Mobile Suit Gundam The Witch from Mercury Episode 19: A “Peaceful” Meeting

When was the last time a “peaceful” negotiation happened in Gundam?
A meeting that aimed to resolve a controversial matter in peace?
Please pardon my limited knowledge because as far as my memory goes, unless we are at the final episode, “peaceful” will always become “violent” at some point by someone’s scheme, and this episode served as that kind of “moment”.
The climax is coming, everyone is heading toward the stage, just like the 2nd season key visual has told us. Let’s dive into the episode.

We were first introduced the moment before Miorine and Guel touched down on Earth. Even though she has dreamed of coming to Earth since the beginning of the series, with how things are happening she could not enjoy the trip as she is trying to gain favors for her spot as a presidential candidate.

It is quite an accidental coincidence as we have the state of the Spacians: those that want to come to Earth, those that hate Earth, and those that knew what is happening on Earth. Miorine, Kenanji, and Guel, each of them fit these roles perfectly, from mindset to even a bit of their physique designs. And again, in these small conversations, we saw how Guel has developed his mind tremendously, from wanting to see how Earth actually is with his own eyes once again to actually caring about Miorine being alone in a peace negotiation which is vital for both of them.

But later on, when he knew it was Shaddiq who was behind all of the recent events, he showed his hot-blooded side once again. If Miorine did not calm him down, Shaddiq might escape unharmed just like she said. Guel has been hyped up for a while, so it sure was a nice moment to let fans know that Guel still has some drawbacks, and that was ok.

Talking about this negotiation, it is interesting, and also terrifying for the original Elan Ceres to even come up with a solution in which Miorine actively use Gundam to “solve” the protestant in Quin Harbor. This showed how a part of High-Class Spacians thinks about Earthians, as low-life. And they took it seriously, with 1529 Earthians gone missing while Benerit Group was witch-hunting, and all of this happening when Earthians have already suffered badly from all those mistreating years caused by none other than Spacians.

Not only that, this episode resembles our real world too freakishly close. A peaceful, non-armed protest later turn bloody by someone on the protestant side (which was actually caused by Eri), causing casualties to the armed guards/officers on site, who have no choice but to fire back in defense. This time, it was Prospera’s move.

About Miorine’s side, she used her to the fullest. Miorine naively and fully trusted her, that she would somehow “keep” her words. She brought a Gundam to the site just as a show of goodwill and deterence, but for Prospera, the trip to Quin Harbor was just a clean-up operation for her by wiping what’s left of Ochs Earth on Earth: the Lfrith Pre-Production Model (Lfrith PPM, for short).

By overriding an armed vehicle to shoot at Aerial, she had a perfect excuse to retreat and go to a garage storing at least a dozen of Lfrith PPMs. Destroying that place caused a false alarm to the armed protestants, they opened fire back at the on-site Benerit guards, causing mass confusion, and forcing them to fire back, resulting in a massacre.
This is even sadder as Miorine did strike a temporarily peaceful conclusion, the very reason why she came here.

For Benerit, this event sure colored them as villains in the media. Even Peil’s Nugen couldn’t smile when the event got broadcasted on the news. They have suffered in the first half of this season, and this now might affect their public image quite severely. But if we have Spacians like the real Elan exist, things might go in a different path than I anticipated.

For the Space Assembly League, they were quite a surprising force. Not much was told about this “League” as the only thing we knew was that they did support Ochs Earth in the past and might have absorbed what was left of Ochs Earth. Thanks to that, they now got their hands on Gundarm, a card that could be used against Benerit Group. On one hand, Shaddiq might even relate to this organization as both sides had the same motivation, to bring Benerit down. But could this action worsen the Space Assembly League as a whole? Only time will tell.

One final aspect I would like to talk about in this episode: the other characters.

First Suletta and the Earth gang.
After the end of episode 18, she was in despair for days. But thanks to everyone at Earth House (and her stomach being true to itself), she was finally able to understand why things happened to her that way and accepted why it had to be done. Chuchu grew up as each episode went by like usual. Till my man, you really should choose that hair as your usual appearance, that sure is a better hairstyle. And, Martin had some spotlights as well. Martin’s conversation with Secelia though, albeit came out of nowhere and was super effective even more than I could expect. I, really want to see more of their interaction in the future.

Second, Nika + Norea + El5n.
It seemed that piloting a Gundam would torment you not only physically but also psychologically. Norea, who was normally calm and emotionless, only let loose her rage when things affected her and those around her, sudden outburst in emotion. It was not clear what exactly caused her to act like that, but one of the reasons could be by piloting a Gundam a number of times would cause the pilots to be unable to control their emotions. This was solidified by how El5n treated Norea, as if he has experienced the exact same thing before. This moment, not only let Nika know more about Gundam pilots but also made El5n more and more compelling to the audience.

Last but not least, Belmeria, and Feng, were another surprise as well. Feng, as an agent of Space Assembly League, knew some parts of the upper echelons plans, and although she agreed to some points, she herself wanted to avoid bloodshed as much as possible, making her a “good” part of that league, balancing the League in the eyes of the audience. Belmeria, again, was like a ping-pong that was passed from one hand to another. Even if in this situation she might have chosen the right choice but time will tell if she will be in whose hands.

Next episode: The End of Hope.

>Reryuu<

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