Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury

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Fandom
Name: Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury
Abbreviation(s): G_Witch, G Witch
Creator: Sunrise Inc.
Date(s): July 14, 2022 – July 2, 2023
Medium: Anime
Country of Origin: Japan
External Links: Official Website
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Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury is a mecha anime series, the fifteenth in the Gundam franchise.

Canon

A.S. (Ad Stella) 122. An era when a multitude of corporations have entered space and built a huge economic system. A lone girl from the remote planet Mercury transfers to the Asticassia School of Technology, run by the Benerit Group which dominates the mobile suit industry. Her name is Suletta Mercury. With a scarlet light burning in her pure heart, this girl walks step by step through a new world.[1]

Characters

Fandom

The Witch from Mercury is widely celebrated by its devoted fanbase for not only having a canon queer couple, but for featuring a diversity in body types and not resorting to stereotyping when it comes to the plus-sized characters.[2][3]

While airing, theorizing on character's background and possible upcoming plot points was quite popular, with much of the theory crafting being based around G Witches own influences, such as The Tempest and Revolutionary Girl Utena.

A parody of the stonks meme featuring Miorine. Widely used in reaction to news of G Witch's record breaking gunpla sales.

The series also had many new fans buying and building gunpla model kits for the first time and sharing their progress online. Existing gunpla builders would often answer questions about tools needed and the kits suited for beginners, as well sharing their own builds. More experienced builders sometimes showcased custom painted color schemes, LED lighting and/or kitbashed parts within their builds.

Suletta Sunday

Since The Witch from Mercury aired on a Sunday fans quickly took to calling it Suletta Sunday, continuing to do so during the hiatus between seasons 1 and 2, and even after the series ended fans still post fanworks on Suletta Sunday. While airing it was typical for fans to post various gifs, edits and videos of Suletta in anticipation of the new episode[4][5] as well as sharing fanart and fanfic. Miorine Monday was coined and used the following day, though less frequently, for works about Miorine or when artists might not have had to time to post on Sunday, as well as simply because fans find alliteration fun.

Old Guard vs New Blood

Despite The Witch from Mercury being designed as an entry point for new fans by having school setting and a self-contained universe that did require any previous knowledge about Gundam, there was still some friction between between older Gundam fans and those new to the franchise. This was sometimes aimed at what some old guard believed to be an influx of yuri fans who were only watching for Suletta and Miorine's relationship and would not be prepared for the dark themes typical of a Gundam series, much the frustration of Sulemio fans who were enjoying both. These kind of comments and arguments lead to an auto-translated quote tweet by bedabogdana making fun of these remarks being screenshotted and passed around the fandom.[6][7]

average yuri fan vs average Gundam fan tweet
the average yuri soldier is a ronin who wanders the world in search of the most traumatized and fucked up woman, to proclaim her a lesbian and fight in her name until the end of his days

the average fan of Gundam at the sight of a woman whines like a bitch on Fourchan

auto-translated tweet by @bedabogdana, (April 25, 2023)

There was also push back from long-term Gundam fans around the narrative that they didn't like The Witch from Mercury, with some fans noting that it felt like some of this was actually coming subgroups in general animanga fandom who were not invested in the Gundam franchise to begin with.

It's really weird seeing a bunch of randos come out of nowhere and start trying to gate keep long standing Gundam fans, including podcasters and gunpla builders. Like, do they really have nothing to do but pretend to be upset about something they don't care about?

The og creator of the series is making this series. He specifically said that every Gundam is someone's first. And he wanted Witch to be a good entry point for new fans. And like, guess what? He succeeded.

The gunpla enthusiasts love the new kits coming out. The old fans like the new series. And a bunch of new blood is being brought over to the fandom which is what the OG creator of the series wanted.

Like, it feels like I woke up in a bizzaro world were a bunch of idiots are trying to gatekeep actual fans to keep the purity of a thing they didn't care about until earlier last week.

romicat on Tumblr, (October 6, 2022)

Shipping

The fandom is largely femslash focused, thanks to the show centering around Suletta and Miorine's sudden engagement to each other. Alongside Suletta/Miorine there was also a small but dedicated following for Nika/Sabina based on a scene they shared together. There is tension between Suletta/Miorine and Suletta/Guel shippers, though Suletta/Guel has far less presence in fanwork creation within the English-speaking side of the fandom compared to the Japanese fandom.[8]

Connections with other Fandoms

The Witch from Mercury has several connections to Revolutionary Girl Utena, with its first episode being a clear homage to the series (both feature a dueling system in which the winner is engaged to a bride who has no say in the matter, a new female student who is unfamiliar with the system that wins her first duel and becomes engaged to the bride, and a character called Chuchu.) The Witch from Mercury's writer, Ichiro Okouchi, also wrote two official tie-in novels for Revolutionary Girl Utena in the 90s. This made crossover fanart and analysis of G Witch through the lens of Utena pretty popular.

There was also some overlap with The Owl House thanks to Femslash Migration as The Owl house ended on April 8th, 2023 and The Witch from Mercury's second season began the next day on the 9th.[9]

Fanworks

Fanart

Doujin

  • All About Mercury - An unofficial artbook released by the animation staff after the series ended.

Meta

Resources & External Links

General fanworks and discussion

Fanart and Doujin

Fanfiction

References

  1. ^ official story summary
  2. ^ THANK YOU gundam witch from mercury, for NOT making fat character who only knows how to talk about food.. reddit.
  3. ^ Something I REALLY appreciate about Gundam: Witch From Mercury is the variation on character's body types. Twitter.
  4. ^ ITS SULETTA SUNDAY! (Gundam Witch From Mercury Meme)(スレッタサンデー ドンタク 機動戦士ガンダム 水星の魔女 Tanuki Girl Eri) by D180223. Youtube. Oct 23, 2022.
  5. ^ ITS SULETTA SUNDAY! v2.0 (Gundam Witch From Mercury Meme)(スレッタサンデー ドンタク 機動戦士ガンダム 水星の魔女 Tanuki Girl) by D180223. Youtube. Nov 27, 2022
  6. ^ bedabogdana tweet on tumblr
  7. ^ another post of bedabogdana tweet on tumblr
  8. ^ Suletta/Guel has 47 tagged works on AO3 compared to Suletta/Miorine's 1,216 as of September 10, 2024, while having 1,273 tagged works on Pixiv compared to Suletta/Miorine's 8,181 tagged works.
  9. ^ April 8th – 9th, Passing the Baton. Goodbye, The Owl House. Welcome back, Gundam! fanart by bixels. 8 April 2023.
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