Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury

*This review is after watching Season 2*

This is sort of a guilty-pleasure anime for me. Because when it comes to the story, I stopped caring a long time ago. It was just too confusing for me to follow. At first, I thought the problem was within me and I was just not smart enough to understand this story. But after seeing the finale, I'm positive that this anime itself is a mess. The fact that they even opened so many plotlines, and ended the entire story in 24 episodes, is ridiculous. Things just suddenly happened in this anime, and I kept racking my brain to figure out why. The motivations of so many characters made no sense. Even the action scenes were hard to follow. That's why in between the story, I actually just gave up on following it.

So why did I continue watching it? Why don't I regret watching it? Well that's because the 2nd season did something that intrigued me. All these characters in the first season were just very immature and somewhat annoying in their own way. In this season, the writer just unleashed hell on all of them. Each and every character gets a brutal reality check. And this season just kept on coming at them, giving none of them any time to even breathe. And these characters were actually forced to improve. They had no choice but to grow up. There are so many character arcs that I actually didn't see coming. This season was not afraid to be dark. Even in the first season we saw that grim darkness a few times. But this season capitalised on that itself. And sunrise did do a good job on the soundtrack and animation. Not on the story though.

This isn't a good anime, frankly. I gave it a good grade because like I said, the character arcs and the darkness intrigued me. But that's why I know it's a guilty-pleasure for me. Because the story is just a mess, and many people aren't going to enjoy it.

I missed the Gundam franchise altogether and maybe I'm late to the party now, but started watching this show with high hopes anyway. I tried watching retro mecha anime many times, but couldn't get myself over the retro look. I'm sensitive to art quality.

The Witch from Mercury looks stellar. The characters are pretty neat and it really reeks from atmosphere, the space scenes are particurarly atmospheric also the music is supporting it well. I was engaged from the beginning and will definitely watch this show for a longer duration. It's a mixture of mecha battles, campus slice of life and political intrique and a little yuri romance. Still on the positive side, there are no annoying characters, unnecessary drama, fan service or filler episodes and the male characters are cool too.

The battles are somehow not that stellar, even tough, there is one almost in each episode. Battle choreographies are simply not clever enough (watch The Expanse for what I mean by clever; even the end of the first Appleseed movie packed more gunpowder). Somehow the script is dumb. It takes on grand schemes, which is respectable, but then it falls short with the implementation, mostly in the "political intrique" department. Not ridicuolusly annoying, just a bit childish, like Suletta herself. I guess teenagers might be able to wholeheartedly enjoy it, but as a grown up adult I was constantly skeptical and smiling ironically. Maybe, this could have been an acceptable story somewhere in the 80's, but by today's standards, well... there are more cleverly written shows out there for certain.

Still, it reaches the bar, as long as my bar is concerned. I'm a big sci-fi fan, so I'm less strict with this one. I could complain endlessly, that characters are not polished enough, especially the side characters are neglected, they are just "being there", but the story moves ahead with a comfortable pace, it never gets boring and it always feels good to look at the screen. It's a bit flat and Suletta's and Miorine's relationship is not really going anywhere crazy or fast. I had the very same feeling with Angel Beats. Interesting enough to do not stop watching, it has a heart and can be loved for what it is, but wouldn't watch it again or recommend it to anybody as one of my favourites.

UPDATE: At the end of Season 1 it finds its fangs and switches gears to a darker and more serious tone (people starts dying, so the main issue is not who marries Miorine anymore... ;) ) which makes it way better, so I raised my seven to eight. Battles are still somewhat boring, but at least it's not duels now, but real war. I'm a bit more angry for all the script pitfalls and overdone scenes (didn't these guys know proportion?), because it could have been a masterpiece rather just being good. But it definitely has memorable moments, worth watching once.

There's only been like 4 episodes released so review is based on those.

It's not like typical Gundam series.

The animation is beautiful, the story is okay, but the main character Suletta is extremely silly. Many anime have silly moments and childish characters but Suletta is on another level. She has the mannerisms of a 5 year old child. Hiding behind people because she's too shy, crying like a toddler, which makes it even more weird that they're dueling over marriages.

They've basically made what would normally be the comic relief character the main character of the show. This makes it harder to take her seriously as a pilot when you see how she acts, it's hard to believe that she has the constitution to go into space and pilot a mobile suit. It's similar as to how in season 2 of Gundam00 the guy's ditzy girlfriend had become an elite mobile suit pilot. It just didn't fit.

They've shown little so far as per the normal themes of Gundam, but Im hoping it will get better. Even the Gundam has a more round cutesy face than normal, because the pilot is female, and females cute, shy and innocent, right?

I really hope it get's more serious later on.

Wanting for a new Gundam series to take the concept of "newtypes" in the right direction, to introduce new technologies and to elevate the stories that have been told for generations!

But it feels like this series wrote itself into a "hole" it can't wait to get out of.. imagined after properties that wished had the word "Gundam" in their name.. Taking the concept of puppeteers to the extreme, with parents playing chess with their kids in a nonsensical and unsatisfiable manner. With a plot of teenage-brides, a supposed-school where studying is not the focus and rushed settings that ultimately holds back what would be a meaningful entry. Seeing the things I'd be more interested in buried in a deeper layer and relegated to background ideas.. such as agitators and revolts, effects of technology, humanity, military issues, space politics and more! What dissatisfies me the most, is that it pretends to have some sort of Gundam-related Biotechnology (similar to newtypes), but it is just a thin-veiled power-up with no explanation.. not that something so cheap could be any interesting, anyway.

For what it is (another generic "quality anime drama" with robots, instead of filling the role of "space opera").. it is decent enough. Episodes could be watched out of order (from 5 to 9, unknowingly, in my case) and nothing felt out of place immediately.. make of that what you will. The writing, for the genre and the target audience, is okay. And the characterization and personalities are also well done. No one is particularly annoying for trope's sake, with decent action and technology.

It's just too bland for my taste to recommend.

So firstly let me say the good stuffs. The art and music in this anime is done pretty well.

That's it for the good stuffs so let the bad ones roll.

1. Plot. The whole plot is full of plot holes and a lot of the direction of how the story progress is due to chance/fate? Its completely random and I think I would shoot myself in the head if I am the author of the story.

2. Main character. Suletta is not an interesting person at all. They tried to make her likeable, but she is not cute or interesting, or relatable. I understand that there might be due to further character development, but I don't see anything interesting until the last episode where we finally see something going on but its too little and too late.

3. Other characters: The is no one that is particularly charismatic or interesting. Miorine is too much of a princess. Guel is too arrogant, Elan and Shaddiq are both too pretentious.

In my humble opinion, just skip this for now. If season 2 does pick up, then maybe can consider to watch this. I've regretted spending like 6 hours on it...