51 likesMobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury — Fans Look Back on the Finale
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.