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

[Kazu-kun]

I'm getting pretty tired of people complaining about that scene.

The scene makes perfect sense. It makes sense for Suletta to propose a duel because she's naive like that. It makes sense for Sophie to accept because she's obsessed with Suletta and wants to prove a point to her. And it makes sense for Norea to let Sophie get away with it because she must have realized squashing Suletta and Nika in the hangar was a dumb idea to begin with. The duel arrangement at least gives Norea and Sophie some time to plan their next move since Suletta, being the naive cinnamon roll she is, will probably agree to keep her mouth (and Nika's) shut until the duel.

[Obelisk ze Tormentor]

Originally Posted by Dengar

She wasn't doing any piloting and there was no other crew, so she wouldn't have been able to do any piloting anyway. We're not even told why she was there. Remember, the contrived coincidence is her being there at that very moment, while nobody else was there.

Like if literally anybody could have been there at any time, these two spies are doing a very shit job of spying since literally anyone could have walked in on their spying.

Like why did Elan even let her take off with his terminal? Why isn't he there at the one place they would be most likely to take it?

Why do terminals not have like a lock on it like, you know, every modern era smartphone?

The answer to all of these is: Because the plot needed to happen.

The answer to the bolded line and practically all your complaints that I quoted above is: you didn't pay any attention to the details that's already presented by the episode itself. Now let's see....

"Why was Suletta there?"
Pay attention to the conversation between Suletta & the Earth kids just before the hangar incident. Suletta didn't know anything about Rumble Ring (RR) and ChuChu & friends told Suletta to talk to Nika coz she's the one who knows about RR and has more data about RR from previous year. That's why Suletta went & looking for Nika & arrived at the hangar. So much for "We're not even told!!!" when the show blatantly throws the reason in your face 🙄

"Why did Elan even let her take off with his terminal?"
Norea pickpocketed Elan. She swiped Elan's terminal when she bumped into him earlier. Don't you even notice such a classic tactic to steal something from your pocket? Also, I'm pretty sure opening a smartphone lock is something that Norea is able to do considering that she's able to hijack a freakin' Gundam to move.

Like, even if you come here with the intention of hating the show, at least pay attention to the content first 😏

[ryllharu]

Originally Posted by Obelisk ze Tormentor

The answer to the bolded line and practically all your complaints that I quoted above is: you didn't pay any attention to the details that's already presented by the episode itself.

I'm not calling out anyone in particular (and it is definitely worse elsewhere), but this is a running theme for haters of this series and setting. People almost purposefully ignoring the details of the series to try to fabricate legitimacy to their complaints.

The series is actually quite well-written and has great continuity. They tease out details very deliberately.

A good example was how much they were foreshadowing that the timeline did not align and Suletta could not have been Ericht. And the majority of us missed it.

The series is littered with seemingly minor details and throwaway lines that add up to very big reveals or drip character development out very purposefully.

[Endscape]

Originally Posted by ryllharu

I'm not calling out anyone in particular (and it is definitely worse elsewhere), but this is a running theme for haters of this series and setting. People almost purposefully ignoring the details of the series to try to fabricate legitimacy to their complaints.

The series is actually quite well-written and has great continuity. They tease out details very deliberately.

A good example was how much they were foreshadowing that the timeline did not align and Suletta could not have been Ericht. And the majority of us missed it.

The series is littered with seemingly minor details and throwaway lines that add up to very big reveals or drip character development out very purposefully.

Many people still believe that "Not a real Gundam!" thing.

[Router25]

So how many nickels do we have now for every girl's soul trapped in a mobile suit?

[kuroyanagi]

I sort of lost it at the part where Felsi was shielding Lauda. The Jeturk house is not for bullying!

And it's a bad, bad, very bad situation overall if it's Elan no.5 of all people who looks to be a dependable and capable ally.

[n0m@n]

Wow. I didnt think this episode was going to turn out like this (in a good way). It's still the 2nd episode of season 2.

[ryllharu]

Elnora's level of manipulation is truly evil. She repeatedly told everyone throughout this episode that Quiet Zero is Delling's project, but when Miorine started to show doubt, Elnora switched just that once and claimed it was originally Miorine's mother's idea to open the crack and get Miorine more open to the idea.

Then with Bel, she went back to claiming it's Delling's, but accomplishing it will save Eri from her fate of being Aerial.

Which Elan was Norea talking to, the real one, or the pilot with his face? They're so alike now that it is hard to tell. Either way, Norea's comment about him being a leashed dog who is kept safe instead of actually piloting for real got to him, and the facade broke for a second.

The multiple variants of PTSD the cast suffered from the Plant Quanta event was a nice touch. Chuchu hesitating to fire on Sabina even though she knew it was safe but then switching back when it really counted and helping to keep Lauda safe or Suletta pausing and not killing Sophie. The cockpit targeting lock sensor is a cool feature of mobile suits in this setting.

I also like the theme that Suletta is becoming someone that horrifies everyone because she doesn't die from the data storms. She's apparently the least human out of everyone, but acts the most civilized and has the biggest heart out of the entire cast. Most others are showing the bad sides of humanity, even Earth House members with their early prejudices last season.

[patnam]

seems like before Setsuna F Seiei declare himself a Gundam, somebody already turned to a Gundam, a soul inside a Gundam…

[ryllharu]

Hey, we also got a genuine reaction from Secelia!

[azarhal]

People thought it was Miorine who would break Suletta away from her mother, but looks like Sophie already created some cracks there.

Also, super interesting that Norea didn't try to kill Suletta at the end and her tone of voice was somewhat comforting there. I think we might get a Gundam assemble out of this. And I suspect Nika is a witch, going by what she said...DoF has been breading and raising kids to just kill them in Gundams.

The Eri and Suletta mystery is "resolved". In quote, because as everyone is saying "What the hell are you" to Suletta even more. Interesting that Bel didn't wonder who the dad was, since she looks exactly like Eri and dad died 4 years before she was born.

Watch all the Earth kids getting accused beside Nika. Suletta included probably.

Elnora just want to make Eri happy, but she can't talk to Eri to know what she wants. I know where this is going...

[Marina2]

Oh.....everything is falling apart. The fallout from the last season is fully shown in this episode.

It's very interesting to see how will each character develop/change after this episode.

[Obelisk ze Tormentor]

Very good episode. The promotional banner for S2 doesn't lie. The school is indeed got blown up here & there. And Yoasobi AMV also doesn't lie, Suletta & Eri are indeed two different people. Chuchu got PTSD but ended up saving Lauda, Felsi & Petra who cried for help. Nice character progression there. Episode 14 went full-tilt Okouchi with his "school raid" tendency .

Also, RIP Sophie. The episode thumbnail suits you.

Btw, the Gund-volvers in this episode are a big nod to Bit-Mobile Suits (Bit-MSs) from After War: Gundam X (1996). Bit-MSs are unmanned Suits which were controlled by the mind of a Newtype using a Gundam (Gundam X, Gundam Leopard or Gundam Airmaster).

YouTube

https://youtu.be/FJv1iPZDDFw

Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload?

[Kanon]

I didn't expect things to escalate this quickly. Sophie was not kidding when she said she would show Suletta Gundams are tools for violence, she outright killed some guy and would have killed others if not for Suletta. The interesting part is that Norea and Sophie were still acting according to Shaddiq's plan, they weren't just causing chaos for the sake of it. I was a bit surprised Norea comforted Suletta (though I don't know if that was truly her intention) by telling her Sophie didn't die because of her, at least not directly.

It was obvious for a while and now the cat's finally out of the bag. Eri is Aerial and she's the one controlling the GUN-bits. Suletta is still special since she can hear Eri's voice, something not even Elnora can do according to the prequel novel. Pretty sure Eri will ultimately sacrifice herself to give Suletta a chance to live a normal life. We already know she didn't want Suletta to be involved in this entire mess.

Originally Posted by ryllharu

Which Elan was Norea talking to, the real one, or the pilot with his face? They're so alike now that it is hard to tell. Either way, Norea's comment about him being a leashed dog who is kept safe instead of actually piloting for real got to him, and the facade broke for a second.

Obviously the pilot (El5n) given his reaction to Norea's comment. I agree the real Elan and El5n's personalities are too similar though.

[blakstealth]

Alright, I was kinda afraid that this season would've been more of the same as S1 but with Soph and Norea joining the antics. I'm glad that I was wrong.

[Frontier]

Gotta be honest...was not expecting everything to blow up so quickly in episode 2 .

Well, if her own father's involvement in Quiet Zero isn't enough to get Miorine's attention, knowing her mother was involved would probably help. Though knowing what we know about Prospera, there's no doubt that she doesn't intend to use this mass-system control design that she built up through Aerial as a means of realizing Dellings' intentions rather than her own revenge .

Don't you just hate it when goats drive business away? Uncultured swines .

So from what we know about life on Earth, kids (especially orphans) are put to work at a young age making machinery on a dying planet, with barely anything worth making a life out of, which is probably why the terrorist groups has so many desperate and angry kids in their ranks willing to throw their lives away to get back at the Spacians .

Take your hands off Suletta, you dirty Elan No. 5!!! Although he and Norea sure seem to have each other pegged, and Norea reminds No. 5 of No. 4, so I guess they knew each other .

I thought the idea of an MS Battle Royale was cool, even if everyone just targeted the Aerial, but then the terrorists attack, a kid gets blown up, and it all goes to @#$%. Even Secelia is finally speechless .

Poor Lauda. I mean, dude has an irrational hatred of Suletta over what happened to his brother, but I don't think he deserved that. Seems he has something going on with Petra too.

Well, points to Nika for being willing to confess everything even if Shaddiq's Harem stopped her cold flat and now she's a wanted fugitive for terrorism she wasn't 100% a willing participant in and Earth House has to deal with the consequences now as they're taken into custody .

You have to admire how far Chuchu is willing to go with a training MS even if she's still feeling the emotional trauma of the terrorist attack...and just when you think she's going to vent that trauma at said terrorists, instead she protects the Spacians she hates so much. Chuchu is a real one .

It was nice to see the Pharact back out, and Elan No. 5 is a skilled enough pilot to use it well even if he's also not suicidal enough to raise the Permet Score .

Shaddiq's Harem continues to be embroiled in his plan, right down to killing guards and kidnapping his dad. Like, jeez .

Suletta doesn't really have a leg to stand on fighting Sophie as she used her own MS to kill someone for the sake of protecting what she loves and can't even deny how illogical it is for the Aerial to be as powerful and dangerous as it is if it wasn't designed as a weapon. Of course Sophie sees that it was never Suletta she was after but the most dangerous thing in that MS...the person inside the Aerial, which gets her killed .

Belmaria finally addresses the elephant in the room and asks about Eri and the Aerial...and, yeah, Eri is in the Aerial. And she's controlling the GUN-Bits. And not to mention doubling down on Suletta's faith in their mother and the plan. But if Eri has been grafted onto the Aerial, then what is Suletta? An older clone of her? Some kind of genetic child ?

"Father and Child" - Shaddiq and his father? Miorine and Delling ?

[magnuskn]

Well, oof. Things definitely got more serious now, but to be fair, the show still feels substantially different from what I saw with other "traditional" Gundam shows. A good episode.

[Router25]

The real question is if Eri's absorption to Lfrith was on accident shortly after Prologue or intentional at the time of developing the Aerial.

[ryllharu]

Originally Posted by Frontier

You have to admire how far Chuchu is willing to go with a training MS even if she's still feeling the emotional trauma of the terrorist attack...and just when you think she's going to vent that trauma at said terrorists, instead she protects the Spacians she hates so much. Chuchu is a real one .

I believe that is Chuchu's official mobile suit. She uses a modified older training unit, outfitted for combat. It's all Earth can afford.

[azarhal]

Thinking more about what Nika said about her past, I'm starting to think that Peil might be behind DoF. I doubt we will have multiple organizations who raise Earth orphans witches and train them for combat missions.

It would also explain Elan5's behavior with everything related to the Earth Witches/Gundams since episode 12. He knows where they are from, but it's not his mission. And there are hints Shaddiq knows Elan has body double since season 1 too.

I now suspect they (Peil) will steal Quiet Zero (and Aerial).

And the Space Assembly League has to come into this at some point as well. Miorine will probably lose everything and ends up with them.

Originally Posted by Kanon

Suletta is still special since she can hear Eri's voice, something not even Elnora can do according to the prequel novel.

Elan4 and Sophie both heard/see her once AErial does her data storm wave. Prospera just haven't been hit by it yet.

As for Suletta, I think the episode was still telling us something is still not right with the explanation given so far. Something Prospera might not have realized even.

First, this episode suggest it was Elnora who put Eri into the Gundam, but in the prologue it was Cardo who plugged Eri into LF-03 and started the mech right before the attack happened. Cardo who is the only named character to "die" off-screen. Also, it means Elnora was supposed to be the one getting sucked into the Gundam since she was the designated test pilot for it. Did she know what it would do to her?

And we have Suletta who repeats what Cardo told Eri right before plugging her into the LF-03 (about LF-03/Aerial not being a weapon).

Also, if we go back to the episode where Aerial achieve permet 6 for the first time, Suletta talks as if she's in full control by that point. But according to this episode, it's Eri who always control the gunbits. Are they swapping place when Suletta gets into Aerial and the permet score gets high enough (which would mean Suletta is LF-03 original AI?).

I don't think we are done with the revelations here...