Coming off of the past two episodes, I was really excited to see the final battle of Witch from Mercury. Having now seen Episode 23, I do think the battle is mostly entertaining. It’s certainly well-animated at the very least. Even by this show’s standards, Sunrise and any studios that helped them out really outdid themselves here. It really pains me then to say that there’s a bunch of stuff in this episode that I think is really, really stupid.
Let’s start with Guel’s fight against Lauda. I do like that the show echoes Guel fighting Vim in the Season 1 finale by pitting him against his own brother. As annoying as it is to give Lauda the Schwarzette, it is a smart way to even the playing field. Without a Gundam, there’s just no way Lauda could even fight on par with Guel. That all said, Lauda is possibly the worst character in the entire show. All he’s done up until this point is be an asshole. There’s nothing interesting about this guy. For him to be one of the last big bads, this show is out of its mind. I don’t even get his rationale in this fight. Like, why is he even blaming Miorine for Jeturk’s misfortunes when he’s almost always pinned that on Suletta. You could have easily had Lauda wanting to fight Suletta and his involvement in the fight would work just fine.
I can’t help but find it funny when Guel lets Lauda stab the Darilbalde and Lauda is shocked that he might have killed him. Like yeah, idiot. Maybe you should’ve thought about that before you decided to fight your own brother. At least this scene works for Guel’s character. It drives me nuts how often he loses but I figured he’d throw the fight for his brother’s sake and at least with this loss, he still wins in some way. Felsi preventing the Darilbalde from exploding is a little convenient but it serve as a symbolic end to the Jeturk family’s misfortune. Plus, I like Guel too much so I’d hate for him to die, especially if it’s at the hands of his dumb brother.
As for the infiltration team, they manage to reach Quiet Zero. Turns out, the Demi Barding is just here to ferry a shuttle containing everyone. That really is all Chuchu gets to do with it. Honestly, I kind of wish there was a convenient reactor port for her to shoot. Maybe I’m too much of a Chuchu fanboy but would it have killed the writers to let her do something cool again?
The team gets intercepted by some armed drones, forcing Miorine, Belmeria, and El5n to split off to find a computer that Miorine can use to take control of Quiet Zero. Prospera intercepts the three and she almost manages to kill them until El5n successfully disarms her. I like how despite his grudge towards Belmeria, El5n ends up protecting her from Prospera. Perhaps he understands that Belmeria has suffered enough and she’s just trying to atone for her crimes. What boggles my mind is Miorine managing to find a backdoor program left by Notrette and the password is a response to the message Notrette left in her tomatoes’ DNA (that Miorine also has to write in genetic code). Never mind the fact that Prospea somehow didn’t catch the backdoor and deleted it, I can’t believe how relevant these stupid tomatoes are and that the show expects me to take this seriously.
Fortunately, Suletta’s fight against Eri isn’t as ludicrous as the others. It does into Suletta dodging a bunch of lasers and fighting some jobber mobile suits but the fact she can’t fight Eri up close does speak to how powerful Eri is. Honestly, I really like that the show doesn’t humor Suletta and it only has her put up a good enough fight, as opposed to defeating Eri outright. Also great is the verbal clashing between the two sisters. Despite Suletta’s pleas and even though Eri doesn’t completely agree with Prospera’s methods, Eri still agrees with her mother’s vision so she’s just as loyal to her as Suletta was earlier in the show. It almost feels like Suletta is arguing with a child; I guess technically speaking, Eri is still a child given that she physically died young. Both physically and mentally, she’s Suletta if Suletta never grew.
Once Miorine shuts Quiet Zero down, Delling asks the League to stand down so that they and Benerit can hold an emergency session. The League however denies his request because guess what? They have their own weapon of mass destruction called the ILTS and they decide to fire their super laser to wipe out Quiet Zero and Benerit all at once. I’m so tired of this faction. Why are they so powerful? If they had this weapon the whole time, why even bother sending multiple fleets to stop Quiet Zero or Benerit? Was it just not ready? There’s a lot of dumb stuff in Witch from Mercury but this really takes the cake.
To protect Prospera (and I guess Suletta but maybe that’s just happenstance), Eri blocks the ILTS’ laser with the Aerial and the drones. While the plan works, the Aerial gets severely damaged, leaving Eri’s fate in question. I’m somewhat curious what happens next. With Lauda giving up and the Aerial damaged, there isn’t a lot of opposition left for our heroes to face. I can see Prospera trying to retaliate but I don’t know what she can do since Quiet Zero is now in Miorine’s hands and it required the Aerial to work. I guess Suletta could try to take down the ILTS with the Calibarn, which sounds stupid but so is the ILTS itself so screw it, I’m betting on that.
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