Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury – 03 – I’ll Stop the Rain for You

In the third episode, Suletta finally manages to verbalize what she wants, and how marrying Miorine might jeopardize that. It’s nothing so much as a list of normal things one does in high school: making friends, giving them nicknames, lunch on the roof … going on dates. Miorine doesn’t get why marriage would preclude that last part. Miorine also tells Suletta not to worry; the legal age for marriage is 17, and so they won’t get hitched until her birthday at the earliest.

All she needs to focus on is winning the duel, or they’re both finished. On a call with her confirmed mom, Lady Prospera tells her daughter that she didn’t raise no witch. The next day at school, Suletta gets all the attention for the wrong reasons from most of her peers, while Nika proves to be true blue, albeit one a little too into Aerial’s technical specs.

Guel, having test piloted his dad’s company’s new Darilbarde, hides his frustration with it being piloted by AI, with his usual arrogant front and paeans in two. We also learn Prospera blackmailed Guel dad at the inquiry with he knowledge of his assassination plot. Don’t mess with Suletta’s mom.

Suletta is overjoyed to be invited back into Miorine’s garden, but Miorine makes sure she understands that doesn’t make them best friends. Their garden time is interrupted again, but this time by the true-neutral Elan Ceres. He be devoid of outward emotion, but he gives Suletta her first contact from a boy and hopes she’ll fulfill the wishes on her list.

Elan, along with Shaddiq Zenelli, are members of the deulling committee, and bring Suletta and Guel together to go over the terms and stakes and officially approve the duel. There’s another haughty rich girl in the committee, Secelia, who mocks Guel following daddy’s orders. But Suletta scolds Secelia and defends Guel.

Suletta may be pushy with her aw-shucks old-fashioned ideals due to the longtime isolation that galvanized them. But at least in this case (and most cases) she is correct, and Guel acknowledges and appreciates her gesture, all but thanking her when the two are alone in the life after the meeting. He also all but admits to liking her “gaining two” philosophy.

I’m glad these two had this moment together prior to the duel, as Guel has been given a lot more dimension in these last couple episodes. Unlike his father and bootlicking brother, personal honor is important. So he is not coming into this duel in a good place, considering he’s mostly just along for the ride in his new suit.

After a video call from Miorine basically wishing Suletta luck we see that Guel’s dad has made another “arrangement” to assure his son’s victory. His brother tells his dad such “tricks” aren’t needed for his Guel to win.

After Suletta half-heartedly states the dueler’s creed (helped along by Guel), the duel commences. The two mostly just feel each other out, but little does Suletta know that Guel isn’t even at the controls: the joysticks are moving on their own. Such is his dad’s desire to win, his son is merely ballast.

Then the “arrangement” occurs when a false heat error activates the dueling ground’s sprinkler system. The resulting “rain” dissipates Aerial’s ranged beam weapons, making it a close-quarters swordfight. Miorine protests, but Elan says such tricks don’t invalidate the duel, but are a part of it; a part of the duelers’ strength. He believes if Suletta is truly a “witch”, she’ll survive this duel even with the opponent cheating.

With that in mind, Elan also doesn’t stop Miorine from heading out into the dueling ground to correct the error causing the rain, which she learns was caused by Guel’s groupies, as she suspected. With the rain subsided by Miorine, her fiancé shifts into high gear, putting her swarm in play.

Guel protests the actions being taken by his suit’s EV, but his dad warns him to just sit there and let it win the duel for him. But Guel can’t do it; not after he was caught off guard in his first duel, or after hearing Suletta’s credo. Letting his dad decide everything is simply running, which will only gain him one. He wants this win to be his win, so he smashes the autopilot and takes the reins.

Suletta can tell that something has changed, and can also tell that Guel is good as hell at piloting a mobile suit. But she also knows she can’t lose; not with so much left on her school wish list. She takes Guel’s antenna, gains her second win in as many duels, and tightens her grip on both the holder title Miorine’s hand in marriage.

Miorine, or “Mio-Mio” as Suletta attempts to nickname her, releases all her built-up tension by smiling and laughing over Suletta’s victory. Suletta also gets a congratulatory text from Elan (which includes an exclamation point that just seems wrong coming from Elan). She then sees Guel standing outside his defeated suit, and exits her cockpit to meet him.

She first apologizes for underestimating him, saying he really was strong in their duel (Suletta wisely doesn’t say that she’s simply stronger than him, even if it’s true). Hearing those words from Suletta, as well as knowing that even though he lost, he lost with his own will and hands to a superior opponent, stirs something in Guel.

Maybe it’s also the way the dramatic light hits Suletta too, but he takes her outstretched hand with both of his, gets down on one knee, and exercises his will once more, in keeping with the ideals she taught him before the duel. That said, she most definitely did not expect that to result in him asking her to marry him.

Just as rejecting Guel and accepting Suletta as her groom was an act of Miorine’s own will and rejection of her father’s dominance over her life, Guel is also deciding he’ll fight how he wants and love who he wants. I’m glad Guel isn’t just a one-dimensional spoiled rich kid, and thrilled to see how his sudden proposal will make things messier for Suletta and Mio-Mio going forward.

But hey, going forward gains you two, or more!

Higehiro – 13 (Fin) – Not the Last Time

With Yoshida having said his piece and even kinda-sorta getting through to Sayu’s awful mom, it’s Sayu’s turn to talk to her. She takes a page out of Yoshida’s playbook by prostrating herself, and once again, her mom almost loses it over not wanting to apologize for anything. But she does at least finally understand that he’s the only parent Sayu has, and it really helps Sayu to hear that from her.

Having taken the first step towards détente with her mom, Sayu slips into Yoshida’s bed one more time in the night, asking if he wants to do it just once so they won’t forget each other. As always, Yoshida’s answer is the same; “no”, and “knock it off!” At the airport, after receiving thanks and refusing cash from her brother, Sayu confesses her love to him, and vows to visit him again when she’s an adult. This isn’t goodbye.

That said, when it finally hits Yoshida that Sayu is gone and with her the entirety of the cozy found family they built together, he can’t help but tear up. Even if he followed her easy recipe, his miso soup just can’t measure up to her’s. That said, as time passes, Yoshida settles back into a life without Sayu, which still contains Mishima and Gotou, who continue to battle for his heart at work.

It seems neither has a shot, as Yoshida has become close to Asami, who is apparently now an adult and no longer has a tan or bleached hair. He’s ready to meet her at the stargazing spot when he arrives home to behold a familiar sight: a young woman sitting by his entrance. It’s Sayu, now a high school graduate and evidently an adult.

The two go through the same exchange as when they first met. It looks like whatever Yoshida’s got going on with Asami (if anything), Sayu didn’t waste any time getting back to the guy she fell for—the man she’s glad she ran away and met.

This is all fine—really, it’s fine—but I’ll admit to suffering a bit of Higehiro fatigue. Considering how these last three episodes languished, a thirteenth episode felt like one too many.

Ai Tenchi Muyo! – 29

So now we know the school administrators (if there even are any) are so cheap, the leave the roof repairs to Tenchi. Tenchi does his best, but he’s no roofer. Meanwhile, down below his home harem prepares a barbecue to cheer him up.

Normally no non-students are allowed on dorm grounds under any circumstances, but Sasami’s over-the-shoulder smile is enough to melt Touri’s heart, and allows the incursion.

It’s not just a barbecue for Tenchi, but for everyone (presumably there are no vegetarians among the main cast), even the science club, who happens upon the party. Yuki tries to graciously retreat, not wanting to start another fight but Momo invites them to join them; the more the merrier. Not to mention Aoi can’t resist the smell of the meat, nor can Beni pass up the opportunity to duel with Ryouko — with meat (and without collateral damage) this time.

It’s another gesture that speaks to Momo’s inherent decency, diplomatic skills, and desire not to be alone like she once was in the past. She never wanted war with the science club. It’s a lightweight but feel-good episode, and as is usually the case, the grilling meat made my mouth water.

Ai Tenchi Muyo! – 23

The Sports Festival “Super Playoff” becomes an interminable, all-night marathon of totally non-sporting events such as trivia, whack-a-mole, eating, and chess. But what matters is that both the Red and White Teams agreed on something: that they should keep fighting for victory.

In the process, neither side really achieves victory, but they do achieve a kind of détente, which is what Momo wanted all along. The festival thus a success, the President nods off on Tenchi’s shoulder and her head gradually slips into his lap…drawing the ire of Ryouko, who retaliates…against Tenchi.

Some time in the wee hours of the morning, as Sasami patches him up she brings up how Tenchi will be overseeing the dorms soon, though she was told to relay the warning that any member of the opposite sex caught there will be beaten severely. It’s quite the Catch-22 for the already-bruised Tenchi…but it’s also par for the course.