With the new regulation on student startups in place, Shaddiq tries once more to get Miorine to hand Gund-Arm to him, adding in that Miorine would remain as president and Earth House would still manage the company. Much to Shaddiq’s chagrin however, Miorine correctly deduces that he’s the one behind the regulation and all he’s really doing is selling a solution to a problem he created. In response, she challenges Shaddiq to a duel. If Miorine wins, the new regulation is reverted. If Shaddiq wins, then the transfer goes through.
Complicating matters however is the fact that duel will be a team match. This makes Shaddiq predisposed to win as aside from him, Grassley also has a full team of high ranking pilots. Obviously, Earth House is at a huge disadvantage as their only pilots are Suletta and ChuChu. I expected a good chunk of the episode to involve Earth House scrambling for pilots but that doesn’t really happen. In the end, they just have Martin, Ojelo, Lilique (Konomi Inagaki), and Till (Kohei Amasaki) get in the robots (and Till ends up being the only who’s actually useful).
To be fair, the only character anyone in Earth House could ask for help is Guel and this is actually acknowledged by the show. I would’ve loved to see Guel help Suletta gain. It certainly would be nice to see him win for once, even if it’s in a team duel. Unfortunately, Guel is forbidden by Vim to partake in duels. To make matters worse, we later learn that Vim plans on pulling Guel out from Asticassia entirely and have him work at one of his subsidiaries instead to gain some experience. I swear, this guy can’t catch a break.
A couple of other things happen before the duel. Nika confronts Shaddiq over Gund-Arm from being approved in Asticassia. This scene doesn’t explicitly explain how these two know each other but it does imply that Shaddiq is close enough with Nika that he’s willing to listen to her. I remain curious as to the exact history between them. Meanwhile, one of Shaddiq’s teammates, Renee (Sayumi Suzushiro), demands the Lilique participate in the duel, hence the latter’s inclusion during the fight. I thought this was going to be another mysterious connection between two characters but we later learn that Renee simply has some hyperbolic beef with Lilique, due to the latter declining a lunch invitation form one of the former’s crushes (number twelve to be exact). It’s as dumb as it sounds. I frankly don’t get the point of this subplot.
Given the setup, the team duel mostly plays out as you’d expect. Grassley House gradually takes down Earth House one by one until the Aerial is the last one standing. As hinted in the last episode, Shaddiq busts out an anti-Gundam weapon called Antidote, which prevents Suletta from utilizing the GUND Format. Somehow, the Aerial does manage to negate the effects of Antidote. I’m not sure how that works but this does check out given the weird stunt the mech pulled during its duel against the Pharact. I do like how this fight explores Suletta’s relationship with the Aerial some more. Given her dialogue, Suletta directly talks to the Aerial as if it’s alive. I could chalk that up to a quirk of Suletta’s but the Aerial does appear to respond to her at times so maybe the show really isn’t hinting at something regarding the Gundam. Suletta also acknowledges that without the GUND Format, she isn’t that good at piloting a mobile suit. Combined with how remorseful Suletta is with how much damage the Aerial sustains during the fight, I wonder if she’ll aim to work on relying less on GUND.
While I was rooting for Suletta to win, part of me didn’t really want her to do so while the Aerial was countering Antidote. It just feels cheap to me, especially since this would be the first time the Aerial defeats its opponent by pulling something out of nowhere. I’m really glad then that one who defeats Shaddiq is actually ChuChu and not Suletta. If Suletta won on her own, it’d feel like it hardly mattered that she had teammates. Plus, ChuChu often talks smack of the Spacian houses but rarely, does she actually get to tell them not to underestimate her or other Earthians. It’s a lot more satisfying then to have her be the one to deal the finishing blow. I also have to hand it to Till, who rallies Lilique to help ChuChu and call the shot, hence why I said earlier that he’s the only one of the auxiliary pilots to actually be useful.
Throughout the episode, Shaddiq insists that he really is trying to help Miorine out and it is implied that he does have feelings for her. He does want a slice of the Gundam pie but he also wants to protect Miorine from any interference from the rest of Benerit. Compared to Guel’s mistreatment and Elan-04’s apathy, Shaddiq certainly does seem like the nicest of the three company heirs. Miorine initially thinks Shaddiq just wants her for his own gain but she does recognize at the very end of the episode that the latter was trying to earn her affection.
I think Shaddiq is a pretty likable dude but I am 100% on Miorine’s side when she remarks that his recent attempts are “too little, too late”. If Shaddiq really wanted to help her, he should’ve done it a long time ago. Instead, he waited too long for the right opportunity and he ultimately got complicit when Miorine was stuck with Guel. For him to try and win Miorine over now is simply audacious. Shaddiq may be nicer than Guel and but in the end, he’s no different from him in that he’s not a good fit for Miorine. What I really like about this bit of discourse is how it contrasts with Miorine’s relationship with Suletta. Shaddiq argues Suletta lacks the power and resources to be by Miorine’s side and while there is some truth to that, that hardly seems to matter to Miorine. What does seem to matter is that, unlike Shaddiq who tries to decide what’s best for Miorine, Suletta instead has faith in Miorine with whatever decisions her fiancée makes. Miorine has yet to explicitly say that she has feelings towards Suletta but after seeing all the competition so far, it does seem that she would rather be with Suletta anyway.
Watch Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury on Crunchyroll
Xenodude Scribbles 