Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury

Episode 21

A key consideration of Gundam: The Witch from Mercury throughout this second season has been whether things would wrap up or if there would be enough plot to carry us through to another season. I had previously been in the latter camp since there seemed to be so many storytelling balls still in the air, and hey, that sort of run has been a recurring structure for several past Gundam series. However, after this week's episode, I've turned around, as there are several markers indicating that we truly are heading for a resolution to everything over the forthcoming final few episodes of the season. I wouldn't put it past Bandai and Sunrise to make more G-Witch after this, especially with how successful the series has been. But we are probably staring down the final stages of this story as we know it for now.

Not that this is a massively escalating episode that leads to that feeling, the irony being that this is the sort of aftermath, downtime, catch-up episode everyone needed, pacing-wise, after the big blow-ups last week. Everything about the setting has been shattered, Asticassia's simulated projection of a beautiful sky unable to maintain itself in the face of destructive reality. And yet, in the wake of all this, the best in people also comes out. There are the obvious full-circle fulfillments like ChuChu extending tomatoes instead of an olive branch to the bullies she famously knocked out back in the first season, or Martin and Nika finally reconciling (though going by my social media feed, more viewers would've been interested in seeing Nika have further interactions with Sabina than they ever were in how she might make up with Martin). But the real showcase of a shift comes from whom ChuChu says we should thank for all these small favors: Suletta.

It's no narrative accident that the most concentrated individual agency Suletta has exercised in all series comes across in this episode and the rebuilding efforts she's pouring her all into assisting. Suletta summarizes it to Secelia very early on: this is something she's doing entirely because she can. It has nothing to do with her mother's machinations or any part of her transactional relationship with Miorine. The rawest of previously set up story points manifest in what Suletta can contribute: the tomatoes she was caretaking for Miorine have been saved by her and are now being distributed to the student body because that's the best way they can be used for the time being.

These are sweet little victories we needed after weeks of chaos and carnage, but this is still a Gundam show, so it is also all set up for Suletta's position in forthcoming more direct action. The Assembly League just happens to have a new Gundam called the Calibarn (shoring up those influences from The Tempest in the home stretch here) and is asking, but not demanding, that Suletta pilot it as a way to oppose Prospera's plan. It leads to two of the bigger earmarks we're in the for-realsies endgame here: Suletta fills everyone in on her and Aerial's backstory, and we get detailed confirmation of what Quiet Zero does. Most of Suletta's stuff we effectively pieced together from earlier information and her conversation with Ericht a few episodes ago, but it's nice to hear it out in the open and see how accepting and supportive all her allies are upon learning it. As for Quiet Zero, I had honestly been expecting it to be a grander, Instrumentality-style implementation. However, effectively hacking into and taking over everyone's Wi-Fi fits the themes of the perils of the homogenized technological takeover, and the demonstration at the end of this episode at least makes it still seem befitting of a series-finale-level threat.

Prospera's Quiet Zero tech demo, and how it follows from Miorine's side of the story that we circle back to, is here to help confirm that it's not all hopeful light in the darkness that descended last week. It seems only fair, in a cruelly ironic way, that it's now Miorine's turn to be going through it after what she put Suletta through to land herself in this position. I adore the way her election as president is glossed over in such an offhand way, given that we know she attained it by default after Shaddiq went and got himself arrested. So much of Miorine's part in this episode, especially what's played alongside the in-custody Shaddiq, does a lovely job of contrasting the devastated yet hardscrabble surviving energy of Suletta's side. Our two too-young business leaders are seated in stark layouts that briefly and beautifully characterize their self-inflicted isolation.

It's in service of more societal symbolism as much as it sets up the final conflict we can presume Suletta will be flying into in forthcoming episodes. Peil Technologies turns on the Benerit Group to initiate its dissolution. The irony here is that, under normal circumstances, breaking up an overly powerful business conglomerate would only be a good thing. Of course, in an oppressive system of space capitalism, it can only come about because of an arguably greater evil vendetta. Sarius suggests to Miorine that she position him and Shaddiq to take the fall, impressing upon her the necessity of sacrifice just as she's realized where her previous sacrificing of Suletta's position has landed her and everyone else. Bel is taken to task for her aggrandizing hypocrisy, pleading as she does for Suletta not to risk herself piloting the Calibarn, even as she was initially instrumental in funneling a sequence of Elan copies into the child broiler. It all hammers home the picture of a setting where even if the likes of Prospera are the most vicious of adults manipulating these horrors that consume the generation's children (which she claims to be doing for the benefit of one of said children), she's hardly the only one, and a rebellious revolution must be inevitable.

In that respect, it's what makes Suletta asserting her agency through the end of this episode all the more satisfying, especially considering how long it had been denied to her by those around her and even her outlook. It also suggests that while Suletta versus Ericht will almost certainly be a compelling component of the coming climactic clash, the real resolution may be Suletta freeing her big sister from the machinations of their mother, just as she has freed herself. It's an impressive journey, as it's now clear that Suletta can move forward, not to gain something or achieve a particular outcome, but simply because being able to move forward is its reward.

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Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Chris is keeping busy keeping up with the new anime season, and is excited to have you along. You can also find him writing about other stuff over on his blog, as well as spamming fanart retweets on his Twitter, for however much longer that lasts.