Gundam: The Witch From Mercury - Overall Series Impressions & Total Series Rating

[Kairin]

This thread is to be used for discussing the entire episodes of Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury ... your thoughts about the show, overall impressions, expectations and hopes about Blu-Ray/DVD-exclusive footage etc.

A few subjects you might want to ramble on about:

• General impression of the series.
• Opinions on the overall story, writing & plot devices.
• Thoughts about the animation quality.
• Characters/Character Design
• Voice Acting
• Which kind of footage (Blu-Ray/DVD-exclusive) you feel you'd really like to see.
• What the show meant to you.
• What could the creators/animators/writers have done better.

And so on.

The poll represents your total series rating. In other words, how you would rate all the episodes combined (1-10)? If you'd rather rate the whole series by technical/artistic merits, you can do so. An example:

Animation Quality: 1-10
Voice Actors: 1-10
Script: 1-10
Soundtrack: 1-10
Editing: 1-10
Enjoyment: 1-10
Emotional Involvement: 1-10

Average = Total Series Rating

Or a combination of the two. Or your general gut feeling.

Feel free to discuss and more importantly, have fun

[magnuskn]

Okay, so Permet is basically the afterlife or how do we have to understand all that?

We get the super big happy ending for everyone, within limits. I am a bit rankled that the Peil Hags apparently walked without prison time for killing El4n. Lots of character arcs also went pretty unresolved, with a lof of "wait, those characters are doing what now?" in the epilogue to boot. No kiss as well, booo! Commit to your yuri, guys!

Anyway, all in all still an enjoyable show with some of the best 2D mecha animation of the last decade or so. 7,5/10, could have been better with tighter plotting. Basically the first Gundam show I ever enjoyed as well, since they didn't put the pedal to the metal with senseless deaths and despair. It gets an 8/10 in the poll from me, since I think it is closer to that score than to a 7/10 and we don't get fractional scores in the poll.

[quagmire]

In typical Gundam fashion, politics is dirty and all the main guys motivations are not purely evil.

Only change being Elnora's grand plan didn't involve WMD's or a heinous act of other evil dooers( Zechs/Millardo dropping Libra, Seed villains, etc). Yes Quiet Zero COULD have been used to do such things as shown at the debut by disabling the SAL fleet and then wiping it out. But that wasn't the intention of Elnora. Just use it to allow Eri to be able to move freely. The destruction would only happen with any resistance to such move vs using the destruction to lead to the antagonists end goal.

Elnora's whole speech to Mio back in Episode 17 I believe about wanting revenge was all a feint. Revenge was her cover and never apart of her actual plan vs the usual trope being vice versa( creating a world for Eri to move freely was the cover on getting revenge for 21 years ago).

Going to Unicorn god level of power also had the opposite effect. Instead of getting absorbed into the Gundam by going beyond Score 8, it just causes the Gundams and Quiet Zero to destroy themselves. Definitely a more kid friendly aspect there.

The fast pacing of the show definitely caused some issues with the 2nd cour in getting things wrapped up. I think if this was a 30 episode series they could have kept things moving, but still have a chance to wrap things up cleaner. But overall I still liked it. If this show was meant to bring in a younger audience to Gundam like AGE was supposed to do, it's a much better execution of it.

I think it is sad if what a person stated earlier that this series was meant to make up for IBO. I enjoyed IBO and still consider it one of my top Gundam series even having a sadish ending. Not every Gundam series needs to end in the typical clear Good guys win, evil loses clear victory trope. So I don't think there needs to be any making up in WFM for IBO.

I voted 7/10. I enjoyed it. It's a good series. Only thing that brings it down was the fast pace of the show brought the 2nd cour quality down. It worked in the 1st cour, but things needed to be slowed down a bit in the 2nd cour.

[azarhal]

Probably my favorite anime of the last 5ish years, great cast, great voice work. But it was impacted by production and pacing issues and it feels like there was a direction change at some point and they didn't know what to do with the already announced Demi Barding/Schwarzette and some secondary characters.

Ep 15 focus on Olcott ended up totally disconnected from everything else in season 2 too.

edit: I forgot, the musical score was amazing.

Originally Posted by magnuskn

Okay, so Permet is basically the afterlife or how do we have to understand all that?

I think we are supposed to theorize about it until we get some sort of sequel.

[ryllharu]

6/10 for me.

The 2nd season's manic pace really undermined the whole. A lot of good-to-great foreshadowing in the first cour, but in the 2nd cour random plot threads fell off to never be mentioned again. Which to me means that the served no purpose. The series broke its own established logic for convenience, and the 4th act villains had no proper build up like the conflicts of the first cour. Far too much time was spent literally keeping key members of the cast locked in a room.

I liked the characters, loved the action and the music, but the plot pacing of the 2nd cour soured it. It could have been a very tight, zoomed-in and personal series concerning arms conflicts, very intimate like the first cour, but fell into the hole of superweapons and miracle deals.

I do hope they return to the setting in the future and do it a little more justice. I did like Ad Stella.

[Twi]

I can't say I know much about anime development, but went the anime popped off, it popped off. However, I'd give it a 7/10. It was good and didn't piss me off like IBO's ending and Valvrave, but the ending left me wanting and only partially satisfied. Give me a sequel within a year that follows up on the world and setting and I'll bump it up to an 8.

[serenade_beta]

4/10

What a trainwreck. You know its bad when some old man that probably has never appeared until the last couple of episodes appears as the final antagonist of the story.

Way too rushed, especially the 2nd season. You constantly have characters going from A to Z without depiction of the stuff in-between, and the mental gymnastics you need to go through to "explain" the characters is fitting for the Olympics.

And the thing is, the anime can't complain about not having enough episodes.
They're the ones that decided to bait yuri fans and casuals with the school crap, and once they got into the 2nd season, they still found enough time to make Guel's brother go crazy because we need more (negative) character on this sub-character? That said, you got the happy end where everyone is alive in some way thing that I guess casuals like? So maybe they'll buy your produc... Nah, lol.

Also, the mecha fights sucked. Lots of just flashing around and ass-pull superpowers.

And finally, the 2nd season's ED is horrible. Most horrible EDs, you can skip, right? But this one's song starts like, at the first second of the ED. So if you are even slightly focused on the story, you will not be able to avoid that man or woman or whatever climaxing. OHHHH! or whatever that sound is. AAUHHO! ONNGGG! ?


The big question here is which is worse, Witch or Iron Blood?
At least Iron Blood made some memes. Nothing here, except what? Secelia's thighs and random confession room?
Huh, come to think of it, Shaddiq is kinda like Iron Blood's too. All the hype and no payment.

[Key Board]

It achieved what it promised to do.

1. Reform Gundam's image that has been damaged
2. Break some boundaries

And do it within the limitations of 2 cours and a CONSTANTLY melting production. Score 9/10

Otherwise, it would have only been an 8/10 show

//

[Frontier]

I think it was a solid Gundam show.

I liked the characters. I liked the setting. I liked the character/MS designs. I think season 1 is pretty great if you embrace the show for what it was trying to be even if it didn't, on the surface, feel like a normal Gundam show.

But I feel like the show started missing a few steps in season 2.

The pacing was haphazard, stuff resolved quickly or took too long to resolve, characters sometimes felt like they were acting at the necessity of the plot, stuff that should be discussed or relevant is glossed over, and things move so quickly that there's never enough time to properly unpack everything which leaves events feeling underwhelming or ill-defined. It really does feel like they had to condense a 50-episode Gundam story into two cours.

The animation was crisp, character-driven and beautiful and the 2D Mecha animation is always a pleasure to the eyes, though at the same time it felt like they didn't quite deliver on the great Mecha fights that we got in season 1. Especially in the climax. But that's just me.

[Master_Yoma]

7/10 Well it would of been better if it was drawn out to at less 50eps where there more world building and in depth character development such as back stories to some of the more important characters like Nika Nanaura just seem like they really missed out on her

Or at less how these corporations got so much power to begin with

[Obelisk ze Tormentor]

I guess I'll comment more "by the book" this time:

• General impression of the series:
  Very entertaining show with top notch mecha animation, music & overall production values.
  
  Opinions on the overall story, writing & plot devices:
  Decent story writing where some latter plot developments are actually hinted early in the show in minute details.
  
  Thoughts about the animation quality:
  Superb handdrawn mecha animation in particular & beautiful show in general. In an era where anime studios are struggling to even animate handdrawn characters with armors to the point where they resort to CG most of the times, what Sunrise achieved in WFM looks even more impressive.
  
  Characters/Character Design:
  Likeable/loathsome characters & their unique designs really did boost the enjoyment for the show. We got some great memes from a lot of them too, including the Peil hags . I also like the Asticassia uniform.
  
  Voice Acting:
  Excellent. Nuff said.
  
  Which kind of footage (Blu-Ray/DVD-exclusive) you feel you'd really like to see:
  SuleMio's wedding as Blu-ray bonus, please.
  
  What the show meant to you:
  A fresh AU Gundam show that managed to do its job: presenting a good story/show, attracting (lots of) new Gundam fans & making money for Bandai to fund more Gundam projects
  
  What could the creators/animators/writers have done better:
  More episodes to flesh out a number of things will only improve what's an already a good story.

[Mad Pierrot]

While I have my problems with the series, I wouldn't mind reading or watching a spinoff to see some characters ending their arcs. I mean, outside the early one, the Elan Ceres were kinda douchebags and the last clone felt like he had his arc really rushed. The original Elan was downright horrible to the point he lacked a moustache.

Guel probably was the one that changed for the best but his appearances in the first half was pure downgrading. I can barely remember the blonde dude's name so I won't write it but that sure means he did not leave a major impression on me.

If they were making a director's cut like they did with Destiny I would love Prospera having the same treatment as Shinn. She was pretty much Gendo Ikari but even Gendo tried redeeming himself in 3.0+1.0 during the climax.

The protagonists were really good and the mobile suits fun to watch. Suletta sure was unique with the way she was manipulated by Prospera but it didn't really feel like they develop her in season 2 to take her own decisions rather than having a sword fight out of nowhere. I never paid attention to the soundtrack but I enjoyed the opening and ending themes even if it's hard to surpass the first one. It seems they had pacing issues or something cos we never see Miorine with her father again after that big scene from season 1.

[Urei]

4/10 from me.
I went in with some basic expectations based on previous shows.

I haven't watched anime in 5+ years or so. Seeing this series being judged as anything above 5/10 is making me wonder in what direction the quality of the industry and this franchise go.

Maybe I'm making a mistake here. Maybe my standards are outdated. Maybe they are not.

The only aspects of this show that I find remotely entertaining are the mecha fights and some designs. That's about it for me.