Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury - Episode Eight: Their Choice
Written by: Yasuhiro Nakanishi
Directed by: Yoshio Suzuki, Masakazu Sunazawa, Shouji Ikeno and Ryo Ando
Storyboarded by: Hiromitsu Kanazawa
Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury - Episode Eight: Their Choice (彼らの採択, Karera no Saitaku) is the eighth episode of Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury.
At the Earth House dormitory, Nika and Martin explain the events of the incubation party, and how Miorine managed to secure investors to start her own company. Miorine then enters with Suletta, revealing that she plans to have all of Earth House help her run the new business, quickly shutting down any complaints.
The following day, the students of Earth House discuss how they feel about possibly working for Miorine on Gundams, while she and Suletta meet with Prospera. Wanting to learn more about Gundams, Prospera provides Miorine with Aerial's data, but notes they can't mass-produce her yet because they haven't pinpointed the underlying problems with the GUND-Format's basic elements. Suletta tries to question her mother about Aerial being a Gundam, with Prospera using her own GUND prosthetic to demonstrate that people fear the unknown, outlawing Gundams out of that fear, claiming she hid the truth to protect her daughters from the "curse's abominable flame". Suletta is easily won over by the answer, pledging to protect Aerial and show people she's perfectly safe at her mother's suggestion, but Miorine is perturbed by the interaction.
On a space shuttle back to the school, Miorine notes they forgot to ask how Suletta can pilot Aerial safely, when Shaddiq approaches them with advice relating to their fledgling company, even offering to take over operations on the condition that Miorine marries him, which she swiftly rejects. Suletta deduces that Shaddiq is in love with Miorine, a premise she scoffs at, telling her about his being an orphan raised by Grassley, willing to do anything for the company.
Returning to Earth House, GUND-ARM Inc. holds its first staff meeting, with Lilique readily taking to the role of secretary, outlining all they'll need to get the company officially started. Revealing that purchasing the Pharact and its development team from Peil has left them with very little of their initial funding remaining, the company needs a business plan to drum up additional funding, with weapon development seeming the natural choice. However, this causes division amongst the group, as not all of them are comfortable with selling weapons. The decision is left to Miorine, who initially has no particular issue with selling weapons. Seeing how divided the group is becoming, she relents, ordering Martin and Lilique to see to the necessary documentation, Till to design a logo, and the others to prepare a promotional video (PV) for the company to improve the public image of Gundams, giving them a two week deadline while she leaves to conduct further research.
Elsewhere, several students bully Guel while he tries to ignore them and eat, when Shaddiq approaches and scares them off. He offers Guel a place in his House, to at least take a shower, though Guel rejects the offer, not wanting to accept pity from someone who wouldn't even duel him. Taking his leave, Shaddiq then gets a call from his father, informing him of an impending delivery of several new mobile suits along with anti-Gundam weaponry, bidding him to erase Gundams from the world. Shaddiq, however, sees this as narrow-minded.
In her bedroom, Miorine watches a recording of her father's speech outlawing Gundams, concluding she needs to learn more about them and the GUND-Format. Meeting with Belmeria at Peil, she deduces that she is a "Witch"; Belmeria admits to trying to imitate Vanadis' work, enthralled by the ideals of GUND, which catches Miorine's interest. Back in her greenhouse, Miorine thinks over what she learned from Belmeria when Shaddiq approaches her, again offering his assistance with her company. Recollecting a time when he and Miorine created a successful business proposal together, only to be admonished by their parents, he expresses his belief they can create a better future than them.
Two weeks later at Earth House, Suletta and Chuchu are finishing up their PV, while the others remain divided. Returning to them, Miorine presents two options for their business plan: the first option has them sell Gundams as weapons, as previously discussed. The second option, however, is to complete the original GUND medical technology, revealing a video featuring the deceased Vanadis Institute head researcher, Cardo Nabo, explaining why the GUND-Format was first conceptualized. Resolving to take this path, they publish the company's poorly produced PV; viewing it makes Prospera laugh, while Belmeria is charmed by the hopeful message.
Relaxing having finished their work and reconciled their issues, Earth House await Miorine and Suletta bringing food for their official launch party. Chatting peacefully under the faux-night sky as they ride a scooter back to the dorm, Suletta praises her fiancée for devising a plan everyone could agree on, even likening the start-up to joining a club, an item on her list; deflecting the praise, Miorine affectionately admonishes Suletta's light-heartedness. The moment is cut short when Miorine orders Suletta to stop, having received a startling notification. Shaddiq has had the regulations governing student start-ups adjusted, stopping GUND-ARM Inc. from being formalized until its technology can be proven as safe, allowing him to take over when the nascent company defaults to being Benerit Group property. Despite his reservations however, Shaddiq and his housemates know Miorine will not simply allow this, leaving only one recourse: a duel.
Tomioka’s (end card illustrator)’s official Twitter
Their Choice provides examples of:
- Catch-22 Dilemma: Shaddiq traps Miorine and Earth House in one. To launch, GUND-ARM Inc. must prove GUND-format technology is safe to use, which it can't prove until after it launches (being the whole purpose of the company).
- Got Volunteered: Earth House gets "recruited" by Miorine to become part of her startup. None of them have much choice in the matter, though they are free to leave and chose not to.
- How the Mighty Have Fallen: Guel, previously the Holder and the school's top pilot, is now stoically being bullied by a group of random students at his tent in the woods.
- Kitschy Local Commercial: The GUND-ARM Inc. PV produced by Earth House is adorably amateurish, featuring Suletta with Aerial poorly cropped in behind her, mismatched lighting and greenscreen artifacts aplenty. Suletta cannot keep eye-contact with the camera's focus point, her position flickers back and forth between choppily edited cuts, a goat wanders by Aerial's feet only to disappear "behind" Suletta, the lighting changes between cuts as they filmed all day, with Suletta looking more and more exhausted the later it gets, capped off by the Forced Perspective used to try and have the two make a heart at the end. All set to an incredibly cheesy jingle about how safe and helpful Gundams are. Small wonder Belmeria found it cute... and Prospera thought it hilarious.
- Lying to Protect Your Feelings: Lady Prospera explains that she lied to Suletta regarding Aerial's nature as a Gundam in order to protect both of them from the fear and hate the vast majority of people feel about Gundams. Suletta is cheered up by this.
- Moving the Goalposts: The majority of the episode is spent with the GUND-ARM crew trying to figure out details of their startup in a way that makes everyone happy or at least content. Then, once all the issues are ironed out, Shaddiq adds a new rule that says any student startup has to provide proof of safety, which GUND-ARM are not able to.
- Mythology Gag: Char and Prospera have their arms open while making a speech. Char, however, opened his arms amidst a speech to motivate his Neo Zeon troops, while Prospera was basically "reassuring" Suletta.
- Romantic Ride Sharing: Suletta and Miorine share a scooter and a rare tender moment under the starry sky when they go to pick up food for the GUND-ARM launch party. Unsurprisingly, Suletta is steering.
- Stylistic Suck: The GUND-ARM Inc. PV. Aerial, or rather a 3D model of it crudely mo-capped, is poorly greenscreened with a very clear and chunky green outline, the lighting on Aerial is not consistent with the environment (which changes between cuts as they filmed all day long), Suletta's outline is poorly cut when she's standing in front of Aerial, Aerial is notably higher off the ground for each of the cuts, Suletta's position likewise shifts back and forth, and Suletta gets visibly more tired with each cut.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Despite the majority of them being business students, Earth House is given a sobering wake-up when they realize the difference in scope between textbooks and actually starting a multi-billion dollar company. Corprate structuring, logistics, branding, and resource consolidation (including the Gundam Pharact they bought from Peil) have to get hammered out within the span of two weeks, as well as dealing with the ethical concerns associated with getting into a field predominantly focused on producing war machines. And all this before more business-savvy rivals start throwing their weight around.
- Yank the Dog's Chain: After much uncertainty and struggles, Miorine and Suletta have finally managed to get their company of the ground with a mission statement everyone agrees with. While there are still financial struggles, things are finally looking bright. And then Shaddiq changes the rules to prevent GUND-ARM from becoming a legal entity.
