The Spring 2023 Anime Preview Guide

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury Season 2

It has been two weeks since the Plant Quetta incident. Suletta is at the academy, anticipating when she can reunite with Miorine. Miorine, on the other hand, has planted herself at the Benerit Group headquarters, watching over her father's condition. New troubles emerge for the two, and they are forced to make a decision. With different feelings in her heart, the girls face off against the terrible curse stirred by the Gundam.

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury Season 2 is an original anime and streams on Crunchyroll on Sundays.

The season's premiere of The Witch from Mercury is largely about the fallout from last season's “explosive” ending. The appearance of two unregistered Gundams, along with one of their leaders being in a coma and another dead, has led to the Bennett Group choosing to escalate the situation—sending a fleet to Earth in search of the terrorist. It looks like it's only a matter of time before a classic Gundam Earth versus space war begins.

On the other hand, this episode does prove a bit anticlimatic by sidestepping the fallout from season one we are most interested in—i.e., how do Suletta and Miorine move past what happened in the season's closing moments? While it is briefly addressed in the post-credits scene—with Miorine rightfully calling out Suletta's mother's role in the ordeal—putting it on the back burner doesn't feel good after literal months of waiting to see what would happen. Hopefully, this will be resolved soon and not turn into a constant tease as the series moves along.

Instead, for the most part, we get a return to the status quo for Suletta and friends. Only two weeks out from the battle and they are not only back at school but back to Mobile Suit duels as well. Of course, with all the major heirs indisposed or unwilling to fight, it's not difficult for Suletta to retain her position as Holder even when doing five straight battles.

Intriguingly, the mental scars still weigh heavy on the group—especially on Nika. More than just the shock of war, Nika is dealing with the fact she almost got her friends killed. And when the two Witches from Earth show up, it pushes her even closer to the edge. Sophie's appearance also promises more mecha action. Being able to fight a public duel with Suletta and prove her philosophy about the nature of Gundams is more important to Sophie than her mission. And so not only do we have a battle royale on the horizon (which will no doubt turn into literally everyone versus Suletta) but a battle between two Gundams as well. It's overall a solid start to the season.

The Queens have returned, bringing their kickass robot and a whole mess of potential war crimes with them! I'm probably the ten-thousandth person to say this today, but for those of you just turning in, Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury was a big deal last year, and there doesn't seem to be any signs of the Suletta Express slowing down any time soon. After making quite the splash in last cour's finale, Suletta is protecting Miorine's honor while the Gund-Arm CEO is stuck being interrogated after the deadly fracas that concluded last season, and our heroine is taking on all-comers in duel after duel, even while she tries to navigate her and Miorine's fractured relationship. We've got some brief but exciting Gundam battles, plenty of corpo-litical intrigue, not to mention all of the juicy High-School-but-With-Regularly-Scheduled-Giant-Robot-Fights drama that Suletta and Co. have to conquer. What more could you ask for?

What's that? You specifically want a pair of scheming Earthian “exchange students” to show up and throw even more wrenches into the gears of Asticassia School's already fit-to-collapse socio-political machine? Well, then, I have good news for you: Norea and Sophie have arrived to steal everyone's lunches, threaten Nika with a switchblade, and generally wreak enough havoc to convince Suletta to challenge them to a duel. The Witches from Earth seemed like great additions to Witch from Mercury's chaotic narrative stew last season, and I'm happy to say that they don't disappoint. Sophie's wild and rambunctious nature is balanced well by Norea's caustic attitude towards every single thing she speaks to and looks at, yet they never come across as caricatures. I have no idea yet if G-Witch is set to go for the traditional 50-episode run that most Gundam series get, but if that is the plan, then the show will need as many cool and compelling antagonists for Suletta and Aerial to beat up as possible. Norea and Sophie fit the bill perfectly.

Suletta's story hasn't lost a step, and I am just as excited as ever to see where the series takes us from here. Remember to stay past the ending credits for this premiere, by the way. Not only would you be committing Gundam Treason by skipping one hell of an ending theme, but a post-credit scene gives us a valuable check-in with Miorine. It also reminds us that, no matter how much damage the Earthian Witches can do at school, Prospera's still the most terrifying woman around these parts, and doubly so when she's got her mask-eyes set on roping Miorine into her master plan.

Everybody buckle in because Suletta Sundays are back in business.

After a season away to simmer on that post-credits scene, there was a lot of tension and expectation for this premiere, and I suspect audiences will come out of it still waiting for a release. Rather than picking up where it left off, G-Witch uses this return to pull us back to a modified version of the status quo at the academy. Suletta and Earth House are back at school, dueling through upstart challengers with the new and improved Aerial. All of the discomfort from The Slap is left hovering in the air while Miorine is on her own, looking after her recovering father, with no clear indication of what things are like between her and Suletta.

Instead, we spend most of this episode setting up things with Dawn of Fold and their chaotic little Gundam pilots. We get a few quick, slick robot fights to open the episode, and some explanation about the cover-up being done to conceal last season's assassination attempt, then it's on to bringing Sophie and Norea into the fold at school. It's very similar to previous set-up episodes from season one, front-loading the character conflicts and building things up to be resolved through a duel next week, and in that regard, it does a fine job. G-Witch has enough confidence in its ability to keep the audience's interest that it doesn't need to squeeze in a big battle every episode and instead lets its character writing do the heavy lifting before bringing out the spectacle.

At the same time, it is frustrating to have to wait even longer to get some resolution on Suletta and Miorine. Their partnership is the beating heart of this show, and the finale left their connection in a highly volatile state. Seeing Sophie adopt Suletta as her “big sister” and run roughshod over the school is fun, and I'm glad to see Nika's story coming to a head, but I want to watch Miorine and her groom interact! I want to know what's going through their heads after Miorine saw Suletta turn a man into raspberry jam with a smile on her face! I want to know how Suletta feels after being called a murderer! Forget the robot fights; seeing these two together is the real fireworks factory.

It's frustrating, but only because the show has done such a good job hooking me, and I have to respect that. G-Witch showed all last season that it knows what it's doing and consistently delivered excellent drama, action, and entertainment. Carrying on as if it never left, rather than hustling to throw in some explosions for the season premiere, just tells me that it hasn't missed a step with its return.