Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury part 2

 Suletta and her classmates are back for the second course of the most recent Gundam franchise series, and the aftermath of the bloody attack of the previous part's finale.

 

 

The series starts with a duel between various houses in the school, hosted by a seemingly changed Elan, a few weeks after the battle at Plant Quetta, which is covered up as an accident.

 

The rebuild Aerial dominates a sort of tower style battle, as she takes on all opposers in sequence for the title of Holder. Miorine in the meantime is looking over her gravely injured father, leaving the Benerit group to take harsh actions in looking for the culprits of the attack and the two Gundam frames that appeared there.  Miorine is inducted in Project Quiet Zero, a means to end all wars, by lady Pandora, as her father's greatest wish.

Shaddiq keeps plotting though, transferring the Gundam pilots, Sophie and Norea, to the institute and into Suletta's class.  Their secret get's out when Suletta saves Nika from being killed by Norea, as she threatens to expose them.  They decide on a duel, but first a Royal Rumble exhibition match is held at the academy.

But the transfer students break into the battle and assault the Aerial.  They assault the students, who are no match for the Gundam's.  During the enduring battle, Pandora reveals that her other daughter Eri, the one from the pilot episode, IS actually the Aerial Gundam!!!!  The wild fan theory proves to be true after all.  The data storm it unleashes kills Sophie, one of the terrorist pilots, and the attack leaves various houses in shambles, in order for Shaddiq to get closer to complete control.

Back on Earth, Guel is a captive, and completely crashing for the fact he accidentally killed his father.  Space forces attack the Earth base, causing civilian casualties in the attack.  Guel escapes, but saves a wounded child that was wounded in the debris.  He takes control of the damaged mobile suit of a killed rebel, using it to find the evacuation vehicle, but the child died in his lap from her injuries.  Miorine learns more about Quiet Zero in the meantime.

In the aftermath of the attack, the students reflect on their goals and the situation of the school currently, as anti Earth feelings rise.  When the fifth clone of Elan tries to steal Aerial, he is repulsed by a data storm, seeing Eri, though he think it is Suletta he saw.  Miorine learns from Prospera that her family is actually the target of her vengeance.

A changed Guel returns to the academy, proclaiming how precious Suletta is to him.  They enter into a duel though, Guel wanting to take the Aerial.  He goes to battle in his newly enhanced and now red battlesuit, but seems to suffer from PTSD due to the events he witnessed earlier.  But he actually scores the win due to Miorine intervening right at the moment she was about to defeat Guel.  Miorine betrayed her as she served her purpose...

She tries to keep her head up in the aftermath though, as Guel is building a new Gundam, the Schwarzette, together with Suletta's mother.  But when she visits Aerial again, she learns more about it's origins and what happened to Eri, and that she is a "reply-child".  Guel and Miorine journey to Earth, to look for support but learn the hard truth of what has been happening after the Plant incident, as Guel finds out the truth about Shaddiq and his involvement in the Earth resistance group Dawn of Fold.

 

The masks fall off as Propsera engages the Earth troops, instigating an armed conflict between Earth and Spacians.  Shaddiq is revealed as the brain behind it, but now must play his hand early due to Prospera's actions.  Norea loses it, and takes the Thorn to attack the campus.  Guel and Shaddiq duel, Guel getting the upper hand as he destroys the Michaelis, but refuses to kill him.  Elan convinces Norea that her ways are foolish, but she is shot down as she starts to see the errors of her ways, causing Elan to go berserk.

In the aftermath of the attacks, Miorine doubts herself severly.  Suletta does her best to help out on campus, as Miorine confronts Shaddiq.  But it all resolves into the Benerit group becoming the scapegoat and armed intervention against them is planned.  Suletta tells of her and Aerial's origins to her classmates, and how she still loves her mother even though she was used by her as a sort of key.  Prospera in the meantime destroys a whole fleet out to destroy Quiet Zero.

The students are taking preparations to journey to the spacestation where Prospera runs her operation (and with a great homage fencing scene to the original Gundam series).  They make up with Miorine, who decides to face her demons.  Prospera and her force travel to Plant Quetta first, but finds the units she wants to take gone.  Suletta will pilot another Gundam, the Calibarn, as the defences against Prospera are being formed.  As the battle begins, Guel is challenged by his younger brother Lauda though.

Suletta in the Caibarn faces of against the Aerial / Ericht, as her schoolmates enter the fray as well.  But the Aerial itself interferes after hearing Suletta's plea, cutting down the data storm.  But their political opponents have secretly made Lagrange 1 into a huge laser cannon aimed at the battlefield.  Guel is defeated by Lauda as he wants to sacrifice himself, but Felsi interferes in time to prevent his suit from exploding.  In the meantime, Miorine and the students infiltrate the base.  But Prospera has changed the emergency shut down code, cornering them.  But Miorine, thanks to an event earlier with Suletta, manages to crack the code and override the system, shutting it down.

But the big laser is fired, Eri throwing herself in the line of fire to dissipate the blast at her own expense.  Suletta takes Eri to their mother, but refuses to hand her over, instead deciding on saving them both.  She unleashes a datastorm together with Aerial and the other two Lfrith based Gundams, which takes down the enemy and their mass destruction weapon, toppling that corporation in the process while Miorine disbands Benerit and disperses it amongst Earth.  As the storm passes, all the permet particles that make up the Gundams dissolve at an atomic level.

 

Three years later, Miorine and Suletta are married, while Eri resides in a keychain.  Miorine and Guel lead their company, assisted by their former schoolmates, as Suletta lives a simple farm life taking care of her mother...

 

So this was a great series, and even though the setting of a school seemed a bit "to kind" in the beginning, the second season turned it up a hardcore notch into a serious Gundam series.  Recommended!