. The only thing she's hidden is perhaps her origin. Her actual work on experimental humans and gundams is obvious. Of course they would have read between the lines and knew of her connection to the original Vanadis Institute.

Eri going GTFO was pretty cool. I wonder if Suletta gets to visualise Eri as well - so far I've assumed it was just voices.
Elan is a fucking idiot for thinking it is a good idea to run off and tattle on Bel because he was upset about how the attempted hijacking went. Bel's modifications to his body almost certainly saved his life.

Eri's Cosmic Horror encounter with him should have killed him.

I don't think she was playing around, since she knew his intentions from the moment he tried to sync. He pushed in anyway, and she responded. Eri pushed his body well beyond the point that the other gundams killed Sophie or even Eri's own father. Easily well past Permet Score 4. We know that Suletta can handle Score 8 or more, but most people used to die at Score 3. Sophie and Norea were trained to handle Score 3 routinely, and Score 4 for a matter of seconds to override the Antitode systems, but it nearly kills them doing it and they have to pull back immediately to recover.

shinta|hikari

Sun, 04-30-2023, 10:59 PM

I don't think Ericht wanted to kill manwhore. She was clearly saying just to get out, not disappear or die. She even very nicely helped him exit her innards.

I actually question whether Eri is mature and smart enough to understand revenge and how her dad died. She might have stopped aging and maturing when her original died.

Ryllharu

Mon, 05-01-2023, 03:21 AM

I actually question whether Eri is mature and smart enough to understand revenge and how her dad died. She might have stopped aging and maturing when her original died.

I'd probably think that way based on her appearance and that Elnora says she's just data beyond the data storm, but there's two factors against that: 1) Elnora has no way to talk to Eri at all so she doesn't really know the full situation either and 2) based on the way that Suletta talks to her (and also the tone Cradle Planet is written in), I'd lean toward Eri acting her true age.

Buffalobiian

Sun, 05-07-2023, 10:15 AM

Ep 17

------------

Damn, even when we know of of Miorine's motive, that was brutal.

I don't see how this is going to make Suletta any less of a tool. Right now, the only person she has is in fact her mother now. She's going to be as dependant on her as ever.

At the beginning of the series, I didn't expect Guel to break and reform into such a cool, reliable guy. Him, Elan and Shaddiq have all shuffled around in terms of likability for various reasons.

Having read that story Ryll linked, Ariel does read as if she is quite mature.

MFauli

Thu, 05-11-2023, 04:15 AM

Yeah, I don't believe this anime. Miorine backstabbing Suletta, for seriously? Surely in some twist she'll actually have done it all to help Suletta. :/

And by god, I hate Suletta so much. Every scene with her is insufferable. Seeing her suffer a bit now was very satisfying.

Buffalobiian

Thu, 05-11-2023, 06:23 AM

Surely in some twist she'll actually have done it all to help Suletta. :/

Dude that's the whole point here.

Minorine did it so she doesn't have to pilot Ariel, murder people and be her mum's puppet.

Ryllharu

Sun, 05-21-2023, 06:25 AM

Eps 18

-----

Kinda interesting seeing the mascot Gundam doing a heel turn. It's been known for a while that Eri doesn't want Suletta involved in their revenge plot, but they both fully abandoned her. The intentions are pure for Suletta's sake, but they're also both about to do significant evil by my guess.

Elnora was visibly annoyed that Miorine didn't want to bring any weapons nor show a big display of force, "to start the negotiations on equal footing." She was basically stringing Miorine along the entire time about almost every other part of this episode, manipulating Miorine into doing everything exactly like she wanted. But she was not happy Miorine intended to do the negotiations truly diplomatically.

If Aerial can control other mobile suits at Permet Score 8 or above, which she can now do on her own without Suletta, this means that the honor guard that Miorine ultimately brought along are probably doomed to be part of some Geass-type involuntary slaughter of civilians.

Buffalobiian

Mon, 05-22-2023, 04:03 PM

What I got from this is that Suletta herself is not resistant to Data Storms. Eri is shielding her from it, and Eri can choose not to at any point. It also means that Suletta won't necessarily by any good at piloting other Gundams.

What doesn't quite make sense is why unlocking Permet Score 8 once allows Eri to do it on her own.

Buffalobiian

Sat, 06-17-2023, 06:35 PM

Episode 22

------------------

No real surprises over the past few episodes, though the Assembly League seems to have popped up out of nowhere. They've just been sitting on their asses while all the other shit's been happening on Earth, and didn't intervene when the terrorist attacks happened earlier in the series?

Ryllharu

Tue, 06-20-2023, 07:58 AM

The witch broom attachment on Caliban Gundam is a little too on the nose. It's fine that it is a supplemental thruster for the most part, but feels a bit more G Gundam than Ad Stella.

I also would have liked if they stepped away from whatever bullshit they have going on to somehow get through the data storm around and abandoned Permet-powered systems and planned a proper manual space docking in the style of Planetes or the real world Soyuz T-13 mission (or even the one a few days ago).
(edit: I guess that is what they're actually going to do. Nuclear Thermal Propulsion Ship is the little round barrel they're all sitting in)

The series has gotten really rushed the last few episodes, and it could have benefitted from another half-season or so. They could have spent a few minutes teasing out how Sulleta is able to communicate with Caliban without it killing her. The fencing duel was also very stupid. I get the Char/Amuro & Utena callback again, but there's no reason for Suletta to know how to fence at all. Would have been better served with either a VR battle, or a Build Fighters battle.

Ryllharu

Sun, 06-25-2023, 12:35 PM

Eps 23

----

Okay, I take it back, the witch broom Gundam is pretty badass, especially in the updated OP. Considering she spend most of the time slicing people apart with bits, Suletta is god-tier at dodging laser fire.

The giant beam weapon was also nicely done. I'm a big fan of showing off the blinding bloom properly instead of some discrete beam with confined edges when they're that powerful.

Felsi was the real star of the episode though.

Buffalobiian

Mon, 06-26-2023, 03:13 AM

I couldn't figure out why Suletta's mum had a red face. As far as we know, Quiet Zero didn't turn into a Gundam or emit particles within the facility. No one else seemed visibly affected.

Felsi calling them out was refreshing. She looked like she was shooting sealants to stop any cabin decompression, as opposed to shooting flame retardant, but Guel's suit was intact so he would have survived anything but an explosion anyway.

Ryllharu

Mon, 06-26-2023, 03:32 AM

Elnora appears to have injected herself with a Permet tattoo, possibly as a means to talk to Eri.

MFauli

Mon, 07-03-2023, 12:29 PM

Just watched 23.

Hated it so much.

- Fucking Miorine gets to talk big again. The only reason I keep watching is to see at long last be humiliated, ridiculed and punished for all her spoon-fed, privileged arrogancy. But no, now she gets to be heroic hacker who can even counter the mother's hacking skills. And then she has the audacity to hold a little speech to her. I swear, if Miorine doesn't find gruesome fate in the last episode ...

- Fucking Ericht is being portrayed as a hero, too, because of some out-of-nowhere "enemy". Can we keep in mind that Ericht just killled thousands of people, and all for her and her's only, just so she has a place to live. This asshole couldn't for one second think "hm, maybe finding a place for ME is not worth killing OTHER PEOPLE". But no, Ericht did it anyway. And now they want me to feel for her, just because she blocks a laser beam? Screw her.

Going into the final episode with very low expectations. Either Miorine will win or she'll get a heroic death, but surely not what she deserves. Stuck-up escort bitch.

MFauli

Mon, 07-03-2023, 02:05 PM

Episode 24:

As feared, Miorine gets to triumph agian. Sigh. Worst character ever, even worse than Suletta.

The ending was too "cute", too. Most importantly, it's ridiculous how everything was done by children, even at the end, we only see children doing stuff.

Don't make a mistake, this is not comparable to Iron Blooded Orphans where it was children, too. But there, we have children who were work slaves on some distant, shitty planet who were forced into battle from the beginning. In Suisei Majo, the children simply do company work and politics and that's ridiculous. I guess 12 year olds watching this might like how children run everything, but from a plausibility's pov, it's pure bs.

Definitely the worst Gundam-series I've seen yet.

Ryllharu

Mon, 07-03-2023, 02:32 PM

Yeah...the last few episodes and the 2nd cour as a whole kinda ruined the first.

Horribly rushed, many plot threads dropped, others needlessly inserted (Lauda fighting Guel, though the fight was pretty good), and the SAL are the worst developed villain for a franchise of this size in a long, long time.

I do hope they return to the setting though, I found Ad Stella quite interesting. There's hints they might, what with the lines about the Spacians trying to claw back control of the holdings that were transferred to Earth already. Gundam tech will also advance, and hopefully be less harmful to pilots in the long run.

Be mindful on claiming it was "all done by children," when that's not true. The adults were waiting in the wings to evacuate the students if they failed their endeavor and switch over to an extremely bloody war. Just like the first season, there was a ton going on in the fringes that indicated that Miorine and crew were being given a chance to act in their parent's stead, but if things up-ended, they were going to be politely removed from the board by adults. I fail to see how what they did here is any different from any other teen protagonist series in any anime.

The whole thing is still a reference to The Tempest and it somehow having a "everyone wins," ending despite the atrocious things going on during the play.

I did smirk at the self-awareness of Miorine's line to Ericht on how the hell she could even exist. Come on, that's good.

Worst ever? No. That still belongs to AGE.

You may not like WfM, but it was extremely popular in Japan and, "redeemed the Gundam IP," according to Japanese viewers. It served its purpose.

Maybe we'll get something better when Sunrise takes over Macross, because Studio Nue sure can't manage anything decent anymore, and it is another franchise deeply in need of redemption. We haven't had anything good since the first two Frontier movies.

Fun fact though! Suletta has the lowest kill-count of any Gundam lead character. Just one.

MFauli

Mon, 07-03-2023, 11:36 PM

Eh, I can't agree with your "adults were just waiting to intervene" when an entire fleet with thousands of people was annihilated, plus all the victims at the school station. And the ending showed all those kids managing things, whether it's Miorine or Guel or his thicc secretary. The out-of-nowhere "villain" with he massive orbital laser beam was adult, too, ofc. All in all, this anime gave me Persona 5-vibes, "all adults are evil/incompetent" and that's just dumb imo. Again, Iron Blooded Orphans did it so much better, yes, child heroes, but there were plenty of equally competent adults, too.

Agreed with your speculation about a sequel series, some parts at the end definitely felt like a setup for a future follow-up story.

Haven't seen AGE yet, I'm super slowly working myself through the entirety of Gundam, a little over halfway in the first Gundam-anime lol (I have previously watched several newer Gundam-anime, though).

Honestly, I'd like if the next Gundam focuses on some simple, regular pilot with a lowly mechanic-background who finds himself flung into bigger events. No "children only", no dumb yuri-drama, no "politics in the background", just an honest story about a becoming-a-hero protagonist using a not-special Gundam to make do in tough times and building a loyal group of friends and supporters as the show goes on. Gimme pls.