Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury – 23 – Sisters and Brothers

A number of plotlines come to a head this week: Suletta begs Eri and their mom to stand down. Eri doesn’t want to hurt Suletta, but she will if she doesn’t stand down. Suletta won’t. Lauda is convinced Guel is in the “thrall” of Miorine, whom he blames for bringing Gundams back into the world, resulting in the death of their dad and the wounding of his beloved Petra.

Chuchu pilots Demi Barding without Permet (which she learns is a tall order) into the data storm, carrying a module containing an infiltration team including MioMio, Elan, and Belmeria. You know: the type of defenseless module famed throughout the Gundam universe for not being blown up and everyone inside them killed…right?

Delling manages to get out of bed and gather enough strnegth to call for an emergency session of the Assembly League to reconsider intervening in Benerit’s affairs. One of Eri’s avatars finally insists that Suletta stop interfering. To show she means business she prepares to blow up the module containing MioMio and the others.

She’s stopped, presumably by the real Eri, and the info density of data storm around Quiet Zero begins to degrade. The infiltration team uses this hiccup in the storm to continue on and board Quiet Zero.

But while the defenseless module is safe, no one anywhere near Benerit or Quiet Zero will be for long. The Assembly League president, now fully in the pockets of the Peil Group sisters, are preparing to use a megaweapon located in Lagrange 1 called the Interplanetary Laser Transmission System.

Unbeknownst to that threat, the infiltration heads to the necessary control panel to initiate the shutdown sequence, but they’re pinned down by Haro-piloted security drones, and Prospera herself heads down there with a pistol in hand. All the while, the Jeturk brothers continue to duel.

Lauda resents that Guel kept his role in their dad’s death secret, believing Guel’s need to bear the burden of everything to be a sign he doesn’t have confidence in him. Lauda manages to chop Guel’s suit into pieces, but the Gundam seems to be taking its toll on him.

They draw their energy swords for one final joust, but at the last moment Guel retracts his blade and lets Lauda impale his suit. Lauda flashes back to the first time they met when he was adopted. Guel immediately embraced his new little brother and put him at ease.

Now Lauda wishes he hadn’t stabbed Guel’s suit, which is sparking and leaking oil and poised to explode at any moment. It doesn’t, thanks to Felsi sortieing, shooting Guel’s suit with firefighting foam pellets, and telling the brothers to end their stupid sibling spat at once. Thank you Felsi!

As Suletta continues to distract Aerial, Mio and Bel find the old shutdown code doesn’t work. Prospera arrives on the deck with security drones to tell them she changed it. Mio tries to get around the admin path, and remembering what Suletta said about words in the genetic code of the tomatoes, responds to her mother’s words by saying “I love you too” in DNA code.

The code works, but Prospera advances on Mio and Bel, who fires her gun until it’s out of bullets. It doesn’t stop Prospera, who is prepared to kill MioMio, but she’s stopped by Elan, who shoots her mask off.

With Quiet Zero and its data storm shutting down, and a dazed, maskless Prospera no longer a threat, the Assembly League fires the Interplanetary Laser at Quiet Zero to destroy it, Benerit Front, and everything in Lagrage 4. They’ll sort out the mess and Peil will rebuild as the leader of a new Benerit.

This too doesn’t come to pass. The laser blast is stopped before it can reach Quiet Zero by a shield…put up by Eri. She wasn’t ordered to do this by her mother, but she’s certainly doing it to protect her, if not Suletta and her friends.

The laser packs one hell of a wallop, however, and in the ensuing blast that dissipates the laser and saves everyone, Aerial is critically damaged. Did she decide, with her mother’s plan to build a world she could live ending in failure, that she would at least ensure Prospera would survive? Whatever her motives, will her apparent sacrifice be enough, or will the Laser just charge back up again? There’s just one episode left of this season to sort it all out.

Loving Yamada at Lv999 – 13 (Fin) – If the Shoe Fits

Tsubaki Yukari has been watching Yamada for years. She’s able to provide a detailed list of little reasons she likes him. But she’s also seen the change Akane made in him, well before spotting the little permanent marker doodle on his hand (Akane literally marking her man).

Because she knows Yamada so well, she knows two things out of the gate: he’s going to reject her, but he’s going to be as decent and kind and gentle as possible in doing so. When Tsubaki has said everything she wants to say and receives that gentle rejection, it’s like a lead weight off her shoulders.

It still hurts—her heart is broken now—but she’ll be okay, and she’s much better off than she was, pretending not to love someone she loved. She also has no hard feelings for Akane, whom she knows to be a person both worthy of and good for Yamada.

This entire scene is so packed with emotions and gorgeous visuals. Even in heartbreak, Tsubaki has never looked so beautiful, because she’s allowing her love to rise to the surface; her tears cathartically scattering into tiny droplets in the cool night air.

The next evening, Kamota treats his guildmates to a lavish dinner at a fancy-ass yakiniku restaurant. Everyone is in awe of just how many movers and shakers are deferent to Kamota, and how he treats them all no differently than his guildmates. Kamota is just a Good Guy, and we’d all be better off with people like him in our lives.

Whatever Kamota did for these folks in the past, they feel compelled to provide small tokens of their appreciation for it, as they have attendants bring sake, meat and melon to the table. I’m reminded of how Akane assigns a great deal of her value on what she can materially bring to a relationship.

But while transactions of this type are necessary, they are not what is essential. Why else would Kamota treat everyone the same no matter their age or status? He would most definitely had not minded if his acquaintances had not provided him with tributes for the table, either. Friendships can be their own reward. The only “give and take” is spending time together and having fun.

Yamada is late to the dinner, and by the time he arrives, Kamota made the mistake of leaving Akane alone with the fancy sake too long, and she’s full-on wobbly hiccup-y drunk. This is nothing new to Yamada; the first time they went out she got this way and he had to bring her home to sleep it off. He doesn’t mind it this time either, because we know he likes her.

There’s no standard she had to meet for that other than being who she is. And as drunk as she is, Akane is lucid enough to notice the way Yamada takes her hand throughout the night, gently guiding her home through all the other drunks of the night.

That aura of comfort and safety pervades their journey, even when Akane manages to get her heel really stuck in a crack in the sidewalk. It’s a callback to the first time they met, when her shoe just plain fell off.

It again places Yamada in a Prince Charming position with Akane as her Cinderella. They share a lovely little beat when he’s gazing up at her and she’s gazing down on him and they feel very close and right.

When they reach the door to her apartment and Yamada bids Akane good night, she grabs the corner of his coat. Perhaps in part due to the fact she’s drunk and thus less inhibited, but also because of the way he was holding her hand, but she comes right out and asks Yamada if he likes her.

Yamada cracks his biggest, most playful grin of the season, and says he’s “busted.” When Akane worries that this is just some kind of dream, or she’ll forget what he told her when she wakes up in the morning, he makes it clear: “I like you.” If she forgets, that’s okay; he’ll tell her again tomorrow.

In the end, it wasn’t solely a matter of when and how she’d make clear to Yamada that she liked him, but her realizing that for a while now he’s liked her, but just hasn’t been overt about it. Now that the air is cleared and they know where they stand, they can move forward, either hand-in-hand or, as they end the evening, in each others’ arms.

Back in class, Akane is understandably hung over, but lets her friends know she now has a boyfriend (again). The mood is celebratory, and for her part Momo is not surprised, as she could “smell” that they’d eventually end up a couple. When Akane asks if it looked like she was “throwing herself” at Yamada, Momo says it was the opposite.

While at a café together, perhaps for the first time as an “official” couple, Yamada seems distracted while Akane is talking. He admits he was distracted by Akane’s canines being sharper than usual and also cute. While walking her home, he notices there’s something she wants to say. She takes a breath and says she wants to hold hands when they’re walking.

The point is, Akane is gradually getting to the point where she feels it’s okay to ask for things, just for her, without it having to be transactional. Nor does she have to worry about what kind of girlfriend she should be, whether it’s mature and independent or needy and spoiled.

She can be all or none of those at different times. Because in Yamada she has a kind, understanding, and patient partner…even if he doesn’t get the point of heels. I have the feeling these two are going to be just fine!

Heavenly Delusion – 13 (Fin?) – The Final Outside

The four older former occupants of “Heaven” explore more of the woods outside the outside of the breached wall, but Mimihime heads back to check on Tokio, and Shiro follows, while Taka and Anzu continue on.

Sawatari mixed up Tokio’s child with its twin—or more likely clone, and basically guesses as to which is which, and which one is the one to whom  Tokio gave birth. Maru, likely one of those babies, is weary of how long Kiruko has been gone.

When he reaches the bridge to the Large Filtration Plant, two guards try to stop him, but when they mention Robin is “having fun” with an “old flame”, Maru tosses them into the drink. The two guards outside the plant are also no match for a Maru on a mission.

The Haruki within Kiruko sees a memory that couldn’t have been his, and he contemplates whether (and how far) he has merged with his sister, finally wishing that Maru would save them. Just then, the door to her room opens and there is Maru.

When Maru spots an open-shirted Robin carrying a tray of coffee to Kiruko’s room, he death-stares him into a dead end. Every time Robin tries to flee, Maru pushes him back into that dead end, then starts punching the shit out of him, something Robin most definitely deserves.

Sawatari and Aoshima present Tokio with her baby—it only eventually dawns on her that this is what was taken from her body—and the two seem to imprint immediatley. When the demented, bloodied, but still tickin’ Director tries to take the child from Tokio, the latter’s eye’s glow and the director is engulfed by a terrible light.

Mimihime and Shiro get lost in the woods, and when the ground beneath Mimihime gives way and she starts to fall off a cliff, Shiro dives after her, and cushions her fall. When he comes to she asks why he did something so reckless to save her, Shiro finally a admits he’s in love with her, a fact that seems to make Mimihime weep with joy.

Now reunited with Maru (and dressed), Kiruko laments over how weak they are, but Maru takes this opportunity to make clear that he’s sure he’d be friends with Haruki, and he’s into girls, it’s Kiruko—not Kiriko or Haruki—whom he loves.

Kiruko tears up their photo of Robin, as the ideal of who he was is gone and was never true to begin with, and scatters the torn bits into the wind. Now that they’ve completed what they wanted to do, they recommit themselves to searching for Heaven in the van with Maru.

Back in the past, Mimihime, Shiro, Anzu and Taka are on a boat bound for a big, brightly-lit city, which confirms they’re living in a time prior to the fall of civilizaiton. But if these children are doomed to become vicious monsters, that shining civilization isn’t long for this world.

So Heavenly Delusion rather abruptly ends without much fanfare. If I wasn’t sure this was the final episode of the season, I’d have expected another one to air next week. There’s been no official announcement of a second season, but I fully expect there to be one considering the popularity of the series.

Sharing a lot of parallels with The Last of Us, Heavenly Delusion was an immersive, often gripping, and occasionally funny journey through both an impossible utopia of cloistered kids and the journey of two kids who aren’t sure quiet who they are.

Even if Kiruko isn’t sure who they are, we end with Maru asserting that he’s quite sure, and that he’ll protect them when they need it and they’ll protect him when he needs it. If and when the second season airs, I’m sure both of their roles will be tested thoroughly.