Prologue - What a banger. Eri is cutest deadly toddler. I make fun of the British for losing to a 17-year-old, but these guys lost to a 4-year-old. Though, Eri got off easy. A real Gundam show would've killed both her father
and her mother at the same time.
Episode 1 was fun. It's kind of a funny contrast to see Suletta being such a stuttering, nervous trainwreck of a wallflower, when you know she's gonna kick butt once she hops in a mobile suit. Suletta technically indirectly saves Miorine's dad from getting killed, so I wonder if anybody else will ever realise that later on.
S: "B-b-but I'm a woman!"
M: "I guess Mercury is rather conservative" ROFL
Also...if Suletta was actually a hardcore flirt playgirl who could pick up girls and boys alike, then maybe she'd be the Witch from Venus
Episode 2. I love just how insanely cutesy the OP is, both vocals and scenery. It's like they were deliberately trying to lure people in before revealing that this is, in fact, a Gundam series. Then the ending is just too chalkful of faux-symbolism for me to follow. I get the feeling people stunning Suletta and her letting out a cute flustered cry of surprise at the end of each episode is going to be a running gag.
Episode 3. The ending is perfect. If you can't marry the girl, then marry the girl's wife and you'll be spouses-in-law
Episode 4. Miorine is a giant slob lol. They show her room, and it's just FULL of takeout containers and the like. Episode 2 shows they have disposable trays, but given it's apparently a space station or something, I still find it funny Miorine has that much trash. The way Suletta rejects Guel's proposal by running away into her not-Gundam and flying off is hilarious. Also, not all Gundam protagonists are fragile human beings. Some, like Kira Yamato, are kind of just there. But others really are lonely and semi-broken. It hits a little different with a female protagonist, obviously
Episode 5. It's amazing how much Guel Jeturk sounds like 'Duel Jerk', which he is. I find it kind of adorable that they get some girl talk scenes in the dorms, enticing more people in before reminding them this is, in fact, a Gundam show. Even if the girl talk fails the Bechdel test.
Are they dropping in the Newtypes expy now? Asking your date to bring her mobile suit on your first date is fucking hilarious, and Suletta is such a lovable ditz when she misinterprets stuff. But hey, at least she gets to cross out 'going on a date' on her school list! I'm expecting the school will of course be completely logically consistent and invalidate the result of that duel because Elan was using a Gundam.
Episode 6. I like how it feels like literally everybody is Suletta's handler, because she has nil experience interacting with kids her own age. Guel literally sleeping in a tent. That Happy Birthday singing is a really haunting echo of the prologue. But finally reminding us this is Gundam by killing off fake-Elan. Oh God, if somebody dies every time Suletta sings happy birthday, that's going to be so twisted XD.
Episode 7. I've been kind of wanting to see Suletta blush hard since the first episode, to match her red hair...now that she was in a red dress in this episode, I wanted it even more to match both her hair
and her dress
and Miorine's tomatos. A shame she didn't. I notice mommy Mercury talks about her 'daughters' to Miorine, so guess she thinks of Aerial as a family member too. I have the feeling that Prospera is being set up as the endgame big bad
Episode 8: "We now interrupt your weekly space lesbians mecha school anime to give you an episode explaining a capitalist system regulatory framework"
Episode 9
Miorine: I'm going to prune this green tomato as a visual metaphor
green tomato ripens and turns red a few days later
Miorine: 何?!
Episode 10
Suletta: Suletta forgetta. Best line.
Miorine: Wait a minute, did I just have a relatively pleasant conversation with my father where I wasn't at his throat for once, because he was acting in good faith as my business mentor instead of as my dad who doesn't tell me any important information?
Shaddiq: You thought Prospera was the villainous Char analogue, but it was really I, Shaddiq!
Elan: Hi there, I'm Elan V1.2. I'm now a creepy overbearing womanizer.
Suletta: Huminahuminahuminahumina—ohwait, must stay chaste for waifu. Nika being a mole isn't surprising, considering they've had at least one blatant shot of her with Shaddiq previously.
Somehow, I expect Bob from Maintenance and Suletta are going to be teaming up together in the near future.
Suletta's character arc...it occurs to me that so far, her development hasn't been precisely on her own initiative. She's been getting pushed and pulled around in all directions by multiple different factions, including her own mother. She trusts way too easy and doesn't have a mean bone in her body. Suletta's social skills have significantly progressed in the 10 episodes so far (she still stutters and gets flustered and runs off awkwardly, but it takes a
lot more to set her off), but there's still a basic inability to really communicate her deeper feelings and troubles. For once, it looks like she's ready to start making her own decisions, but guaranteed at least one of them will be a poor decision because of above flaw.
Episode 11
Suletta: I'm going to try and speedrun my breakdown in one episode, OK?
Miorine: Baka, baka, baka, baka! Everyone's gambits are finally slamming into each other.
Finally getting some straight-up free-style everything vs everything else space dogfights
Episode 12
Finally, a real Gundam.
People who were lured in by the happy-go-lucky lesbians in space boarding school premise: AAAAAAAAAAA—
Gundam fans: First time?
As soon as Guel got into the mobile suit while his father was shown earlier also hopping in a suit, I knew what was going to happen They really did a good job of animating Suletta's nervous breakdown when she's almost killed. The way her eyes dart back and forth is crazy haunting. Things are circling back to Prospera at least being an end-game villain, given how she manipulates Suletta during this whole conversation.
For how it's stated higher Permet scores will fuck up pilots (outside of Suletta), and they even show it having adverse effects, I kind of wish at least one Gundam pilot had lost a fight because his or her body couldn't keep up, and s/he broke down first. Instead, it's always the suit getting damaged or timing out on the operation, unless I forgot a battle.
Crazy just how many things come back full-circle to the prologue in similar actions with a crack operation storming a base to try and assassinate someone.
I was waiting to see whatever the tomato meme was about, and my sense of humour is twisted enough I laughed at it when it finally occurred.
It also seems surprisingly...anti-climactic, in a sense? For the presumed midpoint of the series. There will obviously be changes to the paradigm, but it doesn't seem anywhere near as disruptive and chaotic as previous Gundam midpoints have been, with entire factions being wiped out, other factions changing alliances, and occasionally even a main Gundam pilot dying