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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, and the first to be simultaneously released (subtitled) outside of Japan.

Tropes used in Agiletek/sandbox 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.
• 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.
• Brain-Computer Interface: GUND Format allows this, though it can potentially turn the user into a vegetable.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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 universe.
• 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 very 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: Aerial, her bits.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: A feature of Aerial in the ending and Gunpla which never actually shows up before Aerial is upgraded
• 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 sister in a literal sense as well.
• 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, that a perceptive viewer will suspect it earlier.
• 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.
• 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.