Seasonal First Impressions is a column where I detail my thoughts, however brief or long, about a currently-airing anime’s first episode or so.
Every so often, an anime comes along where simply by virtue of what it is, writing about it feels more than a little surreal. Such is the case with Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury. You can probably guess why; the series bears a supertitle with some very long and very heavy history in this medium. It is the first mainline Gundam anime in nearly a decade, and while I’m sure lifelong Gundam aficionados will have plenty to say about the series, I am coming at things from a different angle as a relative neophyte. I’ve only ever seen one other Gundam anime; 2007’s Mobile Suit Gundam 00, and when I saw it, it was only a few years old.
The legwork of worldbuilding and basic plot setup already done in an “episode 0” prologue that aired a few months back, The Witch From Mercury instead opts to open with our protagonist, Suletta Mercury (Kana Ichinose), rescuing an apparently-adrift astronaut from the inky depths of space as they float away from the space station / military academy that will presumably serve as the series’ primary setting. But less important than what happens in these opening minutes is how it happens; she’s a panicked bundle of nerves the entire time, with her demeanor contrasting sharply against the soundtrack; a bundle of whirling synthesizer swells.
Things establish themselves in stages. Our setting is a military academy where absolutely anything can be settled via duel (the “space Utena” comparisons write themselves) under the watchful, sinister eyes of a shadowy council of CEOs. “Anything” happens to include marriage, which means that when Suletta runs into Witch From Mercury‘s other protagonist, Miorine Rembran (Lynn), it’s mid-escape attempt, since Miorine is attempting to flee from the academy and her duel-decided future husband, Guel Jeturk (Youhei Azakami). Or, as you will come to think of him, This Fucking Guy.
Jeturk is, to put it politely, not a nice man. To put it less politely; he’s a conniving, self-centered dillweed who’s an abusive ass to his to-be wife, going on a performative “man rampage” at one point while smashing up a garden she keeps because it reminds her of Earth. His only real redeeming quality is an admittedly impressive head of two-tone hair. (Sidenote; a couple other characters with wonderful hair show up, including an evil CEO whose beard and hair combine to give him the same silhouette as Mac Tonight, and a girl with astronomically huge puffball hair.)
The good thing about Jeturk being such an ass is that he makes an ideal episode one villain. He spends most of his screentime either being terrible to Miorine or peacocking his status as the “Holder”; that is to say, the school’s ace pilot. Naturally, when Suletta, despite being all nerves, challenges him to a duel, he accepts and thinks he’ll win easily. Some complications (like Miorine hijacking Suletta’s mobile suit, the Gundam Aerial) aside, this setup of dominos naturally comes crashing down.
It’s worth noting just how badly Jeturk gets his shit utterly rocked. His purple mecha is pretty impressive in its own way, but it’s not a Gundam (contextualized here as being a portmanteau of “GUND-ARM”). The Aerial is a truly sublime piece of deadly artwork in Suletta’s hands, and her capability with it comes across as a mecha pilot analogue to performance composure. Some people come alive on the stage; Suletta, on the battlefield, for better or worse. The thing’s weapons spin and reconfigure themselves in a floating ring that is an absolute visual delight. The rest of the episode looks, variably, solid to pretty good, but the entire fight scene here is just astonishing. In particular, a shot where the Aerial’s shield deflects a laser strike, only to make it scatter and scintillate into the air behind it, is just beautiful.
Suletta and Miorine also bicker while inside the Gundam, of course, and Suletta’s philosophy that pushing forward at all times, because even if you don’t win you’ll have “experience and pride”, is certainly something that the series seems like it will loop back around to before too long. But here, and for now, it carries her to an inarguable victory, as Jeturk’s purple mobile suit ends up in a tattered pile of laser-cut scrap on the ground.
The Witch From Mercury‘s premiere then concludes with what is perhaps one of the all-time great end-of-first-episode revelations, which I cannot comment on except to reproduce it here in its entirety, in screencap form.
Really, what could I possibly add to that? Are you, dear reader, surprised that I’m going to tell you that I think you should watch the sapphic giant robot show that seems to be taking at least a few cues from Revolutionary Girl Utena? You shouldn’t be. The Witch From Mercury delivers what is thus an early high-water mark for premieres in an already absurdly stacked season; competing with this one will be hard.
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