Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury - Anime Episode Discussion

[Frontier]

Originally Posted by Kazu-kun

I'd say that's not enough. She formed a company. She even got investors. The result everyone expects from her is not just a safe system, but a profitable one.

This means that she has to do more than merely proving the system is safe. Her company has to be able to reproduce it and manufacture it en-masse. But can this system be reproduce it? That's the big question because there are more than a few hints that Eri could somehow be inside that machine. And if that's the case, maybe there's no way to reproduce it.

We see two Lfrith variants in the background with Delling during the OP now so maybe that's the start of them trying to mass-produce Gundam's.

Maybe that's where Prospera and her company come in.

[kari-no-sugata II]

Originally Posted by Frontier

We see two Lfrith variants in the background with Delling during the OP now so maybe that's the start of them trying to mass-produce Gundam's.

Maybe that's where Prospera and her company come in.

Earlier in the episode the leaders of the three main houses pondered what Delling might have up his sleeve. I suspect those two units are exactly that, rather than something that hasn't been developed yet. It wouldn't be a surprise if part of the reason why he attacked the base in the Prologue was so that he could monopolise the technology.

Which makes his comments to Miorine about the depth of the Gundam's curse to be rather interesting. At a guess this means that he at least wasn't able to make them entirely safe. Which in turn begs the question whether Ariel is entirely safe for Suletta. It wouldn't surprise me if Ariel has some special modes which could potentially harm Suletta. But maybe she really is immune for some special reason?

Side note: I hope sometime soon they explain some of the concepts behind the GUND-ARM technology and in particular what's different about Ariel (and the Lfrith). It doesn't have to be super deep but at least a rough overview so that we can understand the differences properly.

[belatkuro]

So, no further investigation for Peil Technologies for building a Gundam as well as Aerial being a Gundam. They're hellbent on stamping out any traces of Gundam yet this impromptu new company will clear all that somehow. Just because they have one instance that a Gundam pilot is safe and healthy. They've repeated again and again how they want nothing of a Gundam but lets it go for now for this. Let's see how it goes from here on out but still, the witch hunt stopping like this just for the grandness of Miorine forming a company doesn't really do it well for me.

And Suletta still getting stomped on and pushed around. She's more of a plot device now than a character. And no one blames her for separating from the group or getting pulled into the podium to get roasted like that. They really should know by now how she is yet she was left unattended. Just so this can happen because plot. And the only bad thing that came out of it for her is the revelation that Aerial is a Gundam. She didn't complain that "Elan" put her on a stand to get roasted, her mother didn't get to help her, and Miorine bailed her out of this. Almost scot-free. And the only worth she'll bring is her performance in battle with Aerial. Coz that's the only thing she has going right now.

All according to keikaku - Prospera.
I really doubt it though. Could she really count on Miorine forming that company to bail out Aerial? Did she see that Suletta would get roasted in the stands and she would be out of reach for her daughter? What would happen if Mio failed to get that initial backing and Aerial got destroyed. So much variables of this were uncertain that it doesn't seem like this is what she wanted to happen. But things are going well for her it seems, at least I think so. Prospera and the Aerial mystery is more interesting than Suletta really.

[quagmire]

The only person hellbent on stamping out Gundam's is Delling. Just no one in the group is willing to stand up to him to say they think Gundam's are still viable. You think Peil Technologies just started GUND-ARM research as a result of Aerial showing up and to weed it out? Grassely seemed to want to reestablish Gundam's by getting Peil to cooperate with his plan to see if they can get Delling to accept Gundam's again. I wouldn't be surprised to see Grassely had a secret GUND-ARM R&D team as well( wouldn't be surprised to see them solve the curse if Shaddiq is the final "big boss" as well).

I think the duels from this point forward will be the other companies bringing out their own Gundam's to prove they are superior to Aerial. Which will give Delling a heart attack after feeling betrayed by his own group....

As to Prospera's plan and whether these events were all planned out, I don't think she planned specifically for how it unfolded. But, I would think she had to know denying Aerial is a Gundam couldn't go on forever. Unlike Gundam 00, Aerial wasn't wearing a mask unlike the 2nd gen Gundams were..... :P Think she was hoping the denial play would be able to last long enough to get to the point where it did where the group recognizes Gundam's again.

Now where it goes from here I have no clue. I wouldn't be surprised to see Suletta's character arc take her on the path that gets her to turn on her mother. I only see Suletta and Mio being the good guys here. How Suletta and Mio handle breaking away from Prospera, who knows. But I see that happening because Prospera being hell bent on avenging the events 21 years ago which probably involves trying to kill Delling. So far the only way I see it happening is the fan theory/dark path being Suletta is a clone and Eri is Aerial. I personally hope the fan theory isn't correct and the discrepancy between Suletta's age and the prologue event is one simply of either two events being referenced or simply another one of Prospera's lies and Suletta is actually older.

[LG-MAX 2.o]

I would like to know if in your opinion this is a Gundam worthy of watching?
I see positive comments about it on some sites.

I'm a big fan of IBO and Thunderbolt (first movie).

[Tactics]

Originally Posted by LG-MAX 2.o

I would like to know if in your opinion this is a Gundam worthy of watching?
I see positive comments about it on some sites.

I'm a big fan of IBO and Thunderbolt (first movie).

Well, IMO this is Gundam with lowest entry level compare to other main series so far, so no surprise it got relatively easy positive comments.

Not saying its bad, but I'd say better wait until second part or at least reaction of last quarter of first part before deciding.
This Gundam coming from writer with preference of quick escalating conflict right before second part (season, cour) of story start.

[Endscape]

Originally Posted by Twi

Oh that's easy. Have him claim Nika due to debts for that engine (if he really did give it to her for information) and then challenge Su for her freedom. In exchange, if he wins he gets the leadership of the company, making it Grassley's.

I don't think the school dueling system extends to taking over outside companies though...

Originally Posted by Laevatein

It'll be interesting if they hire Chuchu as well, to see them having to try and work together.

I know everyone thinks Guel will work for them and I actually hope he does, but there's really not much of a reason to hire him. It's not as though they'll be hurting for pilots and the CEO hates his guts.

[Ragashingo]

Originally Posted by belatkuro

All according to keikaku - Prospera.
I really doubt it though. Could she really count on Miorine forming that company to bail out Aerial? Did she see that Suletta would get roasted in the stands and she would be out of reach for her daughter? What would happen if Mio failed to get that initial backing and Aerial got destroyed. So much variables of this were uncertain that it doesn't seem like this is what she wanted to happen. But things are going well for her it seems, at least I think so. Prospera and the Aerial mystery is more interesting than Suletta really.

On one hand, Prospera has some pretty potent inside info. She knew about the aborted assassination of Delling, for instance, and used that to blackmail Jeturk into helping her. She also knew about Peil's Gundam and that they were using disposable enhanced humans to pilot it. She started this whole ploy with some big advantages beyond just having the only safe Gundam/pilot combo.

On the other, she is going up against at least three ruthless weapons companies who will stop at nothing to get an advantage. But... maybe that plays into her plan. In some ways I think Aerial and even Suletta are unimportant to her. Even to the point that them both being scrapped would not have a big impact on her plans! I don't think her plan is so fragile that losing one Gundam and one pilot will ruin it. That the Gundam and Pilot in question happen to be her daughters probably doesn't matter much in the grand scheme of her plot for ultimate revenge. Her plan, up to this point at least, has simply been to dangle a Gundam in from of the Benerit group and force them to defy Delling's anti-Gundam mandate. Mission accomplished.

I think her plan going forward is to join and take control of whichever company looks to be the closest to being able to produce high-end Gundams. She is the only one who seems to know how to change Gundams from impressive but short lived weapons that burn out their pilots in the course of a single battle, to instead making them viable unstoppable killing machines able to carry out an entire war. That someone just scooped up all known Gundam development and merged them into one company under the control of the estranged daughter of her ultimate enemy is more an unexpected fortunate twist than some sort of narrowly calculated single path to victory. Gund-ARM Inc. will make her revenge plans easier, but I think she would have been just fine either way.

[Obelisk ze Tormentor]

Originally Posted by belatkuro

So, no further investigation for Peil Technologies for building a Gundam as well as Aerial being a Gundam. They're hellbent on stamping out any traces of Gundam yet this impromptu new company will clear all that somehow. Just because they have one instance that a Gundam pilot is safe and healthy. They've repeated again and again how they want nothing of a Gundam but lets it go for now for this. Let's see how it goes from here on out but still, the witch hunt stopping like this just for the grandness of Miorine forming a company doesn't really do it well for me.

It helps that both Aerial & Pharact didn't kill their pilots yet (on the surface, in Pharact's case) which is the main point of contention for Gundams.

Originally Posted by belatkuro

And Suletta still getting stomped on and pushed around. She's more of a plot device now than a character.

I think Suletta is meant to be an innocent MC who dove straight into this corrupt world. And, unlike other innocent MCs like Madoka Kaname who had magical powers to deal with the witch opposition, the corpo world in WFM is just beyond Sule's depth which means she has to rely on the more-adept friends that she acquired along the way. For Suletta, her situation right now is more or less like Alice in Wonderland.

Originally Posted by belatkuro

And no one blames her for separating from the group or getting pulled into the podium to get roasted like that.

Don't forget that the sole reason Mio & Sule attended this party was so that Sule can meet & talk to Elan in private like their earlier promise. And since Sule & Elan-4 relationship has improved at the end of episode 6, I don't think even Mio was that suspicious of Elan (not knowing that Elan-4 is already dead) to the point where he will lead Sule to an instant trap.

Originally Posted by LG-MAX 2.o

I would like to know if in your opinion this is a Gundam worthy of watching?
I see positive comments about it on some sites.

I'm a big fan of IBO and Thunderbolt (first movie).

If you only accept Gundam shows like IBO & Thunderbolt, I'm afraid this first cour of WFM so far (episode 7) will feel terrible for you (maybe except the Prologue). WFM is basically The Tempest + Utena in space.

The basic premise is this: imagine G Gundam but the setting is only limited to a private super-rich space-school with highschooler protags & lots of corporate politics that it sometimes resemble early Game of Thrones before things went crazy with all the bloodbath. If that sounds fun to you, then you might enjoy WFM at this stage. If not then you might wanna wait until the Cour ends or the show overall ends.

[Mad Pierrot]

For some reason the two new mobile suits foreshadowed in the opening remind me of Amuro's Nu Gundam and "Quattro"'s Hyaku Shiki. Wonder if we are gonna have new pilots who will use them.

[FlareKnight]

I'm definitely interested in getting into Prospera's head. Presumably she's on this revenge binge due to the lost of her husband, the Professor, etc. But what's the point if she's sacrificing one (or more) daughters in the process? She's going for revenge but doesn't care that she's sacrificing her family to avenge her family? I suppose people can be downright crazy while seeming sane, but I'm not sure about this person.

Credit to Miorne. Yeah, she's being played but she's trying her best to grow. And would be fitting to have her be the one standing when all the dust settles with a stupidly powerful company under her control and the power to take her life in whatever direction she wants.

The show is holding pretty steady and Suletta is getting more tolerable as time goes on. Definitely not on the level of some of the amazing Gundam shows we've gotten in the past. But it's doing ok. Remaining pretty entertaining.

[Chosen_Hero]

I didn't like the whole "unrealistic plan that accurately predicts every single move done in the story" back when Gundam 00 did it and I am not a fan of it in this show, I find it lazy to just have a character that somehow knows every single move that will be done and somehow conveniently knows everything they always need to stay multiple steps ahead.

[Frontier]

Originally Posted by Chosen_Hero

I didn't like the whole "unrealistic plan that accurately predicts every single move done in the story" back when Gundam 00 did it and I am not a fan of it in this show, I find it lazy to just have a character that somehow knows every single move that will be done and somehow conveniently knows everything they always need to stay multiple steps ahead.

Either Prospera knows exactly how people and situations are going to play out ahead of time or she's just that amazing at winging it.

I won't rule out that she has some contingency plan in place in case things get really bad. But we also just don't really know what her endgame is beyond the obvious getting payback for what happened to her family.

[Obelisk ze Tormentor]

Originally Posted by Chosen_Hero

I didn't like the whole "unrealistic plan that accurately predicts every single move done in the story" back when Gundam 00 did it and I am not a fan of it in this show, I find it lazy to just have a character that somehow knows every single move that will be done and somehow conveniently knows everything they always need to stay multiple steps ahead.

I don't think Mio's interference back in episode 2 & in this episode is even part of Prospera's plan. I think they're more like "happy accidents".

[Marina2]

I think we still need to find out who is Prospera cooperating with. It may explain why everything has been working in her favor so far.

[Mad Pierrot]

The concept of disposable bodies this series tends to present reminds me of the novel Never Let me Go. Still, I'm surprised by Suletta's shock considering how she treated even the "funnels" (?!) in her last battle.

[chaosprophet]

Originally Posted by kuroyanagi

it's difficult to think there will be no sanctions for knowingly breaching the Cathedral agreement. So why are they acting all smug about what's objectively a huge PR disaster for them? I don't get it.

On this point, from what I understood of the scene at the party, Peil made it look like the development team made a MS with GUND technology without their knowledge, with they only learning about it after the duel with the data the Dueling Committee and their own internal audition, so it may really just have ended with them disposing of the developing team and the MS, at least for the moment.

Originally Posted by Frontier

Either Prospera knows exactly how people and situations are going to play out ahead of time or she's just that amazing at winging it.

I won't rule out that she has some contingency plan in place in case things get really bad. But we also just don't really know what her endgame is beyond the obvious getting payback for what happened to her family.

I would expect for her to have some plans or cards she end up not needing to play. But most of all, I believe the story want to pass the idea that Suletta and Miorine's actions that are shaping their future and saving them, instead of making they just be completely dancing in the hands of the adults. So we can look at the action of the two rather than it just being Prospera doing everything behind the scenes.

Originally Posted by FlareKnight

I'm definitely interested in getting into Prospera's head. Presumably she's on this revenge binge due to the lost of her husband, the Professor, etc. But what's the point if she's sacrificing one (or more) daughters in the process? She's going for revenge but doesn't care that she's sacrificing her family to avenge her family? I suppose people can be downright crazy while seeming sane, but I'm not sure about this person.

The impression I got from the OP short story, is that she is consumed by revenge to the point of doing everything for that objective, and seems to think her daughters would also want to do the same if they knew/remember everything that happened. So she isn't that different from the other parents on the show that assume they know the best for their child and expect them to completely agree with the plan they prepared for their future.

Originally Posted by Twi

To be fair, considering her Win Streak and the fact that she bought out the only real competition, unless Grassly pulls an Anti-Gundam weapon out that actually stands a chance I don't think they'll break up the marriage.

The machine on the prologue that had weapons which could block the gund link was from Grassly, so I expect Shaddiq to use them on their eventual duel, even more now that it is official Aerial is a Gundam. The current Aerial that can be piloted without a Gund link can likely still be piloted, but wouldn't be able to use the bits and the like, most likely. We may get Suletta's first loss, depending on the stakes (her duels so far had stakes where she couldn't lose at all).

Originally Posted by Mad Pierrot

The concept of disposable bodies this series tends to present reminds me of the novel Never Let me Go. Still, I'm surprised by Suletta's shock considering how she treated even the "funnels" (?!) in her last battle.

Suletta likely had no idea what a Gundam is, what Gund links are, etc.

Her reaction on ep 2 was about they calling her MS a Gundam when it's name is Aerial plus with she never hearing people address Aerial as a Gundam before. And from ep 3 on, her mom who she trusts completely told her Aerial isn't a Gundam, so it must be so.

[Twi]

If Prospera didn't plug that weakness to the Anti-GUND equipment two decades old, I'll eat my hat.

[Router25]

The medical application of GUND-ARMS would take the term "mobile suit" too literally!

[Obelisk ze Tormentor]

Very cutely cringe add campaign by Gundam inc!!


Also, Shadiq has one helluva harem 😏

Still can't beat ma boi Naze Turbine though.


He had a fleet of Harem & tons of children 😎