Thoughts and impressions on G-Witch, Episode 4.
This more low-key episode gave us a look more at ordinary
school life and some worldbuilding, as well as introducing a new group of friends
to Suletta as we learn more about the cast. There’s a lot of different strands
to talk about, so each topic will be a bit shorter.
Suletta’s School Days Continue
Suletta was again the central focus of the episode, and we
got to see even more aspects of her personality and aspirations. Though she
still cowered behind people this episode (i.e., mostly Miorine), it was all
still understandable given that it was Guel and Chu Chu. Her stepping in to
stop the fight at the end despite just having bawled in the suit was a good
moment of strength, even if she ended up getting pummeled. The more subtle
detail was that, when she was finally alone in Miorine’s room, she didn’t stutter
as much and spoke with the most ease she’s shown so far. Even if she still has
a way to go in terms of fully adjusting, seeing her progress through these
episodes has been great to watch.
Speaking of the night scene, we also learned that what keeps
her attached to the school is not only her desire to live a normal life, but
also to establish a school on Mercury and make people want to come back again.
While we still haven’t seen Mercury’s community directly, her descriptions of
it as a declining mining community still give enough sense of what life is like
for the people there. Her wish is selfless compared to the likely goals of most
everyone else at the school, although Miorine isn’t wrong that it’s quite a
large burden for her to carry. It’s odd that this didn’t come up at all in
Episode 3 when she was talking about the things she wanted to do at the school,
but that’s more of a nitpick.
The biggest moment was her breaking down at the end from all the stress, expectations, and repeated failures cascading all at once. While this mostly gets set aside after Miorine cajoles her and Suletta later tries to stop the fight, it’s notable that she says really didn’t want to stand out and draw so much this attention to herself as she adjusted to this huge change in her life. Even as she’s strived to move forward, she finally took on too much for her to handle. It’s the most vulnerable we’ve seen her so far, but it also felt very natural that she’d eventually buckle from all these expectations and pressures. If the series shifts to a more standard Gundam war template later, I hope this tension sticks around for her.
Miorine Overmanaging
Miorine also got a few moments in this episode that expanded
on a few of her ongoing issues. A recurring pattern through the last few
episodes has been Miorine both overmanaging the situations she’s been in and overestimating
her abilities in areas outside her expertise. While this mostly got her and
Suletta by for the first three, here it all came apart in the end when she
tried to handle all of the technical abilities of the spotting exercise on her
own just through cramming and memorization, which failed in a big way when
Suletta kept flunking the tests and humiliating herself to the point of breaking
down.
While she didn’t face a direct rebuttal for it, her
implicitly okaying Suletta’s acceptance into the Earth House seemed to me like
she realized that she can’t manage everything herself. I think it’s fair to say
that Miorine has a bit of an ego, even if it doesn’t manifest in the standard
arrogant way. Her also taking legitimate offense at Elan saying he wasn’t
interested in her at all highlighted that in a funnier way, but I think it works
as continuing to contrast herself with Suletta’s meekness, especially since it
gave her the courage to call out Chu Chu’s behavior from earlier.
Also, the bedtime scene did a good job at further contrasting
her worldview with Suletta’s. Despite wanting to escape to Earth, Miorine
mostly seems to have given up having any real guiding direction in life or
guidance from others compared to Suletta’s optimism, though she has a point
with saying Suletta should try living for herself more. Even the touch of her
leaving the garbage bags across her room helped paint her as someone just
trying to coast through school so she can live without any other duties or
responsibilities, but Suletta seems to be rubbing off on her a bit. Even though
she still hasn’t been challenged by others about this behavior, I like that it
continues to shape how she’s acted through the episodes so far.
Chu Chu PUANCH
Chu Chu received the next most focus this episode after
mostly being in the background for the last few. It was a surprise to make the
big poofy pink-haired both prejudiced and scrappy brawler, but it serves as a
contrast compared to the other people in the Earth House and even to Suletta. Despite
how nasty she got at points, I was surprised she still managed to come across as
likeable enough, most so when she slowly realized how crushed Suletta was about
all of her hopes and dreams seeming crushed. Having an aggressive muscle with mostly
good intentions will probably present some issues for their friend group, but
they resolved a decent amount here.
Additionally, Chu-Chu seems to come from a more working-class
family back on Earth, or is at least connected to those kinds of groups, which
makes her so far the first we’ve seen without some kind of corporate
connection. Despite her rough exterior, she wants to do the best for the people
she knows back on Earth and do well at school on their behalf. She may have
fought partially for her own grudges, but she almost seemed to recognize a
parallel with Suletta in that regard. Suletta’s friendship powers were working
their magic again when they got closer to making up even as Chu Chu wanted
Suletta to treat her as a superior.
The Earth House
The major development of this episode was Suletta getting introduced
to the other people of the Earth House by Nika and eventually a full acceptance.
With the scope of the tasks she has to do at the school that she and Miorine
can’t get through on their own, having a full team of people was a natural fit
for both of them with how their development has gone so far. Plus, this finally
unites them with Nika and Chu Chu so they can all receive more focus together
as a group and not have the narrative split apart quite as much, even though
that wasn’t a huge issue in the prior episodes.
While this did introduce a lot of characters at once that I
know I’ll struggle with remembering the names of, they each got at least one
small moment that established a bit about each of them, and their designs are
all very distinct. I feel like the quiet not-Gato guy will emerge as my
favorite. Them being situated in a farm is a nice change of pace compared to
the very high-tech designs of the rest of the school, so I’m hoping it can
serve as a good hub for everyone to relax and talk together through even the
more intense episodes. At least this also explains some of the visuals in the opening.
Spacian Industry vs Earthian Solidarity
Though this episode mostly focused on smaller scale events
between the characters at the school, we also got a substantial bit of
worldbuilding regarding the Spacian/Earthian divide in the show. Without going
into Political Stuff too much, the Earthians seem to function as a mixed sort
of class/race group, with the industrialist Spacians exploiting the poorer and
working-class Earthains who work in factories that won’t even benefit their own
planet. A notable detail is that, despite all the intense competition we’ve
seen from the companies so far in the show, they all united their mobile suits
on Earth together to suppress the demonstration.
It’s not all that subtle, especially some of the signs that
the protestors were holding up, but that starkness served as a good grounding element
for the larger context around the school from what we’ve seen so far. How the corporate
politics of the Cathedra companies will intersect with the Earth-based protest
groups, especially if Vim Jeturk and Lady Prospera keep working on usurping
Delling, could make for some interesting alliances and tradeoffs later. Having
the Earth House students now a core part of Suletta’s friend group also ties
her more directly to the ongoing struggle aside from her existing affiliation
with Mercury, whose status as a working-class backwater ties in with the
situations of the House students.
While not the instant turnaround I had suspecting, Guel immediately
becoming the laughingstock of the school after Suletta hard ditches him at the
start was much appreciated. Even his own brother was bewildered at what he was doing, and seeing his father frustrated that Suletta caused all of this will probably create more problems in the future. He tries to backpedal and maintain what little
dignity he has left by dismissing Suletta to her face the next day, but it’s
clear that he still has the same lingering resentment for his father after his conversation
with her. His antagonistic streak is not over yet, and Jeturk House still has
enough sway at the school to intimidate people from helping Suletta even with
the holder status. Still, he seemed genuine enough with his proposal, which
makes me hope there’s still room for him to change later on.
Nika is Awesome
This was easily Nika’s best episode so far. She really is
the team mom of the Earth house, and she got to both introduce Suletta to
everyone else and calm Chu Chu down at the end with a nice smile. Despite how
she’s tried to maintain her composure through a lot of insults in the other episodes,
her slipping her slight enjoyment of Chu Chu’s fight was funny and very much
earned. I almost hope she doesn’t have a moment where she outright loses her
cool, since having her as an optimistic, calming force amidst everyone else has
worked well.
Some Art Woes
I don’t want to harp on the art too much, but there were a
fair number of cuts that looked rough this week, mostly on the character side
towards the end. Suletta running towards the fight looked weirdly shoddy, and a
few of the midrange convos looked a bit off. When watching a typical episode of
something, my usual bar is “Macross or Dancouga’s middle stretch vs. everything
else,” so I didn’t notice as much on my initial viewing. Perhaps my standards
are too low, but I won’t deny this looked a bit rough around the edges at
points. The staff list was also smaller compared to the last few episodes even if there were a lot of character assistants listed. Still, I admire the continued commitment to 2D mecha for all of the major events. I suppose it's better this happens on smaller scale episodes than with a
major Gundam fight?
Miscellany
- For some of the rougher art moments, I was surprised at how brutal Chu Chu’s punch of that bully girl was. The way she wobbled back and remained slumped over the rest of the episode was shocking. Even if it was mostly deserved, I still almost felt bad for her.
- One of my few overarching complaints so far is that, even for an anime prep school, the school administrators are not only weirdly lax about bullying, but they’re also weirdly indifferent to outright sabotage for others’ assignments in an academic setting. Then again, given that everyone in the school has loaded parents, they may have just given up at any kind of discipline.
- Similarly, while there is still the looming corporate politicking in the background, most of the antagonists at the school so far have been pretty one note except for Guel, and having this week’s conflict being instigated by two randos was a bit disappointing even if it worked fine enough.
- I still can’t get a read on Elan at all, but he at least comes across less creepy than before when trying to offer Suletta help, even if it still seems rather manipulative.
- The Haro-drone that’s recording Guel after the Aerial flies away detected “heat and substances hazardous to humans.” Was that supposed to imply he pissed or crapped himself?
- There’s a surprising amount of English details in the show so far that are remarkably coherent and interesting, like the full captions on the news report and the questions and answers on Suletta’s test. It almost seems like watching this knowing English is a slight advantage for some nice lore tidbits.
- Shaddiq was mostly absent this episode, but I think the current approach of rotating focus through units of the cast while the others still pop in has worked so far, though it may be harder to balance for future episodes.
- We finally see some actual classes at this school, and it’s mostly in line with what you’d expect from a Gundam Harvard/MIT, though I’m curious to see how the different disciplines differ from each other subject wise.
- I really want the soundtrack to come out soon. Even though it was more in the background this time, the synthy tracks continue to shine the most, especially the one during the protest scene.
- Suletta seeing a real goat for the first time was adorable.
- While I like a lot of the older Gundam sfx, the punches in this felt especially crunchy and brutal compared to ones in the past.
- Confused Suletta Ending Count: 3.5. This one didn’t end with a bewildered shock from her, but she was slightly confused by Chu Chu at the end, so I’m giving this a ½ point.
Final Thoughts
A solid, more low-key episode that had a good balance of
character development and world-building. Despite some production issues, the
episode managed to balance a lot of characters and ideas while taking a minor
break from the ongoing narrative and managing a lot of moving parts propelling
the series forward. Having a few less battle-heavy episodes for a bit longer
would be appreciated given how this turned out.
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