Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury

This was my first time watching a Gundam anime, and I feel like I have been bamboozled. Why, you ask? Because the prologue showed quite the dark space story that had me quite excited for what the series would bring. Instead, this show took place in an academy, and had all your academia tropes in there, which felt like a complete 360 from what I expected, which was more of a political show. Does that mean that The Witch From Mercury was bad? Not exactly, but I did have my fair share of issues with it. Now, I am quite aware that this was justthe first cour, and I am quite certain that this will be the weakest cour of this show. There was still some intrigue here, with the politics and character interactions, and I look forward to where that goes. As I said earlier, this show took place mostly in an academy so far, which, for more seasoned Gundam veterans, must have felt a bit surprising and perhaps a bit underwhelming. For me, it also felt a bit shocking considering the prologue, but the production looked pretty good early on that made it quite enjoyable. The things that I took more issue with in the plot was that the students seemed to hold so much power, and there were no higher authorities to speak of, other than the parents, but it’s not like the parents controlled the academy or anything. The students could just do as they pleased, harming each other like no one’s business. The duels were also quite a convenient plot device to settle disputes, and I felt that took away some of the potential this show had to show how good it could be. It didn’t allow for the characters to shine in ways outside of battle enough, and while the duels are cool to look at, it does get a bit predictable and repetitive. It’s not all negative though, as the political themes were still interesting enough to keep me watching. The mind games surrounding the ethics of Gundam suits, the war between the companies, Prospera’s role in all of this, it felt quite intriguing, but it’s still too early to know where the plot will go from here. Overall, quite a mixed bag, story-wise. As for the technical aspects of the show, it’s definitely the least of this series’ worries. Both the animation and music were well done, and the OP and ED were both quite the good songs. I just hope the production can stay afloat for the second cour, as we’ve already had some production issues this cour. The characters of this show are definitely the biggest source of intrigue in this show, and I’ll go over my thoughts on some of them. First, Suletta, the new Bocchi of the Gundam Franchise, just without the comedic aspect. She’s a dunce, plain and simple, and sometimes, I did get a little frustrated by how gullible she was, but as with most protagonists, she had her time to shine, but sadly there just wasn’t enough development this cour for her. She just needs more moments that rely on her skills more, and not getting bailed out by others. Her performance in the promotional video for the company was pretty cool though, I’m not gonna lie. Miorine, the other half to this relationship, could have been a great character, and when she shows her prowess, she’s quite awesome, but too much of her screen time was centred around meaningless things, such as yelling at Suletta, which was a bit repetitive. Luckily she had more meaningful moments toward the end of the cour. Shaddiq was a good side character, as I never really got a handle on his motives, though I was suspicious of what he would do. It made the climaxes a bit more shocking for sure. As for other interesting characters, Chuchu, Elan, and Nika come to mind, but it’s still quite early for me to formulate a firm opinion on them. Overall, this was a series filled with solid ideas, with middling execution at times. I enjoyed watching the characters and the politics enough, and the production quality was solid. I’d imagine the future cours will get me more interested in what this series has to offer, so if you’re interested in a more unique Gundam story that’s a slow burn, this could be the Gundam for you. This was my first Gundam show, so I can’t compare this to other parts of the franchise, but all I can say is, the GUND-ARM promotional video was the best part of all.

From what I hear, Witch From Mercury was conceptualized with the intent of bringing in a whole new audience to the Gundam property—mainly modern teenagers, who apparently, according to one of the show’s producers, don’t care about the Gundam franchise because of their inability to relate to it. As an attempt to remedy that issue, and reel in this new, sought-after demographic, the leads were chosen to be two high school-aged girls, and the premise to be mapped out as a high school battle anime, in the vein of someshit like Utena, if you believe the comparisons. On paper, this sounds awful—a vein way ofappealing to zoomers, like myself, for that sweet, sweet Gunplay money, but, the strange thing is, this grand plan seemingly went off without a hitch. Witch from Mercury has, more or less, revitalized the franchise and purposefully repackaged it for the modern age. I remember the buzz around Iron-Blooded Orphans, but it was nothing like this; I see talk about this show from communities and individuals who’ve never taken an active interest in the franchise before, so yeah, whatever it is, it’s working, and working well. But what do I, a pretty avid Gundam fan, think of Witch From Mercury? Well, I can certainly tell you that I was worried, and like a night in Prague without pizza or beer, there was an absence of comfort, chief of which was the lack of the Cowboy King, Yoshiyuki Tomino. It could just be that the shows I haven’t seen, like SEED, are masterpieces, lying in wait, and that I just watched all the bad AUs, but sadly, the handful of non-Tomino Gundam projects in my catalogue didn’t exactly live up to the standard I’d come to expect from the franchise (with the exception of 0080). Simply put, no one is nearly autistic enough to replicate Tomino’s genius, aside from maybe one guy whose name has one too many “O’s” in it. Nothing is going to be as iconic and influential as 0079; nothing is going to be as insane and psychopathic as Zeta; nothing is going to be as finalizing as CCA; nothing is going to be as underrated as Victory; nothing is going to be as beautiful as Turn A; and nothing is going to be as Genki as G-Reco. If the show was veering away from franchise norms this hard, and without Tomino’s guidance, I was primed and ready for some sharks to be jumped over, signalling the permanent decline of the once great empire known as “Kidooou Sennshii Gundamuu.” In all honesty, though, it’s most definitely just my heavy, heavy Tomino bias, but I think any new Gundam project without Tomino is always going to be fighting an uphill battle, on the very hill it’ll eventually die on—you can only have so many cardboard characters smashing into each other in psychic-powered tin suits before it gets tedious. So, naturally, I’ve come into Witch From Mercury with worried and sceptical expectations, but at the same time, with my fingers crossed behind my back, secretly hoping to be proven wrong. It was then that, upon finishing the prologue on Sunrise’s YouTube channel, my worries of shark jumpery were gently put at ease, and it became immediately apparent that whoever was writing this was one smart cookie. Oh! It was Ooukouchi? I didn’t see you there, buddy. Well, doesn’t that just explain everything then? No wonder what I was watching actually impressed me. Anyways, thankfully, after dipping my toes into what this new AU had to offer, I wasn’t so much worried anymore, but I was certainly still sceptical, and rightly so. The conceit was undeniably a departure from what I was used to coming from the franchise, and that sentiment seemed to be shared throughout the online discourse surrounding the show. However, the buzz tended to be centred around how this change was somehow a bad thing—capitalizing on current trends, and pandering for the purpose of reeling in a younger audience—and yeah, normally I’d be right there beside them; I mean, who doesn’t hate secondaries, right? But then I saw her, Suletta, and all the pessimism was absolved from my body like a spike of black-tar heroin in a recovering junkie’s veins. Like a final hit of final hits, I was pulled right back into the franchise I’d come to call my favourite. With a decade-spanning, multi-universal franchise as big as Gundam’s, you get a good variety of protagonists; whether that be the idealistic, traumatized war hero Amuro, the spiteful, immature Kamille, or the laidback, gigachad Judou. But the Gundam protagonists that have always resonated the most with me are the downright autistic, idiots—a prime example being Bellri Zenam, who is, at once, both a completely oblivious, braindead autist, but also an incredibly endearing, lovable, charismatic goofball. Suletta, as a Gundam protagonist, definitely subscribes to Bellri’s special blend of autism, but with the pacifism and demeanour of someone like Loran, and, to be honest, the show wouldn’t have been the same without it. Suletta is, more or less, my favourite thing about Witch From Mercury, and I’m certainly not alone in saying that—all you need is one good look at twitter or something—but, like most things, there are detractors downplaying the quality of her character because they’ve been conditioned to lash out at anything that doesn’t fit inside their narrow purview of what a protag should be. Like, wow, this character really makes people seethe, and, unsurprisingly, it’s all old UCheads: the same people that get upset whenever a new series isn’t just 0079 with a new coat of paint. It’s ironic that I say my favourite part of Witch From Mercury is Suletta because she’s often used as a scapegoat to defame the show and devalue its credibility as a “serious Gundam.” I don’t know how to put this nicely, but yes, Sulleta is a legitimate bumbling moron, that much is true, though, when I say that, I say it with the utmost love and affection because it’s for that very reason that I, and many others, find her endearing. People argue that having a character like Suletta, front and centre for a show like Gundam, is an inherently bad idea cause of their arbitrary need for “deep,” “multifaceted,” or “serious” characters in they space opera, but what they’re missing is that Suletta is actually a smarter, stronger, and just better, character than most people give her credit for, and despite the stuttering being a polarizing character trait for some, I think her verbal ticks only add to that. A lot of the nuance in Suletta comes from Ookouchi’s prequel story, Cradle of Earth, from which details are mentioned in passing during the show but purposely aren’t elaborated on, so for anyone wanting the full context on Suletta, the story is important—she’s not a stuttering idiot for a meme, and when you look into her upbringing, her mannerisms start to make sense. Suletta grew up completely isolated from other children, robbed of the ability to make connections and socially develop, only ever experiencing snippets of a typical childhood through their portrayal in the anime, movies and novels of Aeriel’s library. She leant—and continues to lean—on her mother’s mantra like a crutch to get through even the most mundane decisions of day-to-day living, oblivious to the fact she was—and is still—being used as a tool for her Machiavellian schemes. “Don’t beg for it, earn-” wait, that’s not right, it’s “If you move forward, you gain two,” whatever that fucking means. Getting to the point, the prequel illustrates just how brave Suletta actually is, without the added mental stress of having to match pace with her—comparatively—well-adjusted peers. Suletta is confident and affluent, but as we see in the series, it takes time for her to settle in, and as we all know, even hell can get comfy once you’ve settled in. So, with all that context in mind, to me, when Suletta starts vomiting hot spaghetti all over Miorine’s shoes, it’s actually the most endearing thing about her. Despite struggling and tripping through relationships, belting out sentences like a perpetrator of domestic violence, Suletta’s almost chivalrous ideals and values hold steady, in a way so earnest, that other characters fail to replicate it. Her stumbling, rambling, mumbling, murmuring and muttering is quite literally the most charming thing about her. Speaking of Miorine, based solely on the first couple of episodes, I thought I’d hate her guts. I couldn’t tell if she was “the shit,” or just plain ol’ shit. I thought she’d be just another tsun-tsun bitch—what with how abrasive she is towards the pure wholesomeness that is Suletta—but little did I know, that with time, she would reveal herself to be one helluva stylin’, profilin’, limousine-riding, jet-flying, kiss-stealing, wheelin’ n’ dealin’ son of a gun. And in case that didn’t clear up anything, it just means she’s based and she don’t take no shit from no one—bitch smokes her stogie wherever she wants. Together, Suletta and Miorine are like a gay Kennedy and Heidi: two young girls, completely out of their element, unwittingly serving the nefarious purposes of their betters, where one is behind the wheel, steering the course, and the other is dragged along for the ride, but on this road, the steel is cheap, and the coal stretches. Now, putting the characters and plot aside for a moment, it bears mentioning that Ookouchi and the director, Kobayashi Hiroshi, styles’ clash together particularly well. I know, “clash,” isn’t the most flattering way to describe the synergy between director and writer, but with these creatives in mind, I thought it only appropriate. Kobayashi Hiroshi was not a name I was immediately familiar with, but upon taking a closer look at his body of work, I discovered he directed a couple episodes of Kill la Kill, one of which, episode 5, features the passing assassin, Tsugumu, rolling into town like Anton Chigurh and stirring all sorts of shit in the coolest way possible. The episode in question, and the specific way in which its events transpire, exemplifies what I love about Ookouchi’s, and by association, Tomino’s writing styles: chaos and kinetic energy. Now, Witch From Mercury doesn’t necessarily watch like Kill la Kill—well, actually, it doesn’t resemble Kill la Kill at all—but, it possesses this constant pace and energy that courses through its veins, in a way that reminds me of the fire and momentum of Kill la Kill, coupled with the senseless yet harnessed insanity of Valvrave. The episode, “Shall we Gundam?” illustrates the intersection of where these two different styles meet; in terms of pacing and tone, it comes off like the tournament section of KLK but with the conceit of something right out of Valvrave: a shark tank-esque battle of persuasion and logistics, in which the momentum of KLK is harnessed into the idea of promoting a business venture start-up. Albeit toned down from both KLK and Valvrave, it was a fantastic idea for an episode and it was just as fun to watch play out. I could practically see Ookouchi laughing in the background as Suletta somehow spills several glasses of champagne over herself out of literally nowhere. Thankfully, the show is smart not to squander that creativity either, as the next handful of episodes run with the idea, and are dedicated to the planning, organization and management of the aforementioned start-up, with various factions vying for potential control over the company and the eponymous Gundam, Ariel. It’s good shit. I’d say it’s the themes of Tomino’s 0079 that make it as beloved and remembered as it is, and I’d say it’s these same themes—whether it be war, environmentalism, displacement, adolescence or maternity—that give Gundam its beating heart, and Ookouchi obviously knows this. He’s careful not to completely replace the ideas of Tomino’s original work, but to expand upon them and enrich them. There’s a heavy backdrop of capitalism given to the Spacian-Earthian conflict in Witch From Mercury, and to illustrate the ensuing economic tensions, Ookouchi presents a society in which Earthian workers are forced to labour away their entire lives under the boot of Spacian economic dominance—a dominance with the power to dispose of Earthian protesters under the pretence of “business administrative laws,” which classify protesters as “illegal occupants” on public property. In a similar manner, a lot of thought is given to the portrayal of the media and how it reflects the Spacian-Earthian dichotomy. In the prologue, a political talk show broadcast is shown briefly, featuring a general poll of issues the public wants policymakers to discuss, split up to contrast the concerns of the Earthian and Spacian populations respectively. The Earthian side is filled with votes for things like poverty reduction, fair trade and the educational gap, whereas the Spacian side is more focused on defence, security, free competition and infrastructure. Small stuff like this really goes a long way as far as compelling and competent world-building, giving the audience insight into the bureaucratic happenings of the A.U. without having to explain large chunks of detail directly through exposition. It's only brief as well, which gives you the impression that we, the audience, are learning information at the same pace as the characters, as opposed to other shows, where the storyboards are like, "Look what's happening on the news! Look at this screen in the show!" which, more often than not, completely takes you out of it. Now, the really interesting part is that, 21 years later, during the main show, the media is so influenced by Spacian capital, that it makes Earthians feel like an oppressed minority group, reflecting a shift in the wider society of the show, corroborated by the Spacian prejudice towards Earthians we see often at Asticassia. Again, making a point to stop and show us the classism and discrimination rampant on Earth (and in space) with the aforementioned protest and the inherent power imbalance it demonstrates. This is the level of world-building and detail I’ve come to expect from the franchise, and what I found to be profoundly and sorely lacking from more modern entries like Furuhashi’s Unicorn and Yoshizawa’s NT. To cut to the chase, I’m thankful for this show, and I’m thankful that it was good. Witch From Mercury has, for better or for worse, reinstilled my faith in this franchise post-G-reco, and it’s reassured me that even with Tomino pretty much gone from the spotlight, Gundam will still be in good hands for the foreseeable future. Gundam, as a franchise, may be a soulless marketing machine, but it’s a good one, and I’m glad it exists and can still produce shows like this. I’m glad this anime was made, and I’m glad I picked it up. Who knows, maybe Witch From Mercury really did jump the shark, but even if it did, it sure as hell didn’t drown. There’s still a ton more to this show that I haven’t mentioned yet, but seeing as it ain’t even complete, I can’t be fucked to write anymore. Stuff like the bioethical implications surrounding the GUND format really impressed me, as does the Tempest allusions, and the sheer amount of threads Ookouchi leaves hanging for schizos on /m/ to run wild with, particularly with the ambiguity surrounding the time skip. Actually, truth be told, I’m absolutely terrified that some of those theories might legitimately come true. See you guys for cour 2 ;) Goodbye and Goodnight.

The Prologue to The Witch from Mercury was a mostly poor and unneeded forerunner for the series. Now we get to see a new Gundam for the current generation, many of whom probably missed out on older entries to the long-running franchise. What do we get? Instead of following around adolescent male protagonist soldiers, we get our first female protagonist and school life, only this academy is a colony that may or may not get dropped, but it definitely should get the latter treatment. With the entire cast locked inside. The setting and early plot points are highly reminiscent of Revolutionary Girl Utena. We havea familiar looking academy, just updated with sci-fi scenery; d-d-duels are a primary part of the plot; a few characters are battling over waifus, corporate contracts, pride, and flat-out dumb reasons like a kindergarten show and tell of feelings. Suletta accidentally gets engaged to a very bratty, immature, whiny tsundere female named Miorine near the beginning—certain scenes held up side by side smack of imitation, and if you've seen Utena, the similarities can be a little tedious and, frankly, inauthentic. Yet these comparisons are superficial, as TWfM doesn't do anything especially notable with these ideas, as Utena did—the staff just reused a bit of the icing to dress up their Easy-Bake Oven cake. In fact, this show would be better if it were a knock-off of Utena instead of the bland Mobile Suit Gundam: Mercury Witch High School series that it becomes. A perfect comparison of the two would be to point out how Anthy in Utena tends to a rose garden, while Miorine is growing tomatoes. Roses are associated with aesthetic beauty, while tomatoes have a more basic function. Yet no one eats these tomatoes. TWfM is the non-aesthetic tomato left to rot on the vine. From what I can tell and based on commentary from the staff, it does appear TWfM is yuri bait of a very touchy-feely variety, and the two leads will remain close friends. However, I suppose future installments of TWfM could become a real yuri. Given the storytelling employed thus far, it probably SHOULD be a yuri, but it doesn't look like it will. Usually when you have these kind of unwitting fiance plots, there's tension and a possibility they might develop feelings for one another, so it at least has some significance, but that doesn't even appear to be there. What we have appears to be a weird bait and switch to get the two closely entwined and to stir controversy and generate interest in a cheap fashion. The yuri bait at first appeared to be like "No, father, I will defy your arranged marriage because it doesn't line up with the target audience's values, but instead of casting it aside all together this girl I met yesterday will be my new suitress, and it's not like I like her or anything, b-baka!" Whereas Utena also wasn't REALLY a yuri (it's complicated), it had a kind of fairytale-filtered and surreal take on themes of lesbianism and feminism, which at least were handled in a confident manner; on the other hand, TWfM is content to recycle a key plot point in a way that is merely distracting. And, indeed, it seems it will just be yuri bait in the same way that most shounen tend to engage in "romance bait," where there is this vague kind-of-sort-of-but-not-really relationship that is just a heightened affection implied by googly-eyes, blushes, stammering embarrassment (we'll get plenty of that either way...), and occasional cringe humor, but it never goes anywhere for like 200-300 episodes. Except this is even more of a not-romance than that! As this is a shounen promising the "rose-tinted" high school/university life, we're sure to get a not-romance of this nature within a not-romance of some other fashion, so this is like a matryoshka doll of banal not-romances waiting to be unraveled. The worst part of all is that I'd rather not have the plot be bogged down with OMG BESTIES! LET'S TELL EACH OTHER OUR SECRETS AND COUNT OUR BOO BOOS AND PAINT OUR NAILS MATCHING COLORS or a yuri romance sailing short ship. Romance has always been a part of Gundam, but these "intrigues of the heart" tend to be thin and secondary to politics, action, and other character dynamics. Alternative candidates for romance are Elan and Guel, but I'd rather have NO ROMANCE, as these characters are just not built for romancing. The characters are generic. Suletta stands out not so much for being a female protagonist as she does a jittery, anxious mess of a character who s-s-stutters and doesn't complett... sentences verr good, and hides behind people when things get heated and shakes in her boots. I keep thinking she's going to shake her way off a balcony or a cliff out of nervousness; that is, when she's not sounding like a self-help book, in or out of battle. We get a double-dose of tsundere push-pull, not only with the aforementioned brat, but also with "Chuchu," whose name is a direct reference to Utena, and she sports a goofy pink cotton candy Minnie Mouse-eared hairdo. When we compare characters to food, tsundere are usually "spicy," but this one is "sweet." Usually, there is a kind of balance for the most feisty of tsunderes, but they make her as irritating as possible, so her "character development" will be easier. Just a revolting character in all ways, and if the staff had any respect for the audience, she would be the first to be vaporized by a beam rifle. Though you could make that a triple latte, as Guel Jeturk (is this supposed to sound like cruel jerk?) is a male tsundere, because we just needed another one. While Elan may end up one of the more interesting characters due to plot purposes, all you need to know about him is that he's referred to as the "I-I-Ice P-Prince" and he has about as much personality as a sheet of ice. His initial arc is meant to be the first great emotional high point, but it feels so shockingly flat, part of that being a product of his emptiness as a character. The costume design consists of the most baggy "Does this make me look fat?" school uniforms I've ever seen, and the character design is mostly hampered by ill-fitting costumes, and while they're not too bothersome at first, I yearn to see the art of just about any other Gundam when watching this. The mobile suits look so shiny and brand new as to have just been r-ripped out of the plastic wrap at the toy store. It can be a mixed bag, but they actually integrate the CGI pretty well most of the time. Sometimes the mechs become very detailed or more hand-drawn looking. The battles are also surprisingly decent, fairly well-animated much of the time, and the stunts they pull during combat are inventive enough to the point that it feels like we might have different schools of combat, which is a plus. Gundam usually succeeds when it comes to combat and production values at least. Given that this is, to my knowledge, the first gundam that has a fixation on school life, as opposed to war, it's a necessity to make a few comparisons here to past series. The tone is a bit childish, and I wonder if this will remain the case once we're thrust into the war, or if the silly tone will somehow remain omnipresent for the entire duration—the characters, the visuals, etc., really make me think this will remain a circus (the ending is a hilarious contrast, though). Despite being a show targeting teens (probably younger as well) and first airing in 1979, the original Mobile Suit Gundam was a hell of a lot darker and more mature than TWfM to the point that it makes me blush. A real problem is the amount of p-p-p-plot armor stacked on Suletta. A main character, by definition, has plot armor. If they're dead, the story is over, usually. But as the duels arose, one by one, there was a clear pattern when it came to the victor, and less tension every time. Comparing this to the original MSG, Amuro started the series as an amateur who essentially learned fast and could adapt to the Gundam better than your average human, while also piloting an advanced model. Both of these perks gave him an edge over combatants, but his inexperience was often taken advantage of, especially when the seasoned Char would knock him around. The plot had enough unpredictability that Amuro would lose, have his Gundam totaled, nearly die, have to retreat, etc. War allows for a lot of possibilities. It's really not quite as varied with dueling. It's b-binary: you win or you lose. The stakes are set so high by the opponents that for Suletta to lose, would mean the series ending. Either she is forced to leave the academy or give up her Gundam or various other ultra-high stakes which would muck up the plot if she were to lose. It's possible you could make her lose with those stakes and somehow regain what she's lost by some means, but the writers seem content to not only remove nearly all tension, but to take the standard route of Suletta is like Amuro, but she starts off as an ace pilot who can't lose. They even use the she's an anxious klutz at everything, but by golly she's an adept of the highest order when she sets foot in that Gundam and fights, trope, as if to rub it in our faces. The story consists of a bunch of threads that aren't woven together in an especially compelling way. Suletta acquaints herself with various characters, the scenes being drawn out a bit longer to give her room to stutter. Shrill Miorine working out daddy issues and the yuri manipulation. There is some messy love geometry. Kids being kids, which should more accurately be referred to as high school/college freshman acting like they're in grade school. Light corporate dynamics—which are the only thing making the duels standout, so it's a shame this aspect is so weak. Multicultural/multiplanetal and inclusive Earthians (fat characters, anime, really?) without a gym versus exclusive and elitist Spacian clans with free gym membership. Drama leading to d-d-duels that span most of an episode. It might appear quite busy or complex from a distance, but when you look at the constituent parts, there's hardly anything of substance. There's so much going on that we get the bare minimum of everything, and a whole lot of mech battles with no tension, but they're cool and flashy at least. Suletta Mercury seems to be from Tomino's Dunbine school of character naming, with such classics as Frozen Marvel and Weapon Shot, and the world they inhabit in that series is a fantasy/sci-fi spin on the medieval period. Similar to early periods of history, her pseudonymous surname evokes her point of origin, which led me to imagine a solar system spanning epic like Five Star Stories, and I was thinking of the Gundam pilots as honorable knights hailing from different feudal space kingdoms. It would have been a cool revamp, but instead we get something that's supposed to be relatable to a new zoomer audience, so we get lame stuff like school competition and d-d-duels, anxious teens, manipulative teens, bullying teens, and just a whole lot of angst and attitude. Y-y-yawn.

This is not a review, mainly a short brief as to why this isn't the a gundam show you want to watch. Basically Gundam is a war story that attracts you by using giant robots instead of conventional warfare. but This doesn't mean all gundam shows have to be about the same thing, each version of the franchise brings their own flavor to the table and allows for different perspectives and topics to handle. For example: If you want a war between 2 sides, anything UC will suffice Do you want war but nothing too long winded and straight to the point, watch Wing or 00 Do you wantcool mecha fights as the main focus, watch Iron blooded orphans If you want no plot at all and just like the robots watch Build fighters But regardless of your taste, Witch from Mercury doesn't satisfy any of these, it tries to emulate some of the selling oints of other gundam shows, but fails to truly commit to any of it making it come off as half assed. Essentially this is not a review, just a rant from a pathetic fan who didn't get what I came for so I came onto the internet to complain :)