Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury – 18

「空っぽな私たち」 (Karappo na Watashitachi)
“Our Empty Selves”

As though one week was enough to temper already dramatic developments, Witch from Mercury certainly wasted little time in, once again, upping the stakes and setting up for the final confrontation of the season. It might be a tad obvious how things will end (at least for some characters), but the route we get to it is going to be one hell of an adventure.

With how last episode ended in Miorine pulling a dirty, big shock the follow up was Suletta coming to grips with the affair. Or rather fully embracing her own delusions. Considering how sheltered the girl has been until late it shouldn’t surprise anyone that she one: blames herself; and two: thinks deep down that going all in on happy-go-lucky school life will paper over the wounds and/or build her up enough to make Miorine pay attention to her once more. It’s all destined to end in failure of course (Miorine after all did what she did out of a misplaced desire to keep Suletta safe), but Suletta naturally doesn’t see that, even with the likes of a newly aware Chuchu trying to steer her in the right direction.

What makes this atmosphere particularly damaging too is the double whammy of Suletta’s true birth origin and the ascent of Eri-as-Aerial. Much as hypothesized by some earlier on, Suletta is technically a clone of what is now confirmed her older sister, a veritable tool through which Eri in her fledgling digitized state could pilot Aerial and have a degree of autonomy. Outside the irony of Suletta effectively being a variant of Elan and his “enhanced human” status, it also is particularly biting noting that both Prospera and Eri have the gall to treat abandoning Suletta once her purpose was fulfilled as a boon for the poor girl. Miorine doing so is one thing (considering her recent involvement with Suletta), but those two have known Suletta her entire life; tossing her away now is really is eye opening and shows just who is driving this whole affair. Yeah, I think you can guess who exactly will be dying at the end of this.

That then of course leads back to the politicking and the setup for the grand showdown on, surprise surprise, Earth itself. Besides Shaddiq doing his usual scheming (that’s still destined to fail), Miorine has basically activated all the flags by staking her claim to fame on being the negotiator of peace. With a fully activated Aerial at her side. To say this won’t end in disaster is putting it mildly, as it’s heavily unlikely whatever Shaddiq does to upset the proceedings won’t get Eri doing the dirty or cause Prospera to activate Quiet Zero early. Especially if said events put Eri herself at risk. Couple on the knowledge that the true powerbrokers are now zeroing in on Gundam developments and it’s fairly easy seeing how everything is set to quickly reach a boil, even if the exact trigger remains to be seen.

Whatever the issues with Witch from Mercury, it’s going to be interesting seeing this situation play out.

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