Excited to watch the gwitch prologue if I can fit it in around housemoving preparations.

Maybe calling it 'gwitch' will be good. It's a very satisfying word to say.

Make a quick sangwitch for lunch.

But gwhich gwitch is gwhich?

Going to need you to re-send me that file, in .gund format.

Okay yeah, the prologue's, well-made, decent fun, and pretty straight-shooting about its themes.

Seems like the technology level's going to be jammed on at 'high' from the get-go this time: beams, remote weapons, &c. Loved the sound effects for the beams, by the way.

It’s on YouTube officially for free with subtitles in various languages: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGW2JRxWUU… So you can casually slam it into your optic nerves even if you’re not a Gundam person.

'Weapons should only exist to kill people' has people die when they are killed energy.

A gwitch in time saves nine.

Professional gwitch streamer.

Resting gwitch face.

Absolutely going to reuse these if the show gives me the chance; just noting them down now for efficiency’s sake.

There’s a gwitch in the matrix.

Got a big investor meeting coming up, readying my gwitch deck.

The Gwitch King of Angmar

That's gwitch, coming from you.

Gwitch hop.

Gwitch Gwatch

How the Gwitch Stole Christmas

ordinary langwitch philosophy

gwitch mcconnell

Sally the Gwitch Gwitchy Precure Gwitch Hat Atelier

The Seven Year Gwitch

No, that design is just too garish and gwitsch.

Recording this was good fun! We dug into some of the allusions in the Gwitch prologue, and speculated (a fool’s game, but!) about where it might be headed. https://twitter.com/giantrobotfm/status/1575144714642374656…

If you can bear the sound of my voice, you can yell at the radio because of my terrible opinions. Episode proper is here: https://anchor.fm/giantrobotfm/episodes/Radio-Free-Mercury-0---Sulettas-Counterattack-Gundam-The-Witch-from-Mercury-Prologue-Discussion-feat--Thaliarchus-e1odg0g…

If I recall our talk right it’s the only Gwitch coverage to fit in both 15th-century witch-hunting and 20th-century queer fiction.

Plus we touch on broadcast contexts! What does it mean to watch something on YouTube anyway?! Who is Gwitch /for/? &c &c

(Another chance to point out that Gwitch’s prologue is just right there, on YT, legally, with subtitles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGW2JRxWUU…)

After me bloviating about length on the podcast, sounds like gwitch /might/ just be two single-cours seasons? If that’s what happens, original long-form TV anime aimed at anyone other than small children really have ceased.

Pace the anime-never-changes crowd, sometimes change happens, and sometimes that change is regrettable.

Coming out of the gate with badly mistimed CR subs feels like another hint that gwitch might be cursed.

To Aegisub we go, then. You think you've escaped but they pull you in for one last job.

From a bit of digging, looks like one of those cases where the size of the mistiming varies through the episode, so you can't mass-retime? Good to see Crunchyroll treating Gundam with the same care and attention they apply to other anime.

In a way this is thematically appropriate because it’s like how I mistime Core Fighter runs in Gundam Evolu—

Guess I'll try to hashtag tweets from the next one on.

Though this is a pretty high-tech AU, comparatively, it seems they don't do open-window colonies. #g_witch

Ruined a perfectly good pilot. Look at it. It's got anxiety. #g_witch

Suletta's catastrophic awkwardness /is/ pretty funny. #g_witch

Look closely & you can see they neatly animated Miorine gesturing 'No'. #g_witch

Suletta responds enthusiastically about her mum and the off-trend hairband because, of course, it's the one we saw in the prologue. #g_witch

Are you not entertained? Is this not why you— #g_witch

break shell chick die, chick world egg; don't crack die; smash shell revolution #g_witch

A nice choice here: starting Guel's violence with the close-up makes it (correctly) shocking, out-of-place visually as it is socially. #g_witch

He's reading Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, so expect wordswordswords posters to talk about that. #g_witch

Haros have come a long way since 1979. #g_witch

CHUATURY PANLUNCH is here (for one shot and one line of dialogue). #g_witch

Suletta's line about being raised together with Aerial, as family, seems like it'll be significant. #g_witch

This shot's a great choice. #g_witch

Definitely got a chuckle out of Suletta's gormless expression here. #g_witch

They used 3DCG for some of the less-important shots early in the episode. But the battle's mostly done by hand, and it's pleasing stuff. #g_witch

I'm confused about where mobile suit upgrades go from here, because Aerial is starting out already pretty advanced. #g_witch

Overall? Entertaining episode! Like the prologue, it's not subtle. But of course a totally different tone, and quite socially witty with it. It's not a bad start. Can't feel optimistic, but I hope its production survives the horror of existing in 2022 somehow. #g_witch

Not a sentence I ever thought I'd write, but if you want to contextualise the new Gundam, Utena is a great show & well worth trying.

I've been slowly rewatching it this year and it holds up. Has lovely design language, and clever, often rather funny writing. Also a great opening https://animethemes.moe/anime/shoujo_kakumei_utena/OP-NCBD1080…

Oh yes, I meant to say: kudos to Ichinose for all the comical word-mangling necessary in today's episode. #g_witch

[thinking further] technically there /was/ a gundamjacking in this episode. #g_witch

Pretty sure someone could either watch the gwitch Prologue and then episode 1, or the other way round, /& it'd still work/? You'd want to have seen both, but it's amusing that their order's at least a bit reversible. #g_witch

A lingering technical question: Guel's suit has some kind of 'Permet' mechanic on launch too. Has GUND from the prologue been tamed (with an unlimited version left in Aerial), or is that some other thing, I wonder? #g_witch

Head still spinning from a new Gundam arriving and sectors of the internet… liking it? Did that happen? Gotta be at least a 50% chance it’ll throw it all away somehow.

It's rare, outside of re-adaptation, for one show to borrow so unbotheredly the opening plot movements of another. #g_witch

Now, I have every expectation that even the plot similarities will rapidly diverge. But this does make gwitch's start a good laboratory for helping yourself see what about RGU makes it RGU and /is not its plot/. #g_witch

I don't say that idly: I've had several conversations in which people have stumbled into doing it to themselves. #g_witch

[placard reading ɢᴜɴᴅᴀᴍ ᴍᴀᴅᴇ ᴍʏ ᴄʜɪʟᴅ ᴀɴ ᴇssᴇɴᴛɪᴀʟɪsᴛ] #g_witch

Despite the generally very advanced state of the suits in gwitch, they don't have 360° cockpits. #g_witch

End of the first cours someone introduces a new machine with the duel-breaking superpower of 'you can look over your shoulder'. #g_witch

Head still spinning from the interstitial short story having Suletta grow up using the Gundam to watch anime. #g_witch

Accidentally leaking the surviving GUND-Arm unit via a photograph in a ‘post your rig’ thread. #g_witch

Can… can Aerial torrent? #g_witch

Watching postage-stamp hard-subbed .avi copies of SEED Destiny in the Gundam because it’s the only thing you can get. #g_witch https://twitter.com/Kherubim2k/status/1578303424180809729…

Sounds like gwitch might wind up on YouTube from this Sunday: https://en.gundam.info/news/video-music/02_7398.html…

No doubt people have picked this up already, but 'Delling' /might/ be another Norse thing, like Folksvangr & Vanadis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dellingr #g_witch

Consistent with the prologue: the beams gather at the barrel-tip first. #g_witch (Yes, yes, like a spell from a wand, if you want to see it that way, though I don't think that's the only way this effect gets used.)

You know, in the last week I've seen Utena avatars trying & enjoying the original '79 Gundam & vice versa. Even if gwitch throws everything away, a few people getting round to enjoying these isn't nothing. #g_witch

See you for episode 2 tomorrow. #g_witch

I'm not excited about airing anime, I'm just… I'm just paying attention.

I like the OP overall, and I like the lyrics of the song, but man that is a style of music with which I do not gel. #g_witch

Spaghetti Mercury #g_witch

I enjoy how obvious it is from these suits' design that any other suit in the show can trounce them. #g_witch

So it's come up before too… 'front' is definitely the noun for a colony or set of colonies in Ad Stella, then? #g_witch

arrested for gundam crimes #g_witch

The Jeturks have already been a good source of scrubquotes. #g_witch

Perhaps the school administration will decide they need 2FA on those mobile suits. #g_witch

#g_witch

Obv. this scene lays out more clearly the Spacian–Earthian prejudices. It also offers more details on just how much corporations, not states, drive this story. #g_witch

Made a duelling trophy, stuck doing business studies and, most worstest of all, addicted to mobage. #g_witch

Call the OED, we have a radically new meaning for 'charwoman', n. #g_witch

Shaddiq takes a notably different approach to hairstyling for the trial. #g_witch

This scene also clears up something I wondered about: the other suits /do/ use Permet, just not above certain levels. #g_witch

…and it sounds like Permet is a substance, too? #g_witch

Are you not entertained? Is this not why you are here? #g_witch

Unlike the suits, most spaceships in this show have been surprisingly restrained in design. (Main exception's the suit carrier used in the assault in the Prologue.) #g_witch

'I want to go to Earth' [chooses not to go to Earth] #g_witch

ceterum censeo, spag bol #g_witch

Excited to see more of this one. #g_witch

#g_witch

I was hesitant about the possible Tempest allusion based on 'Aerial' alone, but 'Prospera' adds weight, doesn't it. #g_witch

[needs to sound like someone you should do business with] ‘I’m, er, Lady Prospera.’ #g_witch

Get gwitch or die trying. #g_witch

Genius brain: Utena Galaxy brain: The Tempest Universe brain: Gear Fighter Dendoh / Angelic Layer #g_witch

Wild speculation: - gur fpubby & gur qhryyvat flfgrz vzcybqr ng gur raq bs gur svefg pbhef - gvzrfxvc - Ryaben vf n/gur svany nagntbavfg #g_witch

Showing the witch trial scene in episode 2 to the guy confused about why there's a gundam in Gundam Evolution called 'Gundam'. #g_witch

Gundam in 2022:

Also running across people who’ve been shotgunning IBO off the back of gwitch airing. #g_witch https://twitter.com/thaliarchus/status/1578873090963931137…

In theory, all students at Asticassia wear the same uniform (regardless of gender). In practice, they clearly get away with a lot of individual tweaking. #g_witch

Amused but unsurprised to learn about real-life legal analogues to 'but is it a Gundam?' from this. https://twitter.com/giantrobotfm/status/1580235777429995520… #g_witch

Also, more people watching Utena for the first time off the back of gwitch.

Glad to have pointed out to me here something that passed me by: GUND /might/ be playing on Old Norse 'gandr', 'magic', 'magic object'. https://twitter.com/GundamPodcast/status/1580318543265964032… #g_witch

The precise sense of gandr is a bit of an enigma—or possibly a silly question to ask—as it's mostly used in gnomic/poetic contexts. #g_witch

And before you're tempted to attribute too much otherness to Old Norse… …try finding the precise concrete thing-in-the-world that defines present-day English 'magic'. #g_witch

A.S. 122… Rembran is master of space… only the Shin Sei duellist stands before him… ball is now life https://twitter.com/gdam429mk2/status/1581204405764124672… #g_witch

She's got a little list And none of them be missed #g_witch

It sounds like they're both starting the day. I wonder whether space has a universal timezone. #g_witch

The ungendered school uniforms with the tie serving as a zip do seem pretty pragmatic & suited to zero-g. This is in keeping with what we saw of space domesticity in the Prologue. #g_witch

These sliding panels, on the other hand, are a fancier version of the folding-handle corridor conveyers in UC Gundam. #g_witch

Guel is three-for-three on getting hit in each episode. #g_witch

The company product's head looming in this gently focus-pulled shot ain't subtle but it /is/ fun. Just in case anyone was having trouble following the episode's core tension. #g_witch

#g_witch

Glimpsed very briefly, in the background to Shaddiq's musings on infrastructure: the thought-world of Patlabor. #g_witch

A short moment in which we see Miorine alone and uncomplicated pleased with something (the tomatoes). #g_witch

People are determined to destroy 'liminal space' as they destroyed 'palimpsest', but here's an actual literal one. #g_witch

Are you not entertained? Is this not why you are here? #g_witch

Haros sure are ubiquitous in A.S. #g_witch

Sudden betrayal! #g_witch

On its own, just a graphic match cut at the scene transition… #g_witch

…however, it is in fact teeing up the second image here, the shot when Suletta gets back in the lift, which is amusing. #g_witch

Dunno if we'll ever find out, but: how much of the duel ritual originates with the students themselves? It's the sort of thing teenagers would contrive, & this episode's in part about that versus corporate machinations. #g_witch

me when someone casts a die #g_witch

For newcomers: the duel-opening ritual descends from memetic, oft-quoted (thus the second example here) past Gundam lines. #g_witch

no worries if not #g_witch

This battle won't be entering a pantheon of mobile suit fights, but I enjoyed it well enough. #g_witch

C H U A T O R Y P A N L U N C H #g_witch

I like the bulbous, slightly bulky quality of the space suit designs. #g_witch

omg a hit tweet #g_witch

Sorry Miorine, Suletta has quotas to fulfil. #g_witch

Lady Prospera would like you to know that she's never blackmailed anyone in her life. #g_witch

Many of this episode's bones come from a tried-and-true sports story skeleton But they intersect in an appropriately gwitchy fashion with Gundam's traditional friction between youth and age. #g_witch

Let us hope events do not wholly tear down Suletta's bright characterisation of her mum. #g_witch

Suletta's terrible steam-train jog here is so much. #g_witch

Suletta's every social interaction: #g_witch

File image for later use. #g_witch

Going back over this fight, and when the sprinklers trigger… does Suletta know what rain is? It wouldn't be surprising if she didn't. An implication here is that at least some A.S. MS design doesn't think too hard about fighting on Earth itself. #g_witch

The line here confirms, after all, that even yokels from Mercury count as Spacians, not Earthians. #g_witch

That'd also help explain why she mishandles the beam sabre here. It's certainly drawn as though the water's to blame. #g_witch

I think I'd call this battle thoughtfully rather than exceptionally crafted. It all works, though. I particularly like these cool overhead shots of Aerial in motion. The first one comes with great footstep sound effects too. #g_witch

This cut: a small example of classic the-robot-is-the-pilot's-body stuff. #g_witch

I wonder if most or all of the suits in the show will have some level of Turn X style detachability? #g_witch

As I thought this morning: she pins one arm with the sabre, deflects the other with her one remaining arm, and body-slams the crest. #g_witch

Asking a business studies student to do anything. #g_witch

Oh, wait, the reason people are posting the marriage age line is because it's a year /younger/ than in their heads isn't it? You can still marry at 16 in the UK (until the end of February next year).

I remember attending a cousin's wedding when I'd just turned 16 and her teasing me about me getting married next. (Obviously, she didn't know me well.)

The iconic line about mobile suit performance that's part of the duelling ritual comes from Mobile Suit Gundam episode 3. #g_witch

It's the previous episode that teaches us Char's epithet, 'The Red Comet', with, yes, its homophone for 'Mercury'. #g_witch

Will gwitch at some point be more explicit about Suletta growing up on a diet of decontextualised pop culture? It’s been implicit in a bunch of animated bits so far, but is only stated in the post-Prologue short story. #g_witch

It’s true that Spag and Bol both have the haircuts of children rarely seen by their parents. #g_witch

The promise/deal they make in #g_witch ep 3 isn't shown on screen. Might mean nothing, but one has to guess that the episode skips it for a reason.

I like @pmcTRILOGY's phrasing for this on @Giant Robot FM even better: 'management trying to fill in for labour'. https://twitter.com/thaliarchus/status/1581750790879735808… #g_witch

Also came up on the latest @Giant Robot FM: why does Miorine react like this to Suletta's talk of dates? My guess is that it's not a gap between eps 1 & 3, but rather that what Miorine thinks 'date' entails differs from what Suletta thinks. #g_witch

(Because Suletta's understanding of 'school' was wholly formed by the Gundam torrenting chaste teen dramas for her.) #g_witch

A certain kind of person would call back to Tomino's remarks on Your Name here, but obviously I'm not going to do that. #g_witch

Delved into the dark places of the earth (Reddit). Gwitch has made the Gundam subreddit have a chat about how good Utena, Princess Tutu, Cardcaptor Sakura &c are. Some of them are a bit hazy on what ‘shoujo’ means but hearts’re in the right place. #g_witch

Again, going to file this as a lasting good even if gwitch itself implodes. #g_witch

We've had enough episodes now to say that beginning with the end of the previous one is a habit. Given the show's density, seems sensible. (Means less new animation to do, too.) #g_witch

They altered the score count as displayed at ep 3's end (left). So I guess that was an error? #g_witch

Show is helpfully annotating itself. #g_witch

Gundam in 2022 is watching people get owned over Zoom. #g_witch

'Pass the remote.' #g_witch

They cover basically this shot up with Guel's back and then cut straight to Suletta reverting to cowering behind Miorine. #g_witch

I suspect teaching at this school presents many pedagogical challenges. #g_witch

This sequence lets us know what success looks like when we watch Suletta not succeeding later. But also, it's kind of messed-up that class is, er, learning to avoid landmines. Asticassia's much more a tertiary-level military academy than a secondary-level school. #g_witch

The landmines are simulated, but they don't seem to be /very/ simulated. #g_witch

The most advanced compression algorithms have nothing on this. #g_witch

Martin, on the left, nominal head of the house, is authority. Nika, on the right, is power. #g_witch

It's cool to see how they have to handle one of the suits after a duel. #g_witch

They really do use Haros for everything in A.S. #g_witch

I hadn't quite registered before that the lion is, appropriately, the Jeturk symbol. (Thus also the lion on his father's desk.) #g_witch

Aha, I knew she didn't live in that greenhouse! Just in, ah, another greenhouse. #g_witch

This is hydroponics, isn't it? #g_witch

Business studies students will literally live like this and not see the problem. #g_witch

The show has a lot of well-handled English, but mostly in majuscule letters and with minimal word-spacing. Tough to read. Of course, no reason you can't write the Latin alphabet sans word-spacing and all in majuscules. That's how it was used for centuries, in fact. #g_witch

Though I rather suspect that, in origin, this approach to typesetting isn't a thought-out choice about the setting. #g_witch

Several notable things here. One's the gap between the protest as shown to us & as reported on the news. #g_witch

But also, among the Earthian slogans are ones which draw on both - the French Revolution (liberty and equality) - the King James translation of the Bible (Matthew 22:21 and synoptic analogues) #g_witch

Chuatory's Earthian contacts mention 'mobile craft operators'; those're the worker units like the one Miorine flew v. badly in ep 3. I guess working in them is a more blue-collar job? #g_witch

The scene about Suletta's aspirations is lit by the symbols of Miorine's. #g_witch

It seems like maybe Asticassia functions a bit like the University of London used to. The institution does limited teaching, & focuses on summative assessments & credentialing people. It's up to students to furnish the necessary resources & formative training. #g_witch

In London, students normally did this by being in a college; at Asticassia, they normally do this by being in a house. #g_witch

Ceterum censeo, spag bol. #g_witch

The translation of 寮 as 'House' certainly works well, because English 'house' has - been used since Old English to mean a wealthy family and its retainers - been used since the early nineteenth-century for boarding-school houses #g_witch

- been used, in an extension of the boarding-school use, for intangible groups into which school students are divided for competition #g_witch

Cursory research suggests that 寮 might not have such a strongly-rooted set of extra, intangible meanings. But I don't speak Japanese, and I know all too well the dangers of having only a little knowledge. #g_witch

Anyway, because Nika is power—not authority—she enjoyed the fact they had a fight with Spacians, & is able to invite Suletta to join. #g_witch

A locked friend points out that there's a bunch of stuff in this test. e.g. Suletta doesn't think much of legal regulations. Mobile suits and mobile craft are indeed distinguished. #g_witch

The test suggests that Suletta knows her stuff about Permet, if not about most other topics. #g_witch

Suletta thinks safety is important when putting a suit together, but the test doesn't agree. #g_witch

Who knows which staff member's behind that use of the King James… bu-uut, Princess Principal did have that very astute use of 'whited sepulchre'. #g_witch https://twitter.com/thaliarchus/status/897291804818669569…

Real-life tear gas shells are pretty dangerous if they hit you; extremely funny to me that they have mobile-suit-calibre ones. #g_witch

Should probably thread this in. https://twitter.com/thaliarchus/status/1584158240090492928…

This episode we learned that Suletta wants to start a school on Mercury. We also learned, with some sad irony, how far Asticassia falls short of an ideal school. #g_witch

In the first ep someone had mocked Guel for having a 'runaway bride' and now someone else has fled from him at Mobile Suit speed. #g_witch

The second most-common response I've seen to this shot is, of course, 'bitch you live like this?' The FIRST most-common response I've seen is 'She's just like me fr'. https://twitter.com/thaliarchus/status/1584126373626806272… #g_witch

No supernatural/newtype powers in gwitch yet… except for Chuchu’s ability to compress the force of six union dads into one blow. #g_witch

Increasingly seeing evidence that fanartists are indeed entertained and think that this is why they are here. #g_witch

Practising spelling 'Lilique Kadoka Lipati' without checking. #g_witch

But they were, all of them, deceived, for another witch was made. #g_witch

This is the first time since ep 1 that that we've not begun directly with the previous episode's last scene. #g_witch

I like the Gruntanks. #g_witch

C h u a t o r y P a n l u n c h is here. Not that she's important to this episode, but she is important in general. #g_witch

Thrusting back through the missile swarm… I guess Peil House's video library includes Macross Plus. #g_witch

An interesting Q to ask about any anime is: does it want to pretend that it comes from physical cameras? #g_witch

So far, #g_witch's answer is 'Yes', and there're plenty of subtler touches elsewhere, this shot's just loud about it. (You can refine this by putting things on a spectrum. Flag is at one of that spectrum's ends.)

This week we find out that Elan's a cyber-ne—ah, cyber-witch, as some had speculated. #g_witch

Can't be a coincidence that Elan is number 4. Gwitch might not always be very like the UC but it sure does /love/ the UC. #g_witch https://twitter.com/BachelorSoft/status/1055902598010757121…

For all that Asticassia's very high-tech, it looks like their time of day switches in very discrete increments? #g_witch

Unf. Does putting this on early evening TV break any standards? #g_witch

What type of fortune telling is this? If, that is, it's not invented whole-cloth. It and the animals are supposed to be things Aliya brought with her, apparently. #g_witch

It looks like Suletta has moved into Earth House properly. Miorine unwittingly missing out on the benefits of having a clean room. #g_witch

Glad I learned to spell 'Lilique Kadoka Lipati'. And she's living up to her description on the show's site. #g_witch

This week, once again, spaghetti Mercury. #g_witch

Chuchu's not wrong. #g_witch

Interesting that Prospera knows about Suletta's to-do list, or at least knows it exists. #g_witch

#g_witch https://twitter.com/uncreativecat/status/1581600172517502977…

#g_witch

This background's a solid piece of sf art. #g_witch

Elan's speculation about whether Suletta too has another's face feels like the fan theory about Fhyrggn abg orvat Rev. But NB that's different to saying it /supports/ that theory… or that such speculation is a particularly healthy way to watch something. #g_witch

Pffft. #g_witch

Of /course/ Guel would be in the gym. #g_witch

Suletta loves Aerial and loves piloting Aerial. #g_witch Not all Gundam pilots have this kind of affection for the Gundam, & it's even rarer for the show to treat it as an unmixed good.

If anything, it feels like Suletta's relationship with Aerial is close to #g_witch's moral core.

We can leave the actual villains aside. Miorine's nice but v. self-interested (understandably!). Nika and Chuchu are nice but one feels they might, ah, do a war crime if given the chance (again, one can understand). #g_witch

Heavy heartbeat sound effect when Elan dives into Aerial, just in case we weren't getting the point. #g_witch

This isn't a fancy bravura cut or anything, it's just cool and good. #g_witch

So, the regolith layer (though saying 'regolith layer' is a bit like 'PIN number')… Does their duelling system simulate that too, or do they maintain testing areas with different surfaces, I wonder? #g_witch

~you make me feel like it's Halloween~ #g_witch

Another of those moments where one senses the duelling committee striving to take the duels more seriously than their parents do. #g_witch

Well, I mean. Whenever Secelia's on-screen, one senses fanartists taking other things more seriously. But still. #g_witch https://twitter.com/thaliarchus/status/1586671904252993536…

It's cool that we see the flashes from Guel's beam vulcans in his cockpit, but that also seems like suboptimal design! #g_witch

Good battle, overall. Another week passes and Gundam remains… unbad?

So Miorine shares an emblem with the school logo, and the Holder's emblem is that with some extra holding strokes. #g_witch https://twitter.com/BANDAIFN/status/1586635283549798403…

Grassley actually put a G in their logo. #g_witch

Jeturk's market value must've really tanked in the course of the first five episodes, huh. #g_witch

'Come over.' 'Can't, gardening.' 'I'm going on a date with Elan.' #g_witch

Interesting to learn that Japanese has a short-form for 'Romeo and Juliet'. #g_witch Digging suggests (I always welcome corrections!) that it's, er, 'ロミジュリ'? So, Anglicising with attention to the original names, 'RomeJuli'?

It was also Miorine who used the short-form loan-phrase for 'double standards' in episode 2. I haven't been listening closely enough to tell whether these are a distinct feature of her speech in particular. #g_witch

Those chickens are putting in work. #g_witch https://twitter.com/Gooberzilla/status/1586696718007107585…

Oh the Wikipedia page has a little paragraph on the history of ways of writing Romeo. Fascinating! #g_witch

Sorely tempted to start calling Permet 'the Gundam juice'. #g_witch

No hours' sleep but they got me hopped up on the Gundam juice. #g_witch

Revisited the 'Cinderella Four' episode of Zeta. I think Zeta has strong bits and weak bits. Would cautiously file this as a strong bit.

The Psycho Gundam unleashed in a city centre certainly remains horrifying.

The meeting's fleeting, but then Kamille talks about this, via Amuro and Lalah, with Mirai earlier in the episode. 'Did he love her?' 'They were enemies, and hardly met… Do you think two such people can love each other enough to change their lives?

hashtag iconic

And one less often-recalled line that perhaps needs more airings, 'The uniform's not the only difference!'

Also feat. 0087 Amuro, who's an interesting study.

I guess Mirai at this point is still trying, where & when she can, to mother the surviving White Base crew.

We had Char's dialogue in 0079 a week or two back, and it's been neat to dip back into Zeta today. I hope #g_witch's affection for the Universal Century keeps serving up reasons to go back to its predecessors.

Still thinking about Prospera saying ‘another witch’. #g_witch She danced around the question when Suletta asked whether she (Suletta) was a witch.

We continue not knowing quite what the promise at the third episode's start was. #g_witch

Saddened but /not/ shocked that #g_witch's having a recap episode for 7. Feel like fewer people these days seriously argue that anime stays the same over time & that things can't decline.

Yes, Gundam and plenty of other titles have had recap episodes before. It's hardly been the order of the day for the first cours of something airing in split cours, though! #g_witch

Of course ‘there are always good and bad anime’ was forever a strange, ahistorical view ignoring changing contexts, formats &c. Things can get better, or worse. Sometimes some things get better & other things get worse. https://twitter.com/thaliarchus/status/1587364511035670530…

The most trivial attention to the past ushers the idea out the door. e.g. contemplating the 100% *banger* rate of new TV anime titles in the summer 1991 season. Which is funny in & of itself, but also shows how ‘summer 1991 season’ isn’t a very meaningful phrase.

Radically different landscape.

Are they really selling Chuchu-branded #g_witch marshmallows. Please say yes.

Flawless. #g_witch https://twitter.com/Deve_Dy/status/1587544030740729856…

I hear if you eat five Chuatory Panlunch chocolate-filled marshmallow bars, you can punch through a wall. #g_witch

Fascinating observation on @Mobile Suit Breakdown: the Gundam Anime Podcast: The seat attachments in #g_witch echo those which were designed for Zeta but never drawn in Zeta-the-actual-show.

#g_witch Once again,

But, of course, does she mean Suletta or Aerial here? #g_witch

The line about twenty-one years here is to my mind the first serious, hard evidence for you-know-what. #g_witch

(One thing I'll sometime talk over, either here or on a future episode of GR FM, is how Princess Principal figures in #g_witch's background.)

Love that super-brief throttle shot in the OP. #g_witch

So I guess the accommodation for humans in Earth House is much smaller than the hangars for MSs. Makes sense. #g_witch

Unlike most of the other interiors (e.g. Miorine's rooms), the Earthian accommodation is battered. Or well-loved, an estate agent would say. #g_witch

(On the other hand, you will recall that Miorine's room is a health hazard.) #g_witch

Bless Chuatory for being—once again—angry on Suletta's behalf. #g_witch

Basic but effective positioning here to introduce Miorine in a previously-unseen part of the room. Also, this four-bunk setup has cropped up elsewhere in Gundam before. #g_witch

A locked friend very plausibly suggests that Miorine's playing that mobage again. #g_witch

I think I remember Saionji going on the road in Utena? I shall not labour the contrasts with the interior of Earth House here. #g_witch

It looks like formal shirts here have a tie slit, rather than the tie bar men traditionally used in Gundam. This is in keeping with the gentle sense of design for life in space elsewhere in the costumes & props. e.g. the tie that's a zip on the school uniform. #g_witch

Shaddiq explaining how Suletta works as a social-ethical catalyst. #g_witch

Again, Martin is authority and Nika is power. Here, Martin shows us what it's like to be authority without power. #g_witch

Love a hangar glamour shot. #g_witch

Boss. #g_witch

#g_witch

The second of the three things in the episode that suggest there's a conscience in there somewhere. #g_witch

So, building on last week's line, we learn that Peil's hold over 4—the equivalent to Zeta Four's memories—is his old face. We also find out whose face they replaced it with! #g_witch

Might or might not have been him who wrote it but 'It's been a while, Me' might be the show's most Okouchi line so far. #g_witch

The spinning bits are the bits with gravity, right? #g_witch

Miorine's second scene in the episode is, again, boarded so that we only realise she's in it at her first line. #g_witch

However, this parallels the way Suletta has to take the comms, one camera at a time. Also, Miorine's actually being encouraging in this scene, in her own thorny way. #g_witch

This is a classic Gundam shot and it is also very funny. #g_witch

So this ep gave us our first hard evidence that {Fhyrggn vfa'g Rev}—yet Suletta still breaks this song out. (And this is the episode's title.) #g_witch

At last, a proper catapult launch for the Aerial, with the traditional Gundam launch announcement. #g_witch

'Which Gundam title has the best launch sequences?' is a pretty fun question. Despite its other flaws I'd argue SEED is a heavy-hitter in this area.

In #g_witch they use their student serial numbers in their launch statements, notably.

They really run everything off Haros. Internet of Haros. #g_witch

Unf. Can they get away with broadcasting this in the early evening? #g_witch

Suletta addresses the bits as 'everyone' (I /think/ みんな rather than みな? but I don't speak Japanese). Elan thinks she's better at controlling the bits than him, but that's not how she conceives of it at all. #g_witch

#g_witch

Definitely grinned when they revealed that the Aerial can use the bits like this. #g_witch

Elan's simile for Suletta's toughness—alloy—again totally misses the nature of her strength. #g_witch

Popping the thrusters here is also very cool. #g_witch

Are you surprised? It's a big mistake to think that you're the only one who can Become Gundam. #g_witch

Obviously {gur ynhtugre'f nabgure uvag ng jung/jub zvtug or vafvqr Nrevny}. But {guvf nyfb svgf va jvgu Gur Grzcrfg: Nevry'f fcevgryl cynlshyarf}. #g_witch

{Gur svefg gjb flyynoyrf bs 'Nrevny' nf cebabhaprq va gur fubj fher fbhaq yvxr nabgure punenpgre'f anzr.} #g_witch

#g_witch

Again, can they get away with this on early-evening TV? #g_witch

'But it's not dark like Gundam traditionally is', they said. #g_witch

(The extra messed-up thing here is that the Peil co-CEOs appear to be watching.) #g_witch

So: overall, good episode! With a battle trading strongly-held feelings with the blows, which is Gundam's stock-in-trade. #g_witch

This show doesn't seem to my eye to have the raw animation heft of (say) Build Fighters S1. And given (1) the TV anime landscape in 2022 in general and (2) what we've heard re: this prod in particular, well, understandable. #g_witch

But the fundamental designs (character, prop, mechanical) have many virtues, and there's some smart direction. This episode wrung a good, entertaining fight out of what it had. And that's an honourable TV anime tradition. #g_witch

{Fhyrggn nqqerffrf gurz pbyyrpgviryl. Ner gurer frcnengr vaqvivqhnyf va gur qvssrerag ovgf?} #g_witch

[ #g_witch script whenever anyone on the team remembers Guel ]

Big week for people called El*n. #g_witch

Ultimately these characters are artifices, so we need not wade too deep into judging them. But nevertheless I'm much happier with Guel becoming more sympathetic (if that's what happens now) after losing everything. The Guel of episode 1 was a nasty piece of work. #g_witch

Two different characters set free into the great outdoors this week. #g_witch

My primary school instituted a house system while I was there.* Because it was run by enlightened geniuses, they held a vote on what the houses should be named after. Dinosaurs won. * Not physical houses; it was a long way from /that/ kind of school.

I was in Triceratops House.

My secondary school had houses named after former pupils who’d done well, which was much much more boring.

I guess {guvaxvat bs Rinatryvba} in connection with #g_witch is understandable. But it's def. like that case where {Qrivyzna Pelonol nyyhqrf gb Rin orpnhfr Rin jnf pevoovat sebz gur Qrivyzna znatn.}

People who think they can fix Lady Prospera vs people who think Lady Prospera can fix them. #g_witch

Obviously I stand in neither of these camps. #g_witch

My two bits of #g_witch notetaking for tonight are (1) Despite the show being named by a producer, I've not seen much mention of Princess Principal as one of gwitch's predecessors. Intrigue, school, double identity twists, a succession contest… there're resonances.

(2) Theorising might be fun, but to pin down #g_witch's nature it's more important to note /that it is prompting the theorising/.

Active mobile suit brain: first-person prequel story narrated by the Gundam #g_witch

Suletta is officially a good girl, the Gundam itself said so, @ me not. #g_witch

The fan theories are only further fuelled by knowing that #g_witch's setting features sophisticated tech for memory-wipes.

They already showed us Aerial's, ah, bit staves configured as thrusters back in its first appearance in episode 1! #g_witch

If episode 7 does turn out to involve actual dancing, have to guess that Suletta somehow manages to know less than nothing about dancing. #g_witch

Dancing would also be another sop to Webley–Fosbery enjoyers (those who've seen Princess Principal). #g_witch

Tomato-flavour crisps! #g_witch https://twitter.com/G_Witch_M/status/1593529456450150400…

So this week's #g_witch episode feels like a counterpart to episode 2: a pause from the action to shunt the pieces round the board.

Unsurprisingly, sounds like Grassley Defense [sic] Systems might have their own gundam. #g_witch

These're new in the OP. #g_witch

Bonk. #g_witch

Hadn't picked up before that the greenhouse has its own computer, or at least its own terminal. But that fits what else we've seen of the school, I guess. #g_witch

And the greenhouse is totally free-standing, isn't it? Miorine made a lackey buy this on Beneritazon and get it shipped in. #g_witch

This conversation about selfishness tees up the episode's heart. As usual, gwitch's script is blunt but effective. #g_witch

Fifteenth, huh. I wonder how often they hold these… #g_witch

Hobbyists somewhere are going to modify a kit into this. #g_witch

The wheels of commerce grind faster than I had imagined. #g_witch https://twitter.com/one_homeless/status/1594269018319380480…

This startup stuff is goofy and stupid, but real-life startup culture is goofier and stupider. #g_witch The FT's coverage of Softbank knocks this into a cocked hat.

Realan is such a dick, and also I hate his suit. #g_witch

Realan's suit and Suletta's tiara imply something orbiting white-tie, but most other attendees haven't gone that far. Suletta keeps the hairband, of course. #g_witch

Prospera /instantly/ redirecting Suletta away from noticing that she's met Miorine before? Very funny. As I say every week, making the Char a mum is, as Texas Mack would say, too much high power man. #g_witch

Confirmation that Miorine has always resembled a cockatiel. #g_witch

Background detail, but I'm glad #g_witch didn't go for pure default 'W. European Roman Catholic with the serial numbers filed off'.

Crikey. #g_witch

The script gives Prospera the best rhetorical judo. #g_witch cf. the start of the last ep, when she threw Belmeria off by asking words to the effect of: How many Elans has that thing fried?

So, evidently something's up. Does this have to do with Nika whipping together that propulsion equipment in ep 6? #g_witch

Young people surveyed during #g_witch's pre-production:

Suletta /is/ getting better at talking to people, thanks to someone. This week she manages some public speaking! #g_witch

Take the reliable Tomino gag involving oversized vid screens. Scale it up more. More. More. No, bigger still. #g_witch

Shoutout to the delightful design for the in-wall lighting here, and this shot's aggressive use of it. #g_witch

Listen closely and you can hear Suletta briefly forgetting to add the -san here, and then catching up with herself. #g_witch

Miorine steps in to do something not wholly selfish. Kudos for the impromptu powerpoint skills. #g_witch

'Aerial isn't a Gund—' Shut up I am PITCHING. #g_witch

Gonna invent 1M gundamcoins, sell one to myself for $1, now I have $1M. #g_witch

Again, #g_witch might not be subtle, but it at least has things it wants to do.

They ain't ending /every/ #g_witch episode on Suletta being shocked—only nearly every.

By saving assiduously and eating home-grown tomatoes,* I bought a gundam before I was 17. #g_witch * and getting a loan from my dad.

Delling invoking the 'curse' of Gundam again this week. #g_witch Going to be awkward if it turns out you only escape being killed by the Gundam if you're Suletta & you grew up with it.

Did anyone spot any Haros in this week's #g_witch episode?

Throw Away Your Pride, Rally in the Stonks #g_witch

Someone made a supercut of Suletta's task-failed-successfully conversation skills: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dy98TGNnC2Y… #g_witch

Well! #g_witch

Love a good hangar glamour shot. #g_witch

Startup culture. #g_witch

Have to guess, from her expression, that by now Miorine can easily guess how they'll react. #g_witch

(earthians get mad at me) Sorry. Im sorry. Im trying to espouse it #g_witch

Credit to the translation for its regular reaching for pith. #g_witch

Looks like the population at large /still/ thinks Shaddiq's stronger. #g_witch

Right, so, maybe this has already been obvious, but this clears up a bit of the geography. They definitely are travelling when they go to see people like Prospera—just not travelling very far. #g_witch

Cute. #g_witch

Gwitch's opening eps spent less time digging into the prosthetics stuff they set up in the prologue than I'd expected. Maybe that's shifting a little now. #g_witch

I've never betrayed anyone in my entire life, darling. #g_witch

Homeschooled and raised on anime. #g_witch

This brief shot of Miorine with the run-down Earth House walls as background is definitely a gag. #g_witch

The gundam trade is bad… the gundam trade specifically with Earthians is, however, A-OK with Chuatory. #g_witch

I was going to wonder whether they even have cup noodles &c on Asticassia, but then I recalled Miorine's room. #g_witch

This seems bad! But also exciting! #g_witch

Here and later we learn that Sarius is a true believer but Shaddiq's gundamcurious. #g_witch

Are you not entertained? Is this not why you are here? #g_witch

Thank you to Do It Yourself for teaching me this Japanese loanword. #g_witch

Cardo's historical video is an opportunity for some more exploratory, evocative, untethered sf art. #g_witch

Choosing to believe that they used 3DCG for the Aerial in the promo video because it fits with the rest of the video's quality. #g_witch

Good logo though! Is that a joint? #g_witch

Well this line is a hostage to fortune. #g_witch

Big cheques being written here. #g_witch

Shaddiq's pilots've joined the official website's character list: Henao, Maisie, Ireesha, Renee, and Sabina. They're thumbnail-sketched by their poses and a couple of lines each here. #g_witch

#g_witch

Now's the time to invest in Jeturk. Buy the dip. #g_witch

Mobile Suit Gundam SPAC Mobile Suit Gundam SPAC Destiny

The four-square arrangement of ‘eyes’ on Prospera’s mask is noticeably more inhuman than the eyes on some past Char characters’ masks. #g_witch

It sounds from the tea line like Earth's primary agricultural products receive respect, unlike pretty much everything else Earthian. #g_witch

Can't trust someone who's never bothered to stylise their signature. #g_witch

Miorine's demand for external streaming, like the mention of competitors in ep 2, raises a big otherwise-unspoken thing. What is there outside the Benerit Group? I assume we'll be finding out in due course. #g_witch

This week Suletta manages not one but two forthright conversations! On her own! #g_witch

...even if she did start one of them by taking cover behind a bollard. #g_witch

If you write 'tOmatO' you've spelled with a big 'o'. I said, you've spelled it with a big 'o'. #g_witch

Very satisfying battle this week. #g_witch

Suletta confronted with piloting unaided is possibly the first time we've seen her really stressed during combat. #g_witch

Big yikes. #g_witch

In a show with many dislikeable characters, Realan remains the one I dislike the most. #g_witch

I would simply not have twelve-or-more backup boyfriends. That sounds like spreadsheet work. #g_witch

Incidentally, did you know that there's a town in Surrey called Dorking? #g_witch

They did so many retakes making that video that the dance is burned into her muscle memory. #g_witch

#g_witch has consistently played around with depth of field, but ep 9 does so especially often. Sometimes passively...

...and sometimes in active focus pulls, culminating in this very loud one at the end. #g_witch

I suppose having Aerial carry, and then last for a while six-against-one, makes for even better advertising than a normal victory. #g_witch

The gundam, the gundam for Chuchu, the gundam chosen specially to arm Chuchu, Chuchu's gundam. https://twitter.com/agenderarcee/status/1599478814282686465… #g_witch

But Thal, do you think #g_witch is good? Well, I /like/ it a lot.

Now, the start of aesthetic wisdom is when you stop straightforwardly reading across from how you feel to a value judgment. (Many never do.)

(And that is often fine. Much of the time 'And is it any good?' isn't even a useful question!)

But anyway, I'm loving watching #g_witch week-to-week, but so far I'd call it, ah, decent? Don't get me wrong: decent stands several cuts above most airing anime.

It's an indictment of the times that #g_witch is teaching some fans for the first time the pleasure of watching original material.

It’s called Antidote because Prospera dotes on Aerial— #g_witch

This week's endcard is very charming. #g_witch

Liking this absurdo-tall Space Courtroom. #g_witch

A different, & more substantial, ship than the inter-front shuttle that Miorine & Suletta were using. #g_witch

Delling was okay so long as the different companies didn't team up against him or start seeing better futures beyond the Group. Well. #g_witch

Seconds past the OP and this ep's dunking on all of us who thought the first timeskip would come at the season's end. #g_witch

#g_witch

Cut at the end of the scene isn't another match, but putting Suletta's grunt of realisation over it is a small thing that works well. #g_witch

Lilique seems to be handling some comms for GUND-Arm now. #g_witch

GUND-Arm Stands on Solid Ground #g_witch

As one of the lines admits, this convo's very much a part-for-the-whole sketch about prosthetics and regulation. #g_witch

But part-for-the-whole is [sniff] fiction all over, isn't it.

Suletta manages an off-the-cuff joke. Task… succeeded successfully? #g_witch

I hadn't quite grasped till now—perhaps they'd not shown us—that she keeps the list on her phone. #g_witch

Nika is NOT sure she'll love it. #g_witch

This scene sets up Miorine's vector through the episode, I think. GUND-Arm, which she created to save Aerial, is making progress. But it has meant entering Delling's world, of shares and risks and people-as-resources. #g_witch

But it /does/, for now, mean a functional relationship with Delling in which he helps her, thus Miorine's nonplussed face. #g_witch

So the Space Assembly League is a name to note down for later. Beyond space needing 'new rules', their agenda's been left cloudy. #g_witch

Shaddiq has the whole squad in his meeting with Sarius, because he listened to what Miorine said at the end of the duel. We will reprise this point later. #g_witch

If the show eventually is going to bring Guel on as Suletta's ally, it's giving him a long and hard road. Still, this probably beats Guelcamping in the school woods. Sense of purpose and all that. #g_witch

9.5 episodes in, our first sight of Earth! Looks like the Spacians did a real number on some bits of it, at least. After War Gundam X stuff. #g_witch

No one says it, but this school was repurposed as a hospital? #g_witch

Anyway all these establishing pure-illustration shots rule. #g_witch

The damage on the stuffed toys is a thoughtful touch. Everything's salvaged. #g_witch

You might well ask. #g_witch

Shaddiq calling Dad of Girls directly is another sign that he listened to what Miorine said about trust. #g_witch

d e t h r o n e d #g_witch

When someone lets undergraduates into the Senior Common Room. #g_witch

As always with this show, Ojelo's thoroughbred metaphor isn't subtle but it works with the vector I mentioned. She's not 'Mio-Mio' now, she's GUND-Arm Inc Company Representative, on TV. #g_witch

Suletta's better with people now but I'm glad Ichinose's still giving her the silly running noise when she runs. #g_witch

Show's settled on the bollarded pathway to the greenhouse as a good stage. #g_witch

I would simply refuse Edric the Navigator's offer of the Tleilaxu ghola of Duncan Idaho. #g_witch

From extreme close-up straight into the series of closing shots cut on the trees that pass in the extreme foreground. Nothing revolutionary, but also toweringly more thoughtful than your bottom-of-the-barrel LN adaptation du jour. #g_witch

Anyway, Suletta's verdict is that Elan Five represents a scary change. #g_witch

And here's where two months of CEO life have left Miorine: people and tomatoes are fungible. #g_witch

Are you not entertained? Is this not why you are here? #g_witch

This Quetta interior drawing? Space architect's kiss. #g_witch

So it's /possible/ that GUND Arm is about to fight Earthians to defend Prospera and Delling… #g_witch

So these are the Ur (ᚢ) and Thorn (ᚦ). #g_witch Interesting that they're using the Old English name for Thorn and not the Old Norse one.

Thorn (þ) had a long afterlife in England, adopted into the Latin alphabet as used to write English. Saw use into the sixteenth century. #g_witch

Quattro Bobjeena #g_witch

Hey I heard from a buddy of mine that Guel Jeturk had an eight-pack. That Guel Jeturk was SHREDDED. #g_witch

#g_witch

#g_witch

I spose at (?)17(?), Suletta's at the older end for a main-line TV Gundam lead? Back-of-an-envelope, the mean age is 15.summat and the median's 15. (Sticking to main-line TV for rough demographic consistency: there's an audience-related reason Shiro Amada's 23.) #g_witch

The oldest main-line TV Gundam lead I can remember is Domon, at 20. That's how you can tell G Gundam is profound material for mature viewers (I am both joking and not).

So, of course we’re not meant to know yet what the Space Assembly League wants, & the guessing is part of the effect. #g_witch But here’s my guess, which will be wrong.

So far A.S. wholly lacks governments. #g_witch is company towns as far as the eye can see. Maybe, therefore, the SAL want a legislature (assembly) and a government?

Aha! Gwitch will go up on YouTube for the globe in general in 2023, one episode a week: https://en.gundam.info/news/video-music/02_8134.html… Gundam continuing its enlightened record of 'just put the anime on YouTube for free'.

The first half of the episode elaborates on this, but Suletta /swabbing the decks/ while everyone else does Technical Stuff is the point. (Yes, yes, she's the opposite way up to everyone else too, okay.) #g_witch

1. Did, uh, did the animals make the call from Room 11? 2. …why, one wonders, did Earth House bring them? #g_witch

There's Haro! #g_witch

Now that's a visible personality contrast. #g_witch

These personal manoeuvrability units maintain #g_witch's strong record in background elements designed for zero-g.

'Quiet Zero'… a super mobile suit, a superweapon, or a secret third thing? #g_witch

Picking up from episode 2: something—or someone—in Aerial is high on the Gundam juice during combat, even if Suletta isn't. #g_witch

Has Prospera wandered away from pure vengefulness, or do her machinations lead to some more complex & more horrible revenge? #g_witch (Betting on the latter.)

As I've said about previous eps: #g_witch loves a good focus pull.

Sophie skipping on the ceiling, arms wide… Merrybell moment. #g_witch

'Mr President, watch out!' scene from Penguindrum but it's Delling Rembran.

One line here to remind us that Bob's boss is, within what's possible for a boss, a decent boss. #g_witch

Incredibly mundane social disaster. #g_witch

Jeturk deliberately needling Shaddiq about his adopted status… my guy, my dude, you might not be long for this world. #g_witch

Dominicus are back! #g_witch

Kenanji is… back…? #g_witch

Firmly in the blunt 'robot step in shadow' school, but the camera's skew-whiff when Suletta talks to Prospera. It flips back to normality when Miorine bangs on the door. #g_witch

twf Miorine #g_witch

Prospera has the correct maternal response ('Did people say that or did you invent it?'). Then she follows that up with ᴛɪᴍᴇ ᴛᴏ ᴄᴏᴍᴇ ʙᴀᴄᴋ ᴀɴᴅ ʙᴇ ᴀ ᴄᴏᴍᴘᴏɴᴇɴᴛ ɪɴ ᴍʏ ᴍᴜʀᴅᴇʀ-ᴅᴀᴜɢʜᴛᴇʀ. Oh look, the inherited hairband, what a surprise. #g_witch

Suletta reflexively slamming the close button is very funny. #g_witch

#g_witch

For believers in things like 'scriptwriting' and 'story': the one other time Suletta's regretted coming to school was in ep 4. #g_witch

#g_witch

Loved this shot looking back into the Kashtanka's bay. #g_witch

I also liked this impractical command centre! #g_witch

The thruster effects animation here? Mmmmm yes. #g_witch

Shaddiq's such a nice guy (derogatory). #g_witch

The piece of music accompanying the initial attack in these shots also came paired with the attack in the Prologue. #g_witch

I was actually checking the Prologue because they use jamming there too. So. Does A.S. have a Minovsky Particle analogue, or…? #g_witch

So as I was saying about focus pulls— #g_witch

Aerial is upgraded, but will Suletta even make it into the cockpit before the season ends? Or will Prospera abscond with it? #g_witch

I imagine most guessed this was coming, but it might well be three months /or more/ before we see them share a scene again. #g_witch

Really does begin to look like there's going to be a main-line TV Gundam AU series shorter in total than X. https://twitter.com/AIR_News01/status/1606975759717126144…

I stand corrected: I suppose G-Reco is a precedent. https://twitter.com/Meadow_Aruji/status/1606979132117901313…

The cheques #g_witch is writing have reached comedy handed-to-charity-in-a-photoshoot size.

Not saying that the show isn’t going to cash them, mind. Not after this episode. #g_witch

I don't know whether #g_witch even will return to it at this point, but we still don't know what they promised at the start of episode 3.

Hah! They made a Miorine #g_witch t-shirt and it's her calling her dad out.

The reason I came across the t-shirt is that I ordered the 'this witch rides a Gundam' mug. #g_witch

I have seen the #g_witch episode but, in part for people who haven't yet, I'll be letting it settle for a little before talking.

NB the 'little'. #g_witch

Okay the little time is ending shortly. If you don't want details and you don't have the hashtag #g_witch muted, blame it on the misfortune of your birth.

Are you not entertained? Is this not why you are here? #g_witch

Ending with 'off' isn't an error but I think it weakens some phrases, and I think it weakens this title translation. #g_witch (There are other phrases which are not weakened by ending with 'off'. I'm sure you can think of one straight away.)

[long-time fans, cigarettes and drinks in left hands, pointing at screens with their right hands] #g_witch

Ah, a classic. #g_witch

Grudgingly admitting once again that they're not doing the worst job marshalling 2D backgrounds alongside 3D backgrounds. #g_witch

I find the Ur popping this shoulder attachment as it goes to Permet IV just mechanically very satisfying. #g_witch

[fond memories of the spent-casings ejection shot in the Char's Counterattack trailer] #g_witch

Conceptually & visually charming sequence here that defies still images. So I'll just say I love the scatter-beam. #g_witch

Something I also love: how often Gundam insists that infantry have to be delivered by mobile suit. #g_witch

(This extends to the special forces in Unicorn having a troop transport suit that transforms into an APC.) #g_witch

Flickering lights in this scene are a nice touch. #g_witch

This nods to the hatch shot that starts F91, right? #g_witch does love the UC.

Some inhuman touches in this helmet design. #g_witch

Presumably here we're meant to be thinking of the Prologue. #g_witch

Giving Lilique a panic attack is the real terrorism. #g_witch

Bob has a very bad day, but I'll come back to that later. #g_witch

Characteristic that Suletta messes up and makes a noise here. Clumsy to the last. #g_witch

- you need to express your feelings - it's fine to feel down sometimes - killing is okay - everyone needs to decompress now and then #g_witch

Anyway the meditative piano reinterpretation of 'Shukufuku' that plays over this is neat. #g_witch

wow cool robot #g_witch

From checking in with others, I'm not the only person who immediately thought of the Unicorn pushing Marida out of Industrial 7. #g_witch

Note that Aerial tells Suletta (without being asked) that Earth House are okay. #g_witch

Well, that's a very big gun. #g_witch

Enjoying very much Peil delivering momentous news in an email headed 'Business Correspondence'. #g_witch

Something #g_witch has done repeatedly (though not in every ep): match-cutting /into the ED/. I'm sure it's far from the first show to do it, but I can't remember other examples off the top of my head.

So I guess what's so shocking to Miorine here, besides the violence itself, is Suletta's nonchalance. We'll have to wait to find out if that's something Prospera did, something Aerial did, a capacity Suletta had all along, or some mixture. #g_witch

This replays the engagement shot, of course. #g_witch

The shot of Suletta reaching out reaches back within this episode, but not only within this episode. #g_witch

Now I have to go out and watch the Utena film with some friends (coincidence, I promise). I've some more notes which I'll come back to later.

So, what else #g_witch did I want to cover. Ah. There's totally a chilling, utilitarian aspect to that quantifying gain-one-gain-two thing, huh.

Again, it's the nonchalance not the killing, isn't it? That's why I'm treading carefully around the word 'murder'. #g_witch

Are the nonchalance and Bob's coincidental patricide 'unrealistic' or too 'out of nowhere'? No, for two reasons. #g_witch

First, plot is a lie invented by Big Novel to sell more novels, so this idea is an idea about nothing. We can do better than reheated rules of thumb imbibed badly from secondary education. #g_witch

Second, pretending for the sake of argument that plotting even exists, most people at most times have done plot like this. It's 'unrealistic' that Oedipus runs into and then quarrels with Laius; it's 'unrealistic' that Iseult and Tristan happen on the love draught. #g_witch

And if it's good enough for them I'm sure it's good enough for the robot show. Of course, /disliking/ these things remains perfectly reasonable. But dislike is not evaluation. #g_witch

(We hashed all this out about a twist in a different robot show in 2007, and I was right then too.) #g_witch

So, is #g_witch any good? Well, call no show happy until it's dead. Maybe ask me in 2033, if I'm alive then.

But provisionally I'll be putting together a working answer in a few months for a podcast thing. In the meantime… #g_witch

…in my off-the-cuff judgement #g_witch so far has stayed solid, remained highly entertaining week-to-week, and welcomed newcomers. It does feel hamstrung by being made in the conditions of the 2020s, but such are the times in which we live.

As a fun show with hand-drawn giant robot battles, #g_witch must be head-and-shoulders the best anime of autumn 2022 and winter 2023.

The in-station combat in both ep 12 and the Prologue sits, I suppose, in the lineage of Be Invoked. I don't think that's an allusion, just a genealogy. #g_witch

So about those three texts a day— #g_witch

Women will literally engineer a terrifying slaughter-daughter piloted by /another/ terrifying slaughter-daughter rather than go to therapy. Love that for them. #g_witch

To revive #g_witch memories & anticipate the second cours, @Giant Robot FM, @RTL3, and I just recorded some detailed discussion. Actually only the first half of what we have planned. Truly our cup runneth over.

I thought the 'You hypocritical loser of a father!' #g_witch t-shirt was high-powered. Turns out they were just warming up.

A #g_witch Guel can badge? Trust me, guys, you'd make more money selling a Guel can't badge.

9 April, then. #g_witch

Liking the new mobile suits in that #g_witch PV.

Quiet Zero is actually just a nice room, sound-proofed from outside disturbance, where you can chill. #g_witch

Whoever decided that the run up to S2 needed a 28 Dates Later marketing campaign has a huge, pulsating brain. #g_witch

Mere days before we find out whether, post-unblocking, the wedding is back on. #g_witch

As a general warning, #g_witch airs on my Sunday mornings, and I will see no reason to delay discussing it here. Tweets will be hashtagged g_witch, though, so you can prepare to use your mute fences if you want to avoid them.

Idly looked at the comments below the Linkin Park #g_witch AMV and they're all… positive? Lots of 'nature is healing', 'thanks for doing what needed to be done'. And one from the creator who says none of their other AMVs have had this many views.

She's so back. #g_witch

They really did it. too much high power man. #g_witch

Secelia's line about Elan being a different person is probably just what it is, but full marks to the show if it turns out she Knows. #g_witch

I wasn't sure about starting so high-tech when #g_witch began, but things like the independently-manoeuvring gun? Mint.

Feels like the serial duel offers a chance to show off some slightly goofier designs. Love these guys. #g_witch

Shades of the mobile suit at the start of 0080 that loses control of its shooting arm. #g_witch

This is true. #g_witch https://twitter.com/swabl/status/1645009408622055424…

As with many OPs these days, I find this one slightly take-it-or-leave-it. Kind of overwhelming amount of intervention during photography. The song is there, I suppose. #g_witch

That said, I dig the shots of Suletta staring up through downdraft, and of Eri and Elnora. #g_witch

The robots are good when the OP lets them arrive. #g_witch

Where is he. He doesn't appear in this episode. WHERE IS HE. #g_witch

Giving Nika and Martin the reflection shots, eh. #g_witch

Insipid: character development haircut Intrepid: character development hair volume https://twitter.com/Deve_Dy/status/1645012849750859776… #g_witch

This little conversation spreads its characters' states out in a simple but pleasing way. #g_witch

What could go wrong. #g_witch

[in a slightly different key] What could go wrong. (ᴀɴᴅ ᴀʟʟ ᴍᴇɴ / ɢʀᴇᴡ ᴛᴏ ꜰᴇᴀʀ / ᴛʜᴇɪʀ ᴏᴡɴ ᴅᴇᴇᴅꜱ) #g_witch

An image to save for its possible future usefulness. #g_witch

Nice shot of the greenhouse enclosing Suletta. Early in S1, she called her mum from her own room instead. #g_witch

I'm glad we're still attending to Suletta's hand gestures. #g_witch

#g_witch keeps its first-person shots neatly distinguished by shake, and two important ones crop up in this scene.

#g_witch

The OP signals the role of these stuffed animals… and in fact they were already appearing out-of-focus in the foreground in S1. #g_witch

Welcome to school, try to avoid getting fried or killing your dad. #g_witch

Rouji really does get bullied by everyone. #g_witch

#g_witch

Lots of emphasis in that montage and here on Sophie's physical confidence and athleticism. #g_witch

…something she shares with Suletta, who's consistently very competent outside the cockpit when acting rather than speaking. (Think of the chase scene in S1.) #g_witch

Kind of the characters to say the themes here. This move's also Suletta's most ambitious attempt yet to make the arbitrary and flippant duel system work for her. #g_witch

So the ED's fun, isn't it? First off, it feels musically more distinct. Like a 'G no Senkou' or 'Orphans no Namida'. #g_witch

It's also conceptually amusing: Suletta between projector and screen, separated from the projected Miorine and Aerial… #g_witch

…the collapse of the distinction… #g_witch

…and, at the last, Miorine and Suletta both outside the screen. #g_witch

Soon as she unblocks her, the wedding IS back on. #g_witch

wow! robot step in shadow. (Using GUND to rewrite the world into one without war sounds like it's at the grander, stranger end of Gundam Final Plans… like say Victory.) #g_witch

El5n picking up on Norea's brain-poison is kind of funny. #g_witch

I'm glad I don't experience feelings because otherwise the moment in the ED when Miorine leans back would make me experience feelings. #g_witch

Maybe the phrase actually has a comma. 'Quiet, zero, a ten is talking'. #g_witch

Today, multiple people I follow have been tweeting with this profile picture, sometimes in contiguous tweets from different accounts. #g_witch

Two power standard (making sure you have more gundams than the next two most-begundamed companies combined). #g_witch

FW little IW, my view on the various visual allusions from #g_witch S2 ep 1 that've been circulating: - Utena / P-drum explosive inward-reaching: yes, obviously, slam-dunk.

- Love Live fingers: maybe, but I'm pretty sure this shot idea predates Love Live, & I'm not immediately sure what this would signal. #g_witch

- Drakengard: unlikely. I don't see the flower or the central figure, and the circle from above shot predates the early 2010s. #g_witch

- Adolescence of Utena: uncertain. The poses and angles don't match closely, & people hold hands and spin in lots of things… …on the other hand, this is something where #g_witch has previous.

- Zeta MP bullying sequence: possible. The shots aren't nearly as adjacent in Zeta as they are in #g_witch, but gwitch is sicko for the UC in ways some other AU titles aren't.

On the basis that I distrust all interviews, I’m curious about what period is ‘initial sales’ for a gunpla kit. Still, it’s probably genuinely a comment about high sales, and that’s a good thing! https://twitter.com/180223/status/1646533115027009536… #g_witch

this gwitch… gwides a gwundam #g_witch

Vibrating at the realisation when @Giant Robot FM point out that US Mother’s Day will probably be a Suletta Sunday. #g_witch

What kind of view of the world does Prospera’s mask give her? Does she have AR in there? Email access, at least? #g_witch

Further thought on the genealogy for shots in the ED offered by a friend in the locked zone. #g_witch

As promised, there's robot action! #g_witch

More than a whiff of Victory does hang around this plan. But not just Victory. #g_witch

Moving beyond wow!-robot-step-in-shadow, I like the disparity between station structure & characters here. #g_witch

#g_witch

What Prospera outlines in this scene has a pleasing motion—the feuding older generation togethered by Quiet Zero… But you'd guess that Prospera's lying, and we find out later in the episode that she definitely is. #g_witch

A small formal tweak marking out this episode, and its title: title shot directly before OP. #g_witch

Joke here partly rests on letting us think for a moment that they're freaking out about GUND, when they're not. Anyway, rest of the episode involves getting progressively more freaked out about GUND. #g_witch

I think Till's fairly consistently been a gestural character more than a vocal one? #g_witch

Closed greenhouse doing work. #g_witch

Thinking back to those riot scenes early in S1, and to Chuchu's six union dads. Some parts of Earth really are factoryland, I guess. #g_witch

yoink #g_witch

Simple stuff, but it works, and I love how this short conversation's laid out. Up to & including the colony curve behind it. #g_witch

As I said last week, soon as she unblocks her, the wedding IS back on. #g_witch

Remembering this tweet a lot this week. #g_witch https://twitter.com/alma314_/status/1608502194625708033…

Something Secelia enjoys enough to get off the couch for it. #g_witch

I have a pet theory that the more seriously an educational community takes sports, the less good it is. #g_witch

c h u a t o r y p a n l u n c h #g_witch

Yes, there's robot action! (I must go out to buy milk, but will return later to the notes I took.) #g_witch

Two episodes in a row just really good for goofy little guys whose designs resonate with Gundam's past. #g_witch

El5n, meanwhile, flying around posing insufferably. As usual. #g_witch

Though this is neat, I'll grant him that. #g_witch

Giving Lilique a panic attack was a war crime, and now it turns out they also traumatised Chuchu so she can't punch people, also a war crime. ('But Chuchu's using a gun—' When Chuchu fires a gun she punches people with the bullets, shush.) #g_witch

Kind of wish #g_witch would go in for this kind of exaggeration (or greater) a little more often.

Excellent expression of the combining bits idea. #g_witch

A stand-out in the field of eye-flashes. #g_witch

Definitely an extra edge to 'Commencing operation' when heard after the routine school-sports launches earlier. #g_witch

Hard to feel much sympathy for Lauda. #g_witch

I do like how ill-proportioned and off-feeling the Thorn and Ur designs are. #g_witch

These images normally crop up at the start of a Gundam title. They land differently here—not better or worse, but differently. Episode 14's the closest we've come so far—closer than 12—to the traditional colony invasion. #g_witch

Pharact ain't the main focus but it still comes out well this week. #g_witch

#g_witch

Keeping up those helmet reflections. #g_witch

The permet markings on the face work great with Gundam's traditional scenes of teens yelling at each other while pushing their suits. #g_witch

Sophie's conscious, clumsy search for the idea of family helps explain how she replaced that toy with Haro so swiftly in ep 13. #g_witch

El5n griped about the Gundvolvas as though he might've expected a Peil briefing on them, and now he knows what Shaddiq's done, too. #g_witch

Bringing in the ED song's start over the closing footage goes well. Though I'm going to make myself unpopular and say there's one past Gundam ED that I loved for this… #g_witch

… and it's this one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7k_CfPuXoMU… Say what you like about Seed (and I have plenty of complaints), running the first 49 seconds of this and then hitting the ED animation? Perfect.

This week's battle, like episode 12, also meant a move away from duels, & towards following multiple suits through a big complex mess. #g_witch

100% in favour of the choice to reveal What's in The Box somewhere other than the climax of either* cours. #g_witch * Assuming just two, which we don't know about yet.

El5n is the most rancid fellow, but I grudgingly respect his commitment to avoid gundaming too hard. Most other pilots in #g_witch will gundam too hard, too fast at the drop of a hat.

Gunpla instruction booklet epitext says Chuchu’s annoyed that her robot isn’t built to punch things. #g_witch https://twitter.com/thaliarchus/status/1648723206742712322…

Feel like ‘a pilot who despises retreating’ is one to file away. #g_witch

love earf 'ate retreats simple as #g_witch

Enjoying & nodding at @pmcTRILOGY’s point on @Giant Robot FM about how El5n /pilots/ in an annoying way too. #g_witch

In every place, in every age, someone is mounting a gun on a Toyota Hilux [local equivalent]. #g_witch

The Earth at Dawn of Fold's camp isn't the only Earth: we saw the urban factory-lands protesting in S1. But for today, back to the camp. #g_witch

And we're at the survival stratum, where you seek to get people /some/ food and basic cleanliness. (Very crudely, IIRC, below 1200kcals is where you enter famine territory, so 1500 is, ah, not wonderful.) #g_witch

First time I watched this ep I realised about the GUND arm when I heard it, but I should've twigged here. #g_witch

This's the repurposed school where we saw Sophie and Norea in S1, for a nice bit of concatenation back to episode 14. #g_witch

(From the other episode with the same title.) #g_witch

I suppose, looking at the photos and behind the desk, this might've been the school head's office? #g_witch

This scene's very well-assembled to unsettle. Would be good to hear the details of what the t-lation calls 'war partitioning'. Maybe we will in coming weeks. #g_witch

For a long time I've wanted the show to give us more of Earth, so this is nice. The mobility choice here is cheerfully very like the UC. #g_witch

Unsure whether the school's so recognisably a Japanese school building because this is Japan or just for legibility to the audience. #g_witch

On that thought: locked zone points out this tweet to me: https://twitter.com/Ray___S/status/1650054211437215750… #g_witch

Hint of a rather bleak line of idolisation here: the smaller children looking up to Sophie, who looked up to (her idea of) Suletta. #g_witch

No reason for the fence to make those shapes, which is to say, every reason for the fence to make those shapes. #g_witch

These back-to-back shots let us compare and contrast the cockpit interior designs rather nicely. #g_witch

This sort of death is a time-hallowed Gundam tradition and we have it because it works. #g_witch

A very solid, nicely conceived grunt-to-grunt battle, in some ways the more enjoyable because gwitch hasn't indulged in this so far. #g_witch

I am very into all these interface shots. #g_witch

This is great and we see it for just half a second. #g_witch

And this battle does lots for #g_witch as a whole. Now we have something really concrete against which to set Asticassia and its duels.

#g_witch has gone in for bleak ironies and unintended effects (e.g. Suletta saving Delling's life by displacing Guel in ep 1). Those continue here. One of the background reasons for Seethia's death is her (fully understandable) desire to kill Guel.

As for Guel himself here… On one level he achieves nothing. But he distracts the company pilot, whom Olcott then kills. The shot sequencing implies a link to the transports' escape. #g_witch

No, we are not done putting Sophie's stuffed animals in the foreground, out of focus. #g_witch

The locked zone suggests that this ep's a very concise echo of the Gundam tradition of grizzled hostile mentors. e.g. Ramba Ral for Amuro, and Zinnerman for Banagher in Unicorn 4. Could be! #g_witch

Today I had my breakfast tea in my This witch… rides a gundam mug, and then this witch didn't ride a gundam. #g_witch

Assured and confident choice to go a whole episode without Suletta. I think they pulled it off well. #g_witch https://twitter.com/thaliarchus/status/1650108771719430144…

Maybe 'Ærial' is a good way to write it. There's already a thorn in #g_witch, so there might as well be an æsc.