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Joined 3 months ago
Cake day: November 6th, 2024
  • maplebar@lemmy.worldOPtoAnime@ani.social•Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury -- Dare I say... not "woke" enough!?English
    0·
    7 days ago

    I really enjoyed Prospera as a character. And reviled her as a person while still retaining some forms of empathy. That’s a pretty big win IMO.

    MAJOR ENDING SPOILERS (Mobile Suit Gundam: Witch from Mercury)

    First half Prospera was super engaging as her motivation seemed to be to avenge her family and take down the corporations and power structure that lead to them being needlessly murdered during the prologue. She was undoubtedly manipulating Suletta (and in one of her best scenes Miorine calls her out for it, only for Prospera to point out the hypocrisy of that), but it felt like she was infiltrating the system and masterminding the demise of the Benerit Group. I really figured she would be like Char in the original MSG 0079, in the sense that she wasn’t going to be so much of a villain.

    Instead she ended up becoming something like Gendo Ikari from Neon Genesis Evagelion with the Data Storm as her Human Instrumentality Project, all of this at the expense of her relationship to Suletta. But then at the end we got something of a “happy ending” where all of the kids are CEOs (or rather, oligarchs), the people of Earth are still subjugated (but I guess at least being “listened to”…), and Prospera is now having a picnic with Suletta and her keychain sister, despite the fact that she just wiped out an entire fleet and almost had both her daughters kill each other. Her arc didn’t really stick for me.

    The thing about being Gendo Ikari is that there’s really no way to repair the relationships that you’ve destroyed in order to achieve your selfish goals. Prospera went down that route, but somehow everything turned out OK in the end in her toxic relationship to Suletta.

    .

    Speaking of details, they are everywhere, and they build on one another. Things like using cinematography to mirror an earlier scene, then later doing the same but with a different perspective to highlight the changes in the characters. The symbolism is rampant, some obvious, some subtle. This wasn’t a Tomino story, but it builds on one of his tenets: show, don’t tell. Environmental storytelling. I have a friend that really only engages with Gundam as “second screen” material while she’s doing something else. Unsurprisingly, she’s ambivalent about most of it and actively hostile towards WfM.

    Overall I loved the idea, got very immersed in the setting and characters, and was a little disappointed when the pacing fell off. Still an easy recommend.

    For sure, the show really looked great and was effective at telling the story. The drama and symbolism were truly great at times. When it hit, it hit. Some of the more intimate scenes with Suletta dealing with shit on her own were really genuinely touching and beautiful.

    I also recommend checking it out and think it’s a worthy series. :)

    Btw, @wjs018@ani.social was kind enough to open up !gundam@ani.social for us. And @Endmaker@ani.social volunteered to mod. So feel free to hop on over there and join us! 👊

    I’m in! Still pretty new to Gundam but I’m quickly getting up to speed in anticipation of Gquuuuuux, having just watched 0079, War in the Pocket, 08th MS Team and Witch from Mercury. About 10 episodes into Zeta right now and loving it so far.