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Mobile Suit Gundam - the Witch from Mercury is a 2022-2023 Gundam TV series. Rather than feuding governments typical of a Gundam series, its Ad Stella timeline depicts a future where space has been settled by Mega Corps that dominate over Earth, and the nearest thing to law is corporate policy that can change on a relative whim. Accordingly, rather than an open war, the first cour of the series is set in a seemingly peaceful era where different corporations and branches of these corporations and their leaders fight each other use assassination, blackmail, and the like against each other.

The series starts with special prequel episode Prologue (Free on the franchise's official YouTube channel) where Earth Sphere's corporations have agreed to ban GUND technology, a system developed to connect the human brain to Artificial Limbs that has since developed into a method of controlling Mobile Suits, a class known as Gundams, that's highly efficient but also has a habit of crippling the user. To enact their ban, their newly formed "Auditing Organization" Cathedra launches an attack the asteroid base of GUND's creator Ochs Earth Corporation intent on purging the technology and its creators through a violent raid. Two survivors escape the raid, Elnora Samaya, one of GUND's senior developers and test pilots, and her exactly four year old daughter who has shown herself to be an inexplicably skilled user of GUND.

After a gap of several years detailed in short web fiction Cradle Planet, Elnora Samaya, now operating under the alias Prospera Mercury, sends her 17 year old daughter Suletta Mercury to the Asticassia School of Technology as an unwitting pawn in her revenge plot. While a skilled Mobile Suit pilot from her years of work on Mercury, and eager to experience a real school like she has seen countless times in anime, Suletta has also never seen another child in her entire life and is completely, totally unprepared for a normal high school despite her hopes and piloting ability, let alone cutthroat Asticassia School of Technology. Hilarity Ensues, soon to be followed by more Mood Whiplash.

Written by Ichiro Okouchi (Overman King Gainer, Azumanga Daioh, Code Geass, Princess Principal, some episodes of Turn A Gundam, as well as many spinoffs of Revolutionary Girl Utena) Mobile Suit Gundam - the Witch from Mercury is the first non-Gunpla based Gundam TV series since Mobile Suit Gundam IRON-BLOODED ORPHANS ended seven years prior in 2015, and is the first of the Reiwa era. It is also the first Gundam TV series (but not the first Gundam work ) with a female protagonist.


 * Accidental Marriage: The first proper episode ends with a reveal that Suletta has inadvertently won the position of Miorine's groom, despite being a girl.
 * Arranged Marriage: Miorine is to be wed to whatever student has the title of Holder upon her 17th birthday, and that title is transferred in duels.
 * Perfectly Arranged Marriage:
 * Action Prologue: Prologue. Almost wasn't a case, but it was moved to be the first release of the series because the beginning of the series proper was too slow.
 * The Bard on Board: Significant direction is taken from The Tempest.
 * Inspiration Nod: Prospera and Aerial=Prospero and Ariel. As Romeo and Juliet is referenced by name in the series (showing William Shakespeare and his works remain well known so far into the future), one wonders if Prospera was drawing from The Tempest when choosing that alias.
 * Bokukko: The inner monologue of Aerial (a Humungous Mecha) in Cradle Planet.
 * Brain-Computer Interface: GUND Format allows this, though it can potentially turn the user into a vegetable.
 * Death World: Mercury, true to reality, is totally inhospitable. Its population actually lives in orbital space colonies and is there primarily to mine the otherwise rare but vitally critical Permet.
 * Falling Into the Cockpit: Ericht Samaya sets the franchise's record in Prologue by doing this and getting halfway to ace on her fourth birthday. By the main series however, Suletta has spent years as a rescue pilot on Mercury and actually starts with the most piloting experience of any student in the school.
 * The Generic Guy: Nika's appearance, inspired by her totally normal name, was made exceptionally plain, with the 11th episode confirming even the most outlandish part of it (her two tone hair) is actually just an exaggeration of the lighting.
 * Mood Whiplash: Prologue features corporate agents committing mass murder leaving minimal survivors. The main series initially focuses on a relatively lighthearted school setting. This comes up again at the end of the cour when things start getting dark again after the school setting is used to introduce the characters. Writer Ichiro Okouchi has stated this was intentional to make the series appeal more to the franchise's actual target audience of teenagers while keeping it Gundam and while Prologue was originally supposed to air later to introduce the darkness, but was moved up to address the beginning being too slow and to make clear to older fans it's still Gundam.
 * I Just Want to Be Normal: Suletta.
 * No Social Skills: Suletta is relatively OK with adults, but hasn't seen another minor in her life and has a very warped idea of what a school is. This makes her interaction with her peers very difficult.
 * Poor Communication Kills: A problem Suletta suffers from in episode 11, due to her exceptionally poor social skills. Everyone else however notices quickly notices this and take steps to rectify this, though Suletta has beaten herself up enough that getting her to listen takes effort.
 * Powered by a Forsaken Child:.
 * Schoolgirl Lesbians: Suletta and Miorine.
 * Sibling Team: Suletta and her mother both consider Aerial her pilot's sister.
 * Stylistic Suck: The pitch video for GUND-ARM Inc. from episode 8 is animated as though it was a badly done live action video, with new failures visible upon every viewing. The flaws include every green screen mistake possible, random farm animals ruining the shot, visible jump cuts, a star whose fatigue level visibly changes between cuts, layering errors, clumsy use of sample effects found in free or OS pack-in video editing software, and wooden backup singers. There's a scene where even the normally unflappable Prospera privately laughs at her daughter's work.
 * Those Two Guys: Felsi and Petra are two otherwise minor Jeturk members who are seen providing Jeturk/Spacian/Non-Earthian prospective on events. Despite not being related, their names are both taken from geological terms.
 * Unobtainium: Permet, a material which enables wireless FTL communication. It's most prominently seen powering the Brain-Computer Interface GUND uses, but it has many other uses.