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].Originally Posted by Buffalobiian
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.
If it's not Isuzu-chan Mii~
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.
"She's the only non-loli girl in the show, your honor!" will be my defense in court
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.
If it's not Isuzu-chan Mii~
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.
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.
Last edited by Ryllharu; Mon, 11-28-2022 at 04:20 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.
"She's the only non-loli girl in the show, your honor!" will be my defense in court
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 calledThe WritersDelling 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.
If it's not Isuzu-chan Mii~
You're both making a lot of assumptions and seeing the surface level stuff, but MFauli wrote more so I'll quote that.
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). 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.
Then I hope we'll get to the point where the illusion flips and reality sets in. Would make things interesting.
"She's the only non-loli girl in the show, your honor!" will be my defense in court
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.
If it's not Isuzu-chan Mii~
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.
Last edited by Ryllharu; Tue, 11-29-2022 at 05:15 PM.
Eps 9
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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.
Last edited by Ryllharu; Sun, 12-04-2022 at 10:58 AM.
Quite enjoy these orchestra recordings
You are here alone again
In your sweet insanity
All too calm, you hide yourself from reality
Do you call it solitude? Do you call it liberty?
When all the world turns away to leave you lonely
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.
"She's the only non-loli girl in the show, your honor!" will be my defense in court
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.
Last edited by Ryllharu; Mon, 12-05-2022 at 02:22 PM.
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.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.
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.
If it's not Isuzu-chan Mii~
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.
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.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 it's not Isuzu-chan Mii~
Eps 10
Some melodrama interludes
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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.
I didn't even realise Jerk Elan was different to Original Elan until they pointed it out. They are indeed both pricks.
If it's not Isuzu-chan Mii~
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