The Gundam franchise has achieved a number of hits because the 2010s, with fashionable titles like Gundam Construct Fighters and Iron-Blooded Orphans. Nevertheless, Cellular Go well with Gundam: The Witch from Mercury could also be probably the greatest in the final ten years. The anime grew to become a hit in 2022 and 2023, incomes reward for its animation, story, characters, and heavy LGBTQ themes. The present drew in a crowd that sometimes didn’t watch mecha reveals, reaching record-breaking gross sales in 2022 due to the Gundam Mannequin kits (Gunpla). Sadly, The Witch from Mercury solely lasted 25 episodes, ending on July 2nd, 2023.
Fortunately, an alternate universe spin-off manga known as Gundam: The Witch from Mercury Frontier of Youth will likely be launched on Could twenty third. Whereas the unique present befell in a sci-fi future with large mechas and house colonies, Frontier of Youth will likely be set in near-future Japan. The anime’s co-protagonists, Suletta Mercury and Miorine Rembran, are re-imagined as regular highschool college students on Earth. Comedian Newtype will publish the brand new manga and has shared two new character pictures primarily based on the leads. They’re each in Earthbound college uniforms, a distinction to the college uniforms they wore in the present. Suletta holds a broom in her character profile picture, exemplifying the character’s witch-y standing.
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Frontier of Youth Has an All-Star Artistic Workforce
Author HISADAKE, the Setting Assistant for Witch from Mercury, will function the writer for Frontier of Youth. The manga’s artwork will likely be dealt with by Hiro Hato, an artist identified for his or her work on Misumi-san wa Misukasenai and Inu to Yuusha wa Kazaranai. Hato has expressed being a fan of the Witch from Mercury anime and is wanting ahead to engaged on the spin-off. Witch from Mercury has different spin-off titles, together with a gentle novel adaptation and a side-story manga co-written by HISADAKE known as Vanadis Coronary heart. There’s additionally a spin-off novel named Cradle Planet by Ichiro Okouchi, revealed in the Fall of 2022.
The Gundam franchise earns most of its cash by means of Gunpla and different merchandise gross sales. Gunpla tends to do properly financially, particularly in Asia nations like Japan and China, however Witch from Mercury‘s success nonetheless outpaced many modern-day Gundam’s reputation. The Witch from Mercury, particularly the Gundam Aerial, contributed to the excessive revenue margins of that yr. The Aerial grew to become one of many best-selling gunplas in the model’s historical past, matching gross sales numbers to different fashionable main Gundams just like the Barbatos, Strike Gundam, and the RX-78 Gundam. Bandai Namco confirmed that the Gundam franchise’s income elevated by two billion yen, equal to fifteen million USD, throughout its 2023 Fiscal 12 months.
Cellular Go well with Gundam: The Witch from Mercury stars Suletta Mercury, a new switch scholar at a navy academy. Over twenty years in the past, the Cellular Go well with Growth Council banned GUND, a complicated brain-computer interface that permits individuals to regulate mechanical appendages exterior their physique. This led to the destruction and bloodbath of the Vanadis analysis, with individuals utilizing GUND declared as “witches.” Suletta’s Aerial is secretly a Gundam, and she or he makes use of it to battle in school-sponsored duels to maintain her engagement with Miorine Rembran, daughter of the pinnacle of the Council.
H/T: Oricon US Website
