Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury turned out to be something of a surprise hit for the Fall 2022 anime season. While the Gundam franchise has endured as an institution in Japan, The Witch From Mercury overshot even those established expectations with its success among a newer, younger crowd.

Online engagement discussing the anime has flown fast and furious, as has the fanart. The shocking ending of the first season's finale on January 8 left viewers young and old clamoring for more. Now, after a three-month wait, the second stretch of The Witch From Mercury is set to premiere very soon, on April 9.

However, while the new fans that the series brought in wait with bated breath to find out the fates of their favorite characters or where the story of Suletta and Miorine's relationship will go, established fans of the Gundam franchise have been more broadly concerned with the series as a whole simply holding together in its second half.

Gundam: The Witch From Mercury Airs In Early April

Sophomore slumps for stories are hardly an issue confined to Gundam, as many series have started strong only to stumble in its second season. Yet Gundam anime, commonly aired in separated halves or delineated first and second seasons, have particularly picked up something of a reputation for being "cursed" on the back end. Even western fans first introduced to the franchise via Gundam Wing airing on Toonami back in 2000 might be able to recall that the second half muddled with side-switching swerves and an overt inclusion of additional factions introduced by the end.

RELATED: Gundam: The Witch From Mercury Season 2 Release Date ConfirmedPerhaps the most infamous instance of this "curse" manifested in 2007's Gundam 00, the second season of which attempted to expand the story in often comically outlandish directions. One particularly glaring instance of this was the second season replacing a killed-off character with his own, previously unmentioned, twin brother who just happened to utilize the same code name.

This was just the start of 00's second season troubles, but it wouldn't be the last. Nor would it be the final occurrence of this second-season curse, as later series, including Iron-Blooded Orphans and Gundam Build Fighters, would attract criticism for "going off the rails" or simply not living up to the potential of their initial installments.

Banner image showing previous Gundam series, including Gundam 00, Iron-Blooded Orphans, and Build Fighters Try

With this dubious pedigree, The Witch From Mercury finds itself in something of a perilous position. Its breakout success has earned it the appreciation of a young, energetic fandom who communally sang its praises across social media each week it aired.

In particular, the relationship between main characters Suletta Mercury and Miorine Rembran, heralded by viewers appreciating not just the first female protagonists in a mainline Gundam TV series, but also ones who happen to be in a seriously written lesbian relationship. Gundam production studio Sunrise find themselves sitting on a serious hit with this one, now with the precarious possibility of blowing it for themselves and everyone celebrating the show.

It doesn't help that The Witch From Mercury's very construction as a product has been shaky from the word go. Scattered reports of problems producing the animation for the series abounded from its premiere, and the anime suffered multiple delays through November and December.

The hope was that the three-month gap between the first and second sets of episodes might allow the team working on them to catch up. However, with numerous anime airing this current season suffering their own delays, attributed to Japan's rising COVID cases, there is the worry that The Witch From Mercury could suffer a similar set of breakdowns in its second season.

Banner image for Gundam The Witch From Mercury, from the key visual for the series

Hopefully that's not the case, as the entertaining animated mecha action of the series was indeed a huge draw for fans new and old. However, it's also not the only place for potential problems in this second stretch. There were a few major reveals, in particular the character Elan and his status as a sequence of surgically-modified duplicates.

However, even after thirteen episodes, many major plot points remain obscured, including seeming contradictions about the intertwined true nature of Suletta and her Gundam Aerial. Ominous hints were dropped, like Suletta's mother Prospera manipulating her into violently killing an enemy soldier right in front of Miorine at the very end of the season finale. However, it seems the ultimate say on the quality of The Witch From Mercury might live or die on how the actual plot twists finally shake out. Will they be properly put together as compelling, or more along the lines of "spontaneous twin brother"?

Banner image for Gundam The Witch From Mercury, featuring Suletta and Miorine from the first season finale

Meanwhile, that relationship between Suletta and Miorine, now tainted with Suletta's outburst of violence, could very well become the most contentious fulcrum the second season rests on. The majority of chatter and fanart that propelled The Witch From Mercury into the social media stratosphere during its first season run revolved around appreciating the Suletta/Miorine coupling.

That's not to say that fans, either new or old, would demand a purely happy or unproblematic ending for the pair, but given its status as central to the show's appeal, it could be seen as disingenuous or even outright sabotage if the connection between the characters was thrown under the bus for what was seen as raw, off-the-rails drama.

The Gundam franchise's writing can be known for blunt anti-war messaging, but many of the twists and turns in the first season of The Witch From Mercury (up to and including surprise sympathetic rival character Guel accidentally killing his own father) still felt earned in their melodramatic catharsis. The Witch From Mercury's second season would do well to stay on that sort of track.

There's fair reason to be vigilant of going into The Witch From Mercury's second season. However, we can always hope they might prove unfounded, especially as this anime's tighter episode count and seasonal turnaround time might mitigate some of the points that prompted such issues in earlier Gundam series. The anime turning into such a breakout, mainstream hit was already considered unprecedented for the franchise. With that in mind, who better to break a curse than a witch who rides a Gundam?

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