Please actually read this before downvoting me, thank you

Ah yes, Gundam. The greatest franchise nobody wants to watch. The mythical and distant "generic mecha" anime that everyone scapegoats on Twitter and Reddit. I absolutely love this franchise for all it's worth. I initially didn't think I would however.

I only got into this franchise about two years ago, in the beginning of January 2021, the middle of the COVID pandemic that we're still locked into to this very day. Having been effectively severed from my high school friends due to the sudden declaration of quarantine, I had suffered for the rest of 11th grade and most of 12th grade. Sometime during the pandemic I had become attached to sci-fi anime and thought that seeing sci-fi aesthetic applied to a shonen anime or some other action series was an ingenious idea. This is what led me to watching Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn, an entry I still consider to be one of the greatest anime ever created, both in looks and the actual content of the anime itself. It was like a huge bank vault door swung wide open for me to dig into its riches. The deep and fleshed out geopolitics of the Universal Century, the attention to detail on all of the mechanical aspects regarding mobile suits, the realism when it comes to skill level of pilots and the tactical decisions they're able to make on the fly, as well as the very anime concept of Newtypism that pervaded the very fabric of the storytelling with its ideals of "mankind's possibility", all of it felt way too good to be true. But it wasn't.

Revealed to me upon finishing Unicorn and digging through this large and storied franchise was a multitude of AU stories as well as other stories also set within the Universal Century. Yoshiyuki Tomino's works. All of the other Universal Century works (besides Stardust Memory) were like goldmines of perfection, while the AU works had way more highs (SEED, 00, Gundam X, G Gundam) than lows (Wing, SEED Destiny, Iron Blooded Orphans), and I'm STILL not done combing through everything Gundam has to offer. As of this review I still have to watch the Build series, as well as Turn A Gundam, the latter of which I hear absolute high praises about, being the chronological end to every single AU while also capping off Universal Century.

Which is why I waited for the Witch from Mercury to come out. The first female-led Gundam ever, it was stated by many sources that it marked an evolution of the series for a new generation of people. Every single aspect of this new entry was star-studded, headlined by many rockstars in the anime industry, most notably the director Ichiro Okouchi, the man behind many different anime, including Code Geass, the unfortunate Studio 4℃ Berserk Golden Age adaptations, Sk8 the Infinity, Valrave, and many more. It was absolutely shaping up to be a groundbreaking event for the Gundam community, especially after the prologue aired to almost universal acclaim.

So did it live up to the hype?

Yes and no.

It is undeniably a good anime in it's own right, especially compared to the trainwreck AU that came before it, Iron Blooded Orphans. While Iron Blooded Orphans was like a sparkling pile of dung, the Witch from Mercury was an actual luxury full course meal, easy on the eyes and the stomach alike. It's soundtrack, animation, as well as the progression of the plot itself were all top-notch.

The soundtrack was done by a relative newcomer to the franchise, Takashi Ohmama, whose only other track record is the unfortunate Twilight Axis ONA/PV hybrids, but despite his greenhorn status he's able to encapsulate a sound not too dissimilar to that of Hiroyuki Sawano (responsible for the absolutely stellar Unicorn and Hathaway soundtracks) with remarkable accuracy. The animation has also been given deliberate care, which is as plain as day even back when the prologue aired, or rather, especially in the prologue. Every emotion comes out with the characters' subtle movements and gestures, and the mobile suit fights are also top notch, especially when Aerial comes out with its Shield Funnels.

The characterization for everyone (besides SuleMio somehow) feels like its fleshed out at a natural pace. The more we watch the more dimensionality we get to experience for most of the characters, even for the antagonists, like Delling, Shaddiq, Sarius, Prospera, Guel, Vim, etc., who all get their moments to shine in the latter half of the story, especially with Guel, who makes basically a 180 by the final episode of season 1. Suletta and Miorine, on the other hand, the fucking main couple of the show, manage to not grow at all until the final episode when Suletta manages to revert to her prologue personality after managing to work up the courage to be friends with everyone in the Earth House, and their relationship ends up basically shattered when Suletta naively flattens a dude while protecting Miorine. This doesn't necessarily detract from Suletta's character though, since this display of character regression adds more dimensionality to Prospera, and displays her manipulative undertones in the grand scheme of things, as well as her unwavering and frankly dangerous control over Suletta. Miorine has no excuse though, since she stays the same generic and boring damsel-in-distress tsundere from beginning to end, which is disappointing considering the amount of women in other Gundam series with actual dimensionality to their writing, such as Sayla Mass in the original series, Four Murasame, Emma Sheen, Reccoa Londe, and Haman Karn in Zeta, Marbet Fingerhat and Junko Jenko in Victory, Allenby Beardsley in G Gundam, Cima Garahau in Stardust, Christina Mackenzie in War in the Pocket, Mineva Zabi in Unicorn (who is Miorine but better in every way possible), and even fucking Lacus Clyne in SEED, and its especially disappointing when all of these anime are hetero and not "patriarcy-breaking" yuri like G-Witch is trying to be. Honestly Suletta deserves Mineva or Lacus over Miorine. Banagher and Kira are lucky.

You probably understand by now, but I'm going to ask the question anyways so I can elaborate: Why doesn't it live up to the hype if it's actually good?

This is because the Witch from Mercury doesn't actually feel Gundam-y. Not even in the final episode with the dick flattening. Over the course of watching there was this nagging feeling in the back of my head. "Why does this feel so off? Yuri Gundam should be an easy fucking cakewalk, considering Okouchi likes Tomino works." After rewatching the series and comparing it to other recent Gundams, such as 00 and Hathaway, the Witch from Mercury gives me the feeling that it's trying to be like an original series with the Gundam label slapped on. A lot of the initial premise surrounding the Witch From Mercury feels like it's riffing off of Revolutionary Girl Utena (Which Okouchi did a novel adaptation of btw), instead of riffing off of the rich supply of content at its disposal by proxy of it being a Gundam. But even though it was riffing off of Utena, it didn't even bother to riff off of the biggest unique factor that made Utena stand apart from other yuri, which is its examination of queers and patriarchy.

Most if not all Gundams share a common theme, which is a focus on a specific aspect of our current geopolitics to center its worldbuilding around. 0079 was based on Vietnam and World War 2, Zeta and ZZ were focused on the Cold War and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, SEED was focused on racism and the ethics of eugenics, 00 was focused on Bush's lackluster counter-terrrorism initiative post-9/11, G Gundam and Hathaway brought climate change to light. Even Wing had drone warfare commentary and IBO had allegory about child soldiers in third world countries. All of these aspects were driving forces behind the worldbuilding for each series, and were done in a way to bring to light for audiences the injustices occurring in our society. What does the Witch from Mercury have? Generic cyberpunk tropes like cybernetics and hyper-capitalism. YAAAAAAAAAAY!

YOU HAD LGBT RELATIONSHIPS RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU OKOUCHI.

THE ONE THING HE DIDN'T RIFF OFF OF UTENA WAS THE LGBT DISCRIMINATION. That shit would have been the PERFECT political issue to focus dead-center on for worldbuilding. Every other Gundam series was focused on an aspect of geo-politics related to war. The Witch From Mercury would have been the perfect entry to pivot the series focus away from that and towards social injustices experienced in our society, like racism, patriarchy, homophobia and transphobia. But the series decides to do duel of the week and cyberpunk slice of life instead.

So yeah. The Witch from Mercury has a lot of potential as an original series, but is yet another step backwards for the Gundam franchise as a whole. If the Witch from Mercury didn't feel so insecure about its identity as a Gundam, it could have been a huge revolution for the franchise.

But instead, Mobile Fighter G Gundam keeps its crown as the best AU.

If you want to watch a good original mecha then the Witch from Mercury is good. 2D mecha is something we need more of in this day and age. But I can't help but feel let down at how much more it could have been if it tapped into the latent potential of its predecessors.