The following contains spoilers for Episode 7 of Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury, “Shall We Gundam?,” now streaming onCrunchyroll.
After taking about two weeks of hiatus,Gundam: The Witch From Mercuryfinally came backwith its 7th episode. The fans have certainly been impatiently waiting for this episode to drop. After all, the sixth episode was such a blast to watch, so it goes without saying that we want to see more of Suletta and Aerial on screen.
Not only that, episode 6revealed so much information and raised tons of questionsabout the series as a whole. And the fact that they decided to take a break for two weeks only made the fans craft their own conspiracy theory as to what was actually happening in the story. So now that we finally get the chance to see episode 7, let’s see what other new information that we can get this time around.
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Shall We Gundam?
Episode 7 focuses on a high-class event called the “Incubation Party”, which is actually more like a giant conference where entrepreneurs can pitch their new and groundbreaking ideas to hundreds of potential investors in the room. Sort of like a beef-up version of Shark Tank.As the current top duelist, Suletta is invited to the event, along with Miorine. Suletta decided to come because she wants to meet Elan. The real Elan Ceres does come to the event, but he has a nefarious plan for Suletta.
Elan invited Suletta to stand on the podium with him. But then the representative from the Peil Technologies appears and admits thatthe Pharact that Elan used in his latest duelwas indeed a Gundam. Not only that, they also manage to fool Suletta into admitting that Aerial is actually a Gundam as well. Immediately, the members of the Benerit Group demand the total destruction of both Gundams.
Fortunately,Miorine once again comes to rescue the helpless Suletta. She proposes to acquire both Gundams, along with their development teams, and merge them under a new company. At first, nobody wants to invest on Miorine’s proposal. Not even her own father. Not one to give up, Miorine swallow her pride, lower her head, and beg for her father to at least invest a bit of money on her proposed company so that the others will follow suit. Her father reluctantly agreed, and decided to invest, which prompted the other investors to chip in as well. As a result, a new company called Gund-Arm Inc. is born.
Promising Character And Story Development
As you may see from the summary above, the story has become much more complicated in such a short amount of time. Gone are the days of a relaxing Gundam school drama. From now on, the series will focus on the new Gundam company that Miorine just founded. This means we finally get to seethe business war that was promised to us at the beginning of this series.
The current storyline is actually a reminiscence ofthe Tekkadan situation from the previousGundam: Iron-Blooded Orphan. And we know how exciting that trade wars turned out to be. So it seems that we can expect a much more complex and treacherous version of those trade wars inGundam: The Witch From Mercury.
Not only that, we also get the chance to witness a character development for some key characters in this episode,with the biggest one being Miorine. Seven episodes in, and we already see her slowly but surely turning into a much more caring, calculating, and daring person than she was back in episode one. And that is great news, because she seems to be the one who moves the story forward nowadays.
The U.C. Gundam Protagonist Syndrome
If Miorine gets her chance to shine in episode 7, the same thing can’t be said to our supposed main character, Suletta Mercury. There’s barely any chance in her personality since we saw her back in the first episode. She is still the same awkward and naive girl. What’s even worse, it seems that Suletta suffered fromthe U.C. protagonist syndrome.
If you look back onthe majority of the main characters on the Universal Century Gundam series, almost all of them share the same characteristic. They all are extremely talented pilots that can defeat numerous enemies alone, and yet outside the cockpit, they are just a bunch of whiny, bratty, naive, and short-sighted people. That statement is true for Amuro Ray of theOriginal Gundam, Kamille Bidan ofZeta Gundam, and Banagher Links ofGundam Unicorn. Even young Hathaway Noa suffers through the same condition inGundam: Char’s Counterattack.
In her defense, Suletta is just a teenage girl who never sets foot outside of Mercury before, and now she has to face not only the different people in her school, but also the wrath of the Benerit Group. Soit is quite understandablethat she will make lots of mistakes along the way. We can only hope that she will receive a good character development in the subsequent episodes so that she can move on from this annoying phase of her life.
Although episode 7 doesn’t have any action whatsoever, we get a fascinating and thrilling drama instead. Based on what happened in this episode, we can expect the story to move steadily towardsthe dizzying political intrigue and economic wars with outstanding military conflictsalong the way. That being said, while Miorine display a great character development in this episode, Suletta barely have any character development at all. Hopefully her character get the chance to grow and develop in the subsequent episodes.
