Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury

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Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury, officially abbreviated as G-Witch, 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, making a class of which known as Gundams whose users (male or female) are known as Witches, 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 on the newest Gundam, 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 the 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 along with her companion, the custom Super Prototype Mobile Suit Aerial (who is definitely not a Gundam). 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 anime, 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, and the first to be simultaneously released (subtitled) outside of Japan.

Tropes used in Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury include:

• 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: Miorine does come to love Suletta, which she accepts.
• 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.
• Aw, Look -- They Really Do Love Each Other: In episode 11, Miorine tearfully admits, while crying into her bosom, that she really does love Suletta, and that the time she spends consulting with her estranged father (whom she claimed to despise and repeatedly tried to run away from) for business advice actually does make her happy. This is literally seconds before an assassination attempt against her father is launched that forcefully separates her from her groom.
• 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.
• Birthday Hater: Elan is extremely offput when asked for his birthday because he's an orphan surgically altered and mentally conditioned to stand in for the real Elan, assuming the risks of using GUND tech while the real Elan safely gains the battle experience through memory uploads. As such he doesn't remember his real birth date and couldn't reveal it even if he did.
• Blood-Splattered Innocents: Miorine at the end of the first cour is standing right next to an unnamed terrorist when he goes splat. In addition to getting covered herself, she's then horrified to see Suletta casual reaction to being covered in blood.
• Bokukko: The inner monologue of Aerial (a Humungous Mecha) in "Cradle Planet". As the series progresses, it becomes increasingly clear opening song "Shukufuku", where the singer uses boku, is from her addressed to Suletta.
• Book Ends: The boarding of the space station at the end of the first cour contains many callbacks to "Prologue".
• Bottle Episode: A few early episodes feature no mobile suit fights, as if to save budget for the following episode where the fight takes up nearly the entire episode.
• Brain-Computer Interface: GUND Format allows this, though it can potentially turn the user into a vegetable.
• Char Clone: Char's traits are split into two here. Prospera is the masked (wo)man known only by alias with brightly colored hair with a hidden revenge agenda and is secretly related to one of the main cast, being Aerial/Eri's actual mother and not just creator. Meanwhile, Guel is the rival pilot who pilots a red mobile suit.
• Crystal Prison: Shown during the ending credits "Kimiyo Kedakakuare" as part of a metaphor about Suletta and Miorine needing to open up to each other.
• Cyberpunk: Augmented humans, warring Mega Corps, souls in machines.
• Death Song: "Happy Birthday", of all things, is used as one multiple times in the series.
• 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.
• Distant Prologue: "Prologue" takes place many years before the main series. Eventually revealed to be 21, not 13.
• Elaborate University High: Asticassia School of Technology is a boarding school on a space colony, complete with a forest, all to itself. It's not a normal high school, but a set of corporate training programs for a Mega Corp .
• 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.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Aerial is clearly under "responsible" in "Cradle Planet", and Suletta absolutely falls under foolish.
• 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.
• Gundamjack: A very unusual example occurs when Guel, taken hostage, tries to escape on one of the terrorist's mobile suits he steals. Besides being at the end of the cour instead of the start of the series, and done to a generic grunt suit, it's also totally unhelpful as the machine's association with the enemy results in unknowing friendly fire.
• Kinetic Weapons Are Just Better: While seemingly superior to beam weapons in power, use of kinetic weapons with physical ammo in space is banned by treaty due to the debris left behind, leaving them the signature weapon of terrorists.
• Little Big Brother: Eri and her younger sister Gundam Lfrith in "Prologue". Suletta and Aerial/Eri since, due to what happened to her, Aerial/Eri is still child sized in the intro and astrally, while Suletta is a grown teenager.
• Loads and Loads of Characters: The official website lists 41 named characters for the first cour, with a prominent character the original Elan missing due to be a Walking Spoiler and Godoy, who is named on screen and has a few lines, missing for no particular reason.
  • Cast Herd: The four heads of Peil Technologies, six minor Earth House members, Shaddiq's five wingwomen, and Those Two Guys Petra and Felsi all operate primarily as their group.
• Ludicrous Gibs: The first cour ends with a random terrorist getting flattened by Aerial's hand. Miorine is horrified to see Suletta so casual about being covered in blood..
• Mega Corp: Beneritt Group is large enough to outlaw a particular technology and send kill teams to enforce it and owns large space colonies while having component groups that wage war on eachother. It's implied they aren't the only one in the setting.
• 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 that "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.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Guel when he realizes the mobile suit pilot he accidentally killed as his own father.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: Suletta desperately wants a normal (or what she thinks is normal) school life.
• Named After Their Planet: An odd human example where Prospera and Suletta use the surname Mercury.
• No Social Skills: Suletta is relatively OK talking 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.
• Official Couple: After a cour of Will They or Won't They?, Suletta and Miorine drop any pretense the marriage is purely a political thing.
• Poor Communication Kills: A problem Suletta suffers from in episode 11, due to her exceptionally poor social skills. Everyone else however very quickly notices there has been some kind of misunderstanding and take steps to rectify this, though Suletta has beaten herself up enough that getting her to listen takes effort.
• Power Nullifier: The Antidote system blocks GUND based technology, but only on the low (and relatively safe) Permet Score 2.
• Powered by a Forsaken Child: Aerial, her bits.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: A feature of Aerial in the opening, ending and Gunpla which never actually shows up in the show proper before Aerial is upgraded at the end of the first cour.
• Rivals Team Up: Attempted in episode 9 when Suletta, needing pilots to side with her in a team battle, ask Guel to join her. He clearly wants to, but is unable to because of issues with his father.
• Schoolgirl Lesbians: Suletta and Miorine.
• Screw Destiny: Lyrics to opening theme "Shukufuku" which is Aerial telling Suletta they don't have to be pawns in their mother's revenge plot, something continued in, but not the focus of, the ending theme "Kimiyo Kedakakuare".
• Sibling Team: Suletta and her mother both consider Aerial her pilot's sister. Aerial and her bits are Suletta's sisters in a literal sense as well.
• The So-Called Coward: Students initially mistake Suletta's fear of her own social incompetence as indication she's a general pushover and coward. When Guel tries to take advantage of this, he's quickly shown Suletta is the most experienced pilot at the school, having about a decade of real world experience in hazardous conditions as well as ample simulator time, so mobile suit operation is something she is not afraid of.
• Spider Tank: The BTz-48 Clibarri, which is very briefly seen getting destroyed in a three on one fight and only given a name on the official website.
• Spoiler Opening: The opening features Eri and Suletta playing around in the intro is a strong hint they're not actually the same person.
• Stellar Name: What are the odds someone named Miorine Rembran winds up engaged to someone from Mercury?
• 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 (Felsic rock and "Petra").
• Tomato Surprise: By not mentioning how long has passed since "Prologue", the main series lets the viewer infer that Ericht is Suletta until the sixth episode reveals "Prologue" occurred 21 years prior even though Suletta is 17, not 25. There's enough holes, not to mention the absence of chronology itself being suspicious, that a perceptive viewer will suspect it earlier.
• Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: Ericht casually shooting down enemy mobile suits at four years old in "Prologue", unaware of what she's actually doing.
• Tsundere: Miorine and Chuchu. Miorine is a classic example, while Chuchu is just hostile to outsiders and perfectly friendly once someone is among her friend group.
• Tyke Bomb: "Cradle Planet" makes clear both Suletta and Aerial are this for their mother, even if she genuinely loves them in addition to planning their use as instruments of revenge.
• 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.
• Yandere: Sophie Pulone can quickly switch between crazed, obsessive fangirl of Suletta and mass indiscriminate murder of civilians she hopes will attract Suletta's attention.