How would you rate Episode 8 of Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury?
No sugar coating: this is the worst G-Witch
episodes so far. As a downtime episode, the lackluster character animation isn’t a huge detriment to the story at this point, but some of the plot developments in this episode did impress because of it.
For example, Prospera, Suletta, Miorine show Prospera In order to convince Suletta’s lies, she lies about Gundam for her own good. Suletta’s out-of-place expression in this scene makes her responses seem blunt rather than innocent or earthy. A similar problem applies to the Earth House collective scene, which moves so little that the orientation resorts to a fade-in effect between two separate frames. In a show that has struggled to paint a sense of visual grounding in its setting, this cartoony transition feels like a resource conservation rather than a style decision.
To be fair, this episode still has Some examples of fun visual storytelling, most notably poorly conceived PR videos. Suletta’s dancing is deliberately awkward in expressing her apparent discomfort with the task. Just like the infamous “Episode 0”, success here The filmmakers apparently had fun making a poorly edited student film. A goat grazing in the background is a great directorial touch—at least, if it’s properly composited with the grass and doesn’t look like it’s walking back and forth on a green screen. Also, seeing the mid-air movement in 3D really took me out of the story, since so far its close-ups have been animated in 2D.
Regardless, the plot beat is still solid. By focusing on the practical issues of entrepreneurship, this episode makes it clear that our characters are difficult to understand. Suletta inadvertently brings up an important point on the final ride with Miorine: it’s like they just started a school club. When an arbitrary new school rule forces Miorine to hand over her business to the school, it’s a pertinent reminder that students should only act as adults. For all the feel-good ideas about kids using Gundam technology for medicine instead of weapons, there are shadows all around them. Sodick finally reveals his ambitions, and his methods of breaking free from his father’s influence may end up being more cunning and brutal than anyone.
While the episode itself wasn’t great, it Nicely builds anticipation for the next one. So I’m not too mad, even if it does make me more pessimistic about the future of the show.
Rating:
