Recap / Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury - Episode 9: If I Could Take One More Step Towards You

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury - Episode Nine: If I Could Take One More Step Toward You

The Antidote is Cured.

^{Click here to see the End Card illustrated by Shirabi} 

"If I'm her Groom... I'll believe in my Bride."

— Suletta Mercury

Original Air date: December 4, 2022
Written by: Yasuhiro Nakanishi
Directed by: Satoshi Toba and Shinya Watada
Storyboarded by: Hiroshi Kobayashi, Shinya Watada and Susumu Nishizawa

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury - Episode Nine: If I Could Take One More Step Toward You (あと一歩、キミに踏み出せたなら, Ato Ippo, Kimi ni Fumidaseta nara) is the ninth episode of Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury.

Synopsis

In a flashback, Guel earns his eighth victory as Holder, defending his title and engagement to Miorine. Discussing the battle, the girls of Grassley House wonder why Shaddiq hasn't challenged Guel himself, with Henao Jazz noting that he gets "timid as a hedgehog" around Miorine. At her greenhouse, Miorine vents about hating her situation after a failed escape attempt, while Shaddiq listens from outside. He tells her he's different from those fighting over her as a prize, and that he has no interest in challenging Guel for the title of Holder, which she seems thankful for, stating her intent to marry outside the Benerit Group.

In the present, Earth House commiserate over a vandalized GUND-ARM Inc. sign they made, while Miorine & Suletta meet with Shaddiq & Sabina Fardin. Shaddiq offers a deal whereby he becomes part-owner of GUND-ARM Inc., allowing Miorine and Earth House to continue operations as planned with Grassley's support to bypass the new regulations. After Miorine correctly deduces that the new rules were put in place by Shaddiq himself, she instead challenges him to a duel.

With Lauda serving as overseer, Miorine stakes having Shaddiq rescind his modified student start-up regulations, while he will have her sign his earlier offered business deal should he win. However, rather than just a one-on-one match between himself and Suletta, the duel will instead be six-versus-six, despite Earth House only having two dedicated pilots and mobile suits. Miorine agrees to the handicap on the condition that the match be livestreamed outside the school, to the entire Benerit Group, which Shaddiq agrees to; another of Shaddiq's Housemates, Renee Costa, personally challenges Lilique, who had accompanied Miorine along with Martin.

While Lilique agrees to join the match in response to Renee's challenge, Earth House still lacks for pilots and machines. Miorine orders the others to search for additional pilots, while she contacts Belmeria about possibly borrowing the Pharact in advance of their purchase. Overlooking the training drill grounds, Nika secretly meets with Shaddiq, calling him disgusting for interfering with the establishment of GUND-ARM Inc., which he rebuffs as not the concern of a "go-between." Searching the school grounds for possible support, Suletta runs into Guel, asking him to join them. To his frustration, Guel declines, saying his father has forbidden him from dueling, which Suletta understands due to her own relationship with her mother; later during the duel, Guel receives a call from Vim, informing him that he's having him withdrawn from school to learn business at a Jeturk subsidiary.

At her greenhouse, Shaddiq tries to convince Miorine to back down and accept his deal without the duel. When she calls him out on treating her like an ornament the same as all the others, he tries to insist otherwise, only for her to snap at him to stay out. Taking his leave, he encounters Suletta, trying to get her to talk Miorine down instead. Suletta instead expresses her belief in supporting Miorine's decision, causing Shaddiq's manner to harden, stating his intent to take both Miorine and Aerial from her.

The day of the duel arrives and Earth House launches with Till, Martin and Ojelo accompanying Suletta, Chuchu and Lilique; while unable to send them the Pharact due to it still being under maintenance, Belmeria was able to provide them with four Peil Zoworts. When the battle begins, Shaddiq immediately intercepts Chuchu to prevent her from providing long-range support, while his team quickly dispatches the non-pilots of Earth House with minimal effort.

Reduced to fighting six-on-one, Suletta and Aerial are backed into a corner focusing on defense, when Grassley deploys their anti-GUND-Format "Antidote" weapons, disabling her bits and most of Aerial's systems. Barely able to continue dodging, Aerial quickly begins to take heavy damage. Apologizing for relying on Aerial so much previously, Suletta resolves to fight on her own, leading to Aerial's GUND reawakening, glowing a bright blue, overriding the Antidote. With Aerial's bits functioning again, including a new interlinked barrier ability, Suletta easily eliminates three Grassley pilots. Just when it seems Shaddiq managed to isolate her despite this comeback, Chuchu shoots his antenna off from afar, her damaged Demi-Trainer supported by Till and Lilique's Zoworts, winning the duel. Miorine contacts a stunned Shaddiq, calling him out for his distrust of others. Suletta then emerges from her damaged Gundam and performs the same dance she did in her company's video, with a solemnly amused Shaddiq watching on.

In the aftermath of the duel, Earth House holds a party to celebrate their victory and the incorporation of GUND-ARM, while Suletta begins cleaning and repairing Aerial, again apologizing to her. Shaddiq once more meets with Miorine outside her greenhouse, musing that perhaps things might have been different had he challenged Guel long ago, taking up the role of Holder to protect her. After he leaves, Miorine simply comments that it's "too little, too late."

Shirabi’s (end card illustrator)’s official Twitter

If I Could Take One More Step Toward You provides examples of:

• Bait-and-Switch: When Earth House is short a few pilots and mobile suits for the Grassley House duel, the audience are led to think of Elan and Guel, whom Suletta is close with, and the Pharact, which was acquired by GUND-Arm inc. (and by extension Earth House) last episode. All three are brought up as options, but Elan is unavailable, Guel turns down Suletta's invitation, and Peil is unwilling to let the kids have too close a look at the Pharact.
• Batman Gambit: Miorine knew that even with his whole team behind him, Shaddiq would go for the Coup de Grâce on Aerial himself because he doesn't trust others enough to finish things. So she has Suletta's seemingly-disabled teammates group together for a final shot to snipe Shaddiq when he rushed forward and gave them an opening.
• Bewildering Punishment: Lilique is extremely confused why Renee is so eager to fight her, which turns out to be because Renee's 12th backup boyfriend unsuccessfully asked her to lunch.
• Book Ends: The episode begins and ends with Miorine and Shaddiq at her greenhouse under different circumstances. In the flashback, Shaddiq claims he doesn’t want to have anything to do with being the Holder. After losing, it becomes clear that wasn’t the case, and he laments he wished he did something before and Miorine merely remarks to herself it is too late for that.
• Boom, Headshot!: Chuchu and her Demi-Trainer manage to score a shot straight through the Michaelis's head, breaking off its antenna and winning the team fight.
• Childhood Friend Romance: Shaddiq attempts this and fails spectacularly due to not acting on his feelings earlier which caused a rift to open up between Miorine and him sometime ago. Losing the duel sealed the deal.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: The duel begins as one against Earth House, as Shaddiq's team is composed of Grassley House's best pilots and up against Earth House's two pilots and four technicians, who are quickly whittled down to just Suletta alone. But after getting their Heroic Second Wind, Suletta and Aerial are able to quickly and easily dismantle Shaddiq's team before he manages to distance her from her bits.
• David Versus Goliath: With Team Earth House as the Davids due to being a poor and downtrodden house with only two pilots using borrowed mobile suits and having go deploy non-pilots just to fill out their ranks. Versus Grassley House as the Goliaths due to being one of the Big Three Houses whose team consists of the best pilots in the school using highly-advanced suits. The Davids win due to a mix of craftiness and cooperation on their end, and the complete lack of it from the Goliaths.
• Entertainingly Wrong: When Guel explains his father has forbidden him from dueling, Suletta says she understands, because she knows what it's like to love a parent dearly and be willing to do anything for them.
• Foreshadowing:
  • During Miorine and Shaddiq's scene at the greenhouse prior to the duel, there show a shot of Miorine's tomatoes with five of them lumped together while two other isolated tomatoes are at the side. Said formation matches the positioning that Suletta, the Earth House and Shaddiq were in at the end of the duel later on in the episode, with the two isolated tomatoes being Suletta and Shaddiq and the five lumped tomatoes being Chuchu with support from the other Earth House students.
  • When Guel asks his father about Miorine, his father merely mentions he has a backup plan in regards to handling the situation.
• Graceful Loser: Shaddiq takes his defeat at the hands of the Earth House in stride and beyond rescinding his newly implemented regulations promises to take no further actions against the company.
• Heroic Second Wind: After Suletta apologizes to Aerial for relying on her too often, resolving to fight with her own strength, Aerial's GUND System reawakens and overrides the enemy's "Antidote". The result is Aerial and Suletta overwhelming the Grassley team despite significant damage, systematically dismantling them before Shaddiq separates Aerial from the bits.
• Lady Killer In Love: Despite being surrounded by women, having many adoring fangirls, and a reputation for stealing girls away in duels, Shaddiq appeared to have legitimate feelings for Miorine. He more or less admits he did a poor job with handling them.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Shaddiq did a lot of very shady things against the Earth House in this episode and the previous one, including underestimating the House members. He ends up facing a humiliating defeat when he gets so focused on defeating Suletta that he fails to protect his team from getting decimated by the same house he went against and gets a headshot courtesy of Chuchu, another Earthian. Bonus points for Chuchu being the one to score the winning shot after Shaddiq attacked her and dismissed her as a mere 'sidekick' earlier.
  Chuchu: I told you not to underestimate Earth House. Dumbass.
• Logical Weakness: Aerial's bits can be either beam weapons or beam shields, but not both at once. As such, Shaddiq's team is able to neutralize her Beam Spam by constantly firing on her from multiple directions, keeping her bits too busy blocking to shoot anything.
• Meaningful Echo: After Shaddiq is defeated, Suletta steps out into Aerial's hand and does the dance from the GUND-ARM Inc. PV she starred in last episode, this time in full confidence. As the duel was live-streamed to the whole Benerit Group, this causes viewership of their PV to skyrocket.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Lady Prospera sheds a Single Tear as the episode comes to an end, just like Char mourning Lalah's death. However, Prospera's tear is one of joy, seeing that her masterpiece beat the "Antidote" deployed against the Gundam and it was mirrored from Char's.
  • Chuchu has to be held up by two Zoworts to get a boost (and better aim) for a long shot from a very long distance. This tactic has been used several times in Gundam, most notably with the Methuss connecting to the Hyaku-Shiki's large particle cannon.
• Power Nullifier: All six of the Grassley machines used in the duel, including Shaddiq's Michaelis, possess the Antidote protocol, a system that generates a pulse which disables the Gundam's GUND-Format System. Suletta and Aerial suffer from the sudden deactivation of the machine's GUND-Format shutting down until the former resolves to fight with her own strength, causing Aerial to override the Antidote.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: After Earth House wins, Miorine tells Shaddiq that she figured that he would try to eliminate Suletta himself, calling him out on how he told her to trust him when she knows he doesn't trust anyone besides himself, which gave them their opening to defeat him and his team. The episode ends with Miorine musing any good intentions of Shaddiq's are too little, too late.
• Refusal of the Call: Guel refuses to be part of Earth House’s team due to his father forbidding him from dueling which Suletta accepts.
• Revenge by Proxy: Lauda would've probably taken a Grassley House victory as payback fo Suletta disgracing Guel, if him cheering on Shaddiq is any indication.
• Rule of Symbolism: Two-fold. At the end of the episode Miorine cuts off a green tomato as she muses Shaddiq's words and actions are 'too little, too late'. The green tomato represents that something could have been between the two if Shaddiq had been willing to be honest with Miorine and trust her, but his inaction and lack of trust means any feelings between the two will never ripen. Miorine cutting the tomato represents any bond they may have shared at one point has officially been severed due to Shaddiq's actions against her in both this and the previous episode.
• Scissors Cuts Rock: The Grassley team deploys their Antidote fields to deactivate Aerial's bits, but Suletta and Aerial are able to override and disable the specialized anti-Gundam weaponry. As Lady Prospera witnessed a similar weapon deployed against Ochs Earth and even replicated it herself (as demonstrated in Aerial's duel against the Pharact), the implication seems to be that she was Properly Paranoid about it being used against her again and equipped Aerial with counter-countermeasures.
• Tears of Joy: A Single Tear comes out from under Lady Prospera's mask as she sees Suletta and Aerial overcome the anti-GUND field.
• We Are "Team Cannon Fodder": Four of the Earthian pilots are practically non-combatants and they stand no chance of defeating the Grassley team without Suletta, with Miorine bluntly suggesting she use them as shields. Subverted in that despite all of their suits being disabled without defeating a single Grassley opponent, they improvise a way to land the winning shot.