Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury – 19 – Cleaning the Stables

Miorine and Guel are headed to earth, unaware of just how dangerous a scorpion they have as an escort in Prospera, piloting Aerial. Miorine may be planning to bolster her presidential bonafides through direct talks with Earth, but Prospera has entirely different and far more selfish motives.

In one of the surprises of the whole show, Secelia has Martin give her a pedicure to put him in his place, but also offers him the advice he needed to hear: if he believes he sold out Nina to save Earth House, he needs to come clean to his house and seek forgiveness there.

Piel’s newest Elan is now with Shaddiq, telling him more people might support Miorine in the election if the Gundam they brought crushes the Earthians, but Shaddiq knows Miorine will do everything in her power to prevent that. Miorine isn’t fazed by the unarmed protestors, and alights from her limo to meet with Earth’s leaders face to face.

As Norea finally fills her sketchbook and breaks down from the grief of losing her sister and best friend Sophie and admits she’s afraid to die, Miorine receives the Earthians’ list of very legitimate grievances, including the Benerit group’s use of extralegal detentions, torture, and murder in their search for the Plant Quetta terrorists.

That said, Miorine brings GUND-Arm medical tech to the talks, and this intrigues one of Earth’s representatives to the point he agrees to a 10-day ceasefire until the election is over. If Miorine wins, then the real talks can begin. Seeing them shake hands after her hand was previously ignored feels like a big win for Mio. Turns out it’s the only win she’ll get, and an all too brief one.

Suletta, having hit rock bottom last week, finally begins her slow ascent. Emerging from her bedroom to eat, ChuChu drags her out to be with the rest of Earth House, who have prepared a sumptuous breakfast. It’s here where Suletta realizes she still has a family that cares about her.

Martin then arrives and comes clean as Secelia advised, and receives the forgiveness he wanted but didn’t think he’d get. Suletta knows Nika wasn’t trying to cause any harm but only protect her own family. As Lilique puts it, even if it wasn’t the best way, it was all she could do. Suletta lingers on that.

While Mio handles the talks, Guel went with Kenanji to speak to Sedo, the Dawn of Fold-affiliated kid who he knew from when Guel was their captive. Sedo wants to join Grassley House’s academy for war orphans like the “Prince”. Kenanji gets angered by this, because “Prince” is the name of one of Grassley’s finest graduates: Shaddiq.

It doesn’t take much to put two and two together and realize that Shaddiq, in concert with Fold, organized both the Plant Quetta and Open Campus attacks. Guel informs Mio, who tells him to return to Space and try to find evidence. She imagines Shaddiq is keeping his adoptive father Sarius at Grassley house.

But even Shaddiq’s plans seem to be in peril due to the whims of one Prospera Mercury, who uses Aerial’s abilities to take control of a piece of Earth artillery and have it fire at her, giving her the justification to retreat. But instead she heads to a secret Space Assembly League facility—Ochs Earth—and lays waste to the Gundams stored there.

While fighting breaks out, it’s covered on the news waves. Feng and her companion, who pose as smugglers but are really Space Assembly League agents, secure Bel and even learn about Quiet Zero from her, but while trying to move her to a secure location Prospera’s aide kills Feng and Bel just narrowly manages to escape with Feng’s partner.

The end result of Prospera going her own way is that conflict between Earth and Space flares back up and escalates. Blood is spilled mere moments after Mio got her ceasefire, leaving her entire trip a failure and making her the face of the entire fiasco.

But when Suletta watches the newsfeed and sees Aerial among the burning rubble and crying children of Quinharbor, she finally understands why Eri pushed her away, and told her to stop clinging to her and their mother. Eri kept Suletta out of this mess so she could rise to fight another day. There’s even another Gundam looking for a pilot that I’d say has Suletta’s name on it.

If last week Suletta hit rock bottom, this week Mio-Mio seems to be in the same spot. Both her designs on forging a peace with Earth and her presidential prospects are in tatters. She, like Eri, was right to try keep Suletta out of this, even if her methods were extreme. But now that just means that Suletta has the freedom to choose what to do with herself. I imagine she’ll forgive Mio and try to save her. Suletta’s rise towards agency and selfhood begins now.

Loving Yamada at Lv999 – 09 – Self-Serving Dream

When Akane vociferously urges Yamada to go to the local konbini while they’re playing FOS, he finds that she’s the clerk at said konbini. When she asks him to wait for her shift to end so they can go home together, he does. She made another meal for him as thanks for his help with her laptop.

While she’s glad he’s opened up a little more and they’ve gotten a little closer, she’s wary of seeing him in a romantic light, considering his troubles in that arena. That said, in practice he is quite sweet and kind, both in waiting for her shift to end, protecting her from a bicyclist, and expressing his hope she doesn’t get too bad a cold.

While Momo is giving her a manicure, Akane calls Yamada’s kindness a “terrifying trap”, but while Momo has heard a lot about Yamada from Akane, she hasn’t heard Akane say what she wants to do. Runa interrupts by announcing a “crisis in the guild”, which is really just Yamada inviting a new member—a girl! Even though she became friends with Akane, Runa is scared of a new member, but Akane calms her down with cocoa.

As for that new girl member, it’s Tsubaki, who seems to be harboring some lingering feelings for Yamada, or is at least curious about the older woman who came to the cultural festival. Could that be the only reason she’s joining the guild? We’ll have to see, but one thing’s for certain: Akane will welcome Tsubaki to the guild with open arms, not as the romantic rival Tsubaki believes herself to be.

It’s almost as if Tsubaki has taken comfort in the fact Yamada is terrible with girls, but Akane is quickly changing that, becoming someone he cares about and wants to protect. Akane is back in full-on disaster mode as she catches the mother of all colds after having to pull a night shift.

She can’t drink water, and hasn’t eaten in a day, but has nothing for rice porridge. She tries to take her bike as she’s worried about infecting other riders on the bus, but she’s too feverish and weak to get on the bike, or even get back to her apartment.

Fortunately for her, Yamada is close by. He stops a bike from falling on her, then picks her up from the ground and carries her to safety. This whole time, Akane is so feverish she believes this is all a dream—a selfish dream. But there’s nothing selfish about it. Yamada is doing what he wants to do. Helping her isn’t a burden—it’s a comfort.