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Key wrote:

Yeah, the ending was oversimplified and let some characters off way too easily (Prospera, the dark-haired Earth witch, and a couple of others), but overall I was quite satisfied with it. The series has taken cues from Evangelion so frequently that the metaphysical turn at the end didn't bother me, and I liked seeing where everyone was in the "three years later" progression. (I also especially liked that Suletta wasn't let off easy for the terrible strain she put on her body in the final two episodes.) While I understand why some fans are bummed that we never got to see Miorine and Suletta kiss or in a wedding scene, the way the production staff handled it here - by only showing both wearing wedding rings - is pretty anime-typical; I've seen a number of other series over the years handle things like this. (Hell, one other series this season did something like that; see The Cafe Terrace and Its Goddesses.) Not sure why anyone would expect this one to be different just because it's a lesbian couple.

Despite its flaws, I still consider G-Witch one of the top 5 series of the season - and considering how packed this season is with quality titles, that's an accomplishment.

We've come a long way from a series like Nanoha where the female leads lived in the same house and even raised a kid together without acknowledging the relationship. In fact, Gundam leads are never very expressively with their partners, with the exception of what Domon and Rain from G-Gundam.

I will say I'm surprised we didn't get a wedding since Okuchi was the one running this show and he loves big wedding set pieces at the end. I suppose they're saving it for a theoretical compilation movie.

I'm not against a happy ending or certain plot beats or having so much of the cast actually survive and live on...yet I can't help but think this ended far more tidy and conveniently than it should have.

Like it's a very positive, idealized, and optimistic ending, which isn't so much the problem but it feels like they didn't do as great a job building up to it or executing it in my opinion. So the weight of it all doesn't hit quite as hard as it could have, at least to me.

I guess part of it is the fact that the pacing picked up so much this season because they wanted to wrap everything in a bow that it felt like they had to condense 10 episodes worth of plot into 5-6 episodes. The pacing of season 1 was much more consistent. And as a result a lot of stuff feels underdeveloped, barely addressed at all, or just underwhelming.

I am genuinely surprised Suletta ended up with the lowest body count of any Gundam protagonist. Although I also feel like the Calibarn just didn't have enough time. Or the Schwarzette, or even the Pharact, really. And then all the Gundams conveniently melt away in Permet.

Did the whole Newtype "every dead character comes back and cosmic energy saves the day without violence" feel a little out of nowhere to anybody else? Especially because the show had been a bit more grounded prior to this even with all the Permet stuff.

Not once was a character who was involved with the Vanadis Massacre actually confronted or addressed for their role in what happened despite that being the main reason Elnora was even doing this. The most we can hope for is the hearings with the Beneritt Group will uncover what happened, but it feels like they never properly resolved Delling and Kenanji's involvement. Not once did Prospera even confront the man who killed her husband.

No Miorine mom, huh? I guess we'll never know what the other mind in the Permet from last episode was.

OG!Elan with the surprise mic drop.

I get that Nika is a responsible person who was planning to turn herself in and face the consequences of her actions all season but it really feels off that she was the only character other than Shaddiq to get any prison time when compared to everybody else her crimes were the least noteworthy. Even Shaddiq's Harem, who arguably were directly involved in much worse than she was, seemingly got let off the hook. It didn't even seem like Belmaria went to prison. The Peil Hags are stewing in having lost everything but they still deserve prison time more than Nika does.

Miorine and Nika with the haircuts. I actually wonder what life in prison was like for Nika. Miorine's seems for practical reasons with the Permet device on her neck, though a part of me thought Miorine was eventually going to cut the long end of her hair since season 1.

Suletta and Miorine marrying was great, I was honestly not expecting much more than that even if a kiss or a wedding would've been appreciated. But also because it feels like they barely got to be together this season and most of their screentime when they were together was drama, I kind of wish they'd done more.

WFM isn't one of my favorite Gundam shows, and I had my fair share of issues with it, but overall I can't deny I enjoyed it and watching it week after week. And seeing Suletta and Miorine together at the end felt worth it.

Overall, a pretty good show. The characters were definitely the strong point, which helped paper over weaknesses like the issues with utilizing the setting and somewhat underwhelming plot resolutions.

Suletta and Miorine were the big reason the show works, but I also think their relationship was a tad underdeveloped - season 2 keeps them separated for too long, which didn't help. I don't feel like the lovey dovey second ED shots were earned. Still, I'm glad it concluded on a peaceful note for them and not a cruel one. I'd look forward to a sequel to see more of them.

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Perhaps, it's a good thing given the often precarious path G-Witch walked to barely make it across the satisfying finish line denied to so many other Gundam series.
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But a complete story, in this franchise, in this medium, is an appreciably rare thing.

I don't understand what you mean by this, since most Gundam shows have an ending...? Are we thinking of Thunderbolt and Hathaway not being finished?

I have to say, Twitter going into deeper hell with its rate limit thing does not help at all since I like browsing through the immense amount of artwork that's being posted as well as check out everyone's impressions. And frankly, this show generated a ton more fanart than even Ironblood or other past Gundam shows. Shocked

I also noticed that the 2nd halves of mecha shows tend to be a bit more of mixed bag than the 1st half, and while thankfully the 2nd half of the Witch from Mercury didn't become a trainwreck, it did feel it was paced a lot faster and more packed than before. Maybe it would have helped if there were more down time episodes, and maybe have the 2nd half be 2 cours long. Or better yet, if they only have 1 cour to work with, cut out aspects that don't mean much in the grand scheme of things. And maybe not separate Suletta and Miroine for too long; they struck the right balance in the first half so why not emulate it again!

I still hope this is not the end of this AU especially for Suletta and Miorine especially where you have Eri as their keychain which is just ripe for a sitcom spinoff! Laughing

So what was the point of Kenanji even being in the show beyond the prologue?

As someone on Twitter put it, this really turned out to be Gundam with kid gloves on. It's a shame that this show has to putter out by not giving itself enough room to breathe and rushing through its last cour. Especially with how popular it turned out to be - hopefully that doesn't dissuade any newcomers from checking out the next Gundam or trying out better, more complex Gundam series.

Season 2 of G-Witch blew away my expectations and feelings for this whole show. After watching season 1 I didn't get what was so amazing about this story. As a result when season 2 started airing I had little interest in watching it.

But after I decided to give season 2 a go episodes 5 to 9 totally changed my opinion. The two seasons combined are a very good show that demonstrated effective ways to create a different kind of Gundam show.

Needless to say that I am satisfied with the ending. I also wanted to see a yuri kiss and wedding, but their rings confirmed that Suletta and Miorine are a couple.

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I got to see Secelia in business wear, meaning I, personally, absolutely won.

While I thought Miorine and Guel seemed more like children pretending to be adults - even after the time skip - Secelia got it right.

This ending was a head scratcher for me. I'm glad the characters got happy endings but the climax/resolution felt so unsatisfying and I'm not sure I can put my finger on why.

Confusing as to why Shaddiq of all people bore the brunt of punishment while most others got to retire peacefully.

I think overall I enjoyed this show but was confused by a lot of the choices towards the end.

Gotta say, I was a bit worried, given Gundam's track record with finales... but I have no complaints. That was a spectacular conclusion, and I'm happy to say it cemented Sulietta as one of the all-time best Gundam protagonists out there. And TWFM as one of the very best AUs.

Really hope we get more someday -- not necessarily of the setting, but of the characters. Special wedding episode OVA? Animated 4koma theater? Let's go!

I enjoyed the ending. It was certainly a relief after going through IBO!

I'm wondering though, where it was that Elan randomly ended up while searching for them. Could it perhaps be Loch Ericht, Scotland? (18:47).

I'd like to think so, I took great pleasure in toasting the happy couple with a Dalwhinnie single malt, from right beside Loch Ericht Very Happy

If that's where the name is from then it might explain the red hair too Laughing

No kiss, the only confirmation we get is hand holding like it's grade school, and Eri calling Morine her sister-in-law I don't get it because Japan is more liberal than the United States when it comes to this.

But all and all the rest is satisfying end. I did like Prospera's punishment. No jail time because Shaddiq wants all the punishment for himself, but she is a vegetable pretty much, she is dead but not dead, if she died get to reunited with her husband, mentor, and other loved ones, so instead the gods pretty much said you can die without the rewards of death. Normally I am pro let people in that state die, but this once I will allow it. Though for Morine and maybe even Suletta's sake for how long, do I want a living corpse here, I mean there are children around.

Speaking of those kids, those are Suletta and Morine's kids? Or are they just random neighborhood kids?

So I am shocked, this whole episode was death free, even Elan 5 made it, is there anyone rich enough to give him the surgery to give him his own face?

Well everyone has moved on living happy lives. So Guel and Secelia, Chu Chu and Rouji, they are just colleagues right, is there any possible implied romance of those duos the show might be trying to come across? As for confirmed couples, I am glad that Lauda grew up, and is now some worthy of Petra.

Also glad they made it clear there is still problems between Earth and Spacians. 3 years is not enough time to fix anything, but Morine with Shaddiq's ex harems doing what they can, and Suletta be that positive symbol that everyone needs.

So that is it, sorry to see this end so soon. Maybe we will get a chibi series in the mean time.

Well I was unbearably whelmed. El4n's abrupt return gave me an actually fitting goodbye scene even if Suletta feeling guilty for his death wasn't foreshadowed nor was he treated with any sort of dignity narratively during his entire absence (also the ghost thing in general was kind of weird.

Prospera gets a pat on the back by her daughter's (please ignore all the people she got killed), Elan prime does nothing the whole show and gets to join the good guys as if he was shown with any redeeming qualities prior, Peil lost their business but suffer no other consequences for all the kids they were complicit in murdering, Delling and Kenanji get away with what they did at Ochs Earth, Lauda lives while the narrative acts as if he was ever a character whose happiness I was rooting for, Suletta completely forgets that she wanted to make her school on Mercury and thus the titular planet was just completely irrelevant, we learn nothing about Miorine's mum or how she even died except she was almost comically obsessed with tomatoes, the show never cared about earth either honestly, how convenient, if they had no time to actually write any of these plot points, they should have cut it all in half. I didn't even like Shaddiq and I found it off putting how he was used as the convenient scapegoat for everything.

I do still like season 1 though, I had a few reservation with some choices but compared this one the pacing was actually perfect and choices mostly felt like they were thought out. I will not be coming back to this show, but I'll give it that it got me attached to some of the characters and it committed to its romance even if unlike other people that's not even half enough to fix it's many other flaws for me

Mami-kouga wrote:

the show never cared about earth either honestly

This was probably the most insulting part of the show. They created this setting where an incredibly malicious corporatocracy exploits the Earth by turning its population into an underclass to be used either as cheap labor or as meat to put into the grinder of endless wars for war profiteering. And they then proceeded to do basically nothing with that. Our two principle Dawn of Fold characters barely show up in the show proper before being killed off (or spending most of their time in locked room limbo), and the one episode that actually calls attention to the plight on Earth instead places the focus on a rich kid from space so that he can "grow" from experiencing their squalor. Makes me think of how much better ZZ handled stuff like this; Masai's episode was about Masai, it didn't just use the dispossessed African population as a tool to prop up Judau.

And in the end, the show chickens out on actually confronting any of the hard hitting issues it embedded into its conflicts. What's to become of Earth? How do we plan on dealing with the fact that some new entity is just going to swoop in and take the Benerit Group's resources away from Earthians? Don't worry about it, what matters is that the show wants you to feel good, even if it's completely unearned and spits in the face of what it seemingly wanted to tackle at the start.

If the show just wanted to be the love story of Miorine and Suletta, then that's all it should've been. Adding in all these elements they either cannot or are not willing to explore just made it a worse show.

So this really was the final episode of the show, and I’m actually kind of surprised by how well everything wrapped itself up. I think Miorrine’s solution to try and get the Space Assembly League off their backs was pretty smart and actually has precedent in this show with Shaddiq dissolving Grassley to be distributed to the earth. I’m definitely very interested in what people who are new to Gundam think about the stuff with the Permet in this episode. Dead people’s spirits and feelings being used and stored in Gundams is something that happened in this franchise quite a few times, hello Zeta Gundam, and I think that some of this stuff won’t feel like it came out of nowhere as much to people more experienced in Gundam. But first to explain why I think it makes sense. One thing is that the people who died being beyond the data storm was setup by the show, but a lot of this is really subtle. There were moments throughout the series, when Elan4 piloted the Ariel, when Sophie saw Eri and died, Eri being trapped beyond the data storm, that established precedent for people’s spirits being beyond the data storm. It also makes sense that everyone who's spirits we see here either piloted a Gundam, or used some of the GUND Format medical technology, so this seems to be something unique to them and not something that happens to everyone who died. It’s also not really a surprise to me that Quiet Zero could dismantle like the Gundams like that or broadcast Miorrine’s voice over such a large distance as if it can take control of mobile suits and the like it makes sense that it can take over communications systemsAlso I don’t remember it being established that Permet was a physical substance until the shows second half and before that I just thought it was like the Minovsky Particles of old Gundam. So a lot of what happened was I think setup by the story and even the stuff that wasn't feels in the realm of possibility given what was previously established

I also loved the epilogue and while I’m disappointed we didn’t get to see Miorrine and Suletta kiss, I like that the show confirms that yes they are married as Eri calls herself Miorrine’s sister-in-law. That doesn’t mean that everything was perfectly resolved, the real Elan still kind of feels like wasted potential in that we never really get to see him do anything but be smug and in the background, it’s not at all explained how Shaddiq’s harem managed to escape punishment, and it still doesn’t feel like Space Assembly League got enough screen time for their being the final boss to fully work. Personally I think a lot of this shows problems could be solved if we had 1 or 2 more episodes, but I am suitably impressed by how well the show managed to wrap itself up. I think Shaddiq taking all of the blame onto himself makes sense for his character, and I like that some stuff isn’t fully resolved, I don’t think it was within the scope of the show to actually deal with liberating the Earth from the Spacians, but that is true to life and it leaves them off better than most Gundam shows do. I also like that while it does acknowledge that the Spacians will likely take the resources from the Earth again, I like that Miorrine is going to keep trying to do right by them and be an advocate for Earth. I definitely think this was a fantastic show and a great Gundam series, despite its flaws, and despite being one of the people who thought the show needed a full 48 episodes, I’m definitely glad to see that we didn’t really need more to the show. In fact I don’t really want a season 2 for this show anymore, maybe an ova or something depicting some of the stuff that happened during the 3 year timeskip, but I’m 100% satisfied by the ending of the show which comes as a happy surprise.

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EP. REVIEW: Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury