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Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury — Fans Look Back on the Finale

機動戦士ガンダム 水星の魔女、日本のファンが振り返る

Gundam
Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury — Fans Look Back on the Finale
“Watching Guel's stock crash and then absolutely moon was the funniest part.”

グエルくんの株の下がり方と上がり方がおもろかった

— @oみょう01

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury — Sunrise's first TV Gundam led by a female pilot — is the entry English fans most often hear was "a phenomenon" in Japan, but rarely get to see why. On a Japanese fan-reaction thread built around its Episode 1 hook (Suletta's "I'm a girl, though…" / Miorine's "Nice to meet you, my groom"), the most-liked Japanese comments aren't relitigating the divisive ending — they're nostalgic. The recurring themes: how the cast's "stock" violently crashed and soared (poor, beloved Guel and his infamous tent-and-part-time-job arc spawning the "Guel Camping" meme; Suletta being nicknamed the "Mercury tanuki"); how the show's wholesome school-yuri surface kept getting yanked back into brutal Gundam reality ("Stop it!", the tomato, the gut-punch prologue); and a very Japanese piece of media history — the wave of "Lycoris Recoil refugees" who flooded in for the yuri right as it aired, then got hit with YOASOBI's "Shukufuku" going viral. It closes on the kind of one-line verdict only a longtime Gundam fan would land.

This titleJapanese reactions to GundamRead all 4 roundups on the title page
The Japanese fan reactions below are drawn from this Japanese Gundam reaction-compilation clip, built around the Episode 1 "I'm a girl, though…" / "Nice to meet you, my groom" hook. (The series' official trailers are region-locked to Japan on the official channel.) （YouTube · 見せてもらおうかガノタの反応とやらを【ガンダム反応集】）

Japanese fan reactions (excerpted from 85)

  • "Mercury tanuki," "Guel Camping"… man, these old fandom memes take me back lol

    ｢水星たぬき｣とか｢グエキャン△｣とかなつかしいなw

    — @ヤマ-y3z51 likes

  • Suletta, as thick-skinned and unbothered as an actual tanuki. And Guel suddenly starting to camp out — I was DYING lol

    狸のように図太いスレッタ 急にキャンプしだすグエルほんま草やったわ

    — @user-np9zj2ul16 likes

  • Gotta be Guel. The fact that he ends up living in a tent and working a part-time job genuinely blew my mind.

    『グエル』だな。グエルがテント生活して、バイト生活したのが凄くビックリした

    — @ガチタン雷電6 likes

  • The way Guel's popularity climbed up from rock bottom is just hilarious lol

    グエル人気が底から上がっていったのホント草

    — @JohnDoe-yl1ul2 likes

  • The cast's stock prices swung so violently… I never imagined Guel (a.k.a. "Bob") and Felsi would end up that beloved.

    登場人物の株の乱高下が激しかった…グエル(ボブ)やフェルシーがあんなに人気キャラになるとは思わなかったのだ

    — @KarasuTenngu-l5z2 likes

  • Partway through, the "Comet Tanuki" and "Guel Camping" bits kicked off and I literally stopped being able to follow the actual plot.

    途中から彗星のタヌキとグエキャンが始まったから本編が頭に入ってこなくなった。

    — @す翔翔1 likes

  • I've never once cared about a Gundam protagonist before, but I love Suletta.

    ガンダムで主人公好きになること全然無かったけどスレッタは好き

    — @八尾奈海12 likes

  • The protagonist had way more mental fortitude than I expected. I figured the masked mother was going to be a worse-than-Franklin garbage parent, but she actually had real love in there. I braced for a hopeless story, and instead everyone — side characters included — pulled their own minds back together and it landed on a reasonably happy ending. And Chuchu, despite how she looks, turned out to be a real stand-up gal.

    思ってたより主人公が強メンタルだった 母親がマスクとか、フランクリン超えのクソ親かと思いきや、割と愛情あった 救いのない話になるかと思いきや、脇役含めて皆自力でメンタル立て直してそれなりにハッピーエンドになった チュチュパイセンが見た目に反して割と男前だった

    — @gsavanna349434 likes

  • Suletta was so well-mannered, and her little-animal reactions were adorable 😄 And — let's not forget — our man Guel 👍

    スレッタは品行方正で小動物みたいなリアクションが可愛かった😄 あと、忘れちゃいけないグエルさん👍️

    — @必殺通行人2 likes

  • Going from that crushingly heavy prologue straight into a yuri romance in Episode 1 — I genuinely had no idea what was happening lol

    超重苦しいプロローグからの1話で百合物が始まって、何が起こったか分からんかったｗ

    — @yf93461 likes

  • The "Episode 0" prologue was so dead-serious that the tonal whiplash nearly gave me a cold.

    0話がガチすぎて温度差で風邪ひいてたわ

    — @イヌ犬-c7x1 likes

  • Early on I thought it was going to be school × Gundam × slice-of-life, and then the tomato suddenly arrived and I just sat there stunned. I'd started Gundam with Iron-Blooded Orphans, so I was watching like "oh, Gundam can be this cozy?"… and then it went, ah, no, THIS is what Gundam is. Good memories.

    最初の方は学園×ガンダム×日常系なのかと思ってたら 急にトマト来て唖然としたよね ガンダム見始めたの鉄血からだったから ガンダムってぼのぼの系もあるのか〜って見てたらあ、やっぱりガンダムってこうなんや…ってなった思い出

    — @ドルくえ-y5y2 likes

  • That "Stop… it!" ✋ moment is when it yanks you right back to reality — oh, right, this was a Gundam show after all.

    やめなっ……さい！✋で あぁ……これガンダム作品だったわって現実に引き戻されたよね

    — @DDtakaD8 likes

  • It's like Revolutionary Girl Utena simmered in a Gundam-flavored broth with a dash of Valvrave spice. And the awkward part is, the scenes doing their own original thing are more fun than the ones paying homage to the old Gundam shows.

    少女革命ウテナにガンダム味のスープ入れてヴァルブレイヴのスパイス入れて煮た様な作品。 困ったことにガンダムシリーズ旧作のオマージュ入れるより、独自路線のシーンの方が面白いのですよね。

    — @たってぃ01115 likes

  • At the time, the wave of "Lycoris Recoil refugees" crashing in and actually growing the new-viewer base was hilarious — and then YOASOBI's "Shukufuku" going stupidly viral and pulling in even MORE people was even funnier.

    当時リコリコ難民が押し寄せてきて結果的に新規層増えたの草だったしその後YOASOBIの祝福がクソバズって更に増えたのも更に草

    — @83_Z13 likes

  • L y c o r i s R e f u g e e S h e l t e r

    リ コ リ ス 難 民 避 難 所

    — @noname-qh6xu12 likes

  • It aired right after Lycoris Recoil ended, so the sudden hit of yuri made it pop off instantly. And then the people who came in for that got it hammered home — via that one "birthday song" scene — that, oh, this is a Gundam show.

    当時はリコリコの放送終了直後だったのもあって唐突な百合の供給で一気に跳ねた そうして入ってきた人達が例のバースデーソングでこの作品がガンダムであることを叩きつけられてた

    — @matsuken09271 likes

  • A huge number of Lycoris Recoil refugees who'd just watched one yuri through to the end were looking for the next — the timing was perfect. Also, that "So Mercury's pretty old-fashioned, huh" line really got me.

    百合を見届けたリコリコ難民が大量にいてタイミングが良かったってのもある あと、「水星ってお堅いのね」がグッときた

    — @showflatkk.32882 likes

  • "So Mercury's pretty old-fashioned." — "Over here, this is perfectly normal."

    水星ってお堅いのね。こっちじゃ当たり前よ。

    — @白鐘双樹1 likes

  • I went in thinking of it as the Suletta × Miorine yuri Gundam, but the official line was literally "this is not yuri" — and after a story like THAT, denying it is a bit of a stretch, c'mon.

    スレッタ×ミオリネの百合のガンダムと思ってたけど、公式は百合ではありませんて書いてあったけど あんなストーリーで百合を否定なんて無理があるぞー

    — @ひでき-c6g1 likes

  • It started as a political marriage, and somewhere along the way our tanuki girl had fallen for real — so cute.

    最初は政略結婚だったのにいつの間にか本気になっちゃってたタヌキちゃん可愛いね

    — @New-yukkuriIFch1 likes

  • The ending did feel like Miorine sort of forced it to wrap up. Even so — yuri label aside — I love Suletta and Miorine so much, just as two people who are partners, that I could watch them forever (*´ω｀*)

    最後はミオリネが無理矢理終わらせた感がある それでも、スレッタとミオリネの2人は百合だからとか関係無く人間のパートナーとして永遠に見ていられるくらい好き(*´ω｀*)

    — @笹見15 likes

  • "Suletta-mama." Honestly, seeing two women side-by-side in the ads, I figured: after the macho Iron-Blooded Orphans, now it's a "yuri academy" show, huh… but with the two leads' personalities and that murky, messy world — it turned out to be the most genuinely "human" Gundam in ages.

    スレッタママ。まぁ、広告で女性ツーショットを観て「漢臭い鉄血」の次は「百合学園」ものかぁ・・・だったんだけど、百合二輪の性格にドロドロ世界・・・久しぶりに「人間臭い」ガンダムだったなぁ。

    — @十六夜久遠-l5n1 likes

  • I'm not sure any other show has ever made me want a proper two-cour, two-season treatment THIS badly.

    こんなに2期構成でやってくれと思った作品も無いかも知れない

    — @sheephead54118 likes

  • It just didn't have enough episodes. The pacing in the back half was genuinely pushing it too hard.

    話数が足らんのだよ、話数が。 さすがに後半のストーリー展開のテンポは無理があり過ぎたと思う。

    — @ポイズンベリー-h2p1 likes

  • Witch from Mercury was great. I wish they'd given it four cours. Suletta's my favorite, I think.

    水星の魔女は面白かったよ。 4クールやって欲しかった。 スレッタが一番かな

    — @フクザク1 likes

  • On one of the overseas Gundam fan sites, just the fact that it was yuri had the furious crowds on both sides nearly throwing hands — it was an absolute mess lol. With all the LGBT discourse, there's a certain segment that reacts with a terrifying degree of allergy to anything in that lane. The moment you try to go "relax, it's just an anime, ahaha," you get pummeled by both sides at once.

    海外のガンダムファンサイトの1つで百合だってだけで両サイドのマジギレ勢がガチ喧嘩に近い状態でめちゃくちゃ荒れてたよ（笑）LGBT云々の流れで、そっち系の話に恐ろしいほどアレルギーを示す層が一定数いるからね。アニメのネタだよあはははなんてやった日には両サイドからボコボコにされる。

    — @denden-daiko1 likes

  • I loved Suletta so much I looked forward to it every single week. The mobile suit designs are my favorite of any recent show, too. It'd been ages since something made me excited enough to watch it live AND then listen to the official radio show after.

    スレッタが好きすぎて毎週楽しみだった MSのデザインもここ最近の作品の中で一番好き リアタイした後公式ラジオ聴くくらい楽しみだったのは久しぶりだった

    — @ねことこ1 likes

  • "A female lead is great, but I kinda want an old-school Gundam with a male lead" → Hathaway's Flash. Are we due for one more of those mood-swing waves cold enough to catch a cold from?

    女性主人公も良いけど、男性主人公の昔ながらのガンダムを見たいなー→閃光のハサウェイ というテンション寒暖差で風邪ひきそうな波が後もう一回あるのかな？

    — @yoshiyan186813 likes

  • Part of why it blew up is that Iron-Blooded Orphans went… the way it did, so the expectations had built up. Witch from Mercury was carrying all of that.

    人気出たのはオルフェンズがアレ過ぎたからその分、、期待はあったよね水星は

    — @foevermeatl39801 likes
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