This week's episode of The Witch From Mercury is called "Unseen Trap" and it explores the politics of duelling at its fancy school for piloting corporate scion.
The conflict between natives of the homeworld and natives of the space colonies is the main reason for this. Although it's been there in shades, it's driven by the fact that someone from Mercury, home to a small group of miners, is seen as a "countrybumpkin"
The first time we see it is at the school, where a student training exam in Asticassia's "Demi-Trainer" suits sees Chuatury Panlunch fail. The head of Asticassia's Earth House, known affectionately as Chuchu, is a group of students that are dominated by companies that fund and control the school. After her unexpected defeat of top duelist Guel Jeturk, a Spacian named Suletta went to Earth House to look for teammates to help her take her pilot exam.
Earthians are treated as disposable labor by the Spacians who have turned the solar system into an economic powerhouse. We see it at Earth House in Asticassia, where the Earthian students are given a run-down hangar to repair their suits and live in, rather than in the fancy surroundings of the other students. We can see it in the news reports that show mobile suits from some of the most powerful companies in the Benerit Group that control Asticassia engaging in a violent crackdown on Earthian workers protesting labor violations done in the name of Spacian capital.
Making it explicitly about the evil of capitalism, and beyond it the layer of class conflict, is something the franchise has otherwise left on.
The most brutal acts of violence in Witch From Mercury have coalesced. During their re-examinations, the Spacian girls who sabotaged Chuchu's Demi-Trainer use the same trick on Suletta because she is associated with Earth House. Noticing the two girls are watching their prank from afar and gleefully cackling, Chuchu jumped out of her own trainer and raced towards them.
It is cruel. She got a mental Blue Screen of Death from a single strike. The fight between Chuchu and the second girl is equally brutal, catching the second girl in the cross-fire in a horrible punch, and eventually leading to Chuchu and the second girl bonding, but also in both of them needing to take their piloting exams again.
It is incredible that a series that has so far given us some excellent, potent action scenes that show the violence enacted upon the humanoid forms of its mecha to its larger themes of abuse, or that shows the horror of seeing those mecha turned upon human targets.
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