Though the finale of this anime took a violent turn that exploded on the internet, it is normal to those of us who have watched Tomino's Gundam entries. It's clear why this anime attracted a lot of people, and why discussing this anime online is almost unbearable. For one, it took from Revolutionary Girl Utena with it's duels, though it does nothing with the concept of two women getting married for most of the cour, and barely tries to touch upon it towards the end. I've watched everything available to me from Tomino's Gundam works, and this fails in comparison to touch any of them. I went in optimistically, but having watched what made Gundam great can feel like a curse at times when you see where it is going now through that scope.
I am being fair, and sizing these up to where the original, Zeta, ZZ, Victory, Turn A, and G Reconguista were around this time in regards to the episode count at this time. One can say this isn't fair because anime back then was done a lot differently. I'd say that is too bad, and that newer anime should catch up and get better, which seems unlikely for the most part anyways due to the dollar ruining the industry.
The fighting in this felt strangely disappointing to me. Aerial fights like a shooter video game ship with overpowered powerups.
Witch of Mercury doesn't explore it's characters and story enough. Miorine was miles ahead of Sulettas character, and among the few characters who were actually bothered to be developed and go anywhere with her political struggles, unlike the majority of the cast. Prospera is the second most interesting character to me, and the one being referred to as the "Char clone." Characters that appear to be smart and always planning ahead tend to have this problem, such as in that terrible and recent mecha series Kyoukai Senki, where these "know it all" characters stand there smugly, having it all figured out, but do nothing in the actual anime to show for it besides just standing there. Other than that, I came to appreciate Guel's struggle with redemption, and Shaddiq's twisted scheming. Other characters hardly contributed, or played off of boring tropes such as the "angry" girl that does nothing else.
Suletta annoyed me to no end. Her Bocchi/Komi/Zenitsu/Kobeni type of character has 0 appeal to me. Constantly screaming, screeching, apologizing, and acting like a fool got on my nerves, and stopped being funny long ago. Her character was going nowhere for too long. It would not be until the last episode where she even begins to get interesting. She is like Laura from Turn a Gundam, if he has a coward, and written horribly. Speaking of Turn A Gundam, the pacing in Witch of Mercury so terrible that even the first episode of Turn A Gundam alone is significantly better than this.
If someone is interested in getting into Gundam, I would recommend staying away from this and watching the Tomino entries in order from start to finish. This means avoiding the movie versions, since watching the movie versions of a TV anime series leads to rushed garbage that leaves the viewers confused most of the time. I've rarely run into anime that can successfully make movie versions of it's TV series such as in Galaxy Express 999, or in Macross Frontier's case where the movies managed to actually be better overall. And if you want to see what real brutality in anime can be, check out Tomino again in Space Runaway Ideon. Even if I was to talk about more recent mecha, Gundam Unicorn, Hathaway's Flash, and Gundam G in Reconguista are much better. And of course, I'll keep standing up for Megaton-kyuu Musashi, which is, in my opinion, the best current airing non-Gundam mecha.
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